HIT.com: Business Proposal for an Innovative Social Platform

We consider HIT to be a Singapore based social technology company that combines an online portal hub with a social activity network of service providers.

HIT looks to re-ignite the fundamental human connection that is the basis for of society and culture.

We look to target millenials who have been inundated with social media and for whom the Internet has become a basic need. We are creating an ecosystem that is BOTH a platform and a service – where the platform is the online hub on which the user base is created, and the service is where the company’s mission is executed.

Our service innovation is in combining existing technology on both ends (end user and service provider) with a bridge that is not technology based but intentionally human i.e. HIT agents.

Financing is via existing government grants and private funds. Although our mission is socially based, we are conscious of the need for sustainability hence revenue is build into the business model through premium services as well as commissions. Revenue is generated from BOTH the end users as well as service providers of activities.

Team – HIT’s core team is made up of an international diverse team of business school graduates who are both familiar with social media and technology as well as have the global exposure required to understand the intricacies of different cultures and societal impacts.

What can HIT do to help?

What we believe in is that the current generation needs is to bring back the human touch in our social lives – i.e. an increase of human interaction. True connective moments differentiates us. This is where HIT comes in. It is our mission to CONNECT.

With the help of our unique service eco-system, we aim to connect our users on two levels. Firstly, through like-minded activities when they are either in their home community or in a new environment. Secondly, through indirect messaging by choosing to use the human voice to form these connections.

 

Attached below is the Business Plan we created as part of our curriculum:

HITMe Proposed Business Plan

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Forecasted Evaluation of ESQ’s AGILE Strategy

ESQ Inc. was performing exceptionally well during FY2010-12 but we had leakages in development life cycles which could be improved upon during to the influx of new and existing clients for our propriety technology.

And so, we focused toward AGILE and it’s SCRUM subsidiary to help us minimize human capital losses as well as fine-tuning our SDLC cycles at the same time.

This project was created to evaluate the alternative as well as better scenarios post-implementation of above mentioned strategy and what I as an MBA graduate would do differently now with the knowledge I have acquired for the past year.

Due to the sensitive nature of the project data, the contents will not be made public but the attached document has been created with mock numbers to understand the evaluation matrix.

Post AGILE Implemtation Business Strategy

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Penetrating the Asian perishable foods market with Innovation

The idea is simple.

Focus on creating a high-quality marketing architecture around the recently created innovative product “Rotimatic” that should help in a sustainable and profitable distribution campaign to the target market.

The below mentioned document should provide a solid foundation on the key aspects required to create a successful marketing analysis document that may help me acquire in-depth knowledge on the Singaporean Market and design a holistic architecture around creating an niche demand

 

Rotimatic: Marketing Strategy Proposal

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Summer Experiential Project: Research and Analysison Cloud Computing on High-Tech Industries

Business Problem:
During the Summer of 2014, I had undertaken a project that researched and analyzed the impact of cloud computing on the high-tech industry.

The scope of the project would focus on enabling current companies who have not yet been exposed to cloud technologies and provide to them a holistic view of the benefits and pitfalls of implementing a cloud-based infrastructure.

The objective of this project was to establish a valid business report that would provide cost-analysis, marketing purview and cloud implementation strategy that may be useful to organizations who are thinking about making the move to a cloud-computing structure.

Some of the key responsibilities that I had been tasked with would be

  • Interview organization heads about their perception on cloud computing.
  • Generate a group discussion on popular online forums such as Yahoo.com
  • Analyzed survey findings on Canadian buyer-seller relationships.

My experience with the Industry Research Project has taught me a great deal about the industry I have targeted for my future. The Cloud-computing industry recently come into the spotlight but while I was working as a Software Engineer for my previous company, I came to realize that we did not fully comprehend how to implement it on a larger scale. After completing my report I can safely say that I have a very good understanding of this industry and I will be able to help small-time industries with the right kind of business strategy for cloud implementation.

 

Attached:

Akash Majumder_Industry Project_v2

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WestJet Analysis: Our Financial Critique

During the end of our P2 term in December, we had to analyze an existing company and evaluate its business operations for the last few years. This was part of our final project for our BAFI541 course, my team comprised of Gokul Kumarasamy, Micheal Reis and Pawan Kumar Adda.

This project aggregates everything I have learned about finance till now. Everyone was tasked with a particular portion of the job they were supposed to take care of.  But, there was ample sharing of information between us so everyone was able to contribute to every part of the project and understand the overall picture as well as internal operations we completed.

WestJet Valuation Critique

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A Cause to fight for: Learning from our Pasts

I’d like to think that at least once in everyone’s life, there comes a time when we know we have to fight for something we believe in. The reasons for coming to this fork in the path can be many, ranging from the absurd to the obvious; nonetheless it is extremely to the person who has built his or her foundation on it.

I had been part of various not-for-profit organisations since high school and had been blessed to work with major organisations such as Red Cross Society (http://www.indianredcross.org/) and Greenpeace India (http://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/) in major as well as minor roles. These were causes that were just as important as the next ones but in retrospect, they were not close to my heart so I may not have gone all-in while working to resolve these cases.

The “fork” in the road came for me about 5 years ago and this artefact would be the first time I have officially made this information available to the public.

While driving back after performing in a concert back in India, me and my band got into a car accident where we rammed into a guard-rail and then performed a couple of 360-flips after coming to a sudden halt upside down. We all survived but had to go through arduous amounts of physical and mental rehabilitation before we could be able to walk again. It was a bit harder on me because after my rehab I was not able to play music anymore (still can’t). This made me focus on victims of accidents and how they are currently being rehabilitated and the success rate of a completely rehabilitated patient and what are the key factors responsible for a patient to recover from such an event in his/her life.

 

Source: http://savelifefoundation.org  

I have been in contact with various organisations over the years and try to volunteer as much as I can but, recently I have been approached by a colleague back in India to try to be part of a pro-active team which is part of the SaveLife Foundation. In a nutshell, SaveLife is a not-for-profit organisation which tries to empower bystanders and try to setup a community driven emergency response unit to help road accident victims.

Key facts about accidents in India (Source: http://savelifefoundation.org ):

  • India has the highest number of road accidents deaths in the world – over 1,35,000 in 2012 alone. On an average, 15 people die and 60 are seriously injured every hour in road accidents in India.
  • 80% of road accident victims in India do not receive any emergency medical care within the critical first hour after an accident. (Study by the Indian Journal of Surgery -2006)
  • According to the Law Commission of India, 50% fatalities can be averted if victims get even basic care on time. That’s 70,000 lives!

I have accepted pro-bono work from him and have started working on creating a segmentation analysis I have learned from here at Sauder School of Business which would help me understand my “target market” i.e. the scared by-standers and the core factors that make them feel that they shouldn’t help a road accident victim. After isolating the factors, I will try to find alternative solutions to remove their fear and help them, and in turn us, to strive towards a more cohesive community.

This is merely the first step towards achieving our goal, as my work progresses I will try to update this space with my success and failures for others to see and learn from.

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Integrating Past with Future through the Present

The me of today is in a really great place right now, being at Sauder School Of Business, figuring out his role in life and trying to reach that goal as efficiently as possible with the help of the various tools I have been provided in my short term here and the various other tools I will be provided in the near future.

Turning into the future me, I should not forget the steps I took that made me reach this pivotal point in my career. So, after careful deliberation I have decided to speak about some of my past experiences and the key takeaways from them as well provide an example of one of the most trying projects I had ever taken part in during my tenure in the IT field.

During my tenure at my last organization, I had an extremely challenging situation that helped me implement all my leadership potential in one project and overcome some of my shortcomings. Being in the IT industry, we always have a plethora of amazing ideas but seldom are able to produce them efficiently and hence, they become shelved for years to come. I was also provided this project by my company’s CTO and was expected to rise to the occasion. An existing idea which had amazing potential had been shelved for the last 7 years and I and my team of 5 were expected to put it in production within the coming 3 months due to existing and new client requirements and market demand. Although new to the helm, I had already proved my mettle by rising above expectations under extreme duress on various projects before this monumental task. In a nutshell, we had to re-innovate an IT application idea from scratch, perform trend analysis on this idea for sustainability for the next 5 years, implement it and make it run as smooth as possible since we were in partnership with IT conglomerates like IBM and HP for this product. All within 3 months.

For me, this project symbolizes the ultimate join between what I strive to handle in my future work since I intend on going back into the IT field which as we all know is an ever-changing environment. Acquiring the necessary tools to handle such a high-pressure situation would enable me to take one step forward towards my final destination.

Although I was able to successfully pull of this project, the amount of effort exerted was not reflective of the completed reward, if I had more knowledge in leadership and team management the process flow would be more streamlined and the hiccups such as in-team frustrations, misinformation between upper and lower echelons could have been mitigated and minimized.

With my current skills I can see myself taking different routes for the above mentioned project and coming out on top with less battle scars (so to speak).

Using a blend of structural and human-resources leadership skills I have polished during my time at Sauder School of Business, following ways could have been implemented by my to streamline my leadership approach:

  • From a structural leadership perspective, this project would require all of us to work and but more importantly, work efficiently. Everyone needed to have a specific set of tasks to implement and it was my job to make sure each team member was provided with the tasks he/she were good at and therefore, I needed to know each person’s key strengths and weaknesses so that as a team we could be able to play to our strengths and overcome each other’s weaknesses. Another effective strategy would be to create a hierarchy within the team where 1 team would work on a different requirement such as sustainability of the product and the other team would be working on analyzing and identifying the key issues in re-creating the product for the 20th century and investigation solutions to these issues.
  • With respect to human resources, being cooped with the same team under extreme duress creates a “pressure-cooker” work environment which conflicts with efficiency and leads to problems with teamwork. Using this leadership skill, I would have improved mediation among the team members such that everyone always treated each other with professional courtesy and any arguments while analyzing the problems we were facing were dealt without attacking each other on a personal level. But, the main strategy I would implement was I would create an open-door policy among my team members and become a buffer between my team and the higher ups such that they were not in the direct crosshairs of the head echelons like the CTO and the Founding Partner. I would report to them, take any criticism if required and try to make sure my team did not receive the brunt of the blame and were able to concentrate on the work at hand. Another implemented strategy was ensure we would have daily 5-10 minute stand-up meetings so that everyone was able to stretch out and talk in an informal close-knit family way such that everyone was always on the same page and there no surprises among us. An indirect but welcome result of this was that everyone in the team was behaving like a family and they looked forward to spending long durations of time with each other.

With the way things are going, I can see myself getting better with each passing day and the moment where I will be able to successfully link the past, present and future me towards a common destination will be the moment where I would have realized my full potential.

 

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Researching Industries- IT Consulting Sector

I have an experience in the I.T field for the last 3+ years and have worked with the most advanced and cutting-edge technologies there are to develop software applications for various industry segments (Banking, Stock Exchange, and Search Engine Technology). Harnessing this crucial experience, I chose to look at the I.T Consulting sector as a lot of my previous experience will help me understand this sector from a more in-depth and unique perspective.

This sector is relevant to my long term career goals as I want to be part of the I.T Consulting industry because I find it fascinating that
a.    As an I.T engineer, one has the capability to create amazing masterpieces using just a bit of logic and a lot of creativity.
b.    As an I.T Consultant, one will be able to shape the way in which an engineer thinks into a more efficient form and give rise to a perfect synchronicity between innovation and implementation.

Some of the trends that I have a personal connection to in this sector are:
a.    Increase in the  value of analytical software
b.    Producing for the free market
c.    Expansion of e-segments

There is one major player who has the most market share among all the other industries i.e. IBM (International Business Machines) who count for 5.9% of the market. Even though their estimated revenue growth in the past 5 years are only up by 0.2% to $20.0 billion, their operating income has an annual growth rate of 9.9% and is expected to grow by 2.0% in the coming years.

Overall, all the industries in this sector have high hopes higher revenues in the coming few years due to the strong innovations being delivered in the coming years.

Fig 1.1: Market Share in the IT-Consulting Industry

Based on the above data, we can see that even though HP does not have a firm enough grasp in the market share, it matters how we use the existing share we have and maximize our profits with what we have.

In the near future, I can see myself being part of this amazing industry segment based on my past experiences which have already molded me into a tech-savvy professional who has had his share of work in both the in-depth technology discussions as well as has a firm grasp of the overview of an implementation framework and how to perform if most effectively and efficiently.

After my MBA, I should have knowledge to utilize my experience in the global market such that I can partake in the emerging I.T trends such as e-segmentation of existing markets by streamlining the existing strategies that create and maintain existing products as well as make alliances with the FOSS (Free and Open-source Software) industries such as Apache Software Foundation where we could give back to the community as well as make a better reputation for ourselves (especially important for start-up industries).

Sources:

Marceux, P (2013, July 10) Top 5 Business IT trends in 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2013, from www.euromonitor.com

Edwards, J (2013, August) IT Consulting in the US. Retrieved September 7, 2013, from www.ibisworld.com

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My Story-From humble beginnings

I have always looked up to great people since I was a little kid. Ever since then, I want to be one of those guys who walk into the room and everyone takes notice.

I have worked hard to get what I wanted and I have proved that time and time again by being part of amazing athletic teams as well as acquiring top scores during my academic years.

Being from a middle-class family, it started out as a pipe dream for me but after gradually toiling for some years I have finally achieved something that I could be proud of when I had joined the ranks of IT developers and started creating tons of amazing new products that would make our company prosper. But, I want something “more” to define myself, something that propels me towards the future that I envision myself to have.

 

One of the key factor that has motivated me now as well as throughout my early years is “My drive to learn and grow”. The constant need to be challenged and the drive to step out of my comfort zone and try something different comes naturally to me and it has helped me achieve various things which I can only describe as accomplishments of my life. But, the need to create an impact all around me where people will take notice of me and acknowledge my work has also been one of my core motivations to seek perfection. The thought that I can build something with my own two hands and give to the world which will be useful to them is the most ideal way that I can put my effort to fruition.

 

My drive to learn and grow is an amalgamation of my colleagues or my teachers or my family, I have been blessed greatly in all these fields. I was always pushed to try something new, something different and not be afraid to take on the consequences if they come up. The need to excel in something that I have no prior understanding although takes a lot of effort and time but is always rewarding as I have seen time and time again over my various achievements.

The constant need to keep getting noticed has never faded from my psyche ever since I started out into the field of IT and has grown even more in the recent years and hopefully, will keep on growing more in the future, this drives me to perform better than I did yesterday and will make me overcome various hurdles in the future as well. As I see it, in this world either you exist as someone who thinks they are capable of achieving something or then there are those who will achieve what they set out to do no matter what. I would like to think of myself as the latter and to achieve that I have decided to whole-heartedly toil for an MBA from Sauder so that I can reach my full potential.

There are so many amazing people out there like Lakshmi Mittal, the billionaire businessman , founder of Mittal Steel and Warren Buffet, the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, they have built amazing reputations for themselves and given back to the world so much. I would also like to create a mark for myself no matter how small or large , but nonetheless significant so that I would be recognized for my accomplishments.

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