Systematic Planning for Supply Chain

Perhaps the most misunderstood and most important thing for a company is its SCM. There are 3 levels of thinking about efficient supply chain

1. Corporate / Financial level - Think about what your real business, what are profit and cost drivers, more important what are growth drivers


2. Marketing Level - 4 Ps, how to take edge in market, how will this contribute growth of individual product line. Most important - Right Product portfolio - which product line to exit, which to reduce and which to add

3. Logistics / Operations Level - Operations cost/ Standardization (6 Sigma) / efficiency / safety security / outsourcing decisions / contracts with 3 party services / regulations / taxation and more importantly transportation taxes


Though supply chain is a very broad term, but if we focus our thinking to each of these levels individually and then in an integrated manner, SCM can become an effective edge over competitors.

Product Information - Equity filtered by International Profile View - iShares

Product Information - Equity filtered by International Profile View - iShares

Do these select few funds have capability to capture growth of emerging markets for US investors.

The answer is clearly - NO.

G-20 Meeting : What happens when politicians try to become economist

Politicians from all over the world do not want to loose one thing. You guess what - Vote Share.

Hence, everyone is shouting at top of their voice.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102206672.html?hpid=topnews

Coal India IPO - Is Indian Govt. giving too much away

I was not surprised by the 17 times over-subscription of Coal India Ltd. Given by the reserves (Biggest reserves in the world), the valuation was bit of a tough task. Even the company had a huge cash in hand.

Some 2 months ago before the deal, I calculated that the cash in hand per share would be around Rs.40 per share. Though I was not sure about the exact valuations, but analyst were quoting around Rs. 300 in contrast to highest band price of Rs. 245

This brings a critical issue in privitisation of the PSU's in India. Is the Indian Govt giving away a lot of assets too cheap??

EIL and others were not so exciting as markets were not so buoyant in 2009. Next in line - IOC, PGCIL. I would place my bets for PGCIL - Power sector is going to have a good boost in coming years.

IOC will still suffer from existing price restrictions on retail fuel prices in India.

Volla! - IOC hiked fuel prices by 70p

Wait a min.....India was supposed to be under Psuedo-APM (well the real APM was not dismantled in 2004)

No man .....now the companies are free. Kudos to IOC for taking this bold step. Though my company (HPCL) still believes in licking Govt. Orders (true signs of a Government Department). It still kept the lowest rate (read the most loss making)

This will open the gate for private investments in Oil & Gas sector esp. fuel retailing. I hope Reliance, Shell and Essar will start again. I still do not understand why the Government should be controlling the pump prices. The Government should leave the pump prices to the market and let the Oil PSU's do their independent pricing.

I very well understand the issue of exploitation of customers esp in rural areas or monopolistic pockets, but I strongly believe that slowly and steadily the open markets will take care of everything.

MBA related books at UNC

Today I went to the Davis Library and started to search a couple of good books on strategy. I was amazed by the lack of variety of books. I believe one of the reason is that the MBA students do not use the library that often at UNC as compared to CEIBS. I remember most of the people devoting most of the time during the day in library at CEIBS.

At UNC, there is a different culture. Students rarely go to the library, which is around 1km away. Also, the only library relevant to Management is Davis and that too is a general library, with only 1 section devoted to MBA. Hence, there is lack of a Management subjects oriented library.

I was looking for the Mkinsey Engagement, a very famous book by UNC alum and Professor. Still, I found some good 4 nos of books on operational strategy. Hope Kenan Flagler will some day develop their own internal library.

Fixed Income Result surprised me

I was taken by surprise that I got an H in Fixed Income. Honestly, I did not studied that hard. In fact I did not studied at all for Fixed Income as my time was consumed in other subjects and activities. After finals, I was sure I will get good marks as I did all the problems correct with full confidence. But still, I was not expecting H as their are a number of people from Wall Street in my class, who had done a lot of Fixed Income and proprietary trading in their career.

Though for me it does not matter which grade I get, as I am on exchange, it is a nice surprise. At least, I do not want to be a Fixed Income securities trader on Wall Street. That to me, it is a mindless number crunching job. Though I am good at number crunching, but i want to do some meaningful job. Corporate finance seems to be most attractive field to me. It is very well connected to PE/VC sector, both of which entice me a lot.