11 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Hi dave.
I have learnt a lot from you and your blog. But then I dont know you want to put all your outsourcing deals on hold and call Dean Rao.Understanding the Indian phenomenon would take very long to understand. its quite true that india became a destination for low cost and cheap labour, but that doesnt mean that it would remain so.going to the past.. just exactly 100 years ago Hyderabad the city in which ISB is located , was considered to be the worlds richest city. and I would not be , and you also should not be surprised if in next 50 years it again reaches that position.
Now comming to the point that India contains only cheap labour well, incase you become a CEO do lemme know if u you escape from doing business in india. India maybe a cheap labor destination but also has talent that almost no other country in the world has.

9:02 PM  

 laserlikefocus said...

I should also reiterate something which the anonymous poster hinted at. Many companies are opening up facilities in India because of the market there and not because of labor arbitrage. All the telecom majors Nokia/Ericsson/Motorola have announced huge investments in India and they are not driven by lower costs. They are driven by a rapidly growing market and a labor pool which in most (not all) areas is as good as the one in the US.

8:10 AM  

 Dave for MBA said...

Good comments all. I remember Enron built that plant in India and they lost their pants on that deal because nobody could afford paying the prices for the electricity that came out of it.

Good point about how the salaries were for those who left India and not for those who stayed inside the borders. As for me, that's the key of that I needed to hear. This tells me that ISB is graduating phenomal people who are able to compete on the world market.

Ok, the "fake" company I had can now resume it's work. The sky is not falling. :)

8:52 AM  

 Anonymous said...

Wow, Dave I guess you really hit a nerve of the first anonymous poster. He/she may have gotten it totally wrong. Anyway, I agree with you when you said, we may want to put all the outsourcing deals on hold. One of the few things noted in the past years, was India, due to the outsouring deals and others, has gained good economic strength. The infrastructure, though still inferior to several developed coutries, is growing at a rapid pace in select cities. The work ethic has always been good. However, due or despite these advances, the cost of labor is not cheap anymore. Other South Asian coutries like Philippines and Thailand may offer cheaper labor. So if you're an American company or from Western Europe looking for cheap labor, your ROI may be better elsewhere.

3:03 PM  

 Dave for MBA said...

Well, putting things on hold.. only means pausing to think. The distinct advantage that India has is the English language. Are there even other Asian countries with cheap labor that speak predominantely English?

Again... it's pretty interesting that the high salaries are from those who leave the country. I'd want to revisit some Business School profs who specialize in Indian Economy to understand the 5 year forecast of the cost of doing business. At least... I'd expect the leadership team to have the information

The good thing about the GMAT is that it reminds of us of how easy it is to not communicate or understand the intent of an article. This entry is a pretty good example of how one article can be easily misunderstood or interpretated in a way that the author did not intend.

3:28 PM  

 Anonymous said...

you sir, are incorrect. Enron in fact did NOT lose their pants off that deal. They were smart, they had made a deal with the Indian government in which if they did NOT produce electricity, the gov't would have to pay for it. So they were being paid to NOT generate electricity (as you said, no one could afford it).

Seeing as how you're going to be doing your MBA and is in undergrad program, surely you know the value of academic sources. Read up on thie aforementioned issue if you really don't believe me. Plenty of reputable authors have written on the issue and many others like it: Thomas L. Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree, ch.1), Susan George (Another World is possible if..., ch.1), and Robert Gilpin (The Global Transformations Reader, ch.29) in particular might be interesting

12:00 PM  

 Anonymous said...

New from Fortune / CNN :

100 top MBA employers

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mba100/

8:33 PM  

 Abhinav said...

ISB as well as the IIMs here are doing great. However, the salaries mentioned are in fact for international postings.

This is NOT to say that the INDIAN salaries, which amount to 40000-50000 US$, are less. I believe that in terms of PPP, they are quite respectable and good offers with a lot of growth potential.

It is sad that the value of an MBA is being measured most by the salary aspect. There are a lot of other things which these institutions are doing great in the first place, but which go unnoticed in all this salary hype. There are many cases, noth in ISb and the IIMs, where people have actually spurned international offers to live their dream. They are as much to talk about as the grads who got the top-notch offers.

1:40 AM  

 Dave for MBA said...

This topic is bringing all kinds of weird reactions and defensive postures from Indians. Calm down everyone.

This issue was brought to my attention by Indians. There are more than 150 Indians through e-mails who notified me of this issue. It's the Indians who have made this issue the biggest topic rather than non-Indians. The few Indians that are offended or feel judged by this topic are definitely in the minority. I'm thankful for all comments.. regardless of your opinion. However, I should probably clarify some of my points and core intention of my post.

I still haven't seen critical FACTUAL info on the reasons for this. In other words, I would need to know what industries or positions these high paid grads had before getting their high paying jobs and I'd want to know what jobs they got after ISB graduation.

I don't really see that anything else is all that important without knowing this core info. Everything else is speculation and assumption. The speculation may be based on informed experiences. Nevertheless, it's still an opinion.

When I said that I'd want to talk to Dean Rao, I was referring to the questions that I would want answered about these few individuals who were paid as much as they were and if he thought this was abnormal or a growing trend.

11:23 AM  

 Anonymous said...

Dave, your website is intersting, but I don't like your comments on ISB. I have always respected you, but now you have proven that you are the same old typical white American that views US is the best and rest is crap.

9:24 PM  

 Dave for MBA said...

I absolutely love this this last comment. It's anonymous, so that's suspicious of the security of the individual posting and it's evidence of the overblown reactions that I see from people who don't really understand what was written. I'll keep this comment up. I have no problem with it. I've analyzed my personal feelings on this issue and have no insecurities that would cause me to hide an attack like this. The person couldn't disagree, they had to lash out at what they think I am. Dude.. I'm amazed out your comment. The whole point is that I was impressed with what happened! I Just want to see how big a deal it really is from a practical perspective. Frankly, ISB is not better than the top 10 US Schools. But it depends on your future goals. If you want to stay in your current career path in India, then ISB may be the best school for the situation and Wharton could be the worst school to go to for you. If you want an education with a diverse group of individuals, then ISB is one of the worst schools to consider. It depends on your situation. You see?

4:33 PM  

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