Hi,
It's Christmas and New Year time and as expected, it's a busy week or two for the telecom companies around the world. I usually use USPcard to call people back home in India. They have a decent quality and charge 9 cents a minute which was much better than Reliance's 13 cents. I was excited to see Airtel launching their new service to India and that too for a throwaway price of 7.9 cents and double talk time for the first month! I immediately bought Airtel and I realized that Reliance has also slashed their prices. It's party time for people calling India! Suddenly a thought came to my mind... Wait I haven't heard anything from USPcard yet! What's happening. I analyzed a few things: Service, Cost, Bank Balance, Brand name, Marketing of the product. I realized that USPcard is lacking in all these aspects at this point. Their main selling point was their cost. And now they have lost their cost advantage to Airtel and Reliance. They also donot have deep pockets like Reliance and Airtel to sell their service at a loss to retain their customers. What are the steps USPcard can take to survive the price war and retain/increase their customers? What would you have done if you were a USPcard CEO at this point? Would you have invested in improving the internal processes/customer care/marketing/call quality or anything appropriate? Would that investment have met the cost/benefit analysis? These kind of challenges are supposed to come anytime soon in our careers. So your comments are welcome.

Looking back at 2006

----------------------

I had a chat with a good friend of mine and the subject veered on how good 2006 was. I responded without even thinking that it sucked. I had reasoned that i was left moneyless, jobless and was sick, so it sucked. I also thought it was a year where my life drifted without any direction (not that i was focussed in the previous years of my life). This part of the conversation stuck with me long after i kept the phone down. Was 2006 so bad after all. I started to think.

2006 started in the most unhappening way as it only can in 101-27. It was just another day except for the pleasantaries and formal wishes you get from your friends and your acquaintances. At that time i had extended my graduation by yet another semester, so had one full sem to complete my thesis work and get myself a job. Or so i reasoned to justify my indolence. Had already applied for my OPT, no on campus job, no savings what-so-ever and no job interviews in sight. So there was nothing special to write about with the way 2006 started. Yet, all i had was the gut feeling that inspite of my own fallacies i will come good, for if there is one thing that i can say is my strength is that i don't let my failures and situations affect me for too long. Rather i have learnt to live in denial (of course the truth catches up with you soon enough, but the immense disappointment one might feel at that particular moment is put off to sometime in the future). Sometimes, I feel frustrated and i crib, but i move on.

I started writing my thesis, thanks to my professor who absolutely had no expectations from me , Rahul (one of those few souls i respect in this world - especially for his ability to say things as they are, sometimes much to your dislike) for giving me some timely advice and sometimes reprimanding me. Somehow, I ended up doing it in time to graduate in May inspite of myself. So, after all the self-made trials and tribulations, fighting and struggling with my own mental demons, i managed to graduate. There is one good thing about 2006 i realized. So, 2006 was not that bad academically. i was just reaping the "benefits" (if i can call it that) of my (in)actions of the previous years and yet managed to graduate this year.

In the job front, i did miss those opportunities that one yearns for as a graduate student. I had interviews with many top rung companies - Bloomberg, GE Medical Systems, Qualcomm, Citigroup, but either i was too late to pick up on the new topics i had to learn or was not good enough in my own field (i could have easily written it in graduate student lingo putting the blame on how the job prolife didn't fit my background - the real meaning is that i didn't have what it takes to do that job.), so as i said earlier i was just seeing results of my (in)action during my student years. I don't want to fool myself anymore how with my so called "knowledge" (i can see some of my close friends falling down from their seat laughing ;)) i should be doing something much more challenging. I have come to realize that you reap what you sow, and yet we tend to see those exceptionally lucky ones who make it through for no apparent reason and crib. Also, it was only in 2006 that i got my first job. Whatever i might say about this job not being satisfactory or challenging enough, it will always be close to my heart for being the first (something like the first infatuation we might have had in our early teens - it might be meaningless, but it will always be special). So, i took my first step (professionally, and hence financially) towards building a career this year. So, i cannot complain much in that front either.

In the personal front, I can't complain much. Though i have not been in the best of my health, it has been a good year nonetheless. Throughout my life i have been blessed with some good friends and this was another year in which i met a lot of new people and have made some really good friends, some of which i think will stand the test of time. As some of my friends know, i have a small circle of close friends who have always stood by me. So, if i really think about it, this year has not been so bad after all. Only some of the mistakes i did in the past caught up with me and exposed my vulnerabilities. But they have only made me wiser and stronger if nothing else. Weird isn't it, 2006 is exactly opposite to what i thought it was. All it needed was some thought. Interesting, given the fact that we jump to judge people based on one glance or just after one meeting. But here, one whole year of my own life looks a whole lot different when i sit and think about it.....an eye opener atleast for me!!!!!

Thanks to my job, i have so much time to think about a whole lot of stuff including myself.

WISH EVERYONE A VERY VERY HAPPY NEWYEAR!!!!