Pricing - One of the things I learnt at ISB

Albeit a brief aberration in my student life, I was pretty sure that I have come to ISB to venture back into the Services Outsourcing industry or venture into the Retail industry, basically to leverage my past experience. Hence I was very clear in some of the topics that I wanted to learn.

Amongst them, learning some basics of Marketing was on top of the list. I always wanted to equip myself with the basic tools of Marketing and the MBA did help me in that. As I said in my previous post I will try to list down how an MBA has helped me in my job. Here is one example (not completely representative but pretty close)

As part of my current role our clients were looking to optimize their outsourcing contract with us and wanted our views on how we can assist them in deriving maximum value from us. This is where the idea of moving from a FTE (Full time Employee) based pricing to a TXP - Transaction Based Pricing was toyed with. We ended up proposing a very nice working model of the this approach which helped our clients pay only as and when they use our services and not pay for the extra bandwidth. This will give them a chance to save the dollars they were spending on the unutilized bandwidth. We on the other hand will get a good forecast of the revenue ahead and will help us drive our productivity better

My learnings at ISB really helped me during all of this amazing exercise. The Constrained Optimization principles helped in determining the Transaction Price. The Principles of Value based pricing (versus Cost Plus Pricing) helped us tie the actual benefits to the client. This also gave our client a clear price to charge back to its business users and gain more transparency. This was one assignment where I really put to use the various principles that I learnt in ISB proving once again that the time invested in ISB was worth it.

Anand's Answers to my Questions

While I have been posting the quintessential question of how an MBA helps, there have already been a few who have shared their perspective on the same.... So here is the take from my fellow CA + MBA friend. Enjoy

Back from Dormancy - ISB Solstice effect?

I decided to act on my New Year Resolution ...... so my first post (or Question) on Life After ISB

....the story shall move on

If Looney Spam can spam .... I mean "blog" or "Brag" why should I be far behind?
So welcome to Looney Spam and I hope to revive my writing skills once again :)

ISB - Stats with Bob Stine

Our Statistics professor for the first half of the First Term was Robert Stine - one of the wittiest person I have ever met.

One day when he was teaching in the class and someone's cell phone rang. He just blurted "Say Hi to Mom" in the middle of whatever he was saying and carried on as if nothing happened.

Here are some of the funniest one liners that he used in his class - courtesy Deepak

What is this life at ISB?

Today when I came home in the afternoon and saw my daughter watch the squirrels play in the jungle behind my accomodation at ISB, I felt sad.

Till that time, I had never noticed the squirrels who are my immediate neighbours. It reminded me of the W.H. Davies poem - Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

So goes the life at ISB - and still you do not get the greatest grades :-(