Monday, February 07, 2005

marketing or finance ?

It was a class last week.The bearded professor in the kurta pajama asked casually "How many of you read the Economic Times ?"
.
I remembered the colourful "The Times Of India" copy i left on the bed before leaving the room.And even amongst its "non-management" flavored pages , the sports page interests me most.How unbecoming of an IIM student , eh ?

Anyways , the professor squinted with his mouth agape at the "not-to-the-profs-expectations" number of hands that shot up.

And he regained his normally sarcastic tone and remarked
"looks like most of you want to specialise in marketing ...pretty unambitious lot of wannabe managers".

Now this is what beats me.There is this thing about IIM C atleast , and i dont know about the other B Schools, that marketing is always treated as a poorer cousion of finance as a specialisation.Its almost like a gleaming new sportsbike and a scooter with a torn seat.
How can u compare marketing and finance when all about the stuff they involve is so different ?But its like if one opts for marketing job , the first thought that shoots through the mind of a typical student here is that "so the goof bungled up in the finance jobs ".

I came to IIM C with an inclination towards marketing .And after spending 7 months here , it has only increased.Thats nothing to do with my A in marketing management and C in financial accounting though.

And its the first time I am making a conscious decision regarding my career.When i did my tenth , this name IIT came in from somewhere and pasted itself on my life for the next two years before i could know whatz happening.Not that it was a bad thing to happen.I suspect i was too naive at that time to think of anything so important as my career so it was the right thing to settle for an IN thing , and IIT is an IN thing.I prayed to god to get me into an IIT.But god was on vacation when i took the IIT-JEE and i got a lowly rank of 2828 and had to settle for a lower engineering college.

And then suddenly during my third year in engineering , IIM was the IN thing to be studying for at college.Career launcher and IMS replaced microprocessors and operating systems.
Everybody wanted to be in an IIM.So I thought if everybody wanted it so bad , it must be good , so i tried for it.Now this wasnt a very deliberate decision at that point of time ,but my experience with the "oh-so-interesting" technical subjects and my expertise with them only served to reinforce the decision and by my fourth year of engineering , i was as sure of wanting to do an MBA as Australia is of beating Bangladesh.

But this decision about marketing VS Finance has to be very deliberate and calculated.Because there is no next institute for me.This is it.I am actually gonna do wat i decide now.My summers is in the finance domain , a financial consulting summers at Ernst and Young.I hope I find out enough during it to make a right decision.It better be.

12 comments:

Rohit Jain said...

hii abhinav... so i m not the only person who doesnt know 'y mba'... chalo u hav got a gr8 company 'ernst and young'... try making fool of others coz tht is wat consultants r xpected to b gud at ;)
one thing tht beats me is tht how can those panelists expect us to b so crisp when v talk bout our career choice when it weighs on minds of much better informed ppl like those who r ack studyin at IIMs

chalo enjoy ur stay there and hope the girl in ur mind also b in same grp as urs when u go for ur summers :)

Anonymous said...

yaar ..i felt all this introspection wala thing will stop after y mba and career goal at the pi.....but it seems to be a more perrenial process than i thought it to be....kya chakkar hai yeh.....just one thought ...love the way u r and do wat u feel like doing..... baki kuchh to log kahenge..logon ka kaam hai kehna...

adios
take care
rohitk

Tipsy Topsy said...

Busiess Standard is better than Economic Times. One should read that.

Contrary to what u suggest, I always had the impression that Marketing was for smarter people while finance is for nerds.

EnY..cool!! Delhi mein?

Abhi said...

@ Rohit : hey almost 90 % of the guys at IIM s still havent got a whiff about "why MBA".so weve got a lotta company to be wondering.

@ Anshuman : yea buddy , i agree.will keep that in mind.

@ Rohit K : Kaun Kambhaqt logo ki baaton ka sochta hai dost.apne heart ko follow karega apun.

@ TT : Yup E n Y and most prolly in Delhi.pretty hot summers in the delhi heat.

Darth Midnightmare said...

Nice post. And yeah, it is a fact that somehow people think that Fin is "better". But frankly, I have worked (Mktg) and I have come to the same conclusion some1 else mentioned. Fin is for the nerds. As for the reasons for doing an MBA, yeah, I've always been a critic of the fact that most people are clueless on this (Show me the money). Go with your interests though dude.

Anonymous said...

Hey Fellow, you have a top-notch blog here!
If you have a moment, please have a look at my australia engineering jobs site.
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

LETS GO!!, Some thought provoking and interesting comments I would say.

Anyways, if you like I have an interesting site to visit at http://www.easy-forex-broker.ssr.be. All about onlinef orex trading

Anonymous said...

Cool blog, interesting information... Keep it UP On the counter food service refrigerators dresses in the 1776 Best online poker casino incorporate online colorado Shop repair manuals for 2000 subaru outback Lotus elan elite 1971-1992 car cover wow wedding invitations inexpensive fiat seicento dif incorporation kit north carolina Property insurance peterborough Charlestown rent car can protonix be taken for acute pancreatitis buy celexa Co q10 and lipitor

Unknown said...

Just like the 'cat and mouse' relationship, there has always been known friction between a company's marketing and finance departments primarily on account of marketing spend. Marketing after all spends money to make money so to speak. There is then an occurrence of natural polarity, marketing and finance usually gravitating towards opposite sides. In the past I have been hounded by one finance person after another seeking explanation as to why I spend this much in marketing, how I spend it and where are the returns.

--------------------------------.

kgantony


dofollow find finance jobs

Anonymous said...

Very nice indeed I’ll probably download it. Thanks

Anonymous said...

This was pretty provided that there are a lot of out there just waiting for the right..

Dolphin said...

That's what life is. You never know who you are, because you were never 'there' even.
You'll never know when society's ideas become your own.
Well I enjoyed reading this.
Thanks for writing and Best wishes from my side.