I have a dream ..review

Author: Rashmi Bansal

"I have a dream" is a kick in the butt to every reader. It is about 20 social entrepreneurs who followed their dreams.. 

They have built sustainable business models focusing on social impact, giving profit maximization secondary importance, to improve the lives of people around.

Their paths may be different but their goal is to make this world a better place for living..Eg. Dhruv Lakra started courier service employing deaf people, Harish Hande diffused solar lighting technology into villages at a very affordable cost, Anshu Gupta started systematically collecting waste clothing from urban locations and delivering to needy, Madhu Pandit Dasa started feeding students in schools which now reached to feeding 1 million hungry children everyday etc

Ranshmi Bansal's books (her previous books "stay hungry stay foolish" and "connect the dots" are also on the lives of entrepreneurs) are great inspiration to every wanna be entrepreneur. 

I really like the "advice to young entrepreneurs" part in her books at the end of each story...it is as if the person is directly talking to you sitting beside. You can get behind their eye balls and understand what humanity & perseverance truly mean, everyone among them struggled 5-6 years minimum to taste the success of their ideas.

I hope Rashmi Bansal continues to focus on entrepreneurship. 

  

Life is what you make it ..review

Author : Preeti Shenoy

"Life is what you make it" is a gripping novel .The story is about a young, good looking girl Ankita doing her MBA in Mumbai...the narration starts with Ankita as a patient in National mental health institute and the rest is about the events in her life that led to this.

  The initial part of the book describing Ankita's college life and relationships has a very different tone from the latter where Ankita suffers from  "bipolar disorder".The way author described her struggle is truly ..A-M-A-Z-I-N-G !!  It is a very sensitive story and author handled it well. This book is a work of fiction but it is based on some real life experiences...with a good message in the end !!

Worth every penny !! 

Few things left unsaid..review

Author : Sundeep Nagarkar

"Few things left unsaid" is yet another love story happened during engineering...it starts with showing Aditya as a devadas lamenting about his paaru "Riya" and then it goes on with narrating  how they met each other in the first year of their engineering and situations thereafter. 

Though the story is pretty close to reality( except the ending) as mentioned on the book, the narration was too ordinary. In most of the scenes the author kept exaggerating, but the outcome was quite ordinary,they are just plain routine scenes which happens in most of the love stories aaj kal. Even the ending was disappointing.The description about how Aditya feels about Riya in every page is too boring ...you can easily skips few pages and still you wont miss anything. Most of the book is filled with "you are my jaan","you are mine"."you are my bacha","i miss you","I love u ".There isn't any emotion in the story and it wasn't that gripping.

I was driven to buy this book by the reviews I read on Flipkart and ofcourse the cover page which was really good to look at.....!! 

As the author Sundeep nagarkar being 23 yrs af age ..few may consider this as a good first time attempt but still it can be much better..this  seems to be a naive attempt...hoping for a better book in future from the author!!....

Love,Life and all that Jazz - Review

Author : Ahmedfaiyaz

Love,life and all that jazz ...a perfect title to get attention. You wont be disappointed with this book for sure...this one is worth considering for weekend or in journey. The story revolves around 4 college friends – Tania, Sameer, Vikram and Tanveer...the story starts when they have just finished their college....

Tania and Sameer were in steady relation for sometime. Sameer goes to UK for MBA degree and Tania becomes interior decorator with Ankur as business partner, in Bombay. What troubles did Sameer n Tania face in this long distance relationship?? how did Ankur effect their relation ?? is Sameer successful in his career with all these problems ?? 

Vikram is a fun loving guy whose girlfriend is a wanna be model...how did he manage with her increasing popularity ?? is vikram successful in his career as  VC ?? 

Tanveer is harworking but insecure type from a very conservative family . His boss troubles him a lot leaving no time for his personal life apart from work ...how did he reach out to Tanaz with whom he had fallen in love with ,in the short time available to him ?? will his parents agree for a love marriage ?? will he come out of the shell for his love ?? 

how did the friends support each other ?? 

You can easily connect with the characters of this story...it is mostly about the relationships in today's generation. The story has a freshness because of the careers like ,investment banking ,VC etc by the characters which is quite different from engineering/ mba life stories flooding the market....

It happened in India-review

The line which attracted me to this book is “Kishore biyani’s objective is to capture every rupee in the wallet of every Indian consumer, wherever they are"…now that’s called THINKING BIG.

 IT HAPPENED IN INDIA is an autobiography of Kishore Biyani, the man behind future group (which includes big bazaar, central, pantaloons, food bazaar, etc). This is useful not only to those interested in retail management but to everyone interested in BUSINESS…he presents no shortcuts but to offer what customer in India really wants…this can be understood by observing  Indian needs and not by looking at the business models in other countries. Though  part of the book is a bit boring with opinion (obviously praising him) of KB’s friends, family members, business partners etc who are part of his journey about him ,but the rest about how Kishoreji redefined Indian retail business with sky as limit is truly "GYAAN".

He even entered into film making with movie “na tum jano na hum”, with an idea to spread pantaloon’s brand and then “mohabbat hai mirchi”.…both were disasters at box office. After this he never invested in films. He says “one has to dispassionately evaluate every business decision and realize that not all initiatives are going to be successful. It is important to accept failure and to distance oneself from an idea or project if it doesn’t work “. Though failed with movies he is successful to diffuse his brand with this book, which will surely create strong positive impact on readers about everything related to future group.

After reading this book, apart from becoming a fan of KB you will understand the importance of UNDERSTANDING COSTUMER, BUILDING BRAND,LOCATION (of your retail business) etc

The important lesson is to keep your business as simple as possible..!!   

KB- "rajah of retail" is truly inspiring !!!

I would love to spend time in shopping malls. I have always been interested to know how shopping malls attract people and how they manage their supply chain. This book satisfied my thirst to some extent. 

The Goal - review

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox is a gripping novel which is highly recommended in many business schools and followed by many managers. It took me 3 evenings to finish this book. It was 5 yrs before I first came across this book but at that time I couldn’t understand more than 100 pages …I am happy that finally     I am done with it now J

The Goal is not on personality development( like many people may think from the title ) but about production management, it is about realizing the goal of a plant and achieving it. Author explains the concepts on bottlenecks, theory of constraints, inventory, accounting etc in a simple and clearway in the form of a story about a manager.

     The story revolves around Alex Rogo, who is a married plant manager fighting to meet the output demands of his plant. He receives a notice that he has only 3 months time to improve performance of his plant or it will be closed. Because of spending most of the time in his plant his wife gets upset and this adds to his pressure. Alex implements the changes in his plant with the guidance from his friend Jonah. Jonah who is a scientist through his Socratic approach guides Alex in operating his plant and enlightens him on the concepts of bottlenecks, etc. Jonah doesn’t just help Alex to improve his plant’s performance but also helps him in developing the thinking process required so that Alex doesn't ask Jonah for help again. Finally Alex realizes that common sense is all that required and common sense is not so common.

By the end of the book you will understand..

-What exactly is the goal of a plant and what is productivity

-What is throughput, inventory, operation expense ( these terms are not defined in the conventional way) and how to manage these three to reach the goal.

-Why it is unproductive if workers are working all the time without any idle time( this is very interesting)

-What are bottlenecks and how to use them efficiently to improve performance of the plant

-Relation between dependent events and statistical fluctuations

-The capacity shouldn’t be balanced with demand but it is the flow that should be balanced

-The power of Socratic approach in dealing with others

- Theory of constraints

- The manager is concerned fundamentally about “what to change?”,”what to change to?”,” how to change?”

Most importantly you will understand the relation between “production”, “accounting” and “marketing”.