Category: IIM Diaries

Walmart entered Chinese retail in 1996 and has been the symbol of modernity for the Chinese middle class. Recent years, however, have been troubling for the retail giant in $ 5-Trillion Chinese retail market- with declining profits and changing buyer preferences.

Some of the challenges:

• The older generation preferring the unorganised sector for regular purchase over large stores
• The younger generation moving on to ease of e-commerce (rise of JD) and quick home deliveries
• The Chinese buying behaviour dependent on small purchases multiple times a week unlike the American habit of stocking for the long week
• Growing sales from Sam’s Club where the earnings from per-dollar revenue are small.

Did not finish the book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, but his way of timelining the story with sponsor company. The title of the blog should be taken in the same spirit, and has nothing to with the content under.

It has been the end of week one. So far, the process has been more of self-discovery than formal education. I am open to reassessing myself, putting myself in difficult situations of being evaluated by others, trying to improve and act on the cues I get from others around me. You could call it the year of transformation, but that can only be justified if the results speak for themselves in one year. So far, its been more of a week of reflection. I must say that change in mindset can be a little difficult because we keep falling into the same patterns of thinking.

I will continue with experimenting and testing myself everyday. Little to lose, much to gain. Odds in favour. Cheers.

This is my first post on the 1 year MBA program on my blog. The classes are expected to start from 9th of March, 2022. Students, batchmates and neighbours have started coming into Ajmera now. Everyone is wanting to reach before the CDS meet on 3rd of March.

I had my first CDS 1 on 1 today at 3 PM with Prof. Ganapathy Sharma and Robin. The CDS (Career Development Services) is a small department that looks into profiles of students and tries to understand their aspirations from the future. This is followed up by filling in the gaps that the student may need to overcome to achieve their goals.

On another note, I would say that pre-MBA months have been filled with lot of scrolling on LinkedIN. I had been oblivious to social media for past 6 years. The only semblance of social media I had was via Whatsapp and Reddit. However, LinkedIN has emerged as my goto application to stalk on old classmates. That’s one thing that has changed.

For myself though, I think I am going to stick to my blog as primary form of communication to the outside world. The short format of Social Media websites and the hoard for approval via likes/dislikes is a bit too much for me. I hope to keep filling this space with all the little things that happen over the year as a memoire of my days at IIM, Bangalore.