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In the good old days, newspapers were the main source of detailed news. Radio might have been the medium for quick updates or crisis situations. Then TV came, and these two took a backseat.

Now, even TV has had to bow to online news updates that are on 24x7. I remember going to CNN studios for a tour in Atlanta. Ted Turner had started this new channel, with news all round the day and night. It was quite a hit in the US, and later went around the world.

Newspapers, the print variety, still have some takers. But in the West, many are struggling. Magazines which were iconic have shut their print versions, or all versions. National Geographic is the latest to announce it. Before that, MAD magazine did.

I once worked for an ad agency that was a part of the Living Media group, publishers of India Today, and a couple of other magazines- Bombay and Computers Today. 

News stands selling magazines are also few and far between today. Changing times..

Some Corporates I Encountered

 Worked for Living Media group, the publishers of India Today, in my first job. Before that, Widia who made cutting tools in Bangalore, for my internship.

Marketing Research company, MBA in my second job out of Bangalore and Mumbai. Met Muthu here, and we remain friends to this day.

The Kirloskar group, which founded KIAMS at Harihar. They had many engineering companies like KBL, KOEL and KPCL. We wrote a capstone case on KPCL, and did a BPR consulting project for KOEL.

We recently did MDPs for Whirlpool and the Tata Group (Retail) while I was at IIM Indore. This entailed some research into their operations. Of course, there were other MDP participants from various companies. At IMT Nagpur, we started an MDP for Asian Paints.

My Life in Industry

It was only two short years, compared to twenty plus in academia. But this is about those two.

I worked in an ad agency called New Horizons Pvt. Ltd. in Delhi right after my MBA. This was a part of the Living Media group, publishers of India Today and a couple of other magazines, I remember some colleagues- Madhu Vohra and Sunil in particular. I was an Account Exec. there, basically a customer liaison job. My major clients were India Today itself (in-house) and Appu Ghar, India's first amusement park. We had another client, Modern Suitings from Alwar, Rajasthan.

I learnt a lot from working there for about a year. But eventually, I got restless and left, joining another small Marketig Research firm called MBA in Bangalore (and later, Mumbai). This was a much more challenging job, and gave me exposure to Marico, HDFC, Sandoz and BHEL, among others as clients. Designing studies and seeing them through execution, overseeing field work (or sometimes doing it myself) was very interesting, and I enjoyed myself. One of my first assignments took me to Ooty and Coonoor. I went berserk with my camera during that assignment. I had to cover tea estates and potato farmers, trying to find out the demand for a plant nutrient spray.

Great stuff, which I still remember fondly. It helped me a lot when I started teaching Marketing Research later on and when I wrote a book on it. I also met Muthu, a friend who stood the test of time, during my stint at MBA, the M.R. firm.

Badarpur, Faridabad and Me

I travelled to Faridabad-actually, Ballabhgarh, by a combination of the metro up to Badarpur border and further by bus. It was actually a pleasant journey, much to my surprise. I had only been to Faridabad long years ago in 1984 when I worked with the India Today group. I had visited the Thompson Press located there, which was quite modern for its time, and used to do a lot of Annual Reports.

Today being a Sunday, the crowd was perhaps at a tolerable level in both modes of transport. The metro is being extended to Faridabad as I understand it. That should make life easier for those who have to commute daily. Is this the professionalising of Delhi? Maybe, because public transport determines a lot of fates of the working population and gives them options they never had. Mumbai is a good case in point.

Maybe we should go about building public transport in tier 2 towns that might turn them into tier 1 towns in a few years.