Most of the time in a B-School, one suffers inexplicably due to their presumptions. They persist. They cloud judgement. Most importantly perhaps is the fact that presumptions lead to a conclusion. Dare I might say, Conclusions are foregone.
One fine day in an entrepreneurial learning class one such presumption bewildered many in that room. The trouble of the matter is simple. We conclude. Even before one has analysed the events, the benefit of hindsight grants them the inexplicable power of concluding ability of a machine. By the same power might I say that hindsight is a curse.
The majestic event started with faculty telling the conclusion of a case at the start of it. He simply said that “Lady accepts the final offer made by investors”. That just killed it. The first assumption everyone made was that the idea was worth a lot. Secondly that the investors are the most astonishingly gracious people in the world and want nothing else from world peace.
The trouble began as the case ended. As we finished reading through the provided case, it ended with the lady being offered a deal well below her expectations. Every fact in the case seemed to present the same fact that the sales of the products were excellent, and it had a market for itself.
The investors too realised the potential and offered a conclusive deal, the trouble is it was below the expectation of the lady.
Now in hindsight, I know that she accepts the offer, but the why is a difficult question to answer. After all, how can she sell it for a punitive price?
The mystery resolved itself as the faculty went ahead and distributed next portion of the case. The fact of the matter was that even though the product had excellent sales, it was selling as a local brand and not as national and was sold in some areas, while it was not on the shelve in most of the country.
Another fact was it was a niche product with limited customer segment.
Now one must realise the sceptical nature of the investors. They are investing their own money into the model and it is extremely difficult for them to predict exact ROI on the entire thing.
Just as the case seemed to be resolving, came another cliff-hanger. The investor who agreed on the deal sent contracts papers that consisted of some extremely harsh term and condition for the lady, as well as the nature of the contract as promised, was also altered.
Now hear this. Someone tells you that a lady accepts an offer where she got well below her expectations and to top it off she gets a contract that is miles of the avenue of what was promised.
Yet we knew by hindsight that she accepted it.
You wouldn’t believe in a lifetime if I told you that everyone thought something entirely different from the next guy to be the reason why the entire deal went through.
The faculty had had his fun by now. He went on to give us the third part. Turns out the lady called the investors and after some debate investor confessed he had his suspicions regarding the ability of the lady to run the company. After the consistent communication process, the investor honoured his initial offer.
There I sat thinking about all the reasons I came up with. None were correct. Had the faculty not have told about the conclusion the debate would have had been so worse. Everyone would have jumped to conclusion that lady will not go forward with the contract. Period. Think about it. Let the fact sink in that most of us believe blindly on the written lines and often would not even debate and agree to a conclusion that is as far from the truth as it can be.
Yet the reality is that the truth is written between the lines, and often takes a perspective to see. Presumptions though give most us our own perspective rather than that of the situation and thus we take a decision which is impulsive and wrong.
Not to mention that I hate the irony of hindsight from that day. It may look like it will help, but nothing helps the fact that hindsight also takes some reading and experience is something not everyone has.
The company I want to work for: Idea Cellular
I have a bachelor in industrial production engineering and I am majoring in Finance and operations. The Fin ops projects appeal to me immensely as I have worked on the similar project in RBL bank. The challenges of telecommunication sector would provide me with a rewarding learning curve and I believe I could be of great importance for the company having worked in similar structures.
- Shantanu Verma