Nisarg Brahmbhatt, MBA 2010, travels to India for research

Date: September 18th, 2009

On reaching Ahmedabad, I scheduled a meeting with Jagan K. Mohan (JKM) Dasa swami, manager in charge of Akshaya Patra’s (AP) Gandhinagar operations. We agreed to meet on Friday to visit the Gandihinagar kitchen, located 30 miles from Ahmadabad. Kitchen operation starts as early as 3am and I got there at 6:30am. Upon arrival, JKM and I decided to observe operations first. It was interesting to note that everyone has to remove their shoes and use clean footwear before entering the operations to keep operations area hygienic. I observed three production areas each responsible for cooking rice, daal (soup) and roti (bread). I spoke with the supervisor in charge of each production units and used my camcorder to record the kitchen operations so that I could review the footage with my team back in USA. I also visited the area where the machines cut vegetables and prepare spices that are added to food during production. After spending two hours observing the cooking process, we decided to convene in the conference room to speak with supervisors from each section and other support department heads. At the end of another 2.5 hour conversation, I gained in-depth knowledge of typical AP operation and identified areas of improvement in regard to operations. At noon, I decided to call it a day and exchanged contact information with JKM.

Date: September 21st, 2009

My next destination was Banglore, located xxxx miles away from Ahmedabad. On Monday morning, I flew to Bangalore where I met my group mate Chinny at the airport. After two hours of car ride, we reached AP’s south Bangalore kitchen where we met Ms. Usha, our point of contact from AP. We checked in at the modest but comfortable guest house that AP kindly arranged for us and left to have a lunch meeting with Usha. Usha told us about her role, the overall organization structure and her tentative schedule for the next two days. Later in the evening, we met Ajay Parikh, Executive Director of Strategy for AP. Ajay explained the foundations overall vision and long term plans. After the meeting, Chinny and I decided to go to bed early that day because we had to get up at 4 am.

Date: September 22nd, 2009

The day started with visit of the on campus kitchen at 5:00 am! We briefly visited the on-campus kitchen in Bangalore which was similar to the one in Gujarat. We then traveled another 20 miles to AP’s North Bangalore kitchen, one of the largest kitchens in AP network. North Bangalore kitchen serves over 100,000 meals per day, five days a week and is 3 floors tall. We received warm greetings from the kitchen supervisor, and we spent the next two hours observing the 3 floors of operations that entailed cleaning, cooking and packing. Afterwards, we met the supervisor from each floor and discussed various details about their operations. Around 10:30am we left to go back to South Bangalore kitchen.
Upon reaching the kitchen campus, we met with Operations Manager for AP’s largest decentralized kitchen in Mathura. He explained how the decentralized model worked and what AP’s plans were with this type of cooking model. Usha had made arrangements for us to visit a nearby school where AP sends meals every day. We visited the school and met with the headmaster to take note of his inputs. We returned to kitchen campus and spent the next hour speaking to the transportation manager to understand the distribution system. We had a quick working lunch again discussing our observations with Usha. Next, we met the Nandnandan Dasa, head of design and process optimization. In 90 minutes, he shed light to many intriguing questions that had puzzled us. We then had another meeting scheduled with Ajay, whom we met the previous day. The three of us went through AP’s short term requirements that Ajay put together for us in a scope document. We discussed various initiatives that our AMR team could work on and how our AMR team will communicate with AP going forward.
After a marathon day of visits and meetings, Chinny and I sat down to compile our notes. We went through the scope document and created a summary for the other group members. By the time we finished, it was already 11 pm and we decided to call it a day as Chinny had a flight to catch in 5 hours.

Date: September 23rd, 2009

The next morning, I met Usha and asked her to put me in touch with head of operations in Jaipur, which has second largest decentralized kitchen. She connected me with the manager over the phone and we spoke briefly to gain more information about the Jaipur operation. After the phone call, I visited the on-campus kitchen operations to take few last minute notes. It was already 1:30pm, only 2 hours before my scheduled flight. I left for the airport after a short wrap-up meeting with Usha.

On my way to the airport, I wondered why smart people like Nandnadan Dasa (with a Masters in Industrial Engineering and amazing understanding process/operation design) decided to devote their entire life to a nonprofit organization like AP instead of acquiring wealth for themselves. Then, I remembered meeting precious school children on the previous day. Observing the children eat and happily interact with their friends was truly a satisfying moment. Now I know why everyone at AP is so excited and committed to their work. Putting a smile on a child’s face by providing his one and only meal of the day is priceless and is more rewarding than achieving any great corporate success!

The Best Summer Internship Ever in Lima, Peru

It was around the middle of March 2009, many of my friends had internships, I did not. I had a wave of interviews in January, nothing came of it. I had some more interviews in March, I got some offers but none of them were too attractive. Then, out of nowhere and after a flurry of phone interviews, I received only what could be described as the best summer internship, ever.

Altiplano Venture Funds (AVF) is a non-profit venture capital firm founded in October 2008 by an American finance professional who spotted an opportunity in Peru whilst he was working in Santiago, Chile. The main goal of AVF is to alleviate the side effects of mining activities on local communities in Peru. The team consisted of the founder mentioned above, a French/American private equity lawyer from New York, the South American director of a global engineering and project management firm, a team of American and Peruvian lawyers working for AVF on a pro-bono basis, and I (there was supposed to be another intern but he had visa issues).

Although it had been several months since AVF had been founded, it was not until the time I arrived that it was fully incorporated as a non-profit entity. Therefore, there was still a lot of ambiguity in the direction of the organization. My first task there was to identify potential sources of funding and investment targets. This involved gathering information from public databases, government archives , conferences and meetings such as ones at the Rotary Club and interviewing relevant people/organizations i.e. directors of other non-profits, government officials such as those at the US embassy and business leaders in the mining industry. Other tasks that I performed include projecting cash flows in order to determine the amount of funding required which in turn helped to demonstrate when the organization would become self-sustainable. From the research and modelling, it became clear that the original business model is not optimal. Over the weeks, ideas flowed and many changes took place in terms of the direction of the organization and its structure. Therefore, my main task was to re-draft the business plan for AVF over the coming years. This was not an easy task as no one on the team (including myself) had much experience in writing business plans. Nonetheless, I spearheaded the re-drafting of the business plan with much help from a variety of people (including a few UCLA Anderson professors). Eventually, towards the end of my internship, we ended up with a solid business plan and were ready to implement the pilot project (an investment into and management of a low-tech water filter manufacturer/distributor in rural Peru).

I had originally planned to be there to learn all there is to know about venture capital but, whilst I did get some experience in the investment selection process and financial modelling, I ended up learning much more about business development. I think this experience will prove to be much more valuable in the future than the finance skills that I had hoped to learn as a) I improved my ability to cope with ambiguity, b) I learned how difficult it is to start a business and c) knowing how difficult it is to start a business has not put me off in starting my own business in the future.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience not just because of the internship but also living in a culture that I’ve never experienced. At first, Peru seemed very foreign to me but after a week or so, when I had met a lot more people (especially Peruvians), figured out where things are and how things are done, I realized that Peru was an amazing place to be (my defining moment of feeling more “local” was when I shopped at a dingy produce market where I obtained 3 oranges, 3 pears, 2 Granadillas, a mango, a cherimoya and a huge avocado for $3.40). After my internship, I had a little time to travel and see other parts of South America. This short but packed journey made me realize that it is not just Peru that is fascinating but the whole continent has things to offer beyond my imagination. I will definitely be looking for opportunities there after graduation. To finish, I would like to thank CIBER for their generous financial assistance which enabled me to travel to Peru and help start an organization, AVF, which has the potential to improve the lives of many people who are less fortunate both now and in the future. My personal experience there was definitely enriched by this generosity, thank you.

MBAs conduct field research in India and adapt to project changes

Hello all. We arrived in Bangalore last night, and had our first day with our client today. We have been very generously welcomed here. It was a very productive day, as we were able to meet with the heads of Finance, Marketing, Fundraising, and Strategy. They were all very impressive, and they run an extremely sophisticated operation. We were able to get a strong sense of their goals, and how they hope to achieve them. We also got a sense of the many challenges they face.

There is no lack of potential projects. However, our stated project (helping choose the optimal domestic expansion targets) will probably have to change. Currently, they expand into new regions based on invitations from the local governments. They only decline invitations if they lack the resources (i.e. private donations, municipal commitment, and availability of real estate) to operate viably in that region. They already have well developed methodologies for evaluating expansion targets. Our efforts are better served elsewhere, in helping with the many other challenges they face in reaching their aggressive expansion goals.

Potential areas of focus:

- resource procurement optimization
- marketing strategies to improve domestic and international awareness
- labor force efficiency: training, knowledge transfer
- formalized strategic plans: 2-3 year plans, and a rolling 10 year plan

These are just a few of the many issues that were raised in our interviews with the staff, which we recorded and look forward to sharing with you.

Tomorrow we will be touring the main kitchen in Bangalore, as well as some of the local schools. We will keep everyone abreast of our progress. As always, any and all feedback is appreciated.

-Saman & Reggie

UCLA CIBER inaugurates high school program around sustainability

UCLA CIBER finished its first Global Green Business Week For Young Leaders, a one-week summer program for talented high school juniors and seniors. Forty students came from California, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maryland, Italy, Malaysia, France, and the United Arab Emirates to participate in the program. The students lived in dorms on campus and were taught by faculty from UCLA Anderson and the UCLA Institute of the Environment, as well as from graduate students from management, economics, and urban planning. For more info, contact our center at ciber@anderson.ucla.edu.

Note: Photo courtesy Erin Orias Photography.