Archive for the ‘Nikhil Agarwal’ Category

By Nikhil Agarwal ‘10, MBA in Global Management

150 kilometers of winding road lay ahead of us in the Langbiang Plateau in Vietnam’s central highlands on the way to Đà Lạt. Đà Lạt, the capital of the Lâm Đồng province, is named after the Latin phrase ‘Dat Aliis Laetitiam Aliis Temperiem’, which literally translates to “giving pleasure to some, freshness to others”.

An impromptu weekend excursion was planned only a few hours before we left with our new buddy, Benny, and four American exchange students from Hong Kong. Only half expecting the plan to go through, we awoke the next morning to the pleasant surprise of 7 Yamaha scooters (125 cc) waiting for us, ready for the day’s ride.

The crew, just filled up at a gas station and ready to head out.

I have always found bike trips to be a great opportunity for introspection and a means of getting closer to my surroundings. I have always cherished them in the past, but have not had the change to ride since I left India, as a result of my hand injury playing rugby this past winter.

This was my first weekend away from Nha Trang and one of the highlights of my time here in Vietnam. It was notable for more than a few reasons:

1. It was Phil’s first time riding a scooter. On our way up the mountains to Dalat, which is almost a mile high in elevation, he was driving way ahead of us—apparently he caught on well.

2. We were caught unaware that there was a five kilometer stretch of road under construction and covered with 8-10 inches of dry sand and red dirt. The cars and other heavy vehicles passing by made us feel like we were dirt biking with dust flying around. Here are some pictures of how we looked right after the ride.

Riding through the dirt and dust.

3. The amazing natural beauty of the central highlands with lush green mountains and beautiful, colorful valleys made me feel good that the natural beauty still remains after what the country has been through.

Some of Vietnam's untouched countryside.

4. The beauty of Dalat was accented by thousands of butterflies and spans of vegetable farms on both sides of the road.

5. We caught up with a Thunderbird alum, Curtis “King” Kovach, who runs a small café with his wife. At his café we heard him jam on the guitar, vocals and harmonica with equal ease. You are never far from an interesting Thunderbird alumni anywhere you go, right? His life makes me feel strongly on doing what my heart feels like rather than getting stuck in a dead end job.

6. We had one of the best meals during our entire trip at a small house/restaurant out in the middle of nowhere.

7. We grew acquainted with the Dalat style of drinking wine – with a chunk of rock salt in your glass. Surprisingly, it was awesome! I am going to buy some of the rocks for myself.

8. Personally, for me it was good chance to get away from work and the craziness in Nha Trang due to the Tet holidays. It also provided me with time to get my thoughts organized in preparation for the final weeks of the project.

We are now into the toughest stage of our project, capturing our findings in a report to leave with the client. This involves the departure analysis (a summary of the current business and the local business environment), the arrival analysis (identifying where they want to be as an organization in the future), moving on to generate the gap analysis and lastly an implementation roadmap with a little bit of hand holding.

With only one weekend left here in Nha Trang, we have realized that we are yet to see some of the cities key attractions. We plan to definitely take time this weekend to visit these places before we head home. These include a mud bath, a golf driving range on the open ocean, one of the best underwater aquariums in Vietnam, and finally a visit to the most exclusive resort in the country, the Evason Six Senses – appropriate as our project is focused on the tourism industry. We’ll let you know how it all goes!

By Nikhil Agarwal ‘10, MBA in Global Management

During my time at Thunderbird I’ve had the opportunity to study and work in Monterrey, Mexico, Beijing, China and most recently, Nha Trang, Vietnam. I have realized that while these are invaluable learning experiences, sometimes it is easy to feel like an alien in your surroundings and long for some of life’s comforts waiting for you back home. This is typical of countries where you do not speak the language and if you are working, the evenings especially are hard to kill with no company.

Thankfully, our experience in Vietnam has been filled with amazing scenery, new friendships and little downtime. Also, we lucked out with respect to our choice of hotel. The rooms are nice and clean, the staff is very friendly and we use rooftop restaurant as our office. At the hotel we often meet interesting people traveling through this part of the world with whom we share stories about our adventures abroad.

One of my new acquaintances: Benny.

I’ve put a few points down that have helped me tackle being home-sick in the past. I thought I’d share, as they might be useful to you too:

1. Try walking to places instead of taking a taxi. This helps to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the surroundings and gets you more accustomed to all of them. A word of caution: you should make sure you know the way when walking and should know in advance if it is safe to walk.

2. Work out: Going for a run in the morning or evening along with light stretching will help keep the blood flowing and reduce stress levels which may arise from being in a foreign environment.

3. Try to reach out the student associations or groups that have an international presence. Often they can provide a feel for the local culture and they usually speak English. AIESEC, the world’s largest student organization, has worked for me in the past. Also Thunderbird has hundreds of alumni chapters all across the world. These groups help make connections in the area for local advice and you never know but some of these connections end up lasting a lifetime.

4. The internet has definitely brought the world closer with Facebook, Twitter, Buzz and a host of other applications where you can share your experiences with friends/family almost instantaneously. There might be some places where Internet is not so readily available. In those cases, maintaining a journal will help you recall details when you share your experiences with folks back home and it also ensures to give you something to do in your free time.

5. Food and entertainment are two things that most people miss the most. There have been Western/Indian restaurants around nearly all of the places I have been, so every time I feel nostalgic, I head over for a taste of home. Also, when I have internet access I sneak in a movie online.

6. Always try to keep a smile and exude positive body language. Anywhere you go people can read body language and when they see yours as friendly and welcoming, they will reciprocate and soon you will find yourself with local friends to curb some of the loneliness.

The TEM Lab experience has given me all the above and some more. This experience, in addition to enhancing my consulting skills, has given me time to think about my future career path and my responsibilities to myself, my family and my surroundings. Over various conversations and through my observations of the entrepreneurial spirit present here in Nha Trang I am leaning more towards an entrepreneurial venture right out of school with all these fresh ideas in my head.

From the pictures of our awesome beach location it may seem like that we are on an excursion disguised as a consulting project, but it’s not. We have been pretty deep in work from the beginning of the engagement; however, we certainly are not complaining about the location. We do take the appropriate amount of time off to immerse ourselves into the culture. Another integral part of my learning over the last couple of weeks has been to work in such an environment. Living right in the center of the tourist district in Nha Trang, just one block from the beautiful beach, while maintaining our disciplined work schedule to meet and exceed our expectations, as well as those of our school and our client has been challenging.

By Nikhil Agarwal ‘10, MBA in Global Management

Our colleagues at K-biz decided to take us out to the countryside to enjoy the second day of the New Year in a traditional way.  It was very kind of them to do this, as the second day of the New Year is typically reserved for visiting extended family and friends.  Additionally they expect to receive guests at their house, but instead they made arrangements to take us out to experience the real Vietnam.

Ben, Nikhil and colleagues with their families.

According to Vietnamese culture it is a great honor to receive a guest at your house during this time of year. The Vietnamese consider it good luck to have guests at their house, which resonates with a very popular saying from Indian scriptures: “Atithi Devo Bhavah” which literally translates to “Guest is God”.

The journey was very interesting as the landscape converted from tightly-packed buildings to lush green rice fields only 15 minutes into our drive. We also quickly realized how hot and humid it could get in the countryside in the afternoons. During the course of the day we visited a water reservoir, two pagodas (one big and famous and the other one still under construction), ate lunch at a nice spot by a stream on top of a mountain and visited a modern yet authentic Vietnamese restaurant that re-created the feeling of a traditional Vietnamese house in a village. It was a day full of lessons about Vietnamese culture and customs around New Year and lots of traditional food. An interesting event of the day was to catch so many people selling and buying lottery tickets this day. Later I found that it is customary for this time of the year as people are feeling lucky because it is the beginning of the New Year. Additionally we observed people crowding around the head monk who was telling fortunes to those who wanted to find out what the New Year held for them.

Scenic reservoir in Nha Trang.

Dragon wrapped around a pole at a pagoda.

Neon lights behind a golden Buddha statue.

K-Biz employee, Trang (back left), listens as a fortune teller unveils her fate for the New Year.

Traditional Vietnamese restaurant

On the third day of the New Year we were invited to visit the houses of three K-biz coordinators: Hien, Phoung, and Mai. This day just reaffirmed the belief of how warm-hearted and welcoming Vietnamese people are. They spent half a day taking us to different places on the back of their motorbikes and making sure that we enjoyed every aspect of this auspicious time of the year. The city of Nha Trang happens to hold the record for the longest rice cake (Banh Tet) in the world. This massive rice cake was 35 meters in length. They also made about 1000 foot long rice cakes (Banh Tet) for charity to give the poor people also a chance to enjoy the New Year by eating the traditional dish.

It's a record! The world's longest rice cake.

After having loads of traditional and unique snacks which include spicy dried squid, pumpkin, sunflower and watermelon seeds, frozen banana with peanuts, pickled raw mango, sweet and spicy dried mango/pineapple and meat ball soup with fish and home made sticky noodles, we had to roll ourselves home. We profusely thanked our K-biz counterparts before we handed out the lucky pockets to their children and wished them goodbye and good luck for the New Year.

Lucky pockets of cash, handed out to children during Tet.

While the New Year celebration officially lasts three days, most of the country fills a whole week with activities spent with friends and family. This gives our team a few days to finalize the discovery phase of our project, consolidate our findings regarding the local business environment and K-biz, complete our analysis and develop our recommendations to help K-biz build capacity. With a great opportunity to enjoy two New Years celebrations in a span of just forty-five days and having enjoyed in the last one in true Vietnamese style, our team has a couple of weeks left and we are all excited to provide K-biz with the best New Year’s gift through our consulting service.

By Nikhil Agarwal ‘10, MBA in Global Management
Over the last week, we have been greeted with streets full of yellow flowers, yellow watermelons, fermented rice cakes and millions of small light bulbs arranged in various shapes and sizes decorating the streets as if it were literally laying out the red carpet for the Year of the Tiger (according to the Lunar Calendar). Popularly called Tết, short for Tết Nguyên Đán, it is the most important holiday in Vietnam and we are lucky to be here to experience the preparation and celebration of the New Year.

Tet Lights & Lanterns

Holiday Hustle

This holds great significance for everyone as most of the older and some of the younger people in the country do not know the exact date of their birthday.  Thus, they advance their age by one year on eve of every Lunar New Year, effectively making Lunar New Year literally a celebration of a lot of birthdays.  The kids have additional incentive to look forward to the holiday as they all receive ‘lucky money’ from their elders wishing them a new year.  I received two of them yesterday (hey can’t say no to free money, right?).  This tradition is very similar to parts of Indian culture.

Preparation for the Tết: The kitchen god is offered a farewell and thank you a week before Tết for his mission to heaven.  To ward off evil spirits while the kitchen god is out on his mission, people put in their homes a bamboo pole stripped of its leaves, except for a tuft on top.  After the farewell of the kitchen god, the people start their preparations for the new year.  This includes cleaning, scrubbing, and observing last days of office and school, both of which include parties with co-workers and families. We also observed mad rush for shopping as Tết approached, very similar to Christmas shopping in the US.  We observed many shops closing down before Lunar New Year’s Eve putting signs out telling customers when they would re-open.

Traditional Tet Offering

End of year celebration!

New Year’s Eve:  Traditionally the people are awaiting midnight and are whispering fervent prayers to thank god for the last year and asking blessing for the next year.  This is also a time families invite their ancestors to spend some time with their family.  The head of the family lights incense with hands folded and invites the ancestors to come join the family.

In modern times, people are seen socializing with friends and family over dinner and cities have fireworks at midnight. We walked to the beach to see the fireworks and thousands of people on motorbikes going towards the beach for the same purpose greeted us.  People were buying fresh shoots of sugarcane from the street on their way back.  My guess is that it is a sign of good luck and prosperity as it had new leaves and it signifies a new beginning.

Fireworks ring in the New Year

Streetside sugarcane vendors

First day of New Year: The first day is typically reserved for visiting people in the immediate family who are older then you.  The younger people get lucky money in red envelopes and the elders give words of advice (almost comparable to the New Year resolutions we make).  On the altar of the house, an offering is made to the ancestors who are amongst them now. This is no less than a feast and includes food, liquor, betel leaves and even cigarettes.  After the ceremony the family enjoys traditional food.

Second and Third Day: The social visits become broader on the second and third day.  Second day would be for wife’s close family and friends while the third day is usually for the community outside including teachers, bosses and even high school and college reunions etc.  The family then wishes the ancestors good bye by burning money, paper gifts and gold for their journey to heaven.

Food is an integral part of the celebration and includes different and unique items like fermented sticky rice pancakes with meat filling, roasted watermelon seeds, pickled onion and cabbage, and dried and candied fruits which include potato, coconut, ginger, bitter melon etc.   Nha Trang has the distinction of holding the world record for the longest Tet Cake, which measures 35 metres in length.

It was great for our clients to give us a whole package of these traditional treats for the Lunar New Year.

We have been invited by the coordinators to go to the countryside and experience how the Lunar New Year is really celebrated.  We are excited and looking forward to our visit!
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By Nikhil Agarwal ‘10, MBA in Global Management

Over the last couple of days we have been interacting with Ms. Hang Thi Huynh CEO and co-founder, and Selene Alcock of K-biz Consulting based out of Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa province located in South East Vietnam.  We have had couple meetings with them at beach café’s (Yes! According to Ms. Hang they are better place for brainstorming! We agree) to understand their current situation, finalization of the work plan, and making sure we are meeting each others expectations for this consulting engagement.

Brainstorming at a beach cafe

Today was different though.  We had the first business meeting in my life involving a translator.  Mr Minh Quang Le, one of the co-founders and chief financial consultant for K-biz consulting, spent some time talking about the current situation at K-biz.  The meeting involved Ms. Hang who acted as a translator for the team.  Trying to gain knowledge from colleagues about business meetings with translators helped me make the most out of the meeting without crossing any cultural or business boundaries.

Meetings involving a translator can be quite a frustrating experience for a lot of people.  My observations about preparing for a meeting involving a translator:

1. Always maintain eye contact with the person speaking to you.  It is difficult as you do not understand what they are trying to say, but looking at them helps the speaker subconsciously feel that you are paying attention and are 100% committed to the conversation.

2. Smiling, nodding and copying the facial expression of the speaker also makes him/her think that you are keeping up with the conversation and would enable a smoother flow of information.

3. While listening to the translation from the translator, try to swap looks between the translator and the speaker and do not hesitate to nod or smile at the speaker in between if you agree with something he/she said.  This ensures sustained interest of both the speaker and the translator.

4. Try to look at the speaker even though you are talking to the translator while addressing a question.  This along with a little bit of hand motions or animation helps the speaker to get some clues about the question, sustains his interest, and also signals to him that you are giving your 100%.

5. On occasion, the translator will start answering the question themselves, forgetting to translate the question to the speaker.  The easiest, and most polite way to deal with this is to take the name of the speaker in the next question, and frame the question as “ We want to know what Mr. XYZ thinks about this ?”

6. Using common words in languages, such as English, that the speaker understand and saying those words while looking directly at the audience helps to make a connection. Also using the audience’s name on multiple occasions strengthens that connection.

7. Overall, keeping a positive outlook towards the meeting, patience, a smiling face, and courteous mannerism goes a long way.
We dive into more interviews tomorrow with K-biz clients and prospective clients which include both English and non-English speakers.  Hopefully we can make the best out these meetings to enable our discovery process.

More soon.