Thursday and Friday
Thursday-
Thursday was a very busy day. It started with an hour and a half bus ride to a more industralized part of the city where Bharti Airtel is located. This was a very interesting site visit as we were able to meet with the CIO of the largest telecom provider in the world. What an honor!! It was very interesting and the only thing I will really elaborate on this site visit is that the people of India really only use a cell phone. The first reason is that they can't afford it and the cell phone usage rates that Bharti has provided is the lowest in the world! Also, although it may seem that India is very huge in computers, they typically don't own their own computers or use the computer for anything besides email and social networking.
After Bharti we came back to our Ramada hotel and had an adventure. We went to a local "underground" market where they don't completely sell knock offs-but they will bargain for a good price on basically cheap stuff. It was pretty fun to go to and experience! The girls (4 of us) stopped at a sari shop (the wrapped dresses that most women wear) and we all bought one to wear and had a really good talk with the family that owned the place. He gave us very good insights for places to eat and see before we left Delhi.
That night, our hotel had free drinks and a fireworks show for winning a prestigious award among hotels as well as celebrating the chance for India to hold the Common Wellness Games (like the olympics). It was awesome as we went up to the 14th floor, one of my classmates room and watched the fireworks show from there! They literally "blew up" thirty feet from our face. Very impressive. However, the fireworks were practically hitting the side of the hotel and being set off by the swimming pool-something that would NEVER happen in the US.
Friday-
Exciting morning- not! We took our final on Friday, which wasn't bad....but wasn't easy. It was quite fun knowing the night before that all 12 of us studied together and all thought the test was difficult. However, we all survived...now just a paper to finish after we get back.
The afternoon we took the bus to Gurgoan (a village) to meet with Genpact which is a BPO company. The MBA group also met us there and we had a great time learning about the BPO industry and how Genpact has evolved. Afterwards both the MBA group and the Undergrads went to United Health Group. They gave us a tour of their office and also talked about the HR practices that they are performing which is changing the way the India people work and expect work. (moving laterally across the company rather than just vertically)
It was a very late night and long ride back home so we were all quite exhausted and went to bed.