Curiosity and talking to people -2

Yesterday after dinner while I was on my way to the library when I met a friend of mine, a FP student in campus doing his Ph.D in the field of Operations Research. I casually asked him what his thesis topic was and who his guide was.I came to know that he was doing his thesis under one of the most feared profs in the Operations Management Department.To show my symapathy to him is not the only reason for this post, the main reason is to give an idea about the kind of problems he was working on.
He was working on problems regarding the assignment of aircrafts of different sizes to different trips at different points in time given the routes and the demand on each route.He was telling me that airlines in developed countries have developed complicated mathematical models to optimize the assignment and have saved millions of dollars in the process. He was trying to develop some models for indian airline companies.He was telling me that there was a lot of problem getting data regarding indian airline companies unlike those in US.One interesting idea that came up during the discussion was regarding how low cost airlines could be looking for alliances with other means of transport providers like railways and even road transport providers to make a lot of small towns which are close to cities but which are directly inaccessible by air because of lack of airports.This has advantages for both the business traveller and the reasonably affluent town dweller and could also increase revenues for the airlines because of the potential increase in demand(we have not discussed feasibility and profitability).This will also relieve the traveller from the worry of finding the connecting means of transport to her destination.Though the idea of connecting flights is not new, extending it to other means of transport might be novel.
Whether or not the idea is novel or not, the point I am trying to make is that a little bit of curiosity can go a long way in helping us learn about new ideas if not generating new ones. This reminds me of the advice of a CEO which I have read somewhere,he says its more important to be interested than be interesting.

Curiosity and talking to people

This post is dedicated to the anonymous 'commenter' who urged me to talk to people and explore things around me. The other day me and my friend went to watch the movie 'Rang De Basanti' at the Inox theatre at The Forum, Calcutta.The evening show was at 5:25pm and we reached the place 20 mins in advance.Both of us were very hungry so we went to the food court which was on the topmost floor.The food court had all kinds of stuff from Puchkas to Pizzas in stalls of different sizes.We went to the puchka stall to have some puchkas. The guy manning the stall told us that we needed to get a 'Burp!' card to buy stuff and that cash was not accepted at the stalls. Me and my friend wondered why the payment procedure had to be so needlessly complicated.The MBAs ;) that we were we decided to investigate the logic behind the 'Burp Card'.

The Burp card is a swipe card akin to your credit card. Only that the limit is determined by the amount you pay at the counter.You also need to pay Rs.25(caution deposit for the card I guess) extra for the card which is refunded if you return the card. You have use the card at the food stalls to buy stuff and based on your purchases the amount gets deducted from the card. All this is fine but we still couldnt figure out what purpose the card solved.

When we went back to the puchka guy, we asked him what the advantages of the Burp card system were.The guy told us that the Burp card system helps 'The Forum' management keep track of the sales generated at each store.The stall owners dont pay a fixed rent for the stall space, instead they pay 'The Forum' a percentage(which is outcome of the negotiations between the stall owner and 'The Forum' management) of the stall's sales. The advantages of this system are obvious. In case the sales are high 'The Forum' guys gets to benefit and in case of lower sales the stall owner doesnt get affected very badly like he does in case of a high fixed rent.'The Forum' management determines the ranges of the prices of the food items which are sold and it can also get rid of the stalls which have not been performing well as it has the sales information.
Interesting stuff I thought(revenue sharing, a concept I studied in supply chain management)...

We were not disappointed with the movie either..excellent visuals and very nice songs.All in all it was good fun.