Recruitment before MBA

Just getting accepted into business school is proving a career boost for some students, who are fielding offers from consulting firms before their MBA programmes even begin. Major consulting firms, including Bain and McKinsey, say they are offering some 2023 internships to students who don’t start until this fall. Some offers come with the promise of a full-time job after graduation in 2024. The early-bird recruiting raises the question: Why take on an expensive business-school degree when just getting accepted is enough to compel job offers? The offers, recruiters say, reflect the knowledge that companies expect students to acquire from MBA programs that have a solid hiring record, and come after interviews, coaching and conversations about the candidates’ career goals. Many companies need to staff expanding businesses and are planning on these positions even if the economy sours, they say.

(Adapted from “Some MBAs Are Getting Job Offers Before They Step Onto Campus,” by Lindsay Ellis, published on June 13, 2022, by the Wall Street Journal)

Power and gas risk imbalances

In the power sector, the government is the sole buyer and seller of grid electricity. The structure of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) is lopsided with guaranteed returns for investors, while the risk of pricing and demand is being shifted to the government. Had the government not been the sole buyer of electricity, it could have moved the risk towards the IPPs. However, that never happened. Since the government could not pay the IPPs on time due to growing gaps in costs and revenues, the risk of IPPs kept on increasing, and the return on IPPs increased with every successive power policy. The power sector circular debt has grown to unmanageable levels in the process. The story of gas circular debt is building similarly where the supply is increasingly being shifted towards the imported Re-Gasified Liquefied Natural Gas, while buyers are not willing to pay the premium.

(Adapted from “The Economic Journey: Muddling Through,” by Ali Khizar, published in June 2022, by United National Development Programme)

Using pee as fertiliser

Peecyclers are part of a global movement that seeks to address a slew of challenges — including food security, water scarcity and inadequate sanitation — by not wasting our urine waste and instead using it to fertilise crops. A shortage of chemical fertiliser, worsened by the war in Ukraine, has farmers desperate. Human urine just happens to have the very nutrients that crops and plants need to flourish — a lot more, in fact, than No. 2, with almost none of the pathogens. The New York Times spoke with peecycling operations in Vermont as well as with researchers who are working with communities in Niger to collect and distribute urine for agricultural use. Beyond the practical benefits of turning urine into fertiliser, the idea is drawing traction because of its role in the circular economy, one that reuses and recycles in a continuous loop.

(Adapted from “Meet The Peecyclers. Their Idea to Help Farmers Is No.1,” By Catrin Einhorn, published on June 17, 2022, by The New York Times)

Big on hubris, short on practicality

Saudi Arabia’s current megaproject is to build a city, from scratch, in the desert by the Red Sea. It will be an ultra-modern urban setting, in which many of the kingdom’s restrictive social rules will be waived. Women won’t need to cloak themselves in the ‘abaya’ in public places and it is to be a hub for investment, local and foreign, in new industries. If that description fits Neom, the city Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is building in the northeastern corner of his country, it also describes another giant project, launched nearly two decades ago. Dubbed KAEC (pronounced “cake”), it was announced to great fanfare in 2005 by Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, Prince Mohammed’s uncle and then-Saudi monarch. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s planned urban development makes even less sense than the kingdom’s earlier built-from-scratch city.

(Adapted from “Saudi Megaproject Is Big On Hubris And Low On Practicality,” by Bobby Ghosh, published on June 14, 2022, by Bloomberg Opinion)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 27th, 2022