Monday 23 September 2013

Truth Vs Hype, Mu Sigma Review: Response to comments

**This post is in response to the comments on my original blog post. You can read it here

Let’s use some numbers to answer the comments .

Below are the month-wise Employee Provident Fund (EPF) details that Mu Sigma files with the EPF department, government of India. This  file gives the total number of employees for whom EPF was filed in a given month.

Monthwise employee strength of Mu Sigma

Source: http://www.epfindia.gov.in/

     






It's interesting to note that a company of the size of Mu Sigma can add and loose people at such rate. Remember, these numbers are net of people joining and leaving the company within a month. Actual numbers will be steeper. 

This kind of fluid workforce is usually possible in companies where there is little premium on human capital. Given the industry that Mu Sigma operates in, it’s only possible through constant exploitation. 

I think it was the aim of the founder to setup the largest “Math Factory”. Mu Sigma is definitely achieving the “Factory” part of that aim: produce low level analytics using unskilled/ semi-skilled labor. As any analytics work requires some level of skill, the knowledge gap is filled by overwork and exploitation. 

What’s even more interesting is the churn in top management. In less than a year, close to 5 senior leaders have left the company. All these were Mu Sigma veterans in their own right. See the web-archive of mu-sigma.com management page below (See starting from Sep 2012)

http://web.archive.org/web/20120731142809/http://www.mu-sigma.com/analytics/aboutus/management.html

The point I am making is, if this company is as great as some comments claim it to be, why are so many people, both at the top and bottom, running away from it? This is the situation given that they have fixed career path and fixed salary hike for freshers for initial 2-3 years of their career.

The truth is that Mu Sigma tries to justify everything in the name of growth and project an image of what it is not. In Indian parlance, such companies are called “LALA” companies. These companies are neither founded on sound business model, nor do they have business policies that benefit all its stakeholders. Such companies survive by over exploiting resources, both human and material and social, to benefit an individual or a small group of individuals.

For the people who have quoted The Big and The Famous: 
The way these professionally run companies operate and the context in which the CEOs of these companies say certain things, Mu Sigma’s management cannot even dream of paralleling that. By quoting examples of companies much bigger and greater than Mu Sigma, you do not become those companies. Although you can fool yourself by trying to compare Mu Sigma with these companies, it does not change the ground reality.

29 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Totally agree, some points i would like to add are :

    1.) Spilling in some corporate jargons and quotes (copied) from other companies does not make Mu Sigma great.

    2) Engagement with Fortune 500 clients does not make you great. At the end of the day you are a vendor, not a member of the elite club.

    3) Mu Sigma hires from low tier colleges, i got to know they recruited somewhere around 80 from some Chennai local college!!! WOW/..and still they dream to be perched on top

    4) Mu Sigma compares itself with TCS, IBM whenever they have to, they will never talk of McKinsey, BCG or Bain

    5) Mu Sigma's philosophy is - Hire people from low tier colleges, keep costs low and deliver low on quality by fooling clients.

    6) Arrogance in Mu Sigma runs way high- They think they can achieve much more than organisations who hire top notch talent from IIT's

    7) The biggest fart of All- They say Mu Sigma gives you quality work exposure- thats pure bullshit!! Most of the managers in Mu Sigma will be kicked out and never be accepted as Managers in other big organisations. Mu Sigma makes you an Associate Manager in 3 years, but that Manager is not even worthy of being an Analyst in a reputed Organisation

    8) Finally Work @ Mu Sigma - They are more into IT rather than Analytics..the statistical modelling they do is very superficial..they just kind of run it..execution is what they can do..Very few have firm ground in Statistics and Mathematics..DO THE MATH is a pure lie here..what people do is change colours in graphs, adjust pixels and make things look Savvy

    P.S- One point i forgot to mention, Mu Sigma of course makes you damn good at documenting stuff. You will be happy there if you like that :)

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    1. dude .. iitians are not everythin ... u want to demoralise people getting placed in mu sigma .. go on .. u probably coudnt make it big in musigma or maybe they didnt hire you .. so you are taking out your frustration by writing these harsh words from inside a dark snide room ... coz thats what the angry do !!!!

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    2. Mr Anonymous,
      Screaming without facts and figures will just make a fake Analyst out of you..The wise never get demoralised. I was thoughtful enough to leave this shitty firm after 10 months and am in an awesome place now. Yes, IIT'ians are not everything, we do not disagree...but that does not mean you go hire a bunch of guys from some namesake college and claim to be better than facebook/google/McKinsey...had that been the case other big firms would have been the poaching grounds for Mu Sigma...DO THE MATH!!

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    3. Hello Sir! I am from Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, which has recently been upgraded to the national level and will be inducting students from JEE Advanced next year. So, you can guess what the ranking of my college is in the whole country. MuSigma had come for hiring 3 weeks before and I believe it has also visited NIT Warangal and Surathkal after this. Tell me, Sir are these "low-tier" colleges by your standards? I have my seniors working in MuSigma. They all lead a very youthful life and yet love their job. So, I doubt your reviews. And not only this, your post is highly demoralizing fr freshers who are getting into MuSigma from campus or otherwise. I believe you are a mature person. You should act your age.

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    4. Dude, are you getting paid for writing this shit? Go try and get inside Mu Sigma for once. You'll love the company.

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    5. Mr. kmlb001,

      I can't really comment or possibly verify your claims about Mu Sigma, but one thing that is quite evident from your hate speech are the monotonous not-so-much undertones that hint at your exaggerated sense of self importance. Your not so humble tone is clearly suggestive of the fact you are a superior IITan, who excels in life, is an experienced man working in a 'awesome place'; yet strangely, miraculously, for all your wisdom, you are unaware of a simple fact - that the basis of qualification for engineering colleges in India are Maths, Chemistry and Biology of a certain level that are never ever required in life again to such an extreme extent. I may be just another fake analyst to you, but you would be surprised by the number of students from private 'namesake' colleges that get better jobs than IITans, each and every year, on the basis of raw numbers. Even at this age and stage of life, do you seriously believe this kind of barrier still exists? My better half and peer is an IITan from Kanpur, whereas I am a simple woman from a 'namesake', low tier private college from West Bengal. Yet, we are doing the same job in an awesome fake place. By the mercy of god! Such co-incidence, despite the fact that we really are fake analysts, stealing our way towards a prosperous life. How come I got the same job that he got 8 years back? Beats me. He must have worked his way through to get me this job right? Yeah. I guess your reply will be somewhere along those lines. And also, please refrain from from using the terms 'we' and 'IITans' in the same sentence; it throws some bad light upon the majority of IITans who are not supremacists like you. It's not hard to imagine your conduct at parties or social places with you shouting "Scratch my IITan arse!". I have met enough IITans for the last 2 to 3 years to know full well that they do not possess the dumb superciliousness that you do.

      -A fake, lying analyst

      To all people from private colleges, you have the same chances as others. You guys may start off slow due to the shortage of campus drives you can attend, especially in comparison to IIT's and such, but 3 or 4 years from now there will be no distinction left (especially those based on certain science exams 4 years past). Just choose the right company and the right job for yourself. You have to be patient and work hard, but the effort will be worth something that will easily overcome certain childish, stupid barriers that Mr. kmlb001 seems to be bound to. Good luck everyone!

      As for the article, it's very well written and presented. My brother got placed at Mu Sigma and I have been conducting some research ever since. I also found reviews similar to what this article, and the writer's previous article states, but I guess I can never completely know. Anyway, thanks for sharing your views!

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    6. Sure, the quality of the college isn't the only indicator of future success, but you may find your firm more successful if you hire a ton of people from MIT (or indian equivalent) than if you take them from a community college. Having had several MuSigma contractors work on my team and getting absolute trash from the offshore delivery center, it is apparent that the low quality of analysts and high turnover is detrimentally impacting quality of work.

      Very interesting blog and comments, thank you.

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  3. The company is full of assholes who do not understand humility or compassion...

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  4. well said and rightly put,lacking core compassion and decency and humility from the CEO.

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  5. Hi,

    My name is rishi and i'm a journalist with Press Trust of India. I wish to speak to you about some employee issues at Mu Sigma. It would be great if you can reach me at rishiranjankala@gmail.com.

    Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Rishi, I have read the original blog post from this blog and it gives lots of details on employee issues

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    2. You should definitely write an article abt this. 100% true.

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  6. Mr.Rishi,
    Do your research, in QUORA,glassdoor, or go and view flash mob in youtube, even American companies won't be this indecent.In the name of fun...what is happening there.Let the TRUTH prevail.

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  7. I like how articulate the blogger is. His ability to synthesize information and base his statements on facts is the very skill that mu sigma needs most; sadly, that is also the skill we lack the most.

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  8. The truth but nothing but the truth I guess. People are not to meant to just add revenue but also should be a part of the evolution of the company.

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  9. The company visited my college and I couldn't get through. I was very depressed because I really wanted it, but after reading this maybe, things happen for a reason. Is there are any other company in the field of mu sigma which are better?

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  10. So far agreed well by this and the previous post. But, can you guys just tell me why do clients like MS stick to such an analytics firm if they're just a mountain out of a mole hill? And the social life part is what I too have heard of!

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  11. Coz they are as stupid as ppl who have joined mu even after knowing these stuff. Go and ask the type of work we do at msft.. You'll get go know.. those are very clerical jobs..

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  12. I partly agree to this post ... Mu sigma is definitely not a company to start your career with. I have worked with mu sigma for 2 years and with time it can only frustrate you... Long working hours will kill work-life balance.


    No importance to really talented people. I have heard that higher management people ask one of the managers I have worked with to leave the company who is extremely talented and a really great manager. And you will get not even a single bad review about him from the people who have worked with him.

    Same happened with the one of my batch-mates recently, he worked for almost 14-15 hours in a row for months.
    And his work was not valued at all.

    There is no point in working in a company who doesn't value there employees.
    its a shame.

    Well only good point is that you will get to learn a lot if u grab the opportunity to learn.

    If the company cant value the employees who has worked for many years in the company. I don't think fresher can expect anything from the company.

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  13. The company has recently set the trap of giving 5 Lacs as bonus..without stating the terms & conditions. The terms were mailed to all@mu sigma. So check with the employees to understand the exact terms & conditions. It states, You'll have to stay for 3 years , if you leave before that you'll have to pay back the 5 L.. & staying 3 years is like a torture. very few % of people stay for more than a year. It's not only this.. NOTICE PERIOD has been increased to 6 MONTHS. :O Seriously!
    The only reason why people use to join Mu Sigma despite knowing the difficult work hours & work load was, they could quit anytime and there wasn't any bonded labor. Mu Sigma took that away!
    So think before getting in the deep shit

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    Replies
    1. The 5L bonus will be given after a year (successful completion of MSU) is what is stated in the email.

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  14. this is very use information..and thanks for sharing...

    Chennai Engineering College Admission 2016

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  15. Can you please share the details on how you got list of EPF filing from the site. I am unable to find any link for the same.

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  16. From what I understand the EPF data is fluctuating due to employees moving onsite..

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    Replies
    1. Going by your logic they send those number of people onsite on a monthly basis!? after you account for leaves and non analytics personnel, who's doing the day-night work all these folks are yapping about?

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    2. dhiraj ki intelligence aur consciousness ki maa ka bhosadaa!!

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