Much earlier, you left India to pursue a successful career in the United States, what was the reason behind this? And then one fine day you left your high profile job in the United States to return home and start a business. What was running through your mind at that time? What all went behind starting Baazee.com?
Actually it was the other way round. I grew up in India, completed my education from IIT Kanpur in Computer Science after which I went to the USA in order to pursue my higher education in Computer Science. Subsequent to going there I did my MBA from Harvard and worked for a period of six to seven years including a stint with Apple Computer and then as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Nevertheless like any budding entrepreneur I got bored fast with what I did and it that was when I realized entrepreneurs are born not made.
The typical characteristic of an entrepreneur is that of one who is very curious, interested, passionate and gets bored of what he is doing easily. I started off with Computer Science and worked as a Computer Engineer but got dispassionate and became a Manager only to get bored again. After that I went to a business school, then did consulting in the middle, got fed up and then did investment banking.
I believe that there are two kinds of people with this trait the first ones who always keep getting bored and never achieve anything in the long run. The second kind are the entrepreneurial types who keep getting bored until they find their passion and vocation, which is more meaningful and different according to them. I realized I was more of the latter type I wanted to run away and start my own business which is why I had a shorter attention span with a traditional career. I was motivated by creating new things and taking on new challenges which is far more likely in an entrepreneurial setting than in a regular job. In the process I met up with my friend, Suvir Sujan, who also studied along with me at Harvard.
Coincidently he was also in New York and wanted to do something of his own as well. For us starting our business initiative had nothing to do with starting in India or USA or Latin America. As a matter of fact we just wanted to run our own enterprise be it in any country. But when we started to look for business opportunities we found that options in the USA were saturated and limited; whereas India was a growing economy and so we decided to set base in India.
Mid to late 1999 everything that was in the Internet space had already been funded in the US. I was aware of the Internet biz and the funding structure because of my work experience at Goldman Sachs, which involved working on the team that took eBay public. At the time when eBay went public we realized that eBay is a great business model but the US was a saturated market whereas India showed great potential and had several opportunities to grow. Also as my parents were residing in India that gave me an added incentive to come back.
It may not be the most politically correct statement to make but it was nothing out of patriotism that I returned back to India. In fact it was purely a business opportunity that got me to India. A business opportunity, which I felt, existed at that time and now exists in even greater measure and now the whole world recognizes it. At that time everyone used to say, What are you doing?! You are giving up such a good and secure job to take up something so risky. My philosophy is very simple there are lots of people who want to become successful but they are not ready to go through the journey of what it takes to win, and win big. In my opinion to become an achiever one as to be able to take supernormal risks. A lot of individuals want to become extravagantly rich or astounding achievers but they take subnormal risks. That was my attitude and I took it up at the time when my salary in Indian rupees was around a crore rupees (approximately 200 thousand dollars) and I still had a loan from Harvard, which had to be repaid. But then I decided that was the time to make it happen, to give it my best shot. As things turned out we came in quite early in the Internet space as the market wasnt developed but then it worked out well for us in the end.
According to you why has the online auction segment of E-commerce taken off; when other segments of the E-commerce economy are not doing so well?
As far as I’m concerned E-commerce is still small but is doing very well. I think it is less about online auction auction is more of a tactic, the strategy is more of creating an online marketplace. So if you step back and think for a minute, lets consider Amazon.com, its like a bookstore in an offline world. There are several other offline bookstores but Amazon is a little more convenient form of a bookstore. If you look at Yahoo.com in its simplest from it is a library or a newspaper but again more convenient by being on the Net. So these are things, which one can get offline but are easier and more convenient to get online. Google is also like a library. However if you look at the eBay marketplace you cannot do it offline. How can one humanly connect a person in Jabalpur with another individual in Bhopal to trade a mobile phone? One just cannot do all of this in the offline world. Therefore the supremacy of the concept lies in the fact that it is unique to the Internet and cannot exist without it. The model is more of an online marketplace while auction is a tactic to get people interested, enjoy activities like bidding, winning etc. Most of the trading on eBay happens on a fixed price basis. Thus the real idea is that of creating a marketplace and it is doing extremely well. I think in 2006 there was a research done that showed a 42 pc market share for eBay in India.
You have worked in the US. How is the Indian market different from the US market? Don’t you see a problem with the low penetration of Internet and customer reluctance to pay online in India?
In general it is very difficult to carry out a business in India. Period. Therefore to create a successful business enterprise it is fundamentally harder and requires primarily a lot more execution capabilities and which also makes it more defensible. To specifically look at the online marketplace, for example, nowadays in the US the postal service and courier companies have very efficient shipping modes. Most of the payments are also done online by an individual because they trust the online systems whereas the case in India is totally different.
Originally such a kind of online payment system did not even exist in India as a result what we did do to make this model successful was very different. We started from scratch by building our own payment system. We went and tied-up with banks in order to do all our risk management. We also had to integrate with all courier companies and actually convince them of picking up articles from one individual and delivering to another individual. The courier companies were used to picking up items from a company and delivering to an individual but they were not used to collecting items from an individual and delivering it to another individual. We had to convince all of them regarding our business model. We made several presentations and showed them how the business model had become large in Germany and USA. To their credit all of them bought the idea including the Indian Postal Service, which is considered to be conservative and sluggish. Moreover the courier companies provided us better rates and started doing cash on delivery for us. Eventually people too started believing and trusting our way of functioning which resulted in the model getting adopted.
Then there was consumer trust concerns for which we had to introduce a buyerprotection programme, which stated that if your money was misplaced while buying from somebody (e.g. you got a defective product), eBay would partly refund for the loss incurred. Essentially we had to do a lot more heavy lifting what people call the nuts and bolts of the business than eBay had to do in the US. Basically getting things in place in the US was much easier while here there was a lot of friction in the process. Initially we spent a lot of our time, money and energy fixing the loopholes. Hence I would state there were several barriers to entry into the Indian market.
Talking about Matrix Partners, what led you to become a venture capitalist because two years ago you had sold your company, you were with eBay and you probably took a small break? What influenced your decision?
After I sold Baazee.com, by the way I am still the Chairman of eBay India but thats more of a transition role, I had to decide on what I wanted to do. The first option for me was that I could retire from business as I always wanted to become a teacher and teach in schools. However the main question was is this something I want to do right now or do I still have the fire in me to take up something more challenging? Finally I realized that I was too young to teach in a business school or anywhere else, I will teach someday but approximately ten years from now. The thought process at that time was I still enjoyed the challenges of the business world.
As a result the next most crucial question was should I start another company? Fortunately after having a successful venture any VC would be willing to write a $10 million cheque for whatever one wants to do and it doesnt matter whatever your idea is. Hence I knew that was an option, which I could explore.
Another option for me was that I could potentially invest in other businesses. Ultimately what I decided to do was to take some time out and think about finding my true interest in whether I would get pleasure from investing in other companies. Initially I started off by investing in small Indian companies, for example Cleartrip.com is my Indian investment in the travel sector and I also started getting involved in their business as mentor. I also invested in a Search Marketing company called Pinstorm. These all were my personal investments. Importantly these were not only my investments but I was also involved in these companies.
I also realized my framework in life for such important decisions one should look at three things viz. ones skillset, the size of the opportunity (basically the size of the market etc) and fundamentally ones passion. One should ask a question whether he is passionate enough for the endeavor that one wants to undertake. I realized that for me all 3 factors of passion, skillset and opportunity converged in the venture investing line of business. Passion one absolutely needs given the enormous challenge of multiple types of business, skillset existed due to the experience with Baazee and opportunity for such investing in India had improved dramatically. I was enjoying my personal investing role.
So I decided to take up something bigger. I decided to set up a firm and run it myself. At that time I partnered with Rishi Navani, who used to be a VC at Sequoia capital. Essentially we raised our own funds later on we were approached by some VCs who asked us to partner with them. They offered to co-brand with us and offered to raise funds together. As a result a separate fund of $150 million was raised.
What is your investment philosophy as an individual investor and as a part of Matrix Partners and how challenging is it to identify companies in the Indian space vis-a-vis the US space?
As an individual there is no more investment policy. Since I have become a part of Matrix all my investments are through Matrix because if I still did personal investment there is a possibility of a conflict of interest. Hence I do not do anymore personal or angel investments.
At Matrix the investment policy is simple and that is about backing businesses in the consumer sector. We are not a typical technology VC funding company; instead we are a consumer VC fund. Looking at all our core investments which include a Chinese fast food chain called Yo! China, vJive Networks; a digital advertising network, an online DVD rental company, Four Interactive which is a mobile content company and a couple of more in the works.
The basic thesis is that we want to invest in the consumer sector, which would typically include Internet, mobile, financial services, traveling, healthcare. We usually invest between two to ten million dollars per venture. We are not focused on getting results tomorrow or within a very narrow time frame. In fact we are interested in building the business and getting actively involved with it. I am extremely active on the Board and I help the company with strategy, recruiting etc.
As a VC how do you decide about your investments in a company? What are the qualities you look for in the entrepreneur? How do you gauge the challenges and future prospects of a start- up business?
Typically there are two approaches that work, the first one being the topdown thesis driven approach. In this approach you form an opinion of which sector one would want to invest in and then you proactively find the companies, which operate in that sector. If one does not find companies usually one starts companies in that potential sector.
The second approach is bottomsup where you keep meeting companies and go through several business plans that keep coming and you invest accordingly in those you deem fit. As far as I’m concerned ideally we would love to have more of a topdown approach. But in reality there is much more of the bottomsup approach as there are so many business plans floating around that one does not have the time to do a topdown approach.
vJive Networks for example is a topdown approach investment. I started looking at the OOH Digital Advertising market in April last year. In that regards I also met up with all the 20 existing companies. vJive Networks was not even an existing company. That is top down approach where there is market for a particular product but there are no existing companies. Yo! China on the other hand is a bottomsup investment where I happened to know Ashish Kapoor who is the current CEO of Yo! China; and believed that the Company was doing very well.
The second question is a classic debate in the VC circle whether one should invest in an A team with a B opportunity or a B team with an A opportunity. For that my answer would be that ideally I would like to back an A team with an A opportunity but it is a very hard to find such a combination! ? There will be people who would give you a different view. For example my partner and I too have different outlooks. As a matter of fact, if I was pushed to make a choice, I prefer an A opportunity with a B team. As I believe while a rising tide lifts all boats; conversely if you are an A team and the market is not even present then what can you even do to succeed. The flip side is what my partner believes, that if there is an A team they convert a B opportunity into an A opportunity. So really we have no clear answer to this one and both philosophies have worked well in different situations all over the world.
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Talking from your own experience what have you discovered over the years in terms of killer investment opportunities?
In my opinion it is easier to work with an A team, but in India it is tougher to find such a team. I believe there are a lot of A opportunities to explore in India. Generally speaking it is much easier to work with an A team and for a VC it becomes tough to work with a B team even if it is an A opportunity. As a B team can goof up the prevailing market opportunity.
Sometimes an opportunity is so attractive that you decide to invest and hire an A team and there are well know VCs in the world who follow that approach. Its a well-known fact between VCs that one cannot create an A opportunity but one can definitely employ an A team. An A opportunity is either there or not there.
Is branding the most important aspect in terms of product development?
I actually disagree with that statement to an extent, I would like to draw upon what Vinod Khosla (coFounder of Sun Microsystems and Partner Emeritus at Kleiner Perkins) has listed in decreasing order of likelihood and increasing order of costs of what makes a successful enterprise. First on the list and most important and unbeatable principle is innovation i.e. the least expensive and most likely to succeed has to be something which is driven by innovation. Brand is actually at the bottom of the list i.e. the most expensive and least likely to do well. Lets take the example of Marlboro Lights. A couple of decades ago, Marlboro Lights was not the first brand of cigarettes to be launched, it was actually the third. There was Camel and other such brands present but Marlboro lights were the first light brand. In this case it was a product innovation, which got the brand Marlboro to become famous and successful.
Another classic example would be Google. Till date Google has never advertised on television, newspapers, and magazines or put up hoardings anywhere. I am sure you have not seen a single advertisement by Google, yet it is one of the most valuable brands in the world. Why? That is because its an amazing product. Therefore my advice to people has always been to focus on creating a marvelous product. Typically one can create a remarkable product when one addresses an important pain point i.e. an overarching and compelling consumer need.
If you look at Yo! China it concentrates on the need of a affordable Chinese food which tastes great served in a great environment. But the main point is that is it as cheap as your neighborhood hot-dogs. Thats the other angle to keep in mind when thinking of India. India is an extremely price sensitive and value conscious market so you have to retain that while developing any product.
Going back to the question the answer is product innovation and in my view brand is of the least importance. A brand would be automatically get created once there is an innovative product. Things to consider is firstly product innovation, second would be customer experience and customer support. The third would be operations, how good is one in operations and functions.
What role do you play as a VC in a company? Does it depend upon the current (start up/growing/ established) stage of the company?
Absolutely. A VC can play variety of roles in a company. Normally we play a role in strategy and are an active part of the companys board. We do not like to be a part of the management team, as I said earlier we would invest behind a great management team and let them lead from the front. In all our current companies we have helped in one or more roles. We have been very closely involved in strategy, like for example take Yo! China, It had a franchising model before we got involved. It had a model where they had planned to set up 200 to 250 outlets in 20 to 25 cities. But we worked closely with the Management Team to change that to a nonfranchising model, since we wanted to control the customer experience at each outlet one cannot ever outsource customer experience and franchising is like outsourcing the experience. We restricted the 200 to 250 outlets to the top eight cities in India. For instance if you are one of the best Chinese food joint brand in Agra it does not matter much but being the best in Mumbai matters greatly. This is an example of a big strategic shift for the company.
In all our companies we participate in the hiring process, sit down with the CEO, inquire about his requirements and accordingly use our network to help him in the best possible manner. We also help on the tactical front such as in case of Cleartrip.com or in eBay where Im the Chairman so I know what works on eBay or what works on the Internet. Therefore I provide a great deal of support in the tactical and planning area.
A start-up is his first baby for any entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur yourself are you able to relate better with other entrepreneurs? How do you battle with the difference in judgment and belief between a VC and entrepreneur as at the end both want best for the company?
I feel at times Im a little too much on the entrepreneurs side whereas Im supposed to be thinking from a VC point of view! But when you are a VC one is supposed to be a lot more objective and make potentially harder decisions. This takes me a while because I can see the entrepreneurs viewpoint very clearly so that definitely can be a concern many a times.
Looking back from starting Baazee.com to today’s online scene what according to you are the changes in India, the Indian startup scene and the venture capital scenario?
The biggest change has been in the market. When we started Baazee.com there were three to four million Internet users, four to five million mobile subscribers and the cost of each call was Rs. 25 on the mobile, SMS was about three to Rs. 10. In contrast to that nowadays there are about 150 million mobile subscribers 25 to 30 million net users, the cost of each call and SMS is Rs. 1 per minute. One can see that the market opportunity has become massive and around five years ago that was not the case and this applies across sectors.
As I said the GDP growth has increased significantly and we are soon going to become a $ 1 trillion economy. India has reached that critical mass where looking at the consumer spending position one will find people who are moving upwards in the Maslows hierarchy of needs. Individuals have moved from fulfilling basic needs to indulging in self-actualization and that is why you see the discretionary spending going up drastically. What all this transformation has done is that it has facilitated more investor money into the country. Most people think India is an over hyped economy but I believe it is because of an important reason. According to me India is under construction like the US and Europe were under construction after World War II and see how things have tremendously changed over a span of thirty years in those countries. Same would be the case with India in the next thirty years and the people who have seen this phenomenon in the US and Europe are the ones who are putting money in India since they can see it coming.
Another big change is the quality of entrepreneurs, which has improved significantly. India is unfortunately a country where industrialists are confused as entrepreneurs, the large industrialists are entrepreneurs but they are a different type of entrepreneurs. The real entrepreneurs are the ones who start small and take the company to the next level; the small entrepreneurs have started to happen a lot more in India. We are also seeing a lot of overseas-returned entrepreneurs. For the first time India is seeing a brain gain which is reverse from the normal pattern of brain drain. I was reading an article somewhere about a one crore rupees offer being rejected by an IIM graduate, as he wanted to set up his own venture. This is a big change and not by design but co-incidence, four of our companies too have overseas returned entrepreneurs.
Is approaching a VC the right idea when one is starting his or her own company?
There are two things VCs look at the type and stage of business. There are types of businesses that will never be good for VC funding. The reason being that they will always be a niche business rather than a massmarket business. A lot of people ask me why there isnt an Amazon.com in India? Personally I have also thought of investing in such a project but the reality is, if today in India you sell 2000 books a day on the Internet it will be a pretty good number. However the profit margin per book in India is as low as Rs. 15.
This means that I am making Rs. 30,000 a day, and keeping in mind the salaries, the overheads incurred etc. there would be hardly anything left over as profit. For this reasons it is not a VC fundable model. However via sole proprietorship the idea is fantastic for earning Rs. 50 lacs to 1 crore a year for the entrepreneur!
Secondly the stage of the business is of great importance. Most of the time individuals merely have a business plan but do not have a track record supporting them. As a result they do not get funding. But one could raise money from friends and family or one could approach an angel investor. For the first time in India in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore one has formal angel networks. I actually helped setup the angel network in Mumbai. There are approximately 35 to 40 rich individuals who pay attention to your business plan and your pitch. If they appreciate your business plan and pitch they would definitely invest Rs 1 crore or 2 crore whatever minimal amount required to start a business. Its only when the business has reached a certain level where it has an excellent team, immense potential that is when one should look for funding from VCs.
That said, the type of business i.e. the opportunity to create a large business would be the overriding factor for most VCs. For e.g., if I do not see a business becoming a 400 to 500 crore venture within a span of four to five years, I will not fund it today.
Recently Matrix Partners has invested in an online video selling company called Seventymm. Could you tell us your analysis and thought behind the investment?
First of all the team is an A team, the founder is a serial entrepreneur who has handled several companies. But it was the market opportunity, which got us to fund it. Today there are 16 million VCD players but three years down the line one is going to have 40 to 50 million DVD players and about 40 million odd VCD players. If you assume approximately 80 million households, on an average a single household rents 1.5 to 2 movies a month and each movie cost per average Rs. 50. At this point of time what we are assuming is one dollar per movie and approximately one to two moveis per household per month. That results in a $ 160 million of revenue per month and about $ 2 billion per year! So the opportunity is there but now we also look at competition. Our question is, is there any national chain of DVD rental? No, there is a neighborhood seller but whenever I want a movie it is not necessary that he will have it and there is no way for me to know whether that is a good movie or not (since most of his Hollywood collection would be pirated).
Now you contrast that with something like a Seventymm, which has 10,000 tittles, where an individual can go to the site and actually add movies to their request lists or queue a list of movies. Once its set the movies keep coming and I also can automatically see what ratings people are giving to that particular movie. Consequently it solves the pain point and provides value at the same price point as your neighborhood vendor.
With so much of the business depending on operations what plan has Matrix Partners and Seventymm worked around in order to handle the logistics of the business?
The entrepreneur is capable and intelligent and has figured that out too. He has software, which handles this entire process. Let me explain that with an example. One of the biggest problem is that people take two movies and when they send the movie back most of the time the movie is in the wrong cover so we actually bar code the cover and the actual disk. Any time a movie returns there is a scanning system that examines both the barcodes and flags an alert for a wrong movie so you have to change. We do that every time a movie goes out. He has built all these systems and its completely technology driven core inventory management.
We have 60 delivery boys per city, as we cannot rely on postal service, as by the time the movie reaches the consumer there would be a long gestation period. Courier cost Rs 5 to 7 per delivery. If we use delivery boys it comes down to Rs 1 per delivery. We have built our own network of delivery boys but to manage 60 delivery boys per city one requires software and routing maps, which help decide upon the most efficient route for the delivery boy to follow. He cannot come from Andheri to Worli and go back to Andheri. There is actually a route map that is generated by the system, which is assigned to a person who then accordingly carries out the delivery.
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What’s your take on the whole debate between web 1.0 and web 2.0? Where do you see the online market five years from now?
I have a radical view on that as I think people are wasting their time on web 2.0. Let me go back to the Maslow hierarchy of needs model on the Internet. One should look at people talk about Internet being convenient, in fact it is not convenient in India. You need to go to a cyber cafe or you have to dial up a telephone line or use a slow broadband connection. Whereas in the US 150 million households have broadband access all around the clock sitting at home. When you have that situation then yes you can do social networking etc but where is that happening in India. Do you think a person will go to a cyber cafe or any public environment to discuss everything about their life?
There is also a cultural barrier, as not many individuals will express themselves in MySpace.com. The kind of things teenagers are discussing at such sites if the parents start reading that they would not let them out of the house! So thats not going to happen in our culture and they are not going to share their pictures and if they do not put up their pictures the site becomes less interesting.
So hink there are cultural barriers and infrastructural barriers to Web 2.0 in India. Fundamentally it is not about social networking but it is about community building. Like in the US, a community is built around a certain need. For example MySpace.com has become a community of musicians and now they are trying to monetize it by putting e-commerce music sales etc. In India one needs to first create a product according to peoples wants and subsequently a community will form around it. One of the reasons your site is popular would be because you provide content that the MBA community wants. Users come to it because of that and then they form a community. Its not that somebody just setups IIMcommunity.com and students would come over there. The thought process is to first build a product that will serve a certain need and then a community will structure around that. Similarly Seventymm solves a need and we are building a community product around it. We think it will be very successful as people will come and discuss reviews and etc.
How do you think mobile Internet will stand out in the near future?
Well, I think it will happen but will take time. Out of the 150 million mobile phone users only two million are GPRS enabled; and of the 500 million growth expected in the coming years the numbers are not going to be more than 2030 million. The urban India penetration of mobile phone is 52 pc and about 7 to 8 pc in rural areas which is where the growth will come from but these individuals are not very tech savvy. In reality there will be mobile Internet applications but the market size will not be 500 million but 25 to 30 million. There will be 25 to 30 million GPRS mobile phone users who can take pictures, surf the internet etc so as long as the application is focused on that and is realistic about the business model given the market opportunity, it will do well. But sometimes I find when I meet individuals who talk about 500 million mobile Internet market which will not exist atleast by the time I retire! Overall you have to deliver alternatives not only via mobile Internet but also through other mediums because India is at a nascent stage of growth.
What would your suggestion be for MBAs wanting to be a part of Matrix Partners?
We never hire graduates straight out of a business school. We want to witness people achieve something in life by the virtue of working successfully in an operating position. To give you an example, seven out of the nine partners of Matrix Partners US used to be entrepreneurs in companies that Matrix funded. Perhaps the best way to join a VC firm is to be a successful entrepreneur! ? There is a huge demand supply gap between the number of people who want to join a VC and the number of people hired into such firms.
Our view is that either one joins a start up which is funded by a VC and does so well there that the VC actually pulls you out. I always tell people that one should get pull hired rather than push hired into a VC firm. One can never push oneself to a VC. In fact a VC will pull you if you fit the bill. Personally I dont entertain any emails by any MBA just out of B-school, be it an Indian or from schools like Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, MIT etc. Many people apply but we dont even look at it, as we believe in identifying the kind of people we want and then going after them aggressively. So my advice to people wanting to join firms like Matrix is to work in a startup and do such a great job that the VC wants to hire you. It doesnt matter if you do not succeed. Even the best of VCs have failed but its most important to give it your best.
Sometimes VCs do hire from consulting firms like McKinsey etc. because we believe that those individuals get a lot of exposure in different fields. If you have a strong background in consulting that would definitely be considered. Ideally one could do two to three years of consulting then go in for some years of real operating role e.g. do sales on the field.
What would your suggestion be to MBA students who would like to have a full time career in funding business? What is the skill sets required for such an individual?
I am only a little familiar with how the IIMs work but I am more familiar with the US business schools. So for example if you ask me what did you learn at Harvard, my answer would be everything and nothing because I cannot point out to you one course that taught me something. But at the same time something definitely happened as the person who went into Harvard and the person who came out of there were two different individuals. I think if I analyze it the way it happened, it is more by interaction via case study method, by really putting yourself into the real world situation and trying to solve those problems because business is all about solving problems. One of the issues I think with IIMs little bit is that they take people without work experience.
I think they are trying to change it but my belief is a MBA is much more useful once when you have actually been there and experienced so you can relate to the business situation. An MBA is very bookish and theoretical.
My advice would be dont be too studious. If you yourself have no work experience pay attention to what people with work experience have to say and try to pick up good business insights rather than picking good grades. One of the issues as I went to IIT was that I experienced people who tend to memorize everything and unfortunately our education system encourages that. But thats not how life is in business. I always have access to resources; information is one of my resources so why do I have to memorize anything?! The best utilization of your resources makes a person successful or not. For that reason, at Harvard all exams are open book and take home.
In fact, at HBS I was taking a final exam the Indonesian currency crisis and I remembered an article I had read in a magazine. So I called my supervisor and told him about the article and asked whether I could use it. He said to absolutely go ahead but also made sure that I mentioned the source. I got an A in that particular paper! I would advice individuals to think more real rather than being bookish and do as many projects in actual business situations. I think most B-schools have one such project in the last semester, so try and use it to the fullest.