Vista Interview Questions: Fill & Download for Free

An alternative question is why is Vista Equity Partners one of the best performing private equity firms?One of the biggest reasons is that Vista is secretly not a private equity firm, they are actually a large diversified software company. Their best comparable is not their PE competitors (like Bain Capital, Thoma Bravo, Golden Gate Capital, Silver Lake Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Blackstone, Carlyle, Hellman & Friedman etc.) … it is actually Oracle.Like all the great private equity firms, Vista is really good at acquiring terrific companies. But the comparison of other private equity firms to Vista ends at acquisition … Vista essentially runs all its companies like they are divisions of Vista (much like Oracle would run it), not independent companies.Like Oracle, Vista has standard hiring procedures across every company it owns. Everyone hired is required to take the same assessment tests and a standard rigorous interview process is prescribed.Like Oracle, all Vista companies need to have the same vendors. And all the information from those vendors are sent regularly to “corporate” and compared with every other company.All functions (like sales, marketing, HR, engineering, etc.) are standardized across all Vista companies.In fact, Vista companies are really only “companies” in name only (in that they have a board and a CEO) — they are really well-run divisions of Vista.And CEOs of Vista companies have much less autonomy than CEOs other private equity firms — the CEOs cannot pick their vendors, hiring procedures, or even many functional playbooks. Vista CEOs are much more analogous to the highly-paid GMs of divisions at well-functioning technology companies like Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, SAP, Adobe, Salesforce, etc.These CEOs are very impressive, highly compensated, and fantastic operators … but they make far fewer decisions than a typical CEO. In fact, that could be a huge blessing because they can focus much more of their time on growth and strategy. Certainly Vista sees this as a feature, not a bug.Vista’s CEO, Robert Smith, is a genius for creating value through standardization and process. In fact, when you think of Vista, you should think of process. They are all about creating scalable processes. Robert Smith would likely be really good at running the US Department of Defense.One interesting case study is in vendor selection. Vista spends a lot of time figuring out the very best vendors for each specific function and then rolls that vendor out to all its companies. In fact, when a company gets acquired by Vista it must change a large number of its vendors in a fairly short time frame.One of the ways Vista determines which company to acquire is through vendor selection. For instance, a few years ago it was doing a big investigation to select a marketing automation vendor and they determined that Marketo was the best vendor for their portfolio companies. After coming to that conclusion it made sense for Vista to just acquire Marketo — even at a 64% premium[1] over the stock price at the time.When Marketo landed the contract to sell its software to all Vista companies (Vista has almost 200 companies) its value would go up substantially. Vista, knowing this, could afford to pay a premium for Marketo.Summation: Vista is much less like a private equity firm and is much more like a large diversified software company. Robert Smith is less like Henry Kravis and more like John Malone.Footnotes[1] Vista Equity Partners buys marketing automation giant Marketo for $1.8B in cash

Profile: X- 95% XII- 92.6% Graduation: 8.83Integrated M.Sc. in Exploration Geophysics, IIT KharagpurMarch 10, 2017 Taj Bengal KolkataAWT Topic: A lot of youngsters are mindlessly switching jobs which has led companies to focus more on extracting the value on investment rather than spending on training and help create long term careers. AnalyseTwo panelists, Both professors of IIM Ahmedabad, Economics (P1) and Organisational Behaviour (P2) respectivelyP1: So Kartik, tell us about geophysics and what exactly you do as an exploration geophysicist?Me: AnsweredP1: Can you tell us about shale gas and possible impact of it on oil prices?Me: AnsweredP2: So I see you have such a good academic record, then why MBA?Me: AnsweredSome cross questioningP2: Your answer is okay but is a cliche, do you have some other reason which justifies your desire to do MBA inspite of such good grades?Me: Sir I am really sorry but I cannot help it since it is a demand of your selection process. I could have never qualified for the interview without such good grades..:-PBoth laughP2: So can you tell us how an earthquake originates?Me: AnsweredP2: Which are the most earthquake prone regions in the country and the world?Me: AnsweredP1: So what exactly you do in your free time?Me: AnsweredSome cross questioning related to my involvements in fest organising team and placement team on campusP1: So you mentioned about your involvement in Hult Prize?Me: Answered in detail explaining my tenure as an organising team member followed by participating in Shanghai regional finals. Went into details of the business model, revenue streams, scope of improvements etc.P2: Career plans post MBA?Me: Answered, hinting my inclination towards consulting and how I have prior experience of problem solving which might be helpfulP1: Alternate plan if consulting does not work?Me: Answered about my interest in product development, highlighting my efforts in conceptualising an anti rape jacket. Went into details of the productP2: Any product developed in India and used throughout the world?Me: I said Microsoft Vista, but he wasn’t very happy with the answer.P1 and P2: We are done, thank you.Got a toffee..!!!!Exactly 30 sleepless nights later..10th April, 2017IIM A results outConverted…:-)

Gareth Bale's inability to effectively communicate in clear Spanish after 6 years in the capital city of Madrid has caused so many controversies and comments from the media.And with Marcelo recent interview on T.V speaking about the Welshman, it has done more harm than good to the prolific striker and former Tottenham Hotspur player.Marcelo, who recently has been missing his best friend Cristiano Ronaldo and also Kiko Casilla, said that the dressing room has been boring and quiet to him as he has no one to speak or talk to..And when the question about Gareth Bale came up, he had to state the obvious reasons.Bale is totally introverted and barely mutters any words or phrases to anyone in the dressing room, same as Messi in Barcelona or even the Argentina squad.Marcelo also said they only say “Hi”, “Hello” and “Good wine” whenever they talk or speak to each other.The rest of their communication has to be non verbal with some certain gestures and signs.Gareth Bale can speak SpanishEvery professional footballer knows that once you get to a new league with a different language from your mother's tongue, the first thing you do is to learn the new language to be able to adjust to the league and the environment.And this is usually done by organizing a teacher that gives amazing classes to the footballer in order to adapt easily.Some footballers go as far as to start learning the language as soon as they sign the contract before going the club; ditto for coaches.Ronaldinho started learning French after the 2002 FIFA world cup before joining PSG because he was excited about the move…And today, he still speaks French fluently, same as other footballers.Pep Guardiola signed for Bayern Munich 6 months before arriving at the Bavarian airport.That gave him ample time to learn German, and when he touched down in the city of Munich for the first time as the new coach, he granted his first interview in German, albeit not so fluent, but they were impressed.And that also led to his success in the club winning the Bundesliga for 3 straight seasons.Gareth Bale's Spanish teacher has come out to even defend him saying he's very shy and an introvert.It happens to a lot of shy Britons, they may know the local language but prefer to speak only English just for the fear of being mocked when they make some mistakes with the pronunciation or conjugation of certain verbs which might be difficult.Conclusion:Gareth Bale can speak and does speak Spanish, but he prefers not to do it in public.But don't be surprised when his last press conference at Madrid will be done totally in Spanish and he will tell the Madridistas, “Adios muchachos, hasta la vista.”