The Hon'ble Finance Minister Mr. Ghadai shared his views on the Union Budget at XIM. He felt there was a lack of proper strategy to achieve 8% consistent growth in the budget. This kind of growth requires consistent growth of 3-4% in the agriculture sector which can be achieved if states are given grants for enhancing the same.
The lecture was delivered by Mr. M.P.Pusalkar, Executive Director and President, Godrej Industries Ltd - Foods Division. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, 1971 batch and having done his MBA from JBIMS, Mumbai in 1973, Mr. Pusalkar commenced the session with a nostalgic note, missing his engineering days. The honorable speaker was felicitated by Deputy Director Prof. Kripa Shankar, who gave a brief account of what happened in last 30 years since Mr. Pusalkar left.
The idea of the lecture was to introduce the audience with the intricacies of the Supply Chain Management and the Distribution networks associated with the industry. Giving an overview, Mr. Pusalkar talked of the fluctuations the industry had been witnessing for the last 4-5 years. As the presentation proceeded further, came the most interesting part and the crux : The Supply Chain. Giving some staggering figures, Mr. Pusalkar told that there are 7.3 million odd retailers in this sector. Terming it as highly unorganized, the speaker said the real challenge before FMCG sector is to provide penetration to its products across the breadths of the nation. Emphasizing the potential of huge untapped rural market, the speaker talked of the emerging trends and the changing mindsets of marketers with regards to the rural segment. This was followed by the financials of the distribution network and the FDI trends in the market.
In the concluding part of the session Mr. Pusalkar discussed some general management concepts by the management guru Peter F Drucker, substantiating his point by sharing some moments from his rich 30 years of experience. Also he stressed upon the need of PR in the Distribution Chain in particular and any industry in general.
Now it's been three weeks since the article on how to start preparing for the CAT. Let's see how many people have actually made a schedule for your daily CAT time. I don't even need to wait for the results. I would be pleasantly surprised, if more than 10 pc of the people, who read the article, have actually gone ahead and made a schedule. Now you realize why preparing consistently is the most difficult part.
The logical next step now is improving on your reading. Towards that objective I will list down some techniques that will make you a better reader for CAT purposes. I will round off the article with an appendix of topics on which to read and some websites where good passages are available for those topics.
Be an active reader
Most of us read any book as if we are watching news. We just wait for things to happen. If you compare that with the way in which you watch a movie, you will see the difference. While watching a movie quite a few of us try to predict the next dialogue. That does not happen when we are reading. Typically well written passages give us a chance to understand the argument and reach the conclusion along with the author. So the next time you are reading remember that this is not a TV soap but a book.
Understanding vs Speed
Separate the wheat from the chaff.
This is basically the ability to distinguish sentences which are important from sentences, which are too general. If a passage is talking about angiography and then there is an example provided on it then you don't need to spend a lot of time with that sentence to understand the example. Hence while reading, keep an eye open for redundant sentences. Recognizing them and zipping through them will definitely save time.
Lend Structure, Don't understand
There are a lot of schools of thoughts on how you should read a passage and answer questions. Some think you should read the questions first and then look for the answers; others feel you should read the passage thoroughly and then answer all the questions without looking back. We all know that there are two types of questions, direct and indirect. If you have read through the passage completely with in-depth understanding, then you may be able to answer all questions correctly. If you read through the passage once with cursory understanding then you should be able to answer all main idea questions. You will mostly need to refer to the passage again for detail / direct questions. I personally prefer the latter; there is no point in spending huge amounts of time in understanding passages completely.
You should read with the aim of structuring passages neatly in your head. Lets understand this with the help of an example. Read this passage...
Einstein, a genius scientist of the 20th century, and central to the new energy physics, stated that 'a problem cannot be solved by the same mind set that created it'. Cancer is a case in point. Cancer is a dis-ease that stems partly from the products of the mechanistic, anthropomorphic and exploitative philosophy at the heart of our culture, which we tend to ignore. Its effective treatment demands that we see ourselves in a different light and act accordingly.
Medicine is extremely slow to move from a mechanistic and physical philosophy to a more energetic model, like the Gaian paradigm that values all life forms as connected. A philosophy of medicine that is over-reliant on logic and limited mainly to drugs and surgery is fundamental flawed. Acts of logic always rely on analysis, that is breaking down a 'whole' into its constituent parts, and examining each minutely. Reductionist approaches fail to see the connectivity and relatedness of all things. As a result this philosophy is offering us 'cures' to cancer that are often as dangerous and destructive as the disease itself.
{pagebreak}
Nobel prize-winner Carlo Rubbia maintains that only a billionth of the world is actually made of matter and the rest is made of energy. The new sciences are challenging the way we perceive the world and as a result the way we relate to our bodies. Dr. K. Scott-Mumby is author of Virtual Medicine and an allergy specialist in the
"Science is proving that we exist as regulated and informed energy. Disease can now be redefined as a disruption, cessation or distortion in the information and energy fields. Its time for medical practitioners to join the party."
Classical science has reached the end of what it can explain in reductionist terms. Issues such as whether light is a particle or a wave, or whether or not water has a memory (an issue central to the 'proof' of homeopathy), are moving modern science to a quantum level that deals with fields of energy. Medical science is still stuck in a very physical universe, where the objective is to 'excise the lump' almost regardless of where it came from and individual conditions of the patient and their experiences.
New sciences such as the chaos theories point a way forward into handling the complexities of whole systems that work together, in synergy. Unfortunately our medical systems and practises are still too often based on philosophy formulated in medieval times.
While reading the above passage, I can structure the information in the following manner...
After reading it the first time, I may not remember the different ways in which modern science is moving to a quantum level, but I understand what it means and where to look for it. So don't read in-depth structure the data.
An appendix of topics tested with websites:
http://www.firstscience.com/site/archive.asp
http://www.sciam.com/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Religion/Mythology
http://www.buzzle.com/chapters/archives-238.asp
http://www.religion-online.org/
Philosophy
http://www.essortment.com/in/Philosophy.General/index.htm
http://www.prs-ltsn.leeds.ac.uk/philosophy/articles/index.html
Psychology
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/psychology.html
http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/psychology.html
Sociology
http://soc.sagepub.com/reports/mfr1.dtl
http://www.aboutsociology.com/sociology/List_of_sociology_topics
Literature
http://www.essortment.com/in/Literature.General/index.htm
http://www.buzzle.com/chapters/archives-251.asp
History
http://www.historynet.com/
http://www.essortment.com/in/History.Events/index.htm
Politics
http://www.magportal.com/c/soc/intl/
http://www.buzzle.com/chapters/archives-234.asp
Geography
http://geography.about.com/cs/a.htm
http://www.ezgeography.com/
Economics
http://economics.about.com/cs/a.htm
http://www.europe-economics.com/pubs/articles.htm
Management
http://www.magportal.com/c/bus/strat/
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/
Munira Lokhandwala is an alumna from IIM Calcutta, batch of 99. She has been associated with cat coaching since 2001. In 2005, she started catalyst group tuitions for cat. (www.catalyst4cat.com) she is a regular cat taker herself. These are her scores...
2005 - 100 percentile
2004 - 99.99 percentile
2003 - 99.98 percentile
Discuss this article in the Forum!
Moderators, Respondents, Questionnaires, FGDs, IDIs were some of the buzzwords, pouring from across all directions of the lecture hall last weekend. Yes, it was a Marketing Research Session. Organised by IME Department, it was a 2 day workshop, delivered by Mr. Anang Anang, Research Director, Synovate
The first session of the day addressed the theme of Flexibility and Globalisation in HR. Mr. V. Suresh CEO, Gold Souk, in his capacity as the moderator, addressed the challenges and issues regarding globalization of HRD. Mr. Anupam Bhasin, Director, Hero Corp, threw light on global practices with respect to HR. Mr. Sanjeev Sethi, Corporate Head, The Imperial, gave his insights into one of the fastest growing services sector, the hotel industry, that captured the essence of Globalised HRD.
This was followed by an open house where a healthy discussion between the students and the panel ensued. The audience raised a lot of queries on the Globalised HRD and its implications, which were answered by the panel.
The Rostrum Seminar Series is held regularly on a topic that provides an insight into current and emerging issues.
Discuss this article in the Forum!
The interiors of the main building are elegant and impressive. The IMI Director Dr CS Venkata Ratnam's self-professed focus on accessibility and freedom between the students and the faculty seems to be implemented into the building itself. Unlike other MBA institutes where the Director sits somewhere inside a multi-layered administrative tower of power, the IMI Director's room is just adjacent to the reception and so are the Registrar and other important officers' chambers. The faculty rooms on the upper floors are similarly accessible for students.
Dr Venkata Ratnam in an informal conversation with PaGaLGuY.com said that IMI had 40 fulltime faculty, half of it foreign-educated, many of whom have formerly headed top Indian B-schools as Directors or Deans. Few institutes in the country today can boast of the ability to retain that much faculty. The Director attributes it to the freedom that each faculty is given. They are allowed to consult, teach, work on projects or go on international trips as much as they want to in a year, provided the teaching back in IMI does not suffer, he says. Many write regularly for reputed business newspapers and magazines.
This is a culture many first-rung B-schools could learn from, because not all of them can boast of giving this level of due respect to top academicians on their rolls.
"The reason we are able to retain so much good quality fulltime faculty is because we give them complete freedom and that one thing is what they value the most," says Dr Venkat Ratnam.
The Director, who attributes IMI's rise this year mainly to word of mouth marketing, says that students too are made part of this free culture and unlike in other institutes where meeting a faculty outside the classroom can be a labyrinthy process involving appointments, IMI faculty are freely available off-classroom hours for all students. The trend has been increasingly loaded towards students with work-experience and would continue to be so, adds the Director.
The amphitheatre located in the center of the IMI campus is the hotbed of all activity, including the Kritva festival and its jam sessions, rock shows and movie screenings. The cafeteria cum mess resembles a modern coffee shop.
The one area where IMI needs to improve is their hostels. After the impressive academic block, the hostel rooms fail to make a mark. With an MBA program schedule that is as gruelling as any other in India, students deserve a better pad they can go to at night. Doing away with double occupancy rooms can bring living conditions at par, if not better, with IMI's neighbour in the Qutab Institutional Area, the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.
With a little effort, IMI has the potential to easily be at par with MDI-Gurgaon and then from there soar higher.
Discuss this article in the Forum!
I started this article with a huge dose of MBA bashing, but then I ran out of steam. I've been part of one such program for a while (which I've now decided to quit in order to study the same thing at a better school), but what I have come to understand, is that, there's precious little the program per se is going teach you. Management pedagogy is made up essentially of the same old case studies, classic home truths, a lot of typical human behaviour deconstructed, disguised in jargon, perhaps even set to some arbid scale for good measure, and re-presented as brand new information to the student.
Most success stories that I ever read anywhere talk of how one guy bucked the trend against better counsel and went on to re-write the rules of the game (a bit of oversimplification, I admit, but this is broadly how they go). And it is these freshly minted rules (as of date of publication) that the students are fed. But this is where the difference lies in, say, a software designer and the software operator. The rules taught the poor sods what to do when presented with those precise circumstances sometime in their career. But what the rules were silent on was how to go about effecting the light-bulb moment that wrote those same rules.
Can MBAs include a module on "How to be a trailblazer"? Can inspiration be deconstructed, set to an alogorithm and thus made repeatable? Is there a management term for 'hunch'? All my brouhaha here is essentially a rehash of an age old debate on the inherent conflict of management education. And since I seem pretty critical of the 'education' part of it, am I contending that the practical aspect is all that's of any real use?
It's something that's puzzled the folk over at Harvard for a couple of decades, so I won't pretend that I have an answer. Being fairly conservative, I'm loath to admit that theory is dispensable in this case, nor do I actually feel that way. What I do feel however, is that management education focusses too much on the process, so much so, that students start to think of it as a universal truth rather than a simple rule of thumb. And it is at this point that lateral thinking gets compromised. Which is sad because as evidenced by most success stories, that was what wrote the very rules these students are cramming.
It's a massive tragedy if inspiration goes on to spawn automatons in its future generations. Kids shouldn't have to drop out of college to create a Microsoft or Napster. The system itself should engender these revolutions by allowing students space for lateral thought rather than scramble to feed them MBA graduates when they turn into massive juggernauts in leagues of their own. Because the fact of the matter is that this is not a strictly technical skill, rather it is a highly composite skill which requires theoretical knowledge but not without a well-honed, abstract, intuitive sense. And so management education should adhere to the traditional meaning of 'education' which involves broadening the vistas of the mind, not equipping it with blinkers.
Well, that's a lot of gyaan from an MBA-hopeful. If you're reading this, please say a prayer that I make it to a good school to pursue another MBA from scratch. Amen.
Gauri Juneja is a student of MBA at a Delhi-based school.
The “International Seminar on Entrepreneurship” organised by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay from
On the last day of the seminar, a one - day student event titled “Navonmesh” was held. The highlight of this event was the Grand finale of “B – Samadhan”, the national level business strategy competition in which three teams from VGSOM, I.I.T. Kharagpur, I.I.T.,
A panel discussion entitled “Inside the entrepreneurial mind: Creative solutions to overcome the roadblocks in starting/growing a company” brought budding and successful entrepreneurs together. The meaningful insights provided by the diverse panel consisting of Mr. R. Sriram Enterprise Facilitator, CEO & Managing Director, Crossword Bookstore Ltd, Mr. Indy Sarker, CEO & MD, Analec Infotech Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Minoo Dastur, Co-founder, Executive Vice President & COO, Nihilent Technologies, Mr. Vardan Kabra, Founder & Incharge, Fountainhead Education Foundation were well appreciated. The session was moderated by Mr. Manoj Khatri, Consulting Editor, Strategic Marketing.
The evening saw a lighter mood settle upon the audience. Fun@entree, a creative and entertaining event enthused the participants to come up with wacky promotion ideas for an FMCG product. Navonmesh was sponsored by Educomp, Aramex and RadioCity.
Department of Management Studies (DoMS), IIT Madras played host to three eminent personalities Mrs. Sheela Priya IAS, Director, Chennai Water Supply board, Mr. Sanjiv Paul, Managing Director, JUSCO and Mr. Sudhakar Rao General Manager (P&A;), HAL, representing Public Administration, Private sector enterprise and a PSU respectively. The occasion was a seminar on Infrastructure Management. The event was also graced by eminent professors from the institute Prof. V.Kalyanaraman and Prof. K.N.Sathyanarayana et al along with the professors from DoMS.
The class of 2006 at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon has set new standards of achievement by attracting leading companies from
The sectoral breakup of the companies that recruited candidates from the PGPM batch reflects a healthy mix of industrial sectors including FMCG, Banking, IT, Manufacturing, Media, and Telecom among others. Organizations from the IT & ITES industry along with FMCG companies attracted a major chunk of the batch.
With a sizable proportion of the batch strength having prior work experience, a large number of candidates participated successfully in the lateral placement process, with companies like Bristlecone Consulting, Atos Origin, Accenture, HP and Mercer among the prominent recruiters. Reflecting the institute's growing international stature, foreign placements at MDI touched a new high. Prominent recruiters were Olam International, the Sharaf group of
Mr. Vijay Mahajan was on the IIT Kanpur campus on the 21st of march to receive the distinguished alumni award for this year and deliver a lecture on globalization. Mr. Mahajan, former dean of the
Mr. Mahajan stressed on the opportunities open to the 86% of the world in unleashing new growth and profitability by serving everyone else.
The following article comes with an inherently flawed assumption - that I have received my PGDBM degree (which by the way, is still subjected to the vagaries of nature and the powers at my institute). It is an attempt to demystify some of the myths surrounding MBA education and a guideline to survive a two year journey during which one not only undergoes an emotional turmoil, financial backlash but also a personal renunciation of joys like watching cricket 24/7.
I must confess that one of the most important reasons I wanted to do an MBA was to have the security of a solid six-figure salary in the shortest possible time. I was in Standard VII, when I read an India Today cover story profiling some of Indias hottest professional profiles. All of them were MBAs from Indias top institutes. I read about this chap called Rajeev Balakrishnan whose salary at the age of 24 read an eye-popping six-figure sum. I was damn impressed by our mans grey suit and I told myself- Gotta be like that , Issac, gotta be like that. I dont have that magazine issue with me today but yeah the color of the suit was grey. I have a tremendous memory for irrelevant details.
That was in 1995. Today in 2006, I have a black suit and I am going to pen the following words with the limited wisdom of a guy who has had the pleasure and the pain to go through two years of MBA education at one of Indias top institutes. The following 9 points are some of my most treasured gems of learning I have picked up from my experiences of the last two years. They should be applicable to any wannabe MBA or anyone who is still going through the pleasure such an education bestows. Some of them have been acquired through personal application, some through observation and some have been passed on to me by some of my gurus at SPJIMR.
1. Play the game of Last Impression and not First Impression:
In MBA, the rule of first impression being the best impression never applies. Do not ever attempt to make a point at the beginning of a class if there are CP marks. Make your point when the class is slow, drab and fatally boring. This is usually towards the end of the class. People who speak early lose their recall in the eyes of the professor. There will be a time mid-way when every CP desperate guy will attempt to make a point. During these times you should simply watch the fun from the sidelines. Do not attempt to break the clutter for you will be lost and loathed by those desperate around you. Go for your kill only in times of recession.
2. Find the goldmine but dont dig it yourself:
In times of exams and tests go to the specialist of a subject for advice. Every batch has an Eco, Quant, FM and Operations specialist. If you are the kinds who never bothered to attend classes or thought of Brearley-Myers as the updated version of Duckworth-Lewis go to that expert for that particular subject, spend time in his company. Take tips from him including the syllabus for the test. These guys are better than textbooks. Often they might also tell you the exact question thats coming for they spend a lot of time in the professors cabin.
3. Keep your ego at Absolute Zero:
Feel at ease to be thought of as stupid or crazy. Your batchmate or even your professors are hugely unlikely to be your employer. So if you have a doubt, ask but in private. Never take the liberty to make yourself stupid in front of 50 others. Thats dangerous. Always approach the person one-on-one if you have a doubt and preferably dont approach a professor. I learnt on an average atleast 60% more from my peers than from my professors. How I arrived at that figure is a mystery- even to me.
4. Keep your options open; all the time:
This I learnt from my stint as a Placement Committee member in Second Year. There is a beauty in not committing to anyone, learn to admire it and exercise it. In terms of electives, minors, careers and dates always keep your options open till as long as you can. I never killed my alternatives even when I was always sure what I was going to do. This is an off-shoot of the best answer in any MBA class. Professor: So should D/E equity ratio be low or high? Dumb Guy 1 : High because blah blah blah.. Dumb Guy 2 : Low because blah blah blah Smart Guy: It depends Sir..
5. Be Flexible:
In the last two years, I have developed a huge interest in Theater, Movies, Writing and Photography. This is only because I was willing to listen and spend time with experts from my batch in each of these fields with an eagerness of a beaver and the curiosity of a 3 year old. I realized later that whenever I told myself Thats not for me... I have lost out on something. Some of the things I learnt from my batchmates range from fields of Oil Painting, Yoga and Astronomy to Animation using 3-D Max. Theres no limit really.
6. Play to Peer Pressure most of the times:
I had been told in school to carve my own individuality and not be guided by peer pressure. Conversely, in a B-School, I believe Peer Pressure is an element that one should exploit wisely. So if in a Costing Viva there are 110 before you who have told you that they have said that Cost Control is better than Cost Cutting and you have reason to believe them and you are the 111th, do not , I repeat do not take a chance and play the hero to say the converse. Follow the crowd for something called Relative Grading will plunge you to depths you would have never imagined existed. I used to do a quick poll before any individual assignment submission to gauge how many are actually submitting on time and if a substantial part werent going to, I put on my earphones back on for that Quentin Tarantino flick, Id left mid-way.
7. Dont take anything at face value:
This I picked up from a Harsha Bhogle videotape in our library. If something is coming your way and it seems to easy, question its validity. So even if you are mid-way understanding a concept from the batch topper and you are grasping it easily, question him in between. If you thought you calculated the Black-Scholes with real ease in the examination dont sit back and relax but speak to a few people around you. Chances are you screwed up big-time and that means managing better impression in the eyes of the professor from next class. (Refer Rule 1). I once thought I had a real easy Costing paper and came out half an hour before the allotted time only to realize later I missed out on the last Question that was listed on the second page of the question paper.
8. Speak it out in the hostel rooms:
If there is something that you vehemently disagreed with in class, dont let it play in your mind but speak it out in the mess, the gymnasium, the nearby bar or in your hostel room. I can never under-estimate the wisdom I gained from thrashing things out with my pals outside the classroom. We never reached a consensus and thats exactly I value those heated discussions right up there in my takeaways from SPJIMR.
9. I am not like everybody else:
I said play to peer pressure most of the times but when things were going to have a greater impact on me and these related to career choices, I was happy to let go of the crowd and tell myself that I wasnt like everybody else. Placements are the craziest time in a B-School because the stakes are really high and you would see people around you apply helter-skelter to companies and you would be tempted to do so too. Know yourself well and when you feel like taking that step that 30 others are taking around you and you dont have a reason as to why Me too?, pause a second and tell yourself, You have a right to be different from others. If that doesnt still soothe your nerves, go right ahead and as I said previously exploit the power of peer pressure. It never let me down. On an average my Marketing Batchmates would apply across 4 different sectors and 12 companies for Final Placements. I applied to 2 sectors and 6 companies. 2 of the companies did not even shortlist me. I came out more than fine in the other 4.
Truth be told, Harsha Bhogle says Management is fantastic general education. If you dont try too hard, just let it be and have a smile on your face most of the times you will do great!
Issac M. John a.k.a CATAMANIAC Marketing Management, SPJIMR [email protected]
The eleventh batch of the Post Graduate Programme in Communications Management (PGPCM) of Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (MICA) passed out on Sunday, 2nd April. A total of 61 students received their diplomas from Mr Gerson da Cunha, Chairperson – MICA Governing Council.
The programme was kick-started with Mr Madhukar Kamath, Chairperson – Mudra Foundation Society declaring the convocation open. This was followed by the lighting of the convocation lamp by the Chief Guest, Dr R A Mashelkar.
Dr R A Mashelkar, Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) delivered the convocation address. Dr Mashelkar has won over 40 awards and medals, which include the Padmashri (1991) and Padmabhushan (2000). In his address Dr Mashelkar talked about how the 21st century is an exciting time for being an Indian. According to him, Brand
TAPMI celebrated its 20th Annual Convocation on
Traditionally, the Convocation is graced by distinguished dignitaries from various fields such as education, research and development, industry etc. This year, the Chief Guest for the occasion was Prof. M.G.K. Menon, Chairman, Board of Governers, IIT Delhi. He has had a distinguished career as a scientist and policy maker and has held a number of prominent positions. He is the recipient of prestigious awards such as Padma Bushan and Padma Vibhushan.
The special merit awards were presented by Shri K.K Pai. The award winners are as follows:
Top Three Academic Rank Holders
1 : Mr. Bhaumik K. Bhatia
2 : Ms. Anjana Rajamani
3 : Mr. Pradeep Kr. Aggarwal
Marketing Topper : Ms. Archana Sadana
Finance Topper : Ms. Anjana Rajamani
Overall Finance Topper : Mr. Pradeep Kr. Aggarwal
Dr. S. Dandapani Prize
Overall Topper : Mr. Bhaumik K. Bhatia
Student of the Year : Mr. Ram Prakash B
Prof. M.G.K. Menon then gave the Convocation Address. He spoke about ethics and appreciated TAPMI for inculcating strong moral and ethical values in students. He asked the students not to treat ethics like any other subject. He further spoke about corporate-social responsibility and narrated the story of Amul. He asked the managers of tomorrow to live in sync with the environment and said that there should be sustainable development while taking care of the environmental issues as well. He also explained how happiness can be an appropriate measure of growth of a country.
Assistant Vice President of Evalueserve, addressed MBA Students at IIT Kanpur about KPO. Knowledge Process Outsourcing remains a fairly new concept to most of us. The general perception is that it is the higher-end version of the by-now-famous BPO or Business Process Outsourcing. Mr.Manoj Madhusudanan, Assistant Vice-President, Business Research, Evalueserve International cleared these and many more misconceptions,while delivering a lecture to the MBA Students at IIT Kanpur. Mr.Madhusudanan said that opportunities in KPO are not related to cost arbitrage but rather delivering highly specific and expert solutions to clients worldwide. He further said that the opportunities are specific for
"If you are flexible, it is not at all difficult to move across domains within the industry. Nevertheless you should try to do some coherent domain work, to gain expertise", said Ms. Pooja Raheja, who represented the Enterprise Solutions Unit of Infosys. A senior executive in the Sales and Marketing Department of Enterprise Solutions, she has been associated with Infosys for about 7 years. The objective of the talk was to give an overview of Package Consulting and the role of a management graduate in the field.
Beginning with the explanation on what Package Application is, she went on to explain how Infosys has successfully worked in the arena to become the largest service provider of Customers' Automation requirements. In Infosys, separate learning groups are designed for different Services. For instance, Enterprise Solution, which works for providing Package Application Solutions, has different groups for CRM implementation, ERP implementation and so on. In her words, "Our job is to help customers automate their process with these products and to get them the best possible solution as per their requirement."
She dispelled certain doubts regarding how ERP consulting differs from Package Consulting. Screenshots were used to explain the processes of Package Service Offering, Package Evaluation and Package Implementation. When a question was raised as to whether the organization aligns itself to a particular vendor to provide solutions to customers' problems, the reply was spontaneous: "That's against the company's ethics. It is very important to take care that we do not cling to a vendor, as we are supposed to provide the best solution to our end user, who is our customer. Although there are some unbiased affiliations, we follow Vendor Agnosticism to the core." She also went on to explain why a standard set of rules is needed even though the service is customized.
Ms. Raheja, charmed the audience with her oratory skills and successfully brought the event to its closure.