The program will include a yearlong elective course dedicated to a critical societal issue, and will establish a collaboration between Tuck students and Dartmouth undergraduates performing research and analysis through the new Paganucci Fellows Program.
"As part of Tuck's strategy to offer the world's best leadership education, we are launching this program to better prepare our students to be responsible, engaged business leaders," says Tuck Dean Paul Danos, who conceptualized the program. "This program will be innovative in structure and content, combining cross-disciplinary and experiential learning."
"The course format of the program allows students to spend the fall and early winter studying an issue in the classroom, followed by experiential project-based learning in the late winter and spring. Second, the subject matter for the course will include input from the incoming first-year class and will culminate with second-year course work and projects. Finally, the course will feature Tuck student collaboration with Dartmouth undergraduate research and analysis. Dartmouth students who are awarded Paganucci Fellowships will dedicate a summer to researching and synthesizing information about the issue in question, with the option of continued work at Tuck throughout the following academic year," the release further says.
"The inaugural course, debuting in the 2007-08 school year, will focus on microfinance as a vehicle for alleviating global poverty. Future topics will similarly focus on opportunities for businesses to create both positive social and financial value-the double bottom line," it adds.
The societal leadership program complements Tuck's Allwin Initiative for Corporate Citizenship and the Cohen Leadership Development Program. The Allwin Initiative focuses on the intersection of business and society, where issues of corporate objectives and responsibility, ethics, citizenship, and leadership become paramount. The Cohen Leadership Development Program offers a combination of coursework and coaching designed to bring out students' unique leadership strengths.
The session began with the voice of the institute; the institute song. The anchor, Mr. R.S.S.Mani, an ex faculty, welcomed the audience and introduced the members on the dais ,who were facilitated with bouquets which included the director ,Prof S. Parasuraman, the deputy director, Prof .Usha S.Nayar ,Prof. Armaity S.Desai ,chairperson of the governing board,Mr. R.K.Krishna kumar.Dean of student affairs ,Prof. Nasreen Rustom Fram and the General Secretary of the students union ,Mr. Sanjay Pradhan and the registrar,Mr. Sandeep Chatterjee.
Prof. Usha Nayar addressed the audience greeting them with overwhelming affection. She said that TISS is playing a significant role through research education and influencing the policies towards people centered development. She said that keeping in view of the legacy of the institution, recently the institute has been re structured, re imagined and re-defined in response to the changing needs in the society and in an attempt to address the problems in society and work towards change that reached out to all. Prof. Nasreen Rustomfram then spoke of the genesis of the entire event. The event was a culmination of the efforts made by the institute in the past two years to re connect with its alumni. Its conception occurred with the present students union putting it on the annual agenda and the sustained efforts of a critical mass of student, faculty and administrative staff. She highlighted the expectations from this meet which was to create a forum for a dialogue between the alumni, institute and the students, to set up a process of active participation of the alumni in the future development of the institute, to encourage networking and have an ongoing relationship with them. Sanjaya Pradhan, Gen Sec Students' Union spoke on the occasion about the strengthening of roots that was required for the institute which could do a lot for the students once they pass out.
This was followed by the Director's address in which he spoke about the various new courses that the institute is about to start this year – 2 new M.A. programs and the certification programs in Andaman and Nicobar islands and Ladakh. Prof. Armaity Desai shared her experience with the institute as ex director. Mr. R. K. Krishnakumar spoke of the paradox of the rising prosperous India and the other invisible India, which has turned out to be a social failure .The challenge was to bridge the gap.
A walk down the memory lane followed this with Mrs Grace Mathew re calling her days at TISS as a student. Praseenjit Chatterjee and Dr.Kalyani Sen also shared their experiences with TISS as students.
Mr P Vijayan, VP HR Mahindra Gesco, Dr. Avinash Supe and Ms. Mary D'Souza facilitated post lunch, second plenary session titled TISS-Alumni Interface. The need for alumni contributing in ways other than economical, to the college was stressed. Ms. D'Souza took the session forward by asking the alumni gathered to jot down 2 to 5 areas of concern that they had. Further she asked them to identify the dimensions within each area, which they felt most strongly about. After this exercise was over, the alumni were given a chance to voice their most important concern in public. Ten such concerns came to the fore. The entire lot of people then grouped themselves into 10 groups and brainstormed on a concern and came up with suggestions in terms of what needs to be done and how TISS can do something about it. The increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, electoral reforms, rights of the disabled people, cause of dalits and adivasis were some of the issues that were discussed.
The second day of the Alumni Meet was a school wise meeting of the alumni. The alumni belonging to Schools of social work, personnel management, health studies, lifelong learning and Phd, M.Phil met in separate venues and discussed aspects related to their own schools. In general, alumni gave a feedback of the courses, their content and also discussed what needs to be changed to have a better curriculum in place. Apart from issues related to separate schools, alumni across specializations and schools insisted the importance of being connected. There was a general opinion that the institute website needs to be updated and so was the view that the alumni needs to be updated about the happenings in the institute.
The clock was set at 12:38 pm. All good things must come to end; but not without a resolve that the show will go on and will be much stronger next year. With this note, the valedictory function began with a somber but sure note. Representatives from all the schools spoke about what they had discussed which was followed by Director's address wherein he said that an alumni office would be setup as part of the office of Student Affairs with a full time alumni affairs officer. He also mentioned that a working group would be formed with representatives from each school and that it would be the responsibility of the working group to formulate the rules and regulations and take the process forward. The coordinator of the working groups would be the Dean, Student Affairs. The director appreciated the resolve of the HRM&LR; alumni to raise $5,00, 000. Dr.Parasuraman ended the session by profusely thanking stalwarts like Prof. Meenakshi Apte, Prof. Grace Mathew, Prof. A.M. Sharma and Prof. Rane who took time to visit their alma mater. He further thanked the students for their support and coordination. Prof.Nasreen Rustomfram while giving the vote of thanks acknowledged everybody's efforts including the student coordination team in making this event a grand success.
The EDC will seek to help students from all over India with their business plans and aims to provide a platform for budding entrepreneurs to sell their ideas to venture capitalists.
XLRI is also setting up an incubation cell, which will help young entrepreneurs along with a Social Entrepreneurs Trust (SET) set up by alumni which will identify and provide angel capital for start ups.
Dr Kandeh Yumkella, in his inspiring talk to students, spoke about his experiences right from his undergraduate days in Sierra Leone, his study at Cornell University right to the trying experiences of elections for the Director General of UNIDO. Recollecting his college days, Dr Kandeh Yumkella was nostalgic and spoke at length about entrepreneurship and how he views an entrepreneur as an agent bringing about change for the better. His short visit to India, where he is scheduled to meet the Prime Minister and other ministers, is for strengthening Afro- Indian relations and he spoke with glowing praise about India's poverty alleviation programs. He was also full of praise for the recently concluded Tata- Corus deal and said that it was time India took its rightful place in the skies.
The bank won the honor in recognition of its strategic initiative to leverage Bank of Baroda's brand equity signaling the recognition of new business paradigms in a globalized world, staying in touch with their heritage and enduring relationships on which their bank is founded. By adopting a symbol as simple and powerful as the Baroda Sun, they have managed to communicate both.
The much-celebrated SMIAs were presented during the Symposium on Marketing Impact and Effectiveness, organized by S.P. Jain Institute on Saturday, February 10, 2007 in Mumbai, which was attended by the top corporate czars from the world of business. The Bank of Baroda team was selected by the distinguished Jury panel comprising of distinguished leaders from industry and academia awarded the SMIA 2007 Trophy and a cash prize of Rs 75,000/-. The runners up from ITC were awarded a cash prize of Rs 45,000/-. All short-listed entries will be compiled into an annual SPJIMR publication.
This pioneering initiative of presenting marketing awards was instituted by S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, the top management institute in the country, and is a prestigious annual event, for showcasing the effectiveness of marketing success stories in India. Some of the major criteria for determining the winner were the nature of challenge, competitive framework, the marketing solution and initiative, scale of operations, difficulty in implementation and the overall marketing impact and effectiveness. Participation for the SMIA 2007 was open to corporates, public sector and non-government organizations. Last year, Tata Steel won the SMIA for its path-breaking 'Redefining Retail of Steel' paper.
Previous SMIA award winning papers include 'The Apollo Clinic' by Apollo Health & Lifestyle Ltd. In 2005, 'Balbir Pasha: Reducing Aids Prevalence' by PSI & Lowe in 2005 and 'Redefining Retail of Steel' by Tata Steel in 2006. This year the list of entries were 'Akanksha Art Workshops: A Unique Marketing Initiative', 'Bank of Baroda: Rebranding Strategy', HCL Technologies' 'Enabling Organisational Transformation' and ITC's 'Weather Insurance- Derivatives Marketing.'
The Jury panels in the last two years included eminent personalities like Mr. Santosh Desai (McCann Ericsson), Mr. Kal Sundaram (GSK), Mr.Pranesh Misra (COO, Lintas India), Mr. Harish Bijoor (Consultant), Prof. Abraham Koshy (Marketing Professor, IIM Ahmedabad), Prof. Kulkarni (SPJIMR), Mr.Thomas Puliyel (President, IMRB), Mr. Bhaskar Das (Bennett Coleman & Co.), Prof. Sharad Sarin (XLRI), Mr. Partha Rakshit (ACNielsen ORG-MARG), Mr.Ramesh Thomas (Equitor), Prof. Harsh Mohan (SPJIMR), and Prof. M.S.Rao (SPJIMR) among others.
The day-long event began with the lighting of the lamp by Mr. Kiran Khalap of Chorophyll, Mr. Nehal Medh of Ipsos, Mr. Ranjiv Singh of Microsoft, the Director of SPJIMR, Dr. Rajan Saxena and Prof Ruppal Sharma of SPJIMR. Speaking during the inaugural address the Director, Dr. Saxena emphasized on the evolving significance of marketing effectiveness. Mr. Kiran Khalap, CEO, CFO, Chlorophyll spoke at length about the future of branding and role of marketing and the transition of branding from the 19 th century branding of trade marking and ownership to the 20th century branding revolving around advertising.
Commenting on some of the recent uses of advertising in branding, namely Coke and the Blind Test, Mr Khalap spoke about the Research and Society for the Real Thing formed in 1985 by Coke and the concept of 'Brand ownership' being passed on to the consumer. He said that the product might belong to the manufacturer but the psychological owner is the consumer. Yet another important example of branding was the one adopted by Sahara Airlines and the successful 'Emotionally Yours' tag line.
Mr Khalap said that for the 21st century, branding will be equated to 'keeping a promise': a pact, with all the stakeholders; something that remains unchanged with time and today a brand is owned by the manufacturer as well as the stakeholders. He also spoke about the true meaning of Brand loyalty being the loyalty of the product or rather the loyalty of the brand to itself. Other examples that he used to illustrate this role of branding included that of Body Shop, Zara's Democratization of Fashion strategy, Barista, Starbucks, Abbey Bank and Cadbury's 'Taste of Life' Campaign
In the 21st century, all brands will be Corporate Brands because of the 'I Age' of Information, Internet, Interactivity, Internationalism and Instantaneity and the role of Marketing has evolved to keep promises made to all stakeholders involved. Some of the challenges include risk of employee non-alignment, societal non-alignment, marketing non-alignment, investor non-alignment, trader non-alignment and competition non-alignment.
Speaking at the conclave Mr. Nehal Medh, India Manager, Ipsos(India) Pvt Ltd said that it was the consumers, who own brands. The consumer has been impacted by many factors and measuring impact of marketing has gained center stage. The tools of the trade include mixing of element specific measurements and marketing mix concepts. Element specific measurements, Pre and post measurements like brand awareness and existing in customer consideration set needs to be considered.
He also spoke about the need to focus on marketing audit with the use of strategic reviews and marketing financials review. The importance of quality, differentiation, value and advertising to impact and create customer pull and operating push has continued to remain in the forefront. The need is for creating customer pull using price, distribution and promotions operating push strategies to convert into brand sales. Measuring the marketing impact is very necessary but very difficult to measure because of the changing business environment, changing customers and blurred boundaries of business decision making.
Mr. Ranjiv Singh, CMO, Microsoft, spoke about the 'Umbrella campaign of People ready business' where people drive business and successfully amplify their impact and companies then improve business results. He said that the need is for conversion of greater visibility into the effectiveness, more accountability through objective based measurement and better aligned marketing disciplines, processes and tools. End customers actions are getting more and more important now a days and companies will have to create more holistic way of acquiring customers by integrated marketing communication process and then measuring the success of the campaigns through devices like campaign response management and sales.
Prof Ruppal Sharma, Asst professor, SPJIMR said that demonstrating impact through marketing and the growing need of measuring marketing effectiveness should be the focus. One of the most pressing issues is the market valuation of the companies by the intangible assets like patents and the challenge of ROI marketing. Companies need to understand how their action of increasing customer loyalty has increased their profitability. ROI is more beneficial if u are comparing more matured markets and the impact marketing should concentrate on value creation. The focus should move to sales and market shares, which is intend to impact margins, working capital and cash flows. Metrics apply to marketing coz analytics evolving rapidly.
The Panel Discussion comprised of Mr. Mithileshwar Jha, Mr. Ranjiv Singh, Mr. Nehal Medh and Prof. Ruppal Sharma revolved around making marketing accountable and demonstrating marketing impact. Mr Jha spoke of seeing marketing as a function of philosophy and discussed the two major roles of marketing, which are to raise aspiration levels and to target and position products and ensure availability. Problem with traditional marketing is that there is a discord between happiness and consumption and the happiness scale has nothing to do with the per capita income of the nation. The focus should not just be on return on investment but there should be a new paradigm of marketing called the developmental marketing where the interest is human happiness.
India is a very exciting market and the budgeting and allocation of extra money to campaigns will depend on the fundamentals of the kind of explorations and design and not gut feel or instinct. In terms of return on investment there are two aspects of impact and efficiency and both are important. There are tools to create impact and measure efficiency and the difference is created by the passion, which is an essential element. Companies are getting more responsible about effective marketing but there is an emphasis to make business sense ensuring that the advertising expenditure translates to monetary returns. Altruistic and spiritual beliefs are still not applicable in the business scenario and the bottom line continues to be profit for companies.
The point that emerged from the enlightening discussion was that the metric should be used is the lifetime value to the customer. The marketing department is just a trustee of customer and not the target achiever, as the customer has become more informed and marketers don't really have a choice. The pertinent question is whether the stakeholders are given enough metrics to judge how efficiently the companies are using the money for marketing. Market share and customer satisfaction are the two metrics that are being used, and others include employee satisfaction, CSR and Strategic review of every aspect of marketing exercise. There is a greater need for accountability and transparency in organizations. The kind of tools available makes it possible to deal with the complexity of the task at hand. Since it is at large scale hence it cannot be done manually. Marketers should try to reduce the elephant tusk syndrome, ensuring that there is no discrepancy between what they say and what they do to inculcate faith and trust. It is important to be honest and upfront and that there are trade offs that have to be considered.
On his visit to SPJIMR, he delivered a talk on the same. The following is the summary of his talk to the students.
Mr. Nemeth started the lecture by sharing his perspectives on IT revolution over the years. He said that the first phase marked a missionary zeal among the IT services organizations to convince clients about the proofs of concepts. They were getting the work that used to be done by independent vendors. They were typically harvesting the low hanging fruits in their domain of work. This first phase of IT revolution is over. Currently we are at the start of the second phase of IT revolution. The question in the minds of the clients these days is how to get strategic leverage out of the offerings from companies like CTS.
Second revolution is going to be counterintuitive, said Mr. Nemeth. Over the last 10 years the objective of outsourcing has been to save money. This is akin to dieting for the sake of reducing one's grocery bill. A good outsourcing program achieves strategic objectives. Labor cost arbitrage is only a minor part of the contribution. Today the big ticket deals are in the area of rationalizing application portfolio for the client. We need to tell the client what applications can be pruned, upgraded and also advice them regarding the inclusion of strategic applications. Clients need partners to transform the business by applying technical and business skills. Billing rates only reflect our unit costs but the customer cost is known only after the project is completed. So billing rates are not costs, Performance is. No Cost Benefit Analysis can be done if the business value of the IT solutions is not known upfront. We need to increase the performance and there need not be a decrease in billing rates.
We are moving from what are currently pure services offering to a mixed services offering. The services are offered as a continuum. CRISP is an initiative where multiple companies come together to solve major problems in the Insurance industry. As regards the regulatory barriers, IT services firms face licensing requirements problems in only couple of states in the US. It is not a good idea to outsource your core competency. There is a gap between the strategy space and the implementation phase. CTS offers to bridge that gap. Speaking about the value of a deliverable, Mr. Nemeth observed an objective solution is of a lesser value if it is eventually not implementable. Corporate memory is preserved in the minds of the employees. Mr. Nemeth recounted Mr. Narayan Murthy's words “My company's equity becomes zero when my employees go back to their homes in the evening”. He added that this illustrates the criticality of human resource capital for a company. Having said this, he pointed out that professionals with business skills are the ones who are going to herald this second phase of IT revolution. Currently in CTS, 1000 out of 40000 employees are MBAs. This number, he said, will be going northward in the years to come.
She felt one should make the right decisions without fearing consequences. After playing her interview to “Hard Talk” on BBC, she stressed on the importance of planning one's career, self-introspection and always being aware of where one is headed. Further she said, one should constantly update and upgrade oneself with personal and professional training.
“Ribandar Talks” is a series of lectures by eminent personalities initiated by the students of Goa Institute of Management. This has become an annual feature at GIM and is a platform for interaction between Industry and the Institute. It has helped in establishing a real time relationship between industry bigwigs and would be managers and entrepreneurs of tomorrow who would be leading the nation in its quest for sustainable development in all fields. This forum also helps the speakers to be exposed to questions from fresh minds of the student community, opening them to the diverse perspectives.
The list of the eminent personalities who addressed the students of GIM and the range of areas covered is impressive. . Speakers who visited GIM recently are Mr. J P Singh- Chief Secretary of Goa, Mr. Cajetan Vaz- National Creative Director-Everest Brand Solutions, Mr. Sandeep Dasgupta, CEO - Deutche MF, Mr. Amitabh Chaturvedi, Group President - Reliance Capital, Mr. Proshanto Banerjee , Ex – CMD GAIL, Mr. Jatinder (Jeet) N.D. Gupta - University of Alabama Huntsville USA.
The salient features of MoU:
1. Facilitate faculty exchange
2. Facilitate student exchange
3. Promote joint research on mutually agreed international subjects
4. Organise joint International conference on the subjects of global impoartance
In the future, the two also plan to tie up for a joint degree in executive education programs.
Speaking on the occasion, Father Casimir Raj said that this was the third MoU signed by XLRI in the past two months after RMIT and Victoria University of Australia. These go a long way in establishing long term relationship and would aid in providing the students an international exposure in today's globalised world.
IIFTians are the most sought-after in the corporate world today as they have over the years demonstrated strong analytical skills, strategic thinking and breadth of knowledge to hit the ground running in any industry.
This has been reaffirmed in the Final Placements of the batch of 2005-07. More than 80 companies agreed to participate in the process to recruit a batch of 115 students, with students landing plum offers from the crème de la crème of 41 recruiters.
Lehman Brothers, UBS, DTZ, Citigroup, Standard Chartered, Yes Bank were the prominent recruiters in the Banking and Financial Services domain. The Marketing arena was represented by companies like Bharti, Colgate-Palmolive, ITC, Nestle, SAB Miller, Glenmark and many more. Olam International and Backes & Strauss made international offers apart from offers from Australian Wheat Board for their Trading operations. The booming IT/ITeS sector was represented by Accenture, IBM, Cognizant, and Infosys among others. Placements 2007 have been unrivalled in the history of the institute.
The placement day started with less than the full strength, as 20 pc of the batch had already received pre-placement offers well before the placement week started. With the recruiters including companies from sectors such as FMCG, banking, consulting, trading, IT, pharmaceutical, trading and logistics, the average package offered this year was INR 9.3 Lakhs.
The highest international offer was $100,000 while highest domestic offer was of INR 19.2 lakhs
Summer placements at IIFT (Delhi & Kolkata)
The Summer Placement process for the batch of 2006-08 was a resounding success and set a positive and ambitious tone for all placement activities that were to follow. 153 students (93 in Delhi and 60 in Kolkata) were placed in diverse sectors across FMCG, Consulting, Banking and Financial Services, Trading, Pharmaceutical, IT & ITES and Advertising.
An indicator of the growing confidence in IIFT is the list of new recruiters which included the league of HSBC, Cadbury, GE Money, SAB Miller, SAP Value Engineering, Max New York Life, Avalon Consultancy and NCDEX, amongst many others.
Students will be pursuing their internship at revered organizations like American Express, Merrill Lynch and Price Waterhouse Coopers. Regular recruiters like HLL, Colgate Palmolive, ITC, Glenmark, Australian Wheat Board, Dabur, Nestle, Coca Cola, ICICI Bank, UTI and Genpact reaffirmed their association with the institute.
The IT sector was well represented by majors including Cognizant Technology Solutions, KPIT Cummins, US Technologies, Wipro and others.
The remarkable growth in both the number of companies and the diversity of profiles bears testimony to the confidence reposed in the institute by India Inc.
Dr. B. S Sahay (Director, IMT Ghaziabad) re-emphasized the need of sports and added that it wasn't winning alone but the spirit of sportsmanship that such events fostered that was of paramount importance.
The 3 day event sponsored by Omaxe, Gold Souk and Radio Mirchi saw the future corporate warriors competing against each other in a plethora of events ranging from outdoor ones like Athletics, Football, Cricket, Badminton, Basketball and Volley Ball to indoor events like Table Tennis, Chess and Carrom to name a few. The event was peppered with informal events like the Tug of War and the Talent Night that added to the fun filled adrenaline pumping package!
Ace golfer Jyoti Randhawa graced the event and congratulated the host college for organizing a sporting event of such magnitude and abuzz with such palpable levels of energy and enthusiasm. He exhorted the participants to carry the same passion to the field as well. A first year student of IMT Ghaziabad, Rahul Sharma, says, “Chakravyuh is not just about sports. It is a perfect blend of strategy and team work that brings out the true spirit of sportsmanship in a Leader.”
Prasun Kundu, another first year student of IMT Ghaziabad, says “Academic excellence is not the only thing for corporate managers in the making. Events like Chakravyuh give one the opportunity to get a break from one's busy life, and work upon an all round personality development through sports.”
The much awaited results saw IMT, Ghaziabad's team emerge as the overall winners. Other teams that won individual events were Amity Delhi, Nirma, Fore and Mica.
The session commenced with a preface on the current perspectives in Intercultural Management. Being very apt to the ambience, the professor linked cross-cultural management to the field of Marketing & Finance. Prof. Benz was able to steer the discussion from the view of understanding culture to using the same understanding in marketing to different nationalities.
Certain aspects of differing nationalities were brought about. For instance, the Germans lay a lot of emphasis on past relationships and are very personalized people. The familiarity of this is employed by marketers in promoting their product on the basis of past examples of their work.
On the other hand, the North Americans are a diverse race. They prefer looking at the future. The marketing strategy can be customized to suit this thinking. The students were made aware of the cultural differences existing in different parts of the world and the various reasons for the same.
Speaking from her experience of working with Arthur D Little, as a consultant Professor Benz made the gathering of budding managers, cognizant of the Tool Box, which she had developed.
The toolbox is a system comprising of tools and techniques in cultural analysis. It enables the use of grasping culture and application of the same in business. The whole gathering was sprinkled with interesting anecdotes from her experiences in different countries across the planet.
The discussion was guided from culture to management and back in a very subtle fashion so as to sensitize the students on the merits of integrating both the aspects.
The essence of the session was that culture is an amalgamation of Values, Beliefs and Standards. It was indisputably a session, which made the students more equipped to work in a global business environment.
Education, corruption in politics, languages, reservation and governance were among the topics he discussed with the students. “Government should set standards for education and not run educational institutions”, is what he opined. Increase in number of colleges, but availability of good teachers is the major problem. The reason why NGOs like Art of Living who have schools across the country has been successful in retaining teachers is because of commitment to the work the volunteers have.
Talking about infrastructure, he said Indian economy is a fastest growing economy that too without any infrastructure. The growth will be faster if our infrastructure is taken care of. Also, defining inflation he said, it hits the poor and not the rich. But inflation is good; it is like a little love affair for a girl, too much of love affair is bad. He added that development is what makes India lag behind in being the superpower. Even the answer to poverty is development and development is brought about only by knowledge.
Talking to the students to become future leaders he insisted on 6 things viz Dharma, My country right or wrong, Excellence, Nirbhay, Sahanubhuti and Tyaga. He told them the best way to inculcate ethics is to practice it. He exhorted the students to think for themselves and reiterated that the only way to be entrepreneurial was to be creative.
Earlier, on the previous day, SSIMS had organized a public talk at N.D Naik Hall (Adarsh High School), Margao on the topic "India: Today and tomorrow". He left the audience astounded with his thought-provoking and powerful speech. This is one old man who, if given an opportunity can shake the entire political system.
Knowledge can be obtained from various sources, he said, adding that he personally found the Bhagwad Gita to be an immense source of managerial wisdom.
Mr. Suresh Rohira detailed about the recent developments and updates on SEZs, giving relevant figures and examples. Mr.C.S. Gokhale, who supported SEZs said, “Yes, SEZs are in troubled waters, but should we not learn to fish in those?” He delved into historical background and quoted Ding's philosophy of treating SEZs as laboratory of carrying an experiment of state capitalism at a least social cost. Later on Mr. P.S. Raman interpreted the various legal frameworks devised by government for SEZs. Mr. Madan Sabnavis questioned the whole purpose of SEZs and highlighted the risks associated with overdependence on export oriented economy. Ms. S. Gayatri dwelt upon relevance of Offshore Banking and IFSCs in line to SEZs. Mr. Arun Giri, having a profound understanding of subject guided the whole deliberation well. The discussion ended with a consensus that SEZs are still in the evolution stage and the best we can do is to plug the loopholes as and when they are discovered.
"The idea is to capture the mood and sentiments of cricket fans and translate them into numbers which will be reflected by stock-prices "informed Rahul Roushan, final year student of postgraduate programme of IIMAand one of the developers of the website. Currently the website has issued IPO (Initial Public Offering) of all the international cricketers oftest-playing countries. A person gets one million of virtual cash as soon as he registers with the website and he can use that money to buy shares of anynumber of these cricketers. He has to bid within a specified price range for buying the shares of different cricketers.
"Currently it's just 20 pc of the website that is up with the IPO. Shares would be allocated to bidders immediately after the opening ceremony of the World Cup. The rest of the site will also be launched then, which will include trading features, discussion forums, news, profiles of cricketers etc." said Karthik Laxman, another final year student of IIMA who is associated with the website. The website has attracted hundreds ofregistered users within a couple of days of launching. People have registered from different cities of India and even from countries like Pakistan, England, Australia, USA et al. and the numbers are growing as more people are learning about it.
"It's also a fun way to learn how a stock exchange functions. You will get dividends based upon how your stock-companies or your cricketers perform on field, and you can earn capital gains by selling shares of high performing cricketers" Karthink added. All these functions would be available oncesecondary market opens. Right now people can register and bid in the IPO to get the shares of their favorite cricketers.
The team comprises of Rahul Roushan, Karthik Laxman, Siddartha Murlidharan (all of them final year MBA students of IIM Ahmedabad), and Mitanshu Garg (3rd year student of IIT Roorkee). Kaushik M (computer science alumnus for BITS, Pilani, and currently working as a software professional) gave valuable inputs to professionalize the website.
The team expects the website to attract both cricket lovers and people who want to learn about basics of stock market. We are thinking about adding other cricketing parallels from real stock exchange like Mutual Funds, Options and Futures etc, once the website attracts enough dedicated users and the World Cup is over. One can learn these complex tools in a fun was with the help of cricket. But for the duration of World Cup, only simple trading of shares will take place.
More about functioning of the website can be known from http://www.cricstock.com/faq.htm
The series began with the words of inspiration from Mr. Pramod Chaudhuri, Chairman, Praj Industries, Pune. He said that a practical approach towards life has always helped him to overcome the dissonances arising out of ethical issues.
Mr. Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Industries Ltd also gave special insight as to how he saw the Indian economy evolved through decades, to where it stands today.
Mr. Vijay Mahajan Chairman,, BASIX India had several insights into a leader's role. He said that one doesn't have to lead a profit making conventional organization to be hailed as a leader. Leadership is as much about following one's convictions as it is about inspiring others.
Mr. Uday Kotak, Vice-Chairman & Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank, is a firm believer in ethics and value system. Commenting on the current Indian scenario, Mr. Kotak stated that the Indians believe in incremental thinking. They should move towards aspirational thinking and to do that, more emphasis should be laid upon execution of plans.
Dr. Ashok Ganguly, Chairman, ICICI One Source Limited., Former Director Of Unilever Plc, Former Chairman, HLL Ltd., shared 3 things which according to his experiences were useful for any career in life. Firstly, he said that opportunity to learn should always be given. Secondly, one should accept that he doesn't know, if he doesn't know something. Thirdly, qualities like being thrilled about doing any work, even if the results are not immediately visible, or the goal has not been accomplished, is rare to find.
The session with Ms. Naina Lal Kidwai, Chief Executive Officer, HSBC(India), was a stone apart from the other sessions. When asked about the challenges she faced as a woman, she expressed her concern that women often have self imposed glass ceilings and they don't believe they can rise up. It's often not the organization that's hindering their success.
The telecom tycoon Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel Limited, also told the students about how he had started from scratch and has risen to the heights today. He told how innovative thinking and believing in one's thoughts brought him a long way, and made him stand apart in the crowd.
Mr. Narayan Vaghul, Chairman, ICICI Bank, with 50 years of experience in the Financial Sector can easily be termed as the Bheeshma Pitamah of the Banking and Financial Services Industry. Even with a host of achievements under his cap, he enthralled the audience with his simplicity and words of wisdom. According to Mr. Vaghul leadership and vision is about foreseeing the future before others. He gave example of people like Sunil Mittal has who saw the future so clearly a decade ago.
Mr. Jamshyd Godrej , Chairman, Godrej & Boyce Co. Ltd attributed his inheritance for giving him an opportunity to lead a mammoth organization like Godrej & Boyce. Recollecting his early days, he remarked that he had learned a lot from his father and that too in a very interesting way. According to him, theoretical learning must always be coupled with practical insights either through projects or industrial trips, to render learning process effective.
But the awe-inspiring remark came from Dr. Kiran Bedi, IPS, Director General , Bureau of Police Research and Training. Within 5 minutes of the session, the audience had got mesmerized. She unfolded a very different aspect needed for rising up the ladder. She said that though focus towards goal is needed, it shouldn't be overdone to the extent that we forget to enjoy. In the din and bustle of the world and our race to reach the top, we should give some time to ourselves always, to know where we stand, where we are going and how right it is for us.
Besides the insight that the series gave the students into how a leader emerges from the troughs of life, the biggest learning that came through was that a leader is one who never loses hope, and fights it out till the end. And more than any books and theories, it is the zeal within, the power to think beyond and the spirit to pursue it in all circumstances, what carves the real niche for a leader.
The essence of this event is that the teams do a need gap analysis, understand the pulse of market, meet the manufacturers and create a saleable prototype of the product. This will provide students with a unique exposure to real life business experience of creating a new entrepreneurial venture.
The first round of the game held on February 24, 2007 saw six teams competing for the coveted title of “Product Innovator”. The teams came up with innovative ideas and business plan including a laptop charger converter, steam based cleaner and a flavored straw. Ms. Purvi Sheth, a renowned entrepreneur and a leading HR consultant, along with respected college faculty members judged the event. The panel was overwhelmed with the teams' “out-of-the-box ideas”.
Subsequent to the game, to provide entrepreneurial insights to students and hone their business skills, E-Cell conducted a workshop “Mastering a Perfect Business Plan”, which focused on idea generation and execution. The workshop was followed by a lecture from Mr. Rajesh Jog, a venture capitalist and founder of Waygate Capital. He gave students a holistic perspective on how a venture capitalist would evaluate and fund business proposals.
The quintessential quality for becoming a successful entrepreneur is to think out of box and innovate. E-Cell, JBIMS believes that this event will develop in students the ability to understand market dynamics and effectively convert opportunities into feasible business propositions.
Most of the business incubators in India have been set up by educational institutions, the first being set up National Institute of Technology, (NIT) Trichy. The objectives of a business incubator include supporting new ventures, technological development involved in these ventures, thus leading to contributions to the tech world as such, and industrial development, as many of these projects are in varied areas across industries. The also impart technical and management skills to entrepreneurs and assist in the dissemination and replication of discoveries to other new businesses, to help enhance productivity and growth. “A business incubator,” remarked Shri Jawahar aimed at, in essence, “promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and technology”.
STEP-TREK has sponsored over 161 ventures in 12 years, of which the ten most successful ones are worth over Rs 300 crores and have created over 140000 jobs.
A business incubator contributes in more than obvious ways. “Each rupee invested in a business incubator, pays back four times to the government in five to seven years and is expected to grow manifold.” cited Shri Jawahar as an illustration. Business incubators create jobs through new endeavors and encourage all social classes, thus leading to regional development. They also create investment in infrastructure, essential for any development. New products and projects are discovered, through these enterprises, thus crossing the innovation barriers.
In spirit, an entrepreneur gains invaluable exposure, experience and insights through a business incubator. But practically, records show that the mortality rate of new ventures inside is a business incubator is 20 pc, whereas outside its as high at 70pc.
A valuable address on the role of business incubators, one that provided information and insight to many budding entrepreneurs here.
India is a country of great potential, but the factor that holds individuals back is the risk factor, which discourages them from following up on their ideas. Successful entrepreneurs possess certain qualities that enable them to handle all that comes their way. Entrepreneurs manage risk, Shri Mittal said, taking risks that they can afford, and can handle. This is known as taking calculated risks.
They also have a positive self concept and a need to achieve that spurs them to greater and newer heights. But the question raised was, can this need to achieve be built in individuals ? And the answer given was, that yes, it can, through correct training and counseling. Entrepreneurs, more importantly, are open to and learn from feedback, which enables them to initiate corrective action, in time, if needed. Persons possess three characteristics when related to problems. They are problem identification, problem solving and avoiding. The first two should be built upon.
He concluded by stating that the encouraging fact is that the scenario in India is now changing, with people taking up entrepreneurship rather than jobs. An address that led many people to recognize the traits that they need to develop to fulfill their dream of becoming entrepreneurs in the future.
Thus after direct sales with “Mandi”, the Management Batch of 2008 once again took to the streets with the Dabbawalas to explore the whole gamut of business experiences viz. Team work, Time management, Innovation, CRM, Logistics and Supply Chain Management and Human Resource management.
The idea was to provide a unique platform for recognizing excellence in the field of Logistics and getting hands on learning of the Design, Strategy and Networking fundamentals from the best in business- The Dabbawalas.
The field workshop entailed - Careful observation and engagement in the following activities by the students:
· Sorting out the dabbas based on the coding system
· Carrying the dabbas to the point of the delivery
· Actual delivery of the Dabba; Collecting the returned Dabbas from the consumers
· Back Sorting of the Returned Dabbas
This symbiotic programme provided the Mumbai Dabbawalas professional consulting by NITIE students and proved a practical case study of successful logistical networking thus streamlining the students' theoretical knowledge.
As Killi Chandrashekhar, a management student, put it, “A lot of things are easier said than done. So we decided to do it. A lot has been said and spoken about the Dabbawalas; we decided to go through their daily routine.”
Using a zoning system approach with several teams supervised by their very own “Mukadam”, the men-at-arms use the city's best resource, the local trains in the delivery process.
Over the past 115 years, the largely illiterate, able bodied members of The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association continue to weave through the crowded roads of Mumbai City, delivering close to 2 lakh lunch boxes to office-goers and school children, and returning the empty boxes to where they came from, daily.
As one of them related to us in Marathi, “You have a mobile fone? You can book your dabba through SMS.”
To remain current in this ever-changing environment, they have launched a web site, although they firmly advocate their aim to keep operational costs low.
The President of the Dabbawalla Association said, “We are proud to be associated with a Management Institute of NITIE's stature. The recognition that we get from the academicians and Students goes a long way in reinforcing our belief in our system”.
Dr. S.D. Awale, Director NITIE and many of our faculties including Dr. Amitabh De, Dr. T.Prasad, Prof. MuthuKrishnan and Dr. Sachin Kamble attended the Program. Dr. S.D. Awale advised the dabbawallas on Techno-managerial aspects of the business. Dr. Amitabh De, who specializes in Ergonomics, carried out a survey aiming to find out the nature of the fatigue faced by dabbawallas during their job. Prof. MuthuKrishnan suggested improvements in Logistics and Dr. Kamble, who teaches Marketing, gave some fine tips on Customer Orientation.
While their delivery model mimics the Just-in–Time management system, their motivation still remains unparalleled. Each Dabbawalla, a “shareholder” in the Association earning an average of Rs 5,000/- per month, attributes his drive a deep-seated belief that no individual he serviced would go hungry on any working day.
As many students subsequently related “Execution was the sole objective in the Dabbawalas delivery method. It makes one realize how respect for work can help realize the importance of 'Tacit' Knowledge in creating Excellence.” Students learned the nuances of the System by listening to both the points of view: the Dabbawallas and their Customers.
The most conspicuous and endearing aspect of the event was to see the number of men folk seated in the audience cheering and supporting their women counterparts through out the function!
The eminent speakers for the event were.
M/s Rajshree Pathy - Chairman, Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals Limited, Coimbatore. In her inspiring speech she articulated about how meticulously a woman plays different roles in her life and does justice to each of them. This successful lady ended her speech with this quote “Never limit yourself because of others limited imagination and never limit others because of your imagination “. M/S Kani Mozhi - A prominent writer for the Tamil edition of 'India Today' and magazines catering to women segment in her speech without any ambiguity and with full assertiveness envisaged the paradigm shift where a woman has become her own bread winner.
Ms Sarada Ramani - – Founder, Computers International and recipient of “Best Women Entrepreneur – 2004 inspired the audience with her unique non conventional success story that lifted their spirits with a feeling of “Yes I can” echoing in their minds.
Ms Rekha Shetty - Popularly called the corporate doctor, is the founder of the well known brand "Minds power". With her inherent gift of gab, she redefined success as making a difference and creating a magic circle for everything around to flourish and grow! The metaphor of women being addressed as shock absorbers captivated the interest of the audience .
Dr P Manorama - Founder of Chennai's Community Health Education Society (CHES). She transported the audience to a different plane by expressing the trauma undergone by people affected with HIV Aids. She planted the seeds of responsibility in the hearts of the audience to make a difference in their lives
M/s Ranjini Reddy -An engineer by profession was the pioneer in starting a software training company. In her eloquent speech, she spoke about how women are proving their mettle in multifarious fields and are emerging successfully.
Dr Prithika Chary - Director of EPICENTTRE and neurosurgeon at Apollo Hospitals Consultant Neurologist, Apollo Hospital, reinforced the powerful feel of being a woman, in her thought provoking speech.
In a nut shell the event kindled the buoyancy of spirit of the audience and charged them with full zeal to embark on their journey with the conviction of “I think therefore I can .“
The International Women's Day was indeed celebrated with a vibrance interwoven into the function by the rewarding rich experiences shared by the celebrities. Indeed it was a SWIM “with the tide as well as against the Tide” for the Great Lakers with bubbles of enthusiasm brimming and swinging the audience.
Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, Youth Affairs& Sports and Development of North Eastern Region was the Key Note Speaker. Since he was not able to come; his speech was delivered through a video recording. A Panel Discussion on 'Business Strategies for Inclusive Growth' was also held as a part of this event. Meenakshi Datta Ghosh, Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, GoI and V Ramchandiran, Chairman, Helios & Matheson spoke during the Inaugural Session.
Talking about the ISB's role as a mentor, Dr V Chandrasekar, Executive Director, Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurial Development said, “The ISB has been a full-fledged mentor to all competing teams, both from India and other Asian countries. Over the last two years, we have seen a significant improvement in the number and quality of social projects presented at the competition.
Many of the teams mentored by us in the last two years have won various types of resource support and are currently being implemented to make a difference in the world outside. This indicates that we have been fairly successful in sensitizing students to look at social ventures with a business perspective,”
The purpose of the GSVC is to actively support and promote the creation and growth of successful social ventures around the world. It strives to elevate the visibility for the field along with the quality and quantity of new ventures. Each year, GSVC rewards a number of social ventures that are most likely to succeed in accomplishing their financial and social missions. GSVC also works to educate and increase the pool of leaders who can start and grow social ventures.
This year's short listed plans have a very interesting mix of social plans such as ventures for renewable energy-based community kitchens; enhancing plant and vegetable seed growth using a patented technology; improvement of socio-economic status of artisans; increasing awareness and empowering rural communities etc. The panel of judges comprises representatives from several eminent venture capital funds and faculty drawn from the partner B-Schools.
This competition offers an opportunity for managers, investors and executives to acquaint themselves with highly promising social venture ideas and meet some of the most talented and creative social entrepreneurs of the future. The plans are evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Criticality of the problem
- Uniqueness / attractiveness of the solution proposed
- Feasibility of implementation of the solution
- Profitability of operations
- Social benefits for the target segment(s)
- Social indicators identified and their relevance
- Social return on investment
The GSVC began in 1999 and is a student-led initiative pioneered by the Haas School of Business, Columbia Business School, and the London Business School. The Indian School of Business (ISB) is a full partner – with responsibility of promoting the competition in business schools in Asia, mentoring the teams, and holding the Asia semi-final round. The Chennai-based, Helios & Matheson is this year's corporate partner.