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173
The committee at IIT Kanpur organized an interactive session on “FMCG Sales and Distribution Channels in India”. Students across various disciplines including MBA, M.Tech. and B.Tech. attended the session.

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.
174

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.

A lot of students decide on the schedule but don't have a fixed time for their CAT preparation. Result, if a friend asks them for a 6-9 movie in the evening they are always game. On the other hand some students will make it a part of their lifestyle so if they have allotted the 7-8 am and the 5-8 pm slot for the CAT then they are never available during that time. Before I move on to the main focus of today's article, let me make one final point.

We know that a lot of CAT takers are taking the CAT the second or third time. Now if a student prepares consistently and God forbid, does not get through, at least he or she will know that the CAT is beyond reach. But if you are insecure about your preparation and then you do not get through, you simply tell yourself, “Of course, fault mera hai, I didn't prepare for it properly. I will take it again and now prepare properly.” So you waste another year of your life trying to find out whether your best is enough for the CAT or not. Don't waste that year let your CAT 2006 be your best and the final preparation for CAT.

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 UK writes:
"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...

Para 1: Cancer should be seen differently.

Para 2: Medicine works on logic, but world is interconnected and logic is applied only on parts. So medicine doesn't work.

Para 3: World is mostly energy and world is changing the way we perceive things.

Para 4: We are regulated energy, disease is disruption.

Para 5: Modern science explains things at another level. Medicine hasn't changed.

Para 6: Our medical systems medieval not modern.

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:

Science

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



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175

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 India, a US based MNC.

Mr. Anang, a veteran in the field, with a vast experience of 15 years, started his journey with AC Nielson. Then he changed over to Synovate India. The speaker gave the students some deep insights of the concepts, giving illustrations from his live projects.

The speaker, whose core area of research has been automobiles, discussed about the upcoming Market Research industry in India. Commencing his session with few basic definitions Mr. Anang emphasized upon the significance of Qualitative Research and highlighted the contrast against a Quantitative study. Then he described the basic steps in any such research, constituting the rudimentary framework. This was followed by a detailed account of every step, taking a 'soon to be launched' mid sized car as the target of the study. That was enough to fuel the thoughts of the potential researchers. The session became all the more interesting, as the 'would be managers' started exercising their grey cells and the discussion stretched to as far as advertising, celebrity endorsement, brand failures and similar managerial jargons.

Audience was left agape, when Mr. Anang quoted the fact that entire nation of a billion plus, would have 25 'Moderators', on the higher side. Finally, there was an informal chat of speaker with some students over dining. To summarize, it was an informative workshop and every such session ends up urging for more.

176
After the success of Parivartan '06, Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi hosted the first Rostrum of the year, The Rostrum – HR, on Saturday, March 4, 2006 at the Department of Management Studies, Vishwakarma Bhavan, IIT Delhi. The event was inaugurated by Prof. Vinayshil Gautam, Former Director, IIM – K and Faculty of DMS, IIT Delhi and Mr. Rakesh Jaggi, VP & GM Schlumberger. Mr. Jaggi addressed the gathering on globalisation and integration of all sectors for seamless working. He also stressed on how the developed nations, particularly the West, will face a huge manpower shortage and how this deficit would be catered to by the Eastern world. He also threw light on female participation in today's business environment.

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.

The second session was moderated by Prof. D.K. Banwet, Faculty, DMS, IIT Delhi. The session addressed the Changes in the HR Scenario Today. Mr. Manjit Singh VP & Head HR, Bank of America, gave his perspective on the issue from Bank of America's point of view. The second speaker for the session, Dr. P.L Sanjeev Reddy, Director, Indian Institute of Public Administration gave his insights into the important aspects of HR: flexibility, structures and strategies.

The concluding session was a panel discussion on Ethics, M&A;, Attrition and Labour laws in Globalised HRD. The session was moderated by Prof. Kanika T Bhal, Faculty, DMS, IITD. Mr. Arun Sahay, Director, Competitive Strategy Intelligence Asia, spoke about the process centric organisations and HR's role in such organisations. The gathering was then addressed by Ms. Geetanjali Pandit, GM HR, India Today Group, who gave a reality check on today's business environment and stressed the importance of employee engagement over employee satisfaction.

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. It finally culminates in the event Building India Inc, to be held in October 2006.

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The two-day fest Kritva is an annual feature at International Management Institute. Replete with many events, both formal & informal, the fun and frolic of the extravaganza draws large crowds and participation from colleges all across the nation. Following a tradition, KRITVA 2006 commenced with much aplomb and fanfare on a bright and cheerful morning. This year, the theme for the event was Fear of the Unknown; more specifically, conquering this selfsame fear. The names of various events scheduled for the fest very effectively echoed the theme – Alchemy, Demons and Angels, Riddle of the Sphinx, and so on. The very feel of the event mirrored the theme – ethereal, surreal, mystical.

The campus played host to teams from colleges across the nation, some of which include XLRI, NITIE, the IITs, NMIMS, KJSOM, DSE, FMS, MDI, IMT, IIFT etc. The enthusiasm and exuberance of the participants was at its peak, and the campus turned into a melting pot of myriad personalities, each unique in his/her own way. The true spirit of the fest came alive each time the participants interacted with each other and the hosts.

Day 1 of Kritva commenced with the inauguration, presided over by our guest of honour – none other than the inimitable pagalguy, Allwin Agnel. With him were the Editor-in-Chief Apurv Pandit and the Head of Marketing Rohit Awasthi representing the very successful MBA forum PaGaLGuY.com on our campus. Also in attendance were the visiting Mongolian delegation and the Director of IMI Dr. C. S. Venkatratnam. Once the guests had lighted the proverbial 'lamp of knowledge', Allwin enlightened the audience with a hard-hitting and stimulating speech about his personal experiences as an entrepreneur. To say that the listeners were inspired and invigorated would be an arrant understatement.

The first event for the day was the final round of the much-awaited Marketing case study, Riddle of the Sphinx. The team from MICA bagged the first prize followed by the teams from IMI and MDI in second and third positions respectively. A rather interesting informal event called Google-philes followed. The event called upon the participants to display and leverage their skills in Google searching. The winners for this event were NIILM, with both the second and third prizes won by teams from IMI. The Systems case study, Clash of the Titans, saw the team from NITIE bagging the first position, closely followed by KJSOM. The Stock game, aptly called Bulls and Bears, was won by IMI. An interesting informal event called Meet the Press required participants to defend what they had to say in a simulated press conference. The event was won by IMI.

The much-awaited Business Quiz, hosted by renowned quizmaster Parnab Mukherji was slated for later in the evening, and IMI emerged winners with the second prize going to MHROD-DSE. The day came to a close with an electrifying jam session by budding college rock bands from colleges across Delhi. Bands from IIFT, FORE, IMI and many more came together to pay tribute to several rock-and-roll legends of yesterday and today. With a fervour befitting of the frenzy Kritva brings, the bands expertly serenaded the audience into the night with retro classics of the styles of Led Zeppelin and Pearl Jam, and contemporary classics like Coldplay. And as if that was not all, there was a late-night screening of the classic movie Dracula, based on Bram Stoker's story about the legendary vampire Count Dracula who had a fetish for young women's blood. The movie brought the theme of the fest alive, and together with the décor of the amphitheatre and the growing night, chilled and thrilled the audience.

Day 2 of Kritva 2006 began with the finals of the Strategy case study, David versus Goliath. The team from IIT Kharagpur bagged the first prize here. The informal event Ad'apt' was next in line, where several advertisement enthusiasts stretched their imaginations as far and wide as they could. The team from IMI had their creative juices flowing in the right direction, which was evident in their winning the game. This was followed by a fun-filled informal game called Just a Minute, which tested participants for symptoms of verbal diarrhoea. This was also won by IMI. Alchemy, the Finance case study finals were up next, and ended with MDI and FORE bagging the first and second places respectively. The last contest for the day was the HR paper presentations Demons and Angels. This was won by NMIMS, and MDI came a close second.

The euphoria instituted by Kritva 2006 was taken to another level as the very celebrated DJ Suketu set the amphitheatre ablaze with his best dance numbers. As the crowd grooved to the beats of “Kya Khoob Lagti Ho” and “Bin Tere Sanam”, ecstasy and exhilaration were redefined at IMI. A mix of hosts and guests jived and boogied into the wee hours of the morning. And when it all ended, another successful episode of Kritva was etched on to the minds of all who experienced it. Needless to say, the memories shall be cherished by one and all for years to come.






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179

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.



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180

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.


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The “International Seminar on Entrepreneurship” organised by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay from March 16-18, 2006, provided a platform for the faculty and research scholars of management and behavioural sciences, consultants, trainers, counselors, administrators, and executives to share their research-findings, thoughts, and experiences. The audience had an opportunity to listen to talks by distinguished speakers like Prof. Ishwar Dayal, former director I.I.M, Lucknow, Dr. Shailesh J. Mehta, President Granite Hill Capital Ventures, U.S.A., Prof. M.R. Rao, Dean ISB, Hyderabad, Prof. Stephen Eppienger, Dean M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, U.S.A. and Prof. Brian Dabson, University of Missouri, U.S.A. The seminar was sponsored by Bank of Baroda, MTNL, and L&T.;

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., Bombay and N.I.T.I.E, Mumbai locked horns with each other. The teams had to devise the growth strategy for Educomp Solutions Ltd. The CEO of the company Mr. Shantanu Prakash came in person to judge the competition and delivered an inspiring talk of his journey in creating Educomp Solutions Ltd and introducing novel initiatives in the education technology space. The team from I.I.T, Bombay consisting of Ankur Gulati, Saurabh Gupta and Ankur Gattani, bagged the first place.

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.

182

Keeping their tradition of taking up unusual but highly relevant topics, the students of Industrial Safety and Environmental Management (ISEM) at NITIE organized a panel discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility. The discussion titled "Corporate Social Responsibility: A reality or an Illusion” had a panel graced by eminent speakers like Mr. Debi Goenka (Bombay Environment Action Group), Mr. Krishna Das (VP-HR, Mahindra & Mahindra), Mr. Subhash Baxi (Corporate Manager-SHE-Greater Asia Region, Kodak), Mrs. Seema Unnikrishan (Professor Environment Management, NITIE. The event was divided into two parts, a session of talks by the panel members and a discussion among the panelists. Prof. H.V. Bhasin, Dean (Programs and Consultancy) at NITIE, moderated the panel discussion in a very efficient manner, especially with the audience participating enthusiastically in it.

Professor Unnikrishnan began the event by giving an academician's perspective about CSR as a whole & how things fit into the scheme of sustainable business model. She introduced many current CSR initiatives in India detailing how the community is benefiting from such activities. Mr. Das followed by sharing his 25+ years of field experience. Mr. Debi Goenka then spoke at length about the role NGO's have traditionally played in such initiatives. Panelists also discussed interesting ideas line- industries should stick to their core competency & leaving CSR initiatives to NGO's who have sufficient exposure & experience in the field by providing enough corpus funds. Mr. Baxi shed light on how companies have gone to great extents in the past to modify their products or processes so that they are better for the society in general and do not harm the environment.

This Samiksha brought out the unanimous view of academic, corporate as well as NGO community that CSR, though in its nascent stage, is being practiced in India and it will surely pick up in the years to come. It revealed that the corporate world is realizing their social obligations and coming out of myopic objective of profit maximization.

183

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.
In his keynote address Prof.L.S.Ganesh, HOD, DoMS, gave reference to the various challenges being faced by the infrastructure development and management teams in various organizations. This was followed by the address of Prof. V.Kalyanaraman. He laid emphasis on the importance of the technical, social and economic issues to be handled while developing infrastructure.
Mrs. Sheela Priya highlighted “Water Management in Chennai city” through a picturesque presentation. She initiated her talk with the salient features of the city of Chennai like geographical area, population, topography, drainage system, climate, water supply sources and current supply rate.
This was followed by a talk by Mr. Sanjiv Paul. Addressing the gathering Mr. Sanjiv Paul gave an overview of the areas JUSCO (Jamshedpur Utilities & Services Company) dealt with, ranging from waste and wastewater management, power, town planning, public health, civil and electrical works, schools, horticulture and guest house facilities.
Mr. T. Sudhakar Rao, GM (P&A;), HAL was the next speaker to grace the occasion. Bringing in the perspective of a PSU into the discussion, Mr. Rao earmarked the difference in the operation of the PSU's in the past and how it has emerged in the present. The seminar was concluded by Prof. Satyanaranaya, who spoke about the infrastructure development project being done in the institute campus. The project involving cross-functional teams from various departments are involved in a combined effort to improve the infrastructure of the institute in three key areas viz. transportation, water & gas and power.

184

The class of 2006 at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon has set new standards of achievement by attracting leading companies from India and abroad during the placement process that concluded recently. The students of the 2004-06 batch of MDI Gurgaon will soon enter the corporate world as alumni of one of the nation's leading business schools.

This year marks a significant milestone for MDI, with the passing out of the first batch of 52 students specializing in Human Resource Management. A total of 57 leading companies courted the 174 students with a wide range of profiles. The fight to attract some of India's leading minds led to the highest domestic salary of Rs. 12.35 lakhs. The mean salary at the institute rose to Rs. 9.1 Lakhs, a stupendous rise over the previous year's figure of Rs. 8.32 Lakhs. The mean domestic salary offered this year was Rs 8.61 Lakhs. Similarly, the average salary for the inaugural HR batch stood at an impressive figure of Rs. 8.03 Lakhs., with a median figure of Rs. 7.75 Lakhs.

The job profiles on offer spanned all the major functional areas like corporate finance, private banking, sales and distribution, HR consulting, IT etc. Recruiters from the Finance and Banking sector included the likes of Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan, ICRA, GE, DSP Merrill Lynch, UTI Bank and ICICI. Nearly 29 % of the PGPM batch secured an offer with a Finance profile. Reflecting the growing strength of the Indian IT industry, the major names in IT came on campus to recruit a large chunk of students. IBM, Infosys, Wipro, Patni and HCL were among the major recruiters from the IT industry.

MDI's standing in the marketing domain was reinforced by the likes of ITC, Godrej and Boyce, Reckitt Benckiser, the Aditya Birla Group and Nestle, who recruited nearly 46% of the batch for both marketing as well as sales profiles.

It was the emergence of HR which was the highlight of Placements 2006. All 52 students who had majored in HR were lapped up by recruiters in record time. The star recruiters included William Mercer, Hewitt Associates, Bharti, Growtalent Consulting, Air India, GSK, the Aditya Birla Group and GE. Recruiters for HR came from a variety of sectors including IT, Consulting, Banking, FMCG, Manufacturing and Media among others.

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 Dubai, Deugro and the Jumbo group. The highest international salary was Rs. 28.87 Lakhs.

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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 Indian School of Business, holds the John P.Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin. He has received numerous lifetime achievement awards, including the American Marketing Association (AMA) Charles Coolidge Parlin Award for visionary leadership in scientific marketing. The AMA also instituted the Vijay Mahajan Award in 2000 for career contributions to marketing strategy.

Mr. Mahajan stressed on the opportunities open to the 86% of the world in unleashing new growth and profitability by serving everyone else. Speaking of the United States of America-which is perhaps a paragon of development and prosperity, Mr Mahajan said their strength lies in their immigration policy, 33% of the population in the US is migrant population, contributing significantly to its development. NRI's home from abroad create a demand for luxuries, which is met by the large number of 5 star hotels, and emerging airlines (Jet airways). Mr. Mahajan stated that the developing world is more in touch with the problems they face and probably more capable of giving the right solution.

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Illustrations on how combinations of these parameters influence team performance are available in extent literature. Numerous case studies have been written and shared in this connection in the academia. However, a case that has been recently developed by the faculty at S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai covers a very unique context. It picks a very contemporary issue in the world of sports, in India, and links it up with established concepts of Organizational Behavior.

“The Indian Cricket Saga” – identifies the crossfire between the current Indian cricket coach Greg Chappell and former captain Sourav Ganguly, which erupted during the Indian team's Zimbabwe tour in June 2005. With the essential focus on team performance, the case probes into factors like; locus of power, shifting team dynamics, emotional intelligence, adversity quotient, effect of the environmental through various stake-holders, etc. It emphasizes the interdependence of all these factors and their influence on team performance. The basic idea is to draw parallels from the sports arena to explain team performance in organizations.

The case was given to the batch of PGDM 2005-07 for classroom discussions on the 29th of November 2005 and was received with fervor and enthusiasm. The participants were relating the issues emerging from the case to the various concepts of Organizational Behavior. Various points emerging from the discussions related to theories of different styles of leadership under different situations, preference of power bases by individuals, constructive conflict management, consistent team composition for effective team dynamics, influence of cultural changes and the rapidity of these changes, importance of emotional intelligence and association with the adversity quotient, and the external influencing factors like BCCI, the media, the political clout governing a game which is as passionate as cricket, in India. Amidst the presence of faculty members apart from the one leading the discussions, the discussion by the PGP participants took a crescendo, as they got deeply engrossed in the issues before culminating into the conceptual analysis.

The participants identified John Wright as a transformational leader who was sensitive to the needs of the players and showed patience in understanding the psyche of individual players and the team overall. On the contrary, participants agreed that Greg Chappell was more aggressive and came as a taskmaster. Ganguly was identified as a tough, intuitive and an emotional leader. When two authoritarian individuals work together there is bound to be a more than palpable friction. Participants felt that both were looking at their vested interests and did not focus on super-ordinate goals. Process parameters sharply drifted along diverse paths, though intuitively, it may appear that both wanted the long-term good of Indian cricket.

Some groups attributed this conflict to cultural changes. Chappell came from a different culture and was keen on implementing change rather quickly. An important point that emerged was that Chappell was setting many individual goals for the players apart from team goals. Participants felt that this was confusing the players. However, some believed that Chappell was being a 'Situational Leader'; he is responsible for preparing the team for the 2007 World Cup and does not have much time. Also, maybe Chappell is under pressure to prove his capability, as this is his first international coaching assignment. There is a possible aspirational need that Chappell had been nursing all these years. He has never been the coach of the Australian team. He wants to prove himself by strongly pitting the Indian team against the formidable Australians who are a huge threat towards any nations World Cup bid.

It was discussed that though Ganguly is the most successful Indian captain, his individual performance had been in doldrums of late. Points emerged to support the fact that the leader must perform up to the mark and set examples to lead the team towards effective performance. However, this was not the case with Ganguly. Also, questions were raised - 'How does the leader know when it is the right time to quit?' A leader must leave with humility rather be forced out of office. Some groups said that it is important for leaders to adapt with changing times and use different styles of leadership accordingly.

From the discussions it emerged that each one of them was using his positional power to the extreme. Participants felt that leaders should use a range of power bases to be more effective. Thus, both Chappell and Ganguly should have used more of expert power, referent power and relational power.

Another pertinent point emerged that, in today's, high-pressure situations, when people in organizations are given short-term goals; they often wear out fast under insurmountable processes and results. Some organizations abroad are known to offer small breaks to their executives to recharge batteries before they resume work.

All these factors have a strong bearing on team dynamics. The performance of a leader and the environment he operates in, will lead to harmony among members of the team. Points were raised showing concern about the continual changes in the team composition and player positions. Every time this happens, it was felt that teams need to go back to the storming stage and take a longer thawing period, before eventually reaching the performing stage.

Hence, it can be observed that leadership, cultural changes, conflict, power and team dynamics, all have a strong influence on team performance. The discussions ended by hoping that the new regime would attain stability and work towards improving both self and team performance.

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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]

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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 India is on an upswing like never before and the country and its intellectual prowess is the toast of the world. He stressed the need for innovation in all endeavours to make India a torchbearer in the coming century. Communication was central towards this end in his opinion. Dr Mashelkar also envisioned that the day was not far when alongside CEOs, CFOs and CTOs, a Chief Communication Manager would also be a key functionary in organizations around the world.

The programme ended amidst tearful celebrations and bonhomie among the graduating batch of students.

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TAPMI celebrated its 20th Annual Convocation on March 25, 2006. The institute awarded the Post-Graduate Diploma in Management to 131 students and Post-Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Management to one student of the 2004-06 batch on this day. The program was held on the lawns of Hotel Valley View International.

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 Convocation started with a procession led by the Student Body President, followed by the Graduating Students, Faculty Members, Governing Council Members, Chief Guest, Chairman and the Director. It was followed by the traditional lighting of the lamp.Shri K.K. Pai, Chairman of Governing Council, gave the welcome address. He threw light on the life-history of Shri T.A. Pai and appreciated TAPMI for the strides it has made in the field of management education in India. This was followed by the Director's Report. After this, the graduating students were administered the oath by Prof. D. Nagabrahmam, Director of TAPMI. This was followed by the presentation of the PG Diploma and Awards ceremony conducted by Prof. Vidya Pratap.The PG Diploma was presented to the students by Prof. M.G.K. Menon.

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


Smt. Gangamma Ammannaya Award (Only For Ladies)

Marketing Topper : Ms. Archana Sadana

Finance Topper : Ms. Anjana Rajamani


Dr A.S. Aiyer Memorial Prize

Overall Finance Topper : Mr. Pradeep Kr. Aggarwal

Dr. S. Dandapani Prize

Overall Topper : Mr. Bhaumik K. Bhatia

AgrEvo Student of the Year Award

Student of the Year : Mr. Ram Prakash B


Following the distribution of the awards was the AgrEvo Acceptance Speech by its receipent, Mr. Ram Prakash B. He thanked his family and the TAPMI fraternity for being ever-supportive and making him capable to qualify for this award.

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.

This followed the release of “Update 2006” by Shri K.K. Pai, “Compendium of Research Papers” by Dr. M.S. Valiathan and “Scanning the Brands and the Markets : A Compendium of Market Research Papers” by Dr. H. Shantaram.

The Convocation concluded with a Vote of Thanks by Prof. S Balasubramanian and National Anthem, which was followed by dinner. As the evening drew to a close, another batch of young promising managers passed out of the portals of the institute as flag-bearers of the values and tradition of TAPMI.

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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 India and not just any country capable of providing cheap labor.He substantiated his point by observing that KPO requires highly skilled professionals, which India is in a unique position to provide with more than 200,000 engineers graduating each year. KPO industry is expected to grow to a size of USD 17 billion by 2010 and according to Mr.Madhusudanan, India is expected to corner 70% of this busines, which translates to roughly USD 12 billion.This essentially means business of the scale of 10 Infosys like corporations! It is further expected to provide employment to 360,000 people by the same time.This, he observed, was nothing short of a revolution. Mr.Madhusudanan explained in detail the business model being followed by Evalueserve, the typical project variants, the data security measures being followed and other challenges being faced by companies in this sector. The lecture was certainly a unique opportunity to learn the intricacies of the Industry, in which many of the future managers would work in .


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"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.

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It's not a common sight in Delhi University to see a bunch of young, energetic students in black robes waiting for their turn patiently so that they can be a part of the history. Faculty of Management Studies, the first B-School in India (started in 1954) and one of the best B-Schools in Asia, churned out yet another bunch of classic, enigmatic and of course, with close to Rs. 9 lakh as average salary, soon-to-be rich managers.


Presided by the former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Delhi University and ex-Dean of FMS, Prof. Abad Ahmed, the evening was filled with intellect, jubilance and emotions. “I left Harvard Business School and my job in Montreal to come to FMS”, said Prof. Ahmed with gleam and enthusiasm. “This (FMS) is a place which produces people who are not only passionate, but also compassionate, which is the need of the hour for the growing India”.

The ceremony saw the graduation and official close of yet another successful batch which had a mix of talent from a person who earned himself close to 30 lakhs (INR) through campus placements, to another student who, despite, being a top ranker decided to serve the country instead of corporate world by stepping into the highly-impactful world of Civil Services. When speaking about her experiences in FMS, an emotional Aziza Khan, an Uzbekistan Citizen, said, “FMS gave me a huge opportunity to learn not only in classes, but also from people of diverse backgrounds. I wish I can stay here forever”. FMS is the only B- School on the country to have a separate quota to foreign students. When other B-Schools run to foreign countries to set-up shops and learn about cross-cultural differences, FMS brings the world to India and builds a synergetic relationship with the foreign students. The event was presided over by FMS' Dean Prof. C.D. Bhattacharya, Prof. N.R. Chatterjee, Prof. A.S. Narag and Prof. J.K. Mitra and also saw the presence of the faculty members, staff and students of FMS.