Life @ SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

[floyd&vodka]

Originally Posted by santiago

Great job guys...when will the placement report be out??

The whole batch had been placed quite a while back. However, a A global investment bank is still conducting the interviews. Once it gets over, we will get out the results.

Meanwhile, our leadership lecture series have started in full flow. Last week we had Adi Godrej visiting us. Today we have Dr Shailesh J Mehta himself coming and meeting the students and the faculty.

Here is a report on Adi Godrej's visit:
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Adi Godrej visits SJMSOM

Mr. Adi Godrej is one of the very few industry stalwarts who has witnessed Indian Industry grow from what it was earlier to what it has become today. In an interactive session with the students at SJMSOM, he answered a lot of queries that the students had about the industry and how an industry leader views it. He visited the campus on January 19, 2007 as a part of the Leadership, Vision and Entrepreneurship series at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.

Mr. Godrej said that there has never been a better time to build India. After decades of protection, one would lose the will and the ability to perform. But Indian economy has now come out of age. Now, India is a low cost, high quality, global hub for outsourcing. He churned out the figures like India being the largest number of FDI approved, second largest manufacturer of the Cement in the world, Hero and Bajaj as the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturers. Infact, nine out of ten diamonds are processed in India. The pharmacy and auto sectors are not far behind.

Mr. Godrej had valuable hindsights, which he shared with the students.
One, graduating from superb educational institutions is essential. The critical question is how many of them who do, transform themselves into Passionate Leaders.
A leader should be truthful, need to have a clear vision. He needs to have constant exposure to new ideas.
Second, he should not lend to his ear to somebody who says its not done that way.
Not to somebody who says, you are taking a big chance, a big risk. Not to that internal voice of fear. That voice of fear which says there are smarter, taller, luckier people than you.
Third, you need to play to win. Defeat is not for you.
Fourth, Dare mighty things, Have stretch goals, Learn to pick yourself up after falling, Make your vocation as your vacation, Enjoy what you do and grab opportunities.

On being asked how he managed in the changing times in India, he replied that managing one’s core strength is the key. If further growth is required then one can go for acquisition and diversification. He also emphasized on how important it is for a leader to have effective communication with his team. The need of the hour is to use modern communication techniques like electronic communication, to the fullest. According to Mr. Godrej, a very important need in any team today is need to be creative. Too much of discipline reduced creativity. Some degree of “madness” is essential to stir the company and expose it to revolutionary ideas. He also said that brand was a very important factor in a company’s success. Godrej, he said has been a well accepted brand since a long time in the Indian market. But, because of the legacy of its brand, Godrej has faced a lot of problems in positioning itself as a company with any new technologies. So, at Godrej they have tried to revamp the policies a lot. They have made a policy that after every evaluation, the bottom 5% people in the company will have to leave. And the top 20% will be rewarded with faster career growth. When telling about his experiences, he told that earlier the industry rules were so strict that his definition of success was to get a license to enter the industry. But today with liberalization and privatization gaining momentum, success for a company has become how much EVA it can achieve in a period. But the biggest reason for success of Godrej is that in Godrej Industries, they take the “Bottom up Approach instead of the Top down Approach” which means that they try to take in more opinions from the all level of organization members, instead of trying to impose the top level decisions always on them.

When asked about the image that India will be stuck with the back office tag, he responded by saying that ideally, if we can engage 1.1 billion in value add work, it would be great. But few years back, even graduates were unemployed.
But not anymore. India’s competitiveness will not be because of labor arbitrage but because of our demography. Relatively being young is what clinches the deal. In Russia, Germany and China, it has started declining. Infact, we can be the groundbreakers, who can lead back offices done in other countries other than India.
The session came to an end with Mr. Godrej underlining the importance how leaders should always try to listen to others.

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[LastActionHero]

We, the students of Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay in association with IBM and NASSCOM are proud to bring to you SYSTEMS CONTINUUM 2007.


CONTINUUM, the rolling seminar series, is a regular event at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay. This event aims to cover the latest trends in management by inviting eminent speakers from business and academia. The Systems Continuum 2007 is the first in Continuum 2007 series. This event explores different aspects of IT in business by initiating lectures and discussions on the theme ‘Infusing IT into the Indian Industry’.

Speakers in System Continuum 2007
Keynote Speech:
Shri F C Kholi, Former Deputy Chairman, TCS
Inaugural speech:
Prof N L Sarda, HoD, SJMSOM, IIT B
Speakers:
Mr. Venkatesh Hariharan,Head- Open Source, Redhat
Mr. Rajgopal Tampi, Vice President, Mphasis/EDS India
Mr. Jaijit Bhattachrya, Director, Govt. Strategy, Sun Microsystems
Mr. N Murlidaran, Senior Vice President, NSE, Ex-CTO, IL&FS
Mr. Tarun Gulati, General Manager, DPE, Microsoft Corporation
Mr. MD Agrawal, Chief Manager, IS Refinery System, BPCL
Talk:
Mr. Rajdeep Sharawat, Vice President, NASSCOM
Senior Executive, IBM
Workshop:
IT Consultancy, Live case by PWC, Mr. Himanshu Gupta,
Principal Consultant, PriceWaterHouseCoopers

A Corporate lunch has been arranged to provide participants the opportunity to interact with the delegates and network with them.
For further details please visit the website @
Systems Continuum 2007 :: SJMSOM




Hoping to see you on 4th Feb 2007.

[floyd&vodka]

Haappy Holi to Allllllllllllllll



Holi at SJMSOM ..........

[floyd&vodka]

Leadership Lecture Series Jan-Feb 2007

The month of February brought in a new opportunity to the MBA students of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay, when as a part of their leadership lecture series, they got the chance to interact with the very best from all the fields of industry. This time the speakers were not there to instruct the students about the do’s and don’ts. It was literally “Experiences of lifetime”. The leaders unraveled their own lives and their experiences.

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 evolve through decades, to where it stands today.

Mr. Vijay Mahajan Managing Director and CEO, 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 in 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 anything. 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 Ms. 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 make it pursue it in all circumstances, what carves the real niche for a leader.

Complete List: Speakers 2007

Complete List: Speakers 2006

[Epicurean]

Nitin Noharia, Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean and Director of Faculty Development at the Harvard Business School, delivered a 2 hr lecture on Leadership. He discussed the essence of his research at length and also discussed two video cases on leadership style.

[Epicurean]

Nitin Noharia, Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean and Director of Faculty Development at the Harvard Business School, delivered a 2 hr lecture on Leadership. He discussed the essence of his research at length and also discussed two video cases on leadership style.

[floyd&vodka]

Siva Shankar of Corporate Investment Banking, Citigroup, conducts Diksha at SJMSOM

A Diksha by Mr. T.S. Siva Shankar from Citigroup was conducted on March 23, 2007 at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay. Mr. Siva Shankar was earlier the Director of Structured Finance and Syndication in the Corporate Banking team. Currently he is part of the Special Interest group in the Corporate Investment Banking division of Citigroup. His roles involve studying capital restructuring and turnaround strategies for companies.

Mr. Siva Shankar discussed about Global Special Situations Group (“GSSG”) in India which is an on-balance sheet proprietary investment group with expertise and presence in all major financial centers. GSSG is the the merger of Citigroup’s restructuring teams in Corporate High Yield, Emerging Markets and Real Estate. GSSG allocates capital globally to credit-oriented special situations with over 80 investment and servicing professionals and $5 billion in available capital around the globe. GSSG commits capital to lead or participate in the restructuring of corporate borrowers or to assist institutions to successfully reposition themselves through divestment of their non-core or non-performing assets and directing investment to their core businesses.

Mr. Siva Shankar went on to explain how CitiGroup’s GSSG invests in 3 overlapping strategies of liquidations of closed enterprises, restructurings of recovering corporate borrowers and new capital commitments to borrowers.

Mr. Siva Shankar also explained about the investment strategies prevalent in CitiGroup’s GSSG. GSSG evaluates each situation individually. The primary focus is preserving value in the core or healthy businesses. GSSG focuses on industry cycles and the opportunities created by events. When committing capital GSSG will consider four basic alternatives. Event-Driven Investments in debt or hard assets, new money commitments, Capital Structure Arbitrage and Private Equity. Mr. Siva Shankar also provided the key guidelines to proceeding.

GSSG has staff in 9 locations in Asia, India being one of them. Speaking about GSSG in India, Mr. Siva Shankar talked about special situations like the product set which involves NPL Pools, Corporate Restructuring, Hard Assets, Mezzanine financing and Equity. He also discussed about GGSG exposure in fields like cement, hotel, metal packaging, auto, telecom etc.

It was a highly interactive session with Mr. Siva Shankar addressing the queries of the students of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.

[floyd&vodka]

In case any of you are interested, SJMSOM is organizing the SMF convention on Thu-Fri-Sat. The first two days will be paper presentations on strategy related topics. You might be more interested in day3. Here is the impressive lineup of speakers on that day:

TIME: 9:30 – 11:00 HRS.
1. Mr. Deepak M. Satwalekar, M.D. & CEO, HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
2. Mr. Arvind Mahajan, Executive Director, KPMG.

TIME: 11:15 – 13:00 hrs.
1. Mr. Debu Bandyopadhyay, Executive Director, ECS Ltd
2. Mr. A.K. Purwar, Former Chairman, State Bank of India.

TIME: 14:00 – 15:30 hrs.
Mr. R.Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director of TATA Sons Ltd, and
Chairman of TATA Honeywell and Rallis India, Vice Chairman of TATA Chemicals

TIME: 16:00 – 17:30 hrs.
Panel Discussion on STRATEGIC ISSUES RELEVANT FOR INDIAN CORPORATE
SECTOR: RESEARCH AGENDA FOR ACADEMIA

Chairman: Prof. P.G.Apte, Director, IIM Bangalore
Panelists: Mr. Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman, Rediff.com and Chairman, BoG, IIMC
Mr. Narendra Ambwani, Managing Director, Johnson & Johnson, India.
Mr. Ninad Karpe, MD, CA ( India)
Mr. Ashank Desai, Chairman, Mastek Ltd.
Mr. Rajiv C Lochan, Associate Principal, McKinsey & Company
Mr. Rajdeep Sahrawat, Vice President, NASSCOM
Mr. Ajit Mahadevan, President, Pharma Manufacturing Services


Please check the website for registration details. I am not too sure about that.

Thanks
Ramesh

[mohitbansal]

hi
Its gr8 for me that i m joning SJMSOM for 2K7 batch..as per our joning is on 19th july tell me if i can do anything to understand finacial terms or learn accounting ...
one more thing whether SJMSOM people go for buk deal for laptops ???

thanx
Regards
Mohit bansal

[virajmehta2007]

Originally Posted by mohitbansal

hi
Its gr8 for me that i m joning SJMSOM for 2K7 batch..as per our joning is on 19th july tell me if i can do anything to understand finacial terms or learn accounting ...
one more thing whether SJMSOM people go for buk deal for laptops ???

thanx
Regards
Mohit bansal

hey mohit,, congrats for gettin thru SJMSOM,,,
waise to is thread pe hum 19th july se post karenge,.,.
as far as ur queries are concernd,. u can ask them on either the orkut community(address of same is in my sig.) or the official yahoo community,.,
sjmsom09@yahoogroups.co.in
btw,, there are few batchmates thinkin for laptop bulk deal,., u can get in touch wid them,,.,. and bout the prep stuff (ek daal ke panchi hain hum),.,
cheers././