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Prabandhan 2009 starts with a bang !

In the presence of esteemed faculty members of the IME Department, IIT Kanpur and students of the MBA programme, Mr Ranjan Kumar, Director India Operations of RocSearch inaugurated the three day long management conclave with the lighting of the lamp.
Prabandhan ’09, with the theme: “Phoenix – Rising from the ashes” is the flagship event of the management program being run under the aegis of the IME department at IIT Kanpur. It combines the various events being held separately earlier, like Finatics, Consilium and MarkOps, in order to gain better leverage and combine all related events under a common umbrella.
Mr Kumar took the theme head-on, questioning it at its core – whether the resurrection is real or a temporary passing phase, which will actually lead us to a bigger crisis, the foundation stone of which has already been laid in the process of tiding away the present one. According to Mr Ranjan, “We are trying to solve today’s problems, not focussing on the long term consequences of the same.”
The honourable chief guest initiated his talk with a discussion on: How it happened, and why. The intricacies of the errors in judgements made by the celebrated Investment bankers and mortgage lenders were explained in detail. Subsequent happenings, including the fall of various banks and insurance companies were then related to the mistakes committed earlier.
Concluding the discussion, Mr Kumar said, “It is time for us to introspect and rethink. The lens which was clouding our vision has been cleared and we can now identify our vulnerabilities.” He also laid out a framework of steps to be followed with the help of “first amongst equals” – a study of various firms which took prudent steps to weather the crisis, and emerge stronger in the process. The steps included increasing operational efficiency, enhancing capabilities to gain future opportunities, innovation and positive disruption in company leadership.
Responding to queries, Mr Ranjan gave his advice for an Aam Aadmi – Conserve Cash, and Save More!
The day also marked the start of Prachaar – the advertising and poster making contest, leaving all aspiring marketers and brand managers working hard on their versions of a “Low Cost Housing” advertisement.
The evening culminated with Chunauti – the first quiz in a series of three, which focussed on marketing, saw humongous participation from some of the best minds across the country. Students from top B-schools and corporates participated vying for the cash prize.

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Prabandhan 2009 – Day 3 (20th September 2009)

When the Prabandhan team woke up today, the exhaustion was apparent. The 2 fun-filled, eventful days had surely taken a toll on everybody. Running helter and skelter organizing lectures under Kiran, or trying to manage over-enthusiastic crowds for the offline competitions Adhikansh and Nirmiti, are not easy tasks at all. Nevertheless, we were excited that the conclave was moving ahead with gusto, and were looking forward to an even more eventful final day, to end the festival in style.
But what followed was completely unexpected. While the team awaited Mr Ashok Bhagat (VP, Societe Generale and speaker for the day), the honourable commissioner of Kanpur City, Mr. L Venkateswaralu walked in along with the speaker and our honourable director Prof. Dhande ! Apparently, the commissioner had got to know about the conclave due to the extensive media coverage, and expressed his desire to be a part of the proceedings, much to our delight.
The day started with Prof Dhande expressing his profound views on management education, questioning the motivation behind it. The Director firmly asserted his disagreement with the traditional beliefs associated with MBA education, like the ruthlessness ingrained in future managers, or profit-making being the sole purpose. Instead, social welfare and wellbeing are much more important objectives for a manager, Prof Dhande noted. He also emphasized the importance of philosophy as an ingredient in the managerial discipline, which according to him should be taught much before the traditional subjects. After all, finding ethical answers to questions like, “What should be the goal of our life?” should come much earlier in the scheme of things for an MBA, which will enable him/her to keep things in proper perspective. In the end, Mr Dhande urged the students to indulge in introspection, transform their thinking process, and realize that social contribution is a measure of a manager’s success, not financial contribution to oneself.
The honourable commissioner of Kanpur city carried the discussion forward by demarcating two major concerns for an individual – the concern for one’s own self, and the concern for values. He accepted that sometimes human beings don’t have a choice in such matters, but when they do, it is necessary that they choose the right path. Someone with a pleasure seeking attitude will maximize his/her own welfare, and if the entire society takes such an approach, there are bound to be conflicts leading to imminent doom. Mr Venkateswaralu also emphasized the need for strategy formation for every task – be it the need to market a product, or to promote a cleanliness drive in a city. Both these include the need to bring about an attitudinal change in people. Therefore, managerial capabilities are as crucial for educating people about using soaps, as they are to attract them towards a particular brand of soap. He also expressed his desire to interact with MBA students at IIT Kanpur frequently, whether through formal or informal channels, and hoped that we grow together and contribute to the greater good of the society.
After the inspiring thoughts put across by the Director and the Commissioner, Mr Ashok Bhagat took to the stage. Agreeing to the views, he opined, “Human intelligence has to be used in the proper way.” Profit and greed are different entities, he argued, and should be easily distinguishable.
Mr Bhagat then conducted an interactive session on “Risk Management in International Business”. Explaining in a lucid manner, he categorized the various types of risk, namely Credit, Performance, Country, Currency, Transportation, Transaction structure, and Fraud risk. The rest of the session revolved around these risks, and methods available to evade them. The speaker wound up the session with a real life example from the early 90’s, where around 50 importers from India were cheated, how it could have been prevented, and how it necessitated the need for 2 new rules to be drafted by the RBI.
After the inspiring and thought provoking session, Prabandhan 2009 was yet to be called complete, as the online events team and the Website team were gearing up to handle the web traffic expected for the last quiz under “Chunauti”, while the Prachaar team continues to receive posters for its “Low cost Housing” advertisement competition.

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[virbhaykmr]

Every one knows last year was really a bad year if placements are considered the primary goal of an MBA degree, which unfortunately is true. You will never find the placement numbers being advertised any where except in B Schools(shops). Many so called tier II schools failed to provide an earning to the whole batch even after inflating all available statistical figures highest, mean,median,total offers....People tend to be secretive while declaring the figures. Who will lead the cattle so that the followers (Kanpur waits for Madras and even Roorkee!) can add a small margin to the leader and claim top ranked.At the end of the day the numbers are grossly perverted, taken far away from the reality. Top of it the teachers also do not object to these . Atleast in IITs and IIMs they should. Who pays the price of these? The prospective Mangers. They just add 20% more to this number and relax in their dreams! Slowly with time they realize the reality and get frustrated. Who benefits?The people who prepares the MBAs i.e TIME, CL,CF.....(their course fee is driven by the numbers). Well every where the story is repeated. Thank you for reading the long mail. Now let me break the ice. Four students (9%) of class of 2009 of IITK could not get placed. The average salaray of the remaining were 7L(optimistic side), lowest was 4L. Atleast 10 students just accepted the offer under "something is better than nothing" principle. I came to know that they are being paid 20-25K. But still the site mentions a 100% placement and you can compare for the other numbers.

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Originally Posted by virbhaykmr

Every one knows last year was really a bad year if placements are considered the primary goal of an MBA degree, which unfortunately is true. You will never find the placement numbers being advertised any where except in B Schools(shops). Many so called tier II schools failed to provide an earning to the whole batch even after inflating all available statistical figures highest, mean,median,total offers....People tend to be secretive while declaring the figures. Who will lead the cattle so that the followers (Kanpur waits for Madras and even Roorkee!) can add a small margin to the leader and claim top ranked.At the end of the day the numbers are grossly perverted, taken far away from the reality. Top of it the teachers also do not object to these . Atleast in IITs and IIMs they should. Who pays the price of these? The prospective Mangers. They just add 20% more to this number and relax in their dreams! Slowly with time they realize the reality and get frustrated. Who benefits?The people who prepares the MBAs i.e TIME, CL,CF.....(their course fee is driven by the numbers). Well every where the story is repeated. Thank you for reading the long mail. Now let me break the ice. Four students (9%) of class of 2009 of IITK could not get placed. The average salaray of the remaining were 7L(optimistic side), lowest was 4L. Atleast 10 students just accepted the offer under "something is better than nothing" principle. I came to know that they are being paid 20-25K. But still the site mentions a 100% placement and you can compare for the other numbers.

Hi Virbhay...

We purposefully delayed the response to your post for the simple reason that there is no end to this discussion about packages. We will keep trying to convince you that our figures are correct, and you will keep on denying, and we would together consume space on this thread unnecessarily.

Just a simple point: Inside an IIT, dont u think it would be a tad difficult to FUDGE figures? We have a two tier placement system - The MBA placement committee, and the Students Placement Office. Moreover, the placement figures are actually posted on the iitk.ac.in domain, so there is bound to be some level of verification happening somewhere.

Another point that I wish to make is that time and again, people in the IITK MBA program(and in all other MBA programs, even at the IIMs) do accept lower packages to pursue their desired profiles. Now, whether they accepted it out of compulsion or desire is a highly subjective question, and cannot be verified too.

I stand by the figures on our website.