[twiceblessedman]

Speaker : Mr. E. Balaji
Designation : CEO of Mafoi Management Consultants Ltd.
Topic : The World of Work
Duration : 1.5 hours
Lecture Summary : Mr. Balaji kept the audience enthralled for the entire 90 minutes while he spoke about the way The World Of Work is changing around us. He spoke about how the entire landscape of recruitment, job functions, organizational structure and the personal-professional dynamic in a person’s life is evolving to a stage where companies will no longer have a static structure. Work places will become mobile in the sense that an employee will no longer have a seat in a brick and mortar building. The location where he currently is (anywhere in the world) becomes his job site from where he remotely carries all the functions of a full time employee. Furthermore, he predicted that in the future, contractual employment will become the preferred mode of recruitment. And small unions will spring up in IT companies to fight for better work-related issues like timings and salaries. He ended his talk with what the industry was currently demanding from young managers and how we need to adapt to the new workplace realities. All in all, it was a very thought provoking evening for all present.

[Madras]

Hi ppl,

Can u plz tell me the % of IT guys in a class at GLIM?

[twiceblessedman]

Originally Posted by Madras

Hi ppl,

Can u plz tell me the % of IT guys in a class at GLIM?

Hi,

Could you please direct your admission related queries to the thread below.....the rules of Pagalguy does not allow us to reply to admission queries on the 'Life' thread......I have anyways answered your query in the thread below

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-an...w-about-8.html

[twiceblessedman]

Dr. Veeravalli Raghavan visited Great Lakes and addressed the students on 11th August 2008. Dr.Raghavan is a distinguished professor of Decision Support Systems and Operations Management and has taught in several institutions across the globe. He spoke on the topic “How do we really make judgements”. His lecture was highly interactive and enthralling. He touched upon areas of Decision Sciences and Social Psychology and explained what goes on in an individual when he or she takes decisions. He also took various examples from real-life situations and past surveys to explain how people react to certain basic questions and how the human brain answers them by using heuristics. To sum up, it was a very informative session.

[twiceblessedman]

Date of GL: 13th August 2008
Speaker: Mr. Krishnan Thiagarajan
Topic: Opportunity Landscape in IT Services Sector

Write-Up:
Mr. Krishnan Thiagarajan, Manager of Research at Cognizant Technology Solutions visited Great Lakes on the 13th of August. At Cognizant, Mr. Thiagarajan is responsible for analyzing market dynamics that affect the software services industry, and for tracking industry intelligence and key competitor strategies.

During the lecture, Mr. Thiagarajan spoke at length about the current trends in IT and the potential scenario in future. He was highly knowledgeable and well informed and the presentation was well received by the students. A lot of questions were raised by Great Lakers who grabbed this opportunity to get a clear picture of the IT and ITES landscape in the coming years.

Before Cognizant, Mr. Thiagarajan worked as a research analyst with The Hindu Business Line. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant, with a Bachelor’s degree in commerce.

[twiceblessedman]

Mr.Deva Rangarajan visited Great Lakes Institute Of Management on the 14th of August. He is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Vlerick Management School in Belgium. He received his PhD in marketing at the University of Houston. He has a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Madras. He mainly teaches services marketing, sales management, pricing, and international business. He has also taught for executives in various multinational companies including: Philips, Siemens, AXA, ING, Atlas Copco, etc.
Mr. Deva Rangarajan spoke brilliantly about the concept of Customer Experience Management and how that could be the only differentiating factor in times to come. A lecture scheduled for an hour and a half stretched into three hours due to the enthusiasm it generated amongst the students who were clearly unwilling to leave their seats. He spoke with many anecdotes about how experience management is the need of the hour with severe competition in all aspects of product development, marketing and service. In all, a very well received and interesting lecture that left the students asking for more.

[twiceblessedman]

A team of four members including Mr. Robert .K.Sebastian, Mr. AR.Vaasudevan, Mr. Vishnu Vardhan and Ms. Nirmala from BSE, Chennai visited Great Lakes on 07 Aug 2008.
The topics discussed were: Introduction to BSE index and its constituents, Derivatives markets, CDSIL, Depository Services, Demat, Investors Awareness.
Mr. AR.Vaasudevan initiated the talk and gave a brief introduction about BSE-Sensex, its history and present scenario. Mr. Vaasudevan also discussed about new trends in online trading and demerits of on the floor trading.
Mr. Robert .K. Sebastian continued the discussed with the introduction to IPOs, primary markets, secondary markets, investment procedures, Derivatives, clearing & settlement procedures and risk management. Mr. Sebastian also gave information about the various training and certification programs conducted by BSE.
Mr. Mr Vasudevan, Manager -Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL), gave information about Depository participants, dematerialization & rematerialization and the use of latest technologies being used by CDSL to send SMS messages to account holder when there is any activity in his/her demat account.
The discussion was followed by queries from the participants and a feedback session.

[twiceblessedman]

Prof. Swaminathan Sridharan, distinguished professor of accounting, information and management from the Kellogg School of Management, enthralled the audience for over 2 hours today with an exciting introduction to “Game Theory” and how companies use this technique for gaining competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.

He began the evening’s talk with a discussion on Equilibrium – a state where one competitor has information on another and vice versa and furthermore, that each competitor knew that the other competitor knew about his information! Phew!! A difficult concept to digest no doubt. But soon the audience had the grasp and were actively involved. The professor continued by introducing varied concepts of equilibrium like Dominant Strategy equilibrium, Nash Equilibrium, Multiple Nash Equilibrium, Prisoner’s Dilemma etc. and for each example he showed how one company would react vis-à-vis its competition. The important aspect was how would one company decide on what payoff would be adequate for it when compared to its competitor. After this introduction to the basic concept of game theory, the professor moved onto a real-life scenario on product costing and pricing strategies and the effectiveness of game theory to this particular application. The important takeaway here was the repercussions of game theory application to business decision making and even on public policy. He stressed this by giving an example of the price wars that were being waged in the U.S and India and how competition was getting fiercer as a result. The biggest learning was that using Game Theory effectively, a company that was less efficient than its competitor in its manufacturing / production techniques, could implement superior accounting systems and as result could grab a bigger market share and reap larger profits. A staggering concept and one which was greatly appreciated by audience.

He ended the evening by stating that Game theory was merely a tool that could aid decision making in a company and was certainly not the final solution. Managers need to use several methodologies and techniques to figure out how to gain the upper hand in the market and game theory was merely a stepping stone in that direction. Indeed it was an evening of heady insights and shattered preconceptions!

[twiceblessedman]

Nurturing Corporate Social Responsibility at Great Lakes

At Great Lakes, it is part of the course on Intelligently Interacting with Others to do a Karma-Yoga project. In essence, it is social service. Karma – means Action, Yoga – Meditation (well, a crude definition). So it is “Meditation through action”, in raw terms. But is it? Well, that’s what it says…
Every group (consisting of 4-5 members) is required to put in at least 3 hours of field work every week working with people from the under privileged section of society. When Prof. Venkat told us about the Karma-Yoga project, most of us were unhappy about it. Not that its unimportant (I’ve been part of CSR activities in the companies I’ve worked in), but, I mean, we don’t have 2 hours to spare given the grind here at Great Lakes, and now we are to put in 3 hours for this? To top it all, no two groups were to be associated with the same target group (same NGO).
Reluctantly all of us searched far and wide (actually as close to the college as possible so as to waste the least amount of time in transportation etc.) to find an NGO that we could be associated with. After a few hiccups, my group finally zeroed in on Puthiyadhor. The NGO works with children of day laborers of the Besant Nagar area of Chennai. They study in classes 1 to 12th.
Its a Govt. run community center where the children come to play, mingle, learn etc during the vacation time. During school time, it also serves as a tuition center to teach the children. Mind you, it’s a Govt. run community center. So it is a luxury to have a fan that is in working condition. But all it does is to circulate the hot and humid air already present what with the ventilation being next to non-existent.
After having interacted with some of the other NGOs for the Karma-Yoga project, we had built up a mental picture that while NGOs were sincere in their approach to help the needy, they had got bogged down by innumerable requests from groups like us who come in for small periods of time so much so that they viewed us with suspicion and contempt. They said they would dictate the kind of work we do. But at Puthiyadhor, it is very different indeed. It is run by mainly two people – Mr. Balaji and Mr. Vinod. They welcomed us and told us we have complete freedom in what we contribute as long as it benefits the children there.
The first day we met a few children too. They took us around showing us the presentations that they had made using chart paper (They were presenting facts and figures of each state in India each day). The children showed no qualms in interacting with us and after feeling content that we had chosen the right place, we returned after spending close to 2 hours there. It was pretty stressful that day and by the time I got back, I had a splitting headache and was wondering how I would cope for the next 18 weeks of this. (I get these splitting headaches if I am out in the heat for a little while)
And then this week happened. As planned, we reached Puthiyadhor at 3 PM after class on sunday. But boy o boy, were we in for a surprise. The children had been practicing some cinematic dance all these days and they decided to put a show for us!!! Of course, all play and no work makes our project a failure. Hence we sat with them and taught them a bit of English, math etc. To interested parties, we taught Hindi and Chinese too!! Well, for me it was kind of like learning with them.
I was surprised at the grasping power shown by some of them. Some of the children go to English medium schools!! There is a boy called Mahesh who is in 8th standard. He is one of the brightest there and he laps up any new information that we give. He is the most fluent of them in English too. In fact I would go to the extent of saying that he is almost on par with many of the children who go to private schools. Anyway, after about 2 hours or so, we sat down to enjoy the show they had put up for us. And they did put up a very good show.
Now, why do I find it so important to sit and write this stuff at 3AM on a Monday morning? Well, coz I thoroughly enjoyed myself today. For the record, today saw one of the highest temperatures for the year in Chennai. On top of that I had 4 research papers to read for the Empirical study lecture class and 185 pages of Financial accounting to account for and a Chinese oral test and one a chapter on Binomial and Poisson theorem for statistics and an assignment for Macro Economics apart from the innumerous pdfs to read for my empirical study plus prepare a detailed synopsis of my empirical study which I have to send to my potential guide today, social psychology chapters to read with exams round the corner… The list is endless.
And yet, the whole time I was there with the children I never thought of all this. I was… Free… No worries, no hassles… And wonder of wonders, no headache either!!! Karma-Yoga seems to be achieving just that for me, Mediation through Action. And that’s not all. Each of us is learning something new from them too. As I mentioned before, I learned Hindi and Chinese with them and I’m learning Tamil from them. My teammates have had similar experiences too.
So to sum up the experience, I, who was initially reluctant about doing the Karma-Yoga project, am a changed man. So much so that I’m actually looking forward to going there, being with the kids and spending time with them.
By – George Mathew,
Student, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai

[twiceblessedman]

Great Lakes Institute of Management celebrates SWIM 2008

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai celebrated SWIM (Successful Women in Management) on 12th August 2008. SWIM is an initiative mooted by the students of Great Lakes to empower women with traits to assume leadership roles in the corporate world. The SWIM community, initiated in 2005, works towards identifying and drawing inspiration from successful women from various walks of life.

The day-long event organised at Hotel Green Park on Tuesday was presided by Ms. Anu Aga, former chairperson of Thermax. Padmasri Sudha Raghunathan, Noted Carnatic Vocalist, Ms. Mridula Ramesh of Sundaram Textiles and Ms. Hemu Ramaiah, founder of Landmark enlightened the audience on 'Women as Trailblazers: Dreaming, Exploring and Discovering new horizons’

The distinguished guests discussed at length about the success, women had achieved in the field of management and aspired to achieve greater heights. Ms. Anu Aga in her opening speech said that it was important to balance professional responsibilities and personal life and emphasized on Vipasana which is the art of living. Ms Sudha Raghunathan talked about her journey to becoming a maestro in classical music. She discussed the challenges faced during her journey, and how she won over them. Ms. Hemu Ramaiah opined that it is important to think out of the box to reach “the other side” and achieve success. She elaborated on the lessons learnt in running an entrepreneurial venture. According to her, entrepreneurs must plan when to start and exit a business plan. Ms. Mridula Ramesh talked about four success enablers for women, namely role models, proving early competence in a language known by competitors, courage, and family support.

The event also had a panel discussion on the topic “Educated, Intelligent, energetic, and just in her forties – can she still pursue her career dreams”. The discussion was moderated by Mr. T. N. Seshan, former CEC of India. The panel included Ms. Pushpa Kandaswamy, Noted TV producer, Ms. Indra Subramanyam, MD, Ehrlich Lab, Ms. Lalitha Maheswaran, HR Consultant and Ms. Sarda Ramani, president of C I Global Solutions. Mr. Seshan introduced the theme, and enraptured the audience with his characteristic witty remarks throughout the discussion. Ms Indra Subramanyam stated that desire is what takes women towards their goals. She also said that for a country to prosper, men and women must work together without compromising on domestic life. Ms. Pushpa Kandaswamy said that relations were more important than numbers. She vehemently supported the theme and emphasized that women are adaptable, efficient and capable of multi tasking. According to Ms Sharda, determination and grit are important and even if one were to take a break in professional life, one can still get back as and when one feels like, and make the best out of it. Ms Lalitha, a visiting faculty at Great Lakes, addressed the women in the audience and advised them to define success for themselves, and not neglect their own selves. She said every decision taken will have its own consequences, it is important to make a choice and live by it. This was followed by an open house session where the audience, comprising of the distinguished guests, students and faculty, posed a variety of questions related to women’s lives and their career orientation.

Les Quizerables – the Quiz competition between various companies and colleges was also a part of SWIM 2008. The quiz was a great success with a total of 46 teams registering for Les Quizerables. The teams were from top companies like TCS, Cognizant, Citibank, HP, I-flex, KPMG, IRENVA, Frost and Sullivan, Abacus and Aura participating in the quiz. The quiz also had enthusiastic students from IIT, Madras, Anna University, SIIB, Pune, IFMR and many others.

The total prize money for the quiz was Rs. 35000. The first prize was won by team Sumo comprising of Saranya Jayakumar, Rajen Prabhu and Kiran Vijaykumar.

The quiz was conducted by Mr. Vinod Ganesh. Vinod Ganesh has conducted the annual 'QFI Open Quiz' for the last four years and the 'Infosys Corporate Quiz' in 2006. He is an ardent quizzer and has won multitudes of quizzes all over the country. A regular finalist at the Landmark Quiz and the Odyssey Quiz, he has won Lone Wolf quizzes at IIT Madras' Saarang, REC Trichy's Festember and has also won the annual Grandmaster quiz at the Quiz Foundation of India, Chennai.


Founder and Honorary Dean of Great Lakes, Dr. Bala V. Balachandran and Executive Director of PGPM Great Lakes Prof. S. Sriram were also present on the occasion. Dr. Bala V. Balachandran in his address spoke about the need for women to pursue their dreams in spite of obstacles on their path.