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B-school roundup: Barkha Dutt addresses students on leadership at IIM K


Barkha Dutt addresses the students on leadership at IIM Kozhikode

As part of the Leadership Series organized by IIM Kozhikode, Barkha Dutt, Managing Editor of NDTV was on campus and interacted with the students, faculty members of IIMK on November 4, 2009.

Prof Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIMK welcomed the guest and recollected how she has redefined television journalism in India. Further, Prof Chatterjee recounted that over the years many students, especially girls, have named Dutt as their role model.

The session, an engaging discussion, ranged from issues like 26/11, naxalism, discrimination in India, challenges and opportunities from new technologies et al. When asked how she would like herself to be remembered, Dutt replied that as a person who would not take no for an answer and one who pushed existing boundaries. On talking about challenges faced by conventional media in the wake of technological changes she opined that newspapers should reinvent themselves and that TV reporting would benefit from internet/IP TV. She spoke about the growing acceptance of online communities like Facebook, Twitter, blogosphere etc. “With mobile phones every man today is a journalist”, said Dutt and quoted instances where actual TV reporting was entirely based on information from ordinary people on the ground.

Dutt was critical about the condemning of TV reporting during 26/11 Mumbai attacks. She said that looking back it is clear that TV coverage should have been more responsible but added that it was total chaos then. “No one knew what to do. Not the government, nor the police, not the army nor the media”, said Dutt. On questioned if there should be regulations on TV reporting, she strongly disapproved it but was of the opinion that media should have self-imposed guidelines when reporting such traumatic events. When asked why TV media highlight trivial issues at the cost of important news she agreed that it does happen and more by Hindi news channels, attracting good TRP numbers. She added that it is indeed a challenge of her profession to provide important news content in a relevant way to the masses and achieve a balance between good journalism and interest factor. She also appealed that as consumers we should completely reject such irrelevant programming.

The discussion touched many issues like Gujarat 2001/ Sikh 1984 riots, naxal threat, Kashmir, Northeast, challenges to the younger generation etc. The audience also questioned Ms.Dutt on her personal motivations and what does fear mean to her. As a word of advice to future managers she said that in her career she has met people of high integrity from different walks of life. She urged the aspiring mangers to never lose track of self and said that it is possible to be fiercely competitive while never compromising on integrity.

Utsaha: Marketing event at IIM Indore

Utsaha has come to be known as a premier marketing event in the Indian B-School circuit. It provides a platform for companies to obtain key consumer insights on their products and brands. With projects being executed by dedicated IIM Indore student teams under the guidance of senior marketing faculty and experts, Utsaha adds value to partner companies while simultaneously offering students a practical exposure to multiple facets of consumer marketing. This year, Utsaha stepped into new territory, with an aim to unravel and decipher the rural consumer’s mind for companies.

Dr. Manmohan Singh has said that My vision of rural India is of a modern agrarian, industrial and services economy co-existing side by side, where people can live in well-equipped villages and commute easily to work, be it on the farm or in the non-farm economy. As envisioned by him, Rural India offers the best opportunities for growth in the future. Accordingly, “Go rural” is the slogan of today’s marketing gurus. 790 million Indians reside in 600,000 villages scattered all over the sprawling country. With such a vast consumer base, the success story of Rural India is on its way to reaching its pinnacle. This is resulting in higher discretionary income and consumption levels, thereby providing great opportunities for new products and brands to make their mark.

Utsaha thus merged with the quintessential rural mela – The Kartik Purnima Mela. The mela takes place in the villages of Janapaw Kuti and Badgonda in the Malwa belt at a short distance from IIM Indore from November 1st to 3rd. Utsaha had all the components of a mela; be it food, shopping, games, events, fun and that little bit extra, as it doubles up as a carnival milieu to conduct comprehensive consumer market research.

The Kimberly Clark project team researching diaper usage held a free health check up clinic for all the children and women at the venue. Armed with a doctor, scales, measuring tape, etc they were handing out prescriptions to the people and educating them about the importance of good health and hygiene. The key was to make consumers feel involved, thus enabling enthusiastic participation which helped them to gauge their response towards the products of the companies.

The data collected during these events will be woven together to form marketing research reports for the sponsoring companies. A large number of projects have been offered by big names like Hindustan Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Cavinkare, Cadburys, Shakti Pumps and Kimberly Clark. This corroborates the fact that Utsaha, is in fact a win-win collaboration between the students and the industry.

Avenues: The annual festival of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

AVENUES 2009 organized by Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, (SJMSOM), IIT Bombay from October 31 to November 1, 2009 was an exciting bouquet of events, games, seminars, and much more. The event was graced by luminaries like Ness Wadia, Rahul Bose, Prahlad Kakkar, Ajit Balakrishnan, M.Damodaran, Pramod Chaudhari and others. The event also saw participation from students of more than 150 B-Schools across India as well as leading corporate houses and working professionals.

Avenues 2009, annual business festival of Shailesh J Mehta, School Of Management, IIT Bombay, started on Oct 31, 2009, with an inauguration ceremony, where Ajit Balakrishnan, founder and CEO, rediff.com addressed the audience on the digital revolution and the threats and opportunities it represents for India.

Next Pramod Chaudhuri spoke on the theme of AVENUES, people, planet and profits. He spoke about the triple bottom line principle which considers that besides economic aspects, businesses should look toward the environmental and social aspects to ensure true sustainability.

Prahlad Kakkar, the Ad-Guru, addressed the audience on October 31, 2009. Kakkar used various incidents in his life to explain the principles by which he lived. He said that for most people, the greatest motivation in their lives is fear and that fears have to be confronted, not shelved away. He illustrated this by describing his first diving experience, when the great fear of the open ocean forced him to confront all his other, smaller fears.

AVENUES 2009 saw the launch of an HR event ‘HRiday’. The event witnessed a participation of more than 100 teams across the best B-schools in India. OPERA, the operations club of SJMSOM conducted YOJNA-is a case study based operations event.

After being immensely successful at Stanford, MIT and AVENUES 08, Imagine it! Project was back at Avenues 2009- bigger and stronger in a bid to cultivate imagination. It featured global creativity challenges and multi-platform media content, including the Imagine It! Documentary Film Series. The event was held at IIT Bombay which saw participation from institutes all across India like IIFT Delhi, NMIMS Mumbai, IIT Bombay and many more. The event also saw heavy corporate participation from industry giants like GE India. In the prelims participants were given some scrap materials like candles, straws and matchbox. There were lot of innovative ideas and products presented in this event like- solution for electricity scarcity in Mumbai, Multi-utility organizer and many more.

Ness Wadia was the distinguished judge at the flagship consulting event SAMVAAD, held at the SJMSOM. Wadia, interacted with the students and enthralled everyone with his very real take on Corporate Social Responsibility and the lack of it in the Indian Corporate domain. He also addressed current issues of social development and the need for public private partnership in various fields..

The evening saw two truly great speakers and an overflowing auditorium. M. Damodaran, former SEBI chief, gave an insightful talk about regulation and his views on this.

Damodaran was followed by Rahul Bose, the well known actor and social activist. Bose conducted a very interactive and though provoking session which was truly very enriching for the students. He spoke about how to be 100 percent happy. First, we should find out who we are, by finding out the values that we hold dear. Next one should determine what it is that we are born to do and then find a way to do it. Then, we should take away or reduce the things that make us unhappy by giving our time, skill or money but not to such an extent that it hurts.

STRATEGYM ’09 concluded at JBIMS with an attempt to bring reforms

Providing a whole new approach to the age old problem faced by the industry and bring about a paradigm shift in the way various business situations are perceived in a fast changing business arena was the ideology at display when research papers were presented at ‘Strategym ’09’, the 14th Annual Business Convention of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies organised at ITC Grand Maratha, Mumbai.

The event was inaugurated by Keki Mistry, Vice President and MD, HDFC. A total of 8 research papers of varied topics and fields that are relevant in the current scenario were presented in front of experts and high profile panelists from the relevant and corresponding fields. Various aspects were minutely taken into consideration and feasible solutions were presented to each of the problems through these research papers. The panelists gave their recommendations and suggestions for the paper and guided the students to develop on their proposals.

Most papers that were presented were of social relevance. The paper on ‘Energy, Environment and Society’ focused on tackling the problems of power shortage in India and development of renewable sources of energy. The growing problems faced by the farmers and agriculture in India prompted the students to work on a model of ‘Agri-Insurance’. The research paper on ‘Bollywood Blockbusters’ was aimed at generating a model to reduce the subjectivity involved in the success of a film. The trends in the past were studied with respect to various parameters such as actors. Music director, time of release, etc. and a model was derived at to judge whether a film is probable to be a hit or a failure.

Disposition or commercial utilization of waste is a big problem in India. The solution and recommendations to the problem formed the crux of the paper on ‘Waste Management’. Small and Medium scale companies play an important role in development and growth in India. The research paper on ‘Indian SMEs: A roadmap to Global Competitiveness’ analyzed the major growth drivers for SMEs in various sectors and presented key growth areas for the SMEs to grow and be globally competent.

The 3rd prize winner at Strategym ’09 was the paper on ‘Revamping the Indian Postal System’. Postal system being the primary means of communication for large part of Indian population, the paper presented a model to revamp the business of Indian post by exploring initiatives that Indian Post needs to take to serve the emerging needs of a growing economy.

The paper on Buyback of Securities, which was awarded the 2nd prize at Strategym, analyzed the problems face various Stakeholders when a company buys back its securities, whether the current regulations are sufficient and gave their recommendations to make the process friendlier to the stake holders.

The winning paper at Strategym this year, ‘Mitigating traffic Congestion in Mumbai’, analyzed various major issues affecting the severe traffic problems in the city and evaluated the feasibility of waterways as an alternate means of transport.

JBIMS hosts Manish Jain

Continuing with the tradition of hosting knowledge leaders on campus, the students at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies had an interactive session with Manish Jain, Managing Director, Axis Holdings. Having completed an MMS course from the Mumbai University, Jain was a Senior Vice – President at Merrill Lynch, Canada. Currently he heads Axis Holdings, an investment management company that he founded with an associate. He also holds a degree in Cost Accounting from the ICWAI.

The session titled ‘Insights into the PE world’, the session was intended to give the students a ring side view of the field of private equity and facilitate a deeper understanding of the same. Jain started by dispelling some commonly believed myths regarding private equity. He followed that by discussing the various parameters on which target companies were evaluated, the most important one being the business model. High entry barriers, the ability of the company to reinvest money to keep achieving earnings growth and a competent management team were some of the other factors that made a company attractive.

With regards to valuation, Jain went on to highlight how herd mentality and the macro-economic situation often led to valuations that were often unrealistic. Due importance is to be given to how close a firm is to an inflexion point with respect to earnings. The need for a well defined exit strategy keeping in mind the life of the fund was also stressed upon.

The various steps involved in a PE deal were dealt with next. Jain walked the students through the stages of a deal right from the first meeting to the signing of the deal, drawing from his experience of having handheld various deals to their conclusion. The students also got a chance to apply their knowledge, tackling the case studies that Jain discussed and thus gaining a real – time perspective of how the entire process worked.

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