XIM-B to open new campus in Orissa

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One among India’s top 10 B-schools, the Xavier’s Institute of Management (XIM), Bhubaneshwar will soon be opening another campus in India. The institute has big expansion plans and is scouting for a 100 acre land in Orissa near its existing campus in Bhubaneshwar.

The new campus will be an extension of the Bhubaneshwar campus and XIM will need Rs 50 crore to go ahead with its expansion plans. The institute plans to raise the money through alumni support and other sources.

XIM has applied to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for permission to double the student admission capacity for both — its full-time and part-time business management programme. Currently the institute admits 60 students each to both the programmes and plans to increase the student capacity to 120 in the next year.

The institute also plans to increase the capacity further by 60 students in the next five years. It will celebrate 25 years of its existence in 2012 and wants to complete the expansion plans by then. “Once we have appropriate infrastructure — hostels, classrooms and faculty in place for new students — we will look at increasing the student capacity further,” says Father E Abraham, director XIM-B.

The institute has recently increased its fee from Rs 3.96 lakh to Rs 4.35 lakh for the two-year business management programme. The increase will come in effect this year. Says an XIM-B professor, “The increase in cost of education along with other expense like infrastructure maintenance, salary revision of faculty members and upgradation of facilities for students has made us revise our fee structure.” The new campus will have more emphasis on technology based learning. “We already have video conferencing facility in our present institute. We plan to bring it more in use at the new campus,” says Abraham.

XIM-B’s idea to have another campus in Orissa comes from the fact that steel and IT companies are setting up base in the state. South Korean steel major Posco and Arcelor Mittal have already announced plans to set up plants in Orissa and IT majors Infosys and Wipro too are bullish on the state. “This industrialisation of the state is a positive signal and will help us gain a stronger ground considering our brand value with the corporates,” says Abraham.

Incidentally, placements at the institute this year saw JP Morgan Chase offering the highest domestic salary of Rs 12.75 lakh per annum to the PGDBM batch. The highest international offer made was by Olam International at US $85,000 (Rs 37.4 lakh) per annum. The average salary for the batch rose by 23 per cent this year and stood at Rs 8.77 lakh per annum. The average domestic salary was Rs 8.52 lakh per annum while the median salary was Rs 8.5 lakh per annum. The institute saw maximum representation from he IT industry including companies like IBM, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Mindtree, Wipro, et al.

A total of 98 companies across sectors had shown interest in recruiting students and 72 of them were slotted for the final placement process. New companies on campus included HLL, Dell International, Deloitte Consulting, UBS, HSBC Global Resourcing, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Idea Cellular, Hutch, Grow Talent, Centurion Bank of Punjab etc.

IIM-A: Admissions only after quota issue resolves

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AHMEDABAD, APR 20 : Deferring the earlier decision to announce admissions on April 21, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) on Friday said that it would offer the admissions to successful candidates for its two-year Post Graduate Programme (PGP) 2007-09 batch only after the OBC quota issue is resolved.

As per a release issued by IIM-A, “The decision to offer admissions only after the 27% OBC implementation issue is resolved — is taken in pursuance to advice of the Union ministry of human resource development vide its letters on April 5 and April 19 as well as in the view of the fact that the implementation of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 is under the Supreme Court’s consideration.”

All the six IIMs were to hold a meeting on Friday, but they called off it after the central government sent a fresh communication to the B-schools to put on hold their admission processes till the apex court hears the matter on April 23.

It may be mentioned here that all the IIMs had unanimously decided to announce the first list of 1,350 successful candidates on April 12, 2007.

The B-schools were saying that they could not delay the admission process indefinitely as it might affect the quality of intake for the ensuing batch.

Earlier announcing the decision of all the six IIMs, Bakul Dholakia, director, IIM-A, had informed that apart from the quality of intake being affected due to the delay, it would also impact other 81 educational institutes, which offered admissions based on CAT result even though these institute were also not restricted by the HRD circular.

New buzz in B-schools: Group offers

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NEW DELHI: Placement offers at management schools have always revolved around fat salaries and big job offers. Not anymore. Now ‘group offers’ are a new trend in B-schools. Companies prefer to hire a big group from the same management institute as opposed to making offers to students from different B-schools. AT ISB, NIIT recruited two teams of four students as the core management team for a new business venture.

They have to set up the project from ground zero and have been offered equity stakes in the venture. “We interviewed 12 teams of students from ISB and finally made offers to two.We looked at not just experience, but also team spirit and bonding among the students,” says Smarajit Dey, president, strategic initiatives, NIIT.

Similar offers have also been given at IIM campuses. “Many companies have recruited more than one student for the same vertical,” says Mohit Singhvi, secretary, placement committee, IIM-Indore. At IIMKozhikode, Reliance Industries recruited many for its new venture fund for SEZ (Special Economic Zone). “They recruited in numbers to ensure good teamwork,” says Kartik Talwar, member, placement committee, IIT-K.

The rationale is simple. There is familiarity and bonding among students from the same institute and this helps if a company is embarking on a new venture.”We have been together for one year now.We know and trust each other. This will hold us in good stead as we embark on a new journey outside school and create a business from scratch,” says Samir Mehta, ISB. He was among those who bagged the NIIT offer.

397 institutes to participate in AIMA’s MAT in May

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All India Management Association (AIMA) is going to conduct its next Management Aptitude Test (MAT) for screening candidates for MBA programs on 6th May.

There are 397 B-schools who avail of the MAT format (that has been in practice since 1988) for admissions. These include Amity Business School, Noida; Institute of Management Studies, Ghaziabad; Academy of Management Studies, Dehradun; Graduate School of Business & Administration, Greater Noida; Jagan Institute of Management studies, Jaipur; Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management & Development Studies, Lucknow; and NIILM-Centre for Management Studies, New Delhi.

According to AIMA, MAT is usually conducted 4 times each year: in February, May, September and December. It is an objective test with multiple-choice answers, designed to measure a person’s general aptitudes like Language Comprehension, Mathematical Skills, Data Analysis and Sufficiency, Intelligence and Critical Reasoning and [knowledge of] Indian and Global Environment.

The MAT bulletin for the 6 May is currently on sale. The form is available at all the AIMA nodal centers, selected UTI Bank branches and at some of the participating B-schools. The last date for the sale of the MAT bulletin is 18 April and the last date for submitting the form is 20 April. Students have to submit their forms at the AIMA office in New Delhi. Graduates in any discipline from a recognized university and final-year students from any discipline can apply.

Windfall for IIM-A PGPX students

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AHMEDABAD, MAR 29: The students of the country’s premier business school-India Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) are witnessing a windfall in terms of salaries.
The 58 students who underwent the one year post graduation programme for executives (PGPX) have managed to get an average domestic salary of Rs. 24.65 lakh annually, while the average international salary offered is $ 135,000 per annum.

Announcing the outcome of final placements for the PGPX programme launched last year, IIM-A director Dr Bakul Dholakia said 42 students have received domestic offers, while 14 students have accepted overseas placements. As many as 54 companies participated in the placement process and 135 offers were made. The average domestic salary offered is Rs 24.65 lakh.

Only a fraction of Indian B-schools offer quality education

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Indian management education is in a middle of a strange paradox.

Since 1990s while the number of B-schools are going up almost every month, the quality of management education offered by a majority of B-schools leaves a lot to be desired. Speaking on this issue, Director of XLRI Jamshedpur Fr N Casimir Raj S J commented, “While there is a great demand for management education and Indian talent, only a small fraction of Indian B-schools offer quality education. We have some 1,800 management institutes in India. But the problem is there are only about 50 that are providing quality education. Unfortunately, a vast majority of B-schools are not meeting even the minimum benchmarks.” Fr Casimir Raj was speaking to MBAUniverse.com on a wide range of issues. He added, “Management education is very important for the sustained growth of the country.”

When asked how the issue of quality can be addressed Fr Casimir Raj said, “Management institutes should try to provide quality education which is acceptable to students and industry. Quality has to be self-managed by institutions — not under government order.”

Started in 1949 in the steel city of Jamshedpur, the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) has been a pioneer of management education with a purpose. Over the years it has been leading the management revolution from the front – XLRI, for instance, started satellite-based education in 2000, and then expanded into two international centers Dubai and Singapore.
Fr N Casimir Raj S J has been associated with education for three decades and has worked with various institutions like XIM-Bhubaneswar (where he was director), Goa Institute of Management, St. Luis University (in Missouri, US) and Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chennai – other than XLRI.

In a wide-ranging interview with MBAUniverse.com Fr Casimir Raj shared his views on management education, learnings from XLRI’s forays in Dubai and Singapore and their future plans. Click on the link below to read full interview.