IIM-A`s 2008 batch bags 79 pre-placement offers

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The placement season has begun early at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

With five months still to go before the placement day, pre-placement offers have begun to pour in for the batch of 2008 at IIM-A. There have been a total of 79 offers so far with nine students being extended associate offers.

Also, in a new move, the institute is allowing exchange students from other countries to sit for placements.

Top consulting firms like McKinsey and Co, and Bain and Co along with others in the investment banking industry, such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, have extended fulltime offers to students who interned there.

Diane Gabriel, an exchange student at IIM-A, said, “As a French IIM-A-ESSEC dual-degree student, I intend to sit for placement at IIM-A because it offers great professional opportunities both in India and abroad. The companies that come to the campus are among the world’s best and the roles that they offer are as diverse and challenging as they come.”

Last year, 11 students decided to become entrepreneurs and not sit for placements. The trend is set to repeat this year.

Kunal Upadhyay, who heads the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A, said, “In recent times, the focus of students has risen above PPOs, job offers etc to start their own ventures.”

To encourage the trend, IIM-A is providing such students with the option of coming back to IIM-A for placements within two years after graduation.

B-schools expect over 150% rise in pre-placement offers

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IIM-Bangalore, which has received around 70 offers so far this year, leads the pack.

Indian B-schools are all charged up for the pre-placement season, with some expecting an increase of over 150 per cent in the pre-placement offers (PPOs) made to their students when compared with last year’s figure.

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore, for instance, has received around 21 PPOs so far as compared to a total of 22 last year.

The institute expects the offers to go up to 55 this year — an increase of around 162 per cent. IIM-Indore has, so far, got offers from FMCG majors, IT companies and banks. “We are expecting more than 25 offers from banks alone,” said an IIM-Indore placement executive.

The institute, however, is keeping its PPOs open till it begins its final placements in February. PPOs usually flow in from the month of September (after the first year students finish their summer internships at companies) and go on till December or January.

Most B-schools close their PPOs by the end of October (or by early November) as they want to give the students ample time to decide on which company to join.

At the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, two PPOs have flowed in so far but the institute expects the offers to cross 50 this year. Last year, the institute had 32 offers in total. It expects a jump of around 56 per cent in the PPOs made this year.

“This year, we are expecting the offers to go up because our batch profile is different. More than 50 per cent of our students have over a year’s experience,” said Nilanjan Chattopadhyay, placement chairperson at IMT Ghaziabad.

IIM-Bangalore, however, leads the pack in the number of PPOs any B-school has received so far. The institute is said to have got around 70 PPOs till now — an increase of around 16 per cent as compared to the total number 60 PPOs it notched last year.

However, the institute expects the number of PPOs to go up, as many companies are in the process of evaluating the candidates. The interns who have bagged the offers worked with various companies in different locations across the world — San Francisco, Australia, London, Texas, Singapore and Brussels.

Companies which have made offers are Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, HSBC, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital, Citigroup, HLL, P&G and Marico among others.

Eight companies have approached the Xavier’s Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIM-B), with PPOs so far. While the institute received around 30 pre-placement offers last year, its conservative estimate is over 30 offers this year.

Companies which have evinced interest so far in recruiting students from the campus include Tata Corporate HR, Dr Reddy’s, Vedanta and Future First.

The institute is expecting a lot of new companies on the campus this year. “The focus of 60 per cent of the students is on finance and banking,” said an XIM-B student.

IIM-Kozhikode (IIM-K) has bagged 17 national and one international pre-placement offers. It expects the offers to go up to 70 — an increase of over 35 per cent as compared to 52 (50 national and 2 international) it received last year.

Companies which have made offers include KPMG Dubai, Hindustan Unilever, Horizon Asset Management (for its new hedge fund), ITC, JP Morgan, Marico, and Cognizant among others.

A placement official at IIM-K said, “Recruitment scene at the institute will be as good as last year.”

While companies flocking to management schools in big numbers is not new, the institutes are attributing this increase in offers to the booming economy and an equally vibrant jobs market.

An IIM professor said, “Companies have always looked at PPOs as an effective placement option. Summer internships help companies ascertain students’ calibre. Also, students get to know the organisation’s work culture, which helps them in taking a decision.”

Fancy pre-placement offers for IIM-B graduates

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BANGALORE: Jobs chase them half way through the course. Most IIM-B Bangalore grads get excellent job offers midway.Presently, recruiting companies are going a step further to ensure they reserve their candidates in time by making pre-placement offers (PPOs) to several of these students after their first year itself.The trend is gaining favour across companies in different sectors. The Student Media Cell of IIM, Bangalore, is getting excellent pre-placement offers (PPOs) from various companies with whom they had done their summer internships at various locations across the world.

All major consultancy firms and investment banks, which together form the most coveted group of recruiters these days, have offered PPOs to IIM Bangalore students.Spokesperson of IIM-B Bangalore said that although PPO as a concept has been known for long but this year has seen a significant rise in the number of offers made to IIM-B students. All the consulting firms that recruit from IIM Bangalore in Slot Zero includes firms like McKinsey & Co., The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Co., A T Kearney and Trilogy.

They have given PPOs to all of the summer interns they hired from the IIM-B campus last year. To the credit of IIM Bangalore, this remarkable feat is unparalleled. Rahul Jain, principal, BCG believes that the diversity among students of IIM-B is a major contributing factor to this.The quality and diversity of students are truly exceptional, he said. The students had worked with these companies in different locations like San Francisco, Australia, London, Texas, Singapore, Brussels and India.Investment banks too have made offers for final placements to a large number of interns from IIM-B.

Companies like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, HSBC, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital and Citigroup have all made final offers to their interns who worked across locations like London, New York and the Asia-Pacific.Companies are increasingly finding the PPO route to final selection more useful as they get to take a closer look at the candidates during the summer internship.

“The summer internship process at A T Kearney gives us an opportunity to evaluate interns rigorously and assess within the organization.We are very pleased with the summer interns from IIMB this year and have decided to extend Pre-Placement Offers to them,” said Vishal Kaushal, principal, A T Kearney.

AICTE cracks whip on defaulting B-schools

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Unapproved institutes, many of the country’s leading ones, will be closed, says the All India Council for Technical Education.

Seven months after the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) served notice to 273 institutes running technical programmes without the regulating body’s approval, a mere 32 institutes have sought the necessary approval.

Renowned technical education institutes like — Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; Kirloskar Institute of Advance Management, Karnataka; Federation of Hotel and Restaurants Association of India Institute of Hospitality Management (FHRAI), Noida; Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai; ICFAI Business School, Gurgaon and Chandigarh; Sikkim Manipal University, Bangalore and TASMAC Institute, Pune — still figure on the defaulters list.

In March this year, the AICTE had issued notices to these institutes asking them to comply by its norms to operate in the country. In June, the regulating body sent them final reminders and finally in July, decided to seek the state governments’ help in shutting them down. “We want to safeguard the students from falling prey to some fly-by-night operators. Many of these institutes run programmes ranging from masters in management, engineering, hospitality management and diploma in fashion technology. We receive numerous enquiries from anxious parents and students everyday and thus we have decided to clamp down on these institutes,” said an AICTE official.

Institutes which have got the AICTE approval include the Christ Educational Society, Bangalore; Bharat Institute of Aeronautical Engineering and Technology, Pune; Adroit Engineering Institute, Mumbai; NIIT, Bangalore; Academy of Pharmaceutical Management, Mumbai; Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s PDN College of Communication and Management, Mumbai; Delhi Business School, Delhi; HR College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai and five technical colleges run by Mumbai Education Trust, Mumbai.

The AICTE says, it’s firm on its stand to approach the state government to shut these institutes down. “We will be talking to the state governments on this issue. The AICTE approval is a must and no institute can run a technical course without it. Institutes which have the state government’s approval to run the course will also have to take AICTE’s approval. However, some colleges affiliated to state universities could be exempted if they fulfill the necessary formalities asked by AICTE,” said an AICTE official.

Unapproved institutes are classified in two categories — those which run technical unapproved programmes in collaboration with foreign institutes and others which have not sought the AICTE’s approval at all for running their technical programmes.

For instance, Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management (KIAM) in Karnataka, run and governed by the Kirloskar Group of Companies, one of India’s largest industrial conglomerates, has got into a tie up with Kishore Biyani promoted Pantaloon Retail. But the institute apparently has not sought permission from AICTE for the same. It offers a post graduate diploma in management. Other management institutes which figure on the list are— Training and Advanced Studies in Management Communication (TASMAC institute), Pune; Mumbai-based Weigan and Leigh College and Welingkar Institute of Management Development.

Mumbai Education Trust’s (MET’s ) five institutes— MET Asian Management Development Centre; Institute of Distance Learning; Institute of Software Development and Research; Insitute of Mass Media and Institute of Medical Sciences— sought clearance from the AICTE earlier this month.

Says Sunil Karve, founder trustee and vice chairman - MET league of colleges, “Getting an approval from the AICTE has cleared a lot of unnecessary misunderstanding in the minds of our stakeholders. The AICTE wanted to know if the activities at MET were within the purview of the AICTE norms. They wanted to be sure that none of the activities were violating the norms.”

The Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, has also applied for an AICTE approval. Said an Indian School of Business official, “We did receive a letter from the AICTE asking certain clarifications and our relationship with our partner schools— Kellogg Graduate School of Management and The Wharton School. We have furnished all the details to AICTE”.

B-schools show quality gaps despite upgrades: Survey

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The big B-school event of 2007 was not just the battle over autonomy for management institutions or the huge salary hikes for MBAs.
Rather, it was the significant improvement in the number of middle-rung business schools in the country.

This is one of the key findings of the 2007 annual B-school survey of the All India Management Association, published by Indian Management, a Business Standard publication.

An overview of the ratings shows that there are significant changes in many of the categories.
For instance, the number of institutes in the A category has come down from 37 last year to 23 this year. The biggest change, however, has been in the middle segment, where in the B+ category, while there were 40 institutes last year, the number has shot up to 61.

The ratings focus on five core parameters: intellectual capital, interface with industry, governance, admissions and placement, and infrastructure.

The survey expectedly brings out the huge gap in quality among schools in the various categories.

For example, if you take the intellectual capital parameter, the average super league school (the top-rung) has around 54 PhDs in their faculty. At the next level, the figure drops to 37. Then it crashes steadily all the way to C category schools with just three PhDs apiece.

Again, if you were to take the average number of titles published by the Super Leaguers, it is 26. The A-plus schools (below the super league) also did a respectable 25. But by the time you get to the C schools, it’s practically negligible.

There is also a vast difference in the average Indian salary paid to MBA graduates. While it is about Rs 10 lakh per annum for the super leaguers, it is just Rs 1.58 lakh a year for the schools in the C category.

The survey highlights some key challenges that B-schools face across the country. For one, research is clearly at a premium in most B-schools.

Second, the huge teaching loads inflicted on faculty particularly in the lower-rung schools highlight an acute shortage of teachers.

Third, particularly for those MBAs graduating from B and C category schools, employability and job-fit remain an issue.

However, despite these issues, B-schools continue to get a growing number of applicants every year.

Institutions are also revamping their courses and curricula to suit the changing needs of students and industry.

The top rung B-schools in particular are on a global drive with many of them setting up campuses overseas, establishing exchange programmes with international institutes, inducting summer trainees and students from overseas, and having companies from abroad coming to them for placements.

Of the roughly 1400 B-schools approved by the All India Council for Technical Education, 201 participated in the AIMA survey conducted by IMRB International.

Of these only 194 were rated as others did not qualify or sent in their questionairres late. The full listing and related stories appear in the September edition of Indian Management.

Outlook B-School Survey 2007

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Leading news magazine Outlook released its annual B-School survey, conducted by research firm Cfore.

For the first time, the survey has classified B-Schools into four categories: Government/ PSU B-Schools, Private B-Schools, University Departments and Sectoral B-Schools. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A); XLRI Jamshedpur; Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Studies (FMS); and the Indian Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) have topped respective league tables. The survey notes that while IIMs are still on top, many aggressive private B-schools are fast catching up. Says the Survey, “The most important development has been the initiative of private institutes in critical areas such as research, entrepreneurship and innovation. Although some are still behind the top IIMs in terms of overall scores, non-government schools are catching up fast.”

In the government-assisted B-Schools, IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, IIM-L and Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon have grabbed the first five slots. Mumbai-based NITIE, Delhi-based IIFT, and IIT Mumbai’s SJM-SOM are other B-schools to find place.

It’s in the Top 10 private B-schools table where the competition is intense. XLRI tops the list; Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and NMIMS are followed by IMT, Ghaziabad and Hydeabad-based ICFAI Business School (IBS). XIM-Bhubaneshwar, IMT Delhi and Symbiosis Pune too find places in this table.

Delhi University’s FMS tops the University Department based B-schools. Mumbai-based Jamna Lal Bajaj Institute of Management (JBIMS) and University Business School (UBS) Chandigarh are the other top B-schools in this category.

The Survey provides rankings to 14 government institutes, 50 private B-schools, 10 University departments, and 7 sectoral B-schools.

While the overall ranking tables are presented by institute classifications, the Survey offers some insights into how top B-schools stack up when compared across the spectrum. IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, XLRI and MDI, for instance, are ranked as top five B-schools on the ‘Industry interface’ parameter. On the important parameter of ‘Placement Performance’, IIM-A, IIM-C, IIM-B, XLRI and IIM-L are ranked on top.

English: Is it the language of success?

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INDIA HAS INHERITED a multicultural and multilingual society where bilingualism and multilingualism have become the order of the day to be a part of the main-stream. While mother tongues and regional languages were part of the curriculum from the beginning, English made inroads into our educational system as a second language. Slowly, realising the importance of English as an international language, many schools upgraded it as first language in the curriculum. Little information is available, however, on the number of people who “know” English and the extent of their knowledge or even on how many people study English at school. According to the 1981 census, 202,400 persons (0.3 percent of the population) admitted to English being their first language.
Less than 1 percent admitted to English being their second language while 14 percent admitted to being bilingual (in two of India’s many languages).
The Fifth All-India Education Survey conducted in 1992 explored the avenues for studying English in India. According to the survey, only 1.3 per cent of primary schools, 3.4 per cent of upper primary schools, 3.9 per cent of middle schools, and 13.2 per cent of high schools use English as a medium of instruction. Schools treating English as the first language (requiring ten years of study) are only 0.6 per cent of rural primary schools, 2.8 per cent of rural high schools, and 9.9 per cent of urban high schools. English in India is offered as a second language (six years of study) in 51 per cent of rural primary schools, 55 per cent of urban primary schools, 57 per cent of rural high schools and 51 per cent of urban high schools. As a third language (three years of study), English is offered in 5 per cent of rural primary schools, 21 per cent of urban primary schools, 44 per cent of rural high schools and 41 per cent of urban high schools. These statistics reveal a strong desire to study English on the part of people exposed mostly to vernacular education, even in the countryside.

English continues to be the premier and prestigious language in higher education because the resource and guidance available in this language are abundant compared to that available in the regional languages or even the national language. Careers in business and commerce, government positions of high rank, and science and technology which attract the brightest, continue to require fluency in English. English is another passport and provides the visa for overseas study.

English is reckoned as a prestigious language and the tongue of first choice and continues as medium of instruction in elite schools at every level. Private English medium schools are mushrooming in all large cities and many smaller cities. Even government schools run for the benefit of senior civil service officers, use English because only that language is the acceptable medium of communication throughout the nation. It serves even better while one migrates to exploit opportunities and Indians are constantly shifting base within the country. Our cities reflect this reality.

The working-class, comprised of rural and urban migrants and who perhaps are bilingual in their village dialect and the regional language, perceive English as the tool for their children’s advancement. Schools in which English is the medium of instruction are a “growth industry.” The English speaker also commands more respect and draws courteous responses in some situations than does a speaker of an indigenous language.

However, in recent times in the global marketplace, Indians have become the obvious choice of the knowledge-based industry because of their sheer knowledge of the English language and the ability to effectively use it on the job. The trend is showing positive and upward growth and even the European and American companies have been showing greater interest in offering jobs to Indian professionals. Not all credit is to be given to English alone; knowledge of the subject is important too; yet expression and communication are being powered by English. There is no denying this fact.

Realising the importance of this imported language which can bring benefit to the society and the nation, the National Knowledge Commission of India has proposed to the government of India to strongly recommend the inclusion of English from Standard I in the school curriculum. The Commission is of the opinion that “in the 21st century marketplace, languages are the new bargaining chips. They are tools of trade, no less or more; that is precisely why we must embrace them.” The learned scholars do feel that “linguistic proficiency is the key to unlock the door of opportunities in a world where borders are blurring in the blink of an eye.”

Business Today- AC Nielsen B-school Survey ‘07

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Leading business magazine Business Today has come out with its annual B-school survey – India’s Best B-Schools. The survey is conducted by market research agency AC Nielsen. Survey puts IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C in top 3 slots.

IIM-L and IIM-I are stacked at no 5 and no 6 slots. While this may sound predictable, the surprise comes from the strong showing from Mumbai based NMIMS and Hyderabad based ICFAI Business School. NMIMS has moved up the rankings rapidly to get 10th slot. It was pegged at no 17 in last survey. ICFAI Business School moved up by 4 ranks to be pegged at no 9 this year.

In a marked departure from other B-school surveys, the BT-AC Nielsen survey is based on a ‘poll’ of MBA-stakeholder. Says the survey, “We poll all the stakeholders of a B-school, comprising MBA wannabes, recruiters, young executives, current MBAs, and functional heads. Therefore, we don’t try to quantify debatable parameters such as the number of academic papers written by B-school faculty or how many books it has in its library.” Most other B-school surveys are based on data collected on parameters like institute’s infrastructure, intellectual capital and placement records.

Noting that Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is a winner by far, survey says, “Broadly speaking, there are two dimensions to IIM-A’s success as a premier B-school. One, the quality of the institute’s faculty and students. Two, the academic freedom the institute has enjoyed over the decades that has led to incredible innovation”.

How can aspiring B-schools move up the pecking order of BT survey? Survey offers some clues: “Apparently, placements, quality of infrastructure, reputation, and specialization. While MBA wannabes put placement and reputation ahead of other factors such as faculty or teaching methodology, the recruiters valued infrastructure, specialization, and teaching methodology, which includes things like faculty-student ratio, counseling and industry exposure.”

Survey is based on Nielsen’s proprietary ‘Winning Brands’ model. This considers eight different attributes- reputation, teaching methodology, infrastructure, placement, admission eligibility, faculty, specialist units, and quality of placements. The survey is based on data collected from 592 respondents in 12 cities.

How top 10 B-schools stack up in BT survey ‘07:
Read More…

Source: Business Today, September 23, 2007

IIM-L alumni hire juniors as partners

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Seniors-turned-entrepreneurs help students learn about the difficulties faced by international ventures.

Nishant Saxena, who passed out of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow, in 2000, is quitting a high profile job in one of India’s leading companies to start his own venture called Elements Akademia — a chain of vocational schools which has been conceptualised, funded and run by a group of IIM-Lucknow alumni.

Though this entrepreneurial trend has caught on well with Indian management students working abroad, the case of IIM-Lucknow alumni is a little different. These alumni — who have now become entrepreneurs — are coming back to their alma mater to recruit their juniors as partners for their overseas ventures.

The alumni give projects to the students at IIM-Lucknow through their international start-ups, in places like Zurich, Singapore and New York. If the performance is found satisfactory, they offer the students a chance of becoming a partner in their business.

The alumnus-turned-entrepreneur gives a brief of the project which includes a note on the start-up, brief on the research to be done, key deliverables, duration of the project and methodology to be used to the students.

“This programme aims to boost the entrepreneurial spirit of IIM-Lucknow students. It is the first of its kind initiative across all IIMs. The programme helps students learn about the difficulties faced by a new international venture, and is a big value-addition to the budding entrepreneurs of tomorrow,” said Ankit Agarwal, a student and coordinator of the Industry Interaction Cell (IIC), IIM-Lucknow.

The students engaged in these projects also get a stipend in the range of Rs 5,000-10,000, based on the nature of the project. So far, the institute has completed four projects and the fifth one is in progress.

“We are constantly trying to reach out to more alumni and as and when we get more projects, we will take them up and release them to students. We intend to continue this exercise for the entire academic year,” Ankit added.

“As students, we craved for real life projects. I wrote to the alumni network and the current batch through the IIC of IIM-Lucknow to see if there were more takers for the idea. And very soon we had a critical mass,” said Nishant, coordinator, IIM-Lucknow, ASEAN Alumni Association.

According to Nishant, B-schools in India are significantly behind the best B-schools abroad in terms of the level of industry exposure, and IIMs in smaller cities face an even bigger challenge.