India's B-schools: Growth in Quantity, Not Quality

NEW DELHI -- This is the tenth consecutive year that I have been actively involved in ranking India's business schools. As part of the study, I have visited over 350 campuses so far; still I could not keep pace with their rapid proliferation. It started with the liberalization of India's economy in 1991, when there were about 50 B-schools in the country. Between 1991 and 2000, the number rose to about 700. Between 2001 and 2009, the number galloped to about 2,000. This proliferation is perhaps the major highlight of our B-school story.

Quantitatively, it is an impressive growth story. However, the quality of education delivered in most of them is the disturbing aspect of this positive narrative.

Since our ranking methodology is based primarily on objective data, I have had access to important facts and figures pertaining to the faculty, infrastructure, industry interface and pedagogy followed in many of our B-schools. Last year, I also was nominated to the management and technology committee of the National Board of Accreditation, which is the government's higher educational accreditation body. This gave me the opportunity to have access to the official records of many business schools that otherwise don't participate in our survey.

And here is the depressing conclusion: Not more than 30 B-schools in the country – about 1.5% of the total -- have systems and processes in place to deliver quality education. The vast majority are inefficient teaching colleges and function primarily as placement agencies.

If there has been proliferation of dubious B-schools, one important contributing factor has been the "license Raj" of the government's regulator, the All India Council for Technical Education or AICTE.

Under the council's rules, a newly-established business school can't admit more than 60 students in the first year and for subsequent incremental expansion, it needs a number of different permits. This rule, it seems, has been inspired by the philosophy of keeping capacity down to avert monopolies and to protect the small-scale entrepreneur.

With this constraint on student intake, institutes find it difficult to run a quality program without any aid. Yet government-aided autonomous B-schools like the Indian Institutes of Management, which don't have to seek AICTE approval for expansion, have been too complacent. Though they have expanded capacity somewhat in the past two years, they failed to do so for the better part of four decades.

Many shoddy B-schools quickly moved in to fill the space that the growing economy created. Some of them blatantly violated the law, luring students with misleading advertisements and admitting them without any approvals. Many of them routinely siphon off major parts of the financial surplus they generate to unrelated activities instead of cultivating faculty or using it for improvement of the institute's systems.

If competent B-schools were allowed to increase student intake, they would have substantially crowded out the substandard ones. But to get AICTE approval, a school must meet the AICTE's requirements such as a minimum number of permanent faculty, a minimum campus size, a minimum built-up area etc. Many AICTE-approved schools have adhered to these minimum requirements but have not gone beyond. AICTE approval has become a licence for them to become complacent and, of course, to make money.

One of the main objectives of the annual ranking that we do is to bring B-schools out of their shell of complacency and to promote healthy competition among them so that, in the process, the quality of education improves. We have been partially successful in our objective. Since ours is a transparent methodology, every year B-school directors who participate in the survey get to know their weak areas and work to improve their rank.

In year 2000, we found that more than 70% of B-schools that we surveyed didn't have a single faculty member who had authored a case or a research paper or a book. In this year's survey, 81% of the institutes had at least one faculty member who had authored a research paper that was published in a peer-reviewed journal.

We can also see an improvement in faculty strength, interaction with industry, infrastructure and international linkages in some of them. About a decade ago, only about 20 B-schools had their own journals. Now, over 270 have one. On the flip side, not more than 10 of them are of an international standard. Beyond the top 25 B-schools, faculty publication in peer-reviewed international journals is almost non-existent.

Entrepreneurship development continues to remain a neglected area. Of the 2,000 B-schools that we now have, not even 10 have an effective incubation centre to cultivate enterprise.

But the most important concern when we conducted the first survey was the shortage of competent faculty. Today, sadly, it remains the biggest problem.

[Premchand Palety is chief executive of the Centre for Forecasting & Research (C fore) in New Delhi. He has more than 15 years experience in market research, opinion research, election surveys and performance appraisal studies at a national level. For about a decade he has been writing on management education. In 2002, he authored a book on the best business schools in India, published by Penguin. He is a member of the Management and Technology Committee of the National Board of Accreditation.]

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Business leaders advise executives of the future

ANTALYA - Senior executives of Turkey’s leading corporations and financial institutions come together with MBA students, sharing their experiences in the business world. Kamil Gökhan Bozkurt of Türk Telekom emphasizes the importance of collective intelligence, while Galya Frayman Molinas says a ’segmented approach’ helped Coca-Cola to break sales records.

Organized by the MBA clubs of Sabancı University and Bilkent University, MBA Forum 2009 was held in the southern city of Antalya over the weekend. Senior executives of Turkey’s leading companies attended the forum to share their experiences with MBA students.

Focused on four main topics, namely leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and branding, MBA Forum 2009 witnessed a barrage of questions from MBA students to executives.

Speaking on productivity in business life, Kamil Gökhan Bozkurt, human resources chief of Türk Telekom, addressed MBA students as "CEO candidates of the future."

"The MBA is a general program. What is crucial during this program is to decide which specific way you will take. This decision will affect your career path in the future," Bozkurt said.

Collective intelligence as opposed to individual action

Highlighting the importance of using collective intelligence instead of acting individually to achieve productivity, Bozkurt also said especially European and American companies implement this principle well, although they are perceived as "individualistic societies."

Defining productivity as "displaying the right behavior at the right time and place" Bozkurt listed the elements for success in business life as self-confidence, will to struggle, planned endeavor and avoidance from emotional behavior.

Galya Frayman Molinas, chief executive of Coca-Cola İçecek, said the organization is a great opportunity to prepare potential directors for their career journey in the 21st century.

"Coca-Cola multiplied its sales together with the profit margins when it diverged from the ’one size fits all’ approach to a segmented approach," Molinas said. "The company employs around 20,000 people just in Turkey."

Molinas said consistency and continuity are key factors in business success. "The primary focus in the business world is to achieve sustainable growth," Molinas said. "There are four main elements to this: marketplace, communities, workplace and environment."

Bringing a different perspective to the meeting, Hüsnü Özyeğin, chairman of the board of directors at Fiba Holding, stressed the importance of a social personality for a successful business life. "What MBA programs lack in general is a clear development plan," he said. "The factors of change and coincidence are also determinant along the career path."

"It is not so much important for a senior director to know the sector he works in very well," said Özyeğin, adding that the most important factor in business life is to have management skills, which include follow-up work, motivating employees and having a clear road map.

Answering a question on whether he has made any important mistake that might have affected his life or career, Özyeğin said he did a lot. "However, what is important is to make small-scale mistakes while achieving large scale successes."

Spotting employees with high potential

Highlighting "the desire to learn" as the crucial factor in managing businesses, Tayfun Bayazıt, chief executive of Yapı Kredi Bank, said experience plays a very important role in business life. "However, more important than that is to determine the high-potential employees and orient them into professional life as soon as possible."

Tarık Bayazıt, partner of Changa Restaurants, on the other hand, mentioned the difference between pursuing a career in a corporate business and setting up one’s own business. "I advise you to do the job which makes you happy the most. Do not be afraid of the job you do not know well. Maybe this is the very place of your success and happiness."

Disagreeing with Bayazıt, Burhan Karaçam, the former chief executive of Yapı Kredi, advised MBA students either to gain a good knowledge base before starting a job or to do the job they know well. "This is not a good time to risk your time and energy," he said.

MBA, or Master of Business Administration, is a master's degree in business administration, attracting people from various academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States as companies sought out scientific approaches to management.

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Earnings Gender Gap in Business

PARIS — The worlds of finance and big business are notoriously dominated by middle-aged men. But recent research suggests that this may not be for the usually suspected reason — a glass ceiling molded from male prejudice. The research, by Marianne Bertrand, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and two Harvard economics professors, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, provides a statistical explanation: women with children fall behind because they work less, the study says.

The joint paper, “Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors,” tracks the careers of male and female graduates of the Chicago business school who received their master’s degree in business administration between 1990 and 2006. It follows their progression into the corporate and financial sectors and shows how career paths differ by gender in terms of earnings and labor force participation, several years after graduation.

“Despite the narrowing of the gender gap in business education, there is a growing sense that women are not getting ahead fast enough in the corporate world,” the report says. Indeed, while 40 percent of master’s degrees in business awarded in the United States are earned by women, the survey cites research from the 1990s that showed only 2.5 percent of senior executives in large and medium-size U.S. companies were women. While the number of women chief executives in those companies rose eight-fold between 1992 and 2004, they still numbered only 34, or 1.3 percent of the total.

“The main conclusion from our work is that female M.B.A.’s have not done as well as male M.B.A.’s in the labor market,” the report says. “That finding should not come as a surprise. The more startling findings concern why they have not done as well.”

In business school and early employment, male and female career paths are quite similar, the survey shows. Women tend to take more marketing classes and men more finance classes; but their grade point averages differ only very slightly, and the years following graduation generally lead to similar jobs and performance.

The real difference, said Dr. Bertrand in an interview, starts with maternity leave. “Any departure, for six months or more, is costly,” she said. “Male or female, you never re-enter where you were.”

Women executives who do not have children follow career paths that closely replicate those of their male peers. Successful M.B.A. couples have similar work patterns, said Dr. Bertrand. “Women without children married to high-earning spouses are just as likely to work and accumulate post-M.B.A. work experience at an almost identical rate,” she said. “Call a woman without a child a man.”

Until the first child arrives, M.B.A. couples act as mutual drivers, encouraging each other to work more, Dr. Bertrand said. But with the arrival of motherhood, the picture changes. When women executives return to the office, after several months of absence, they typically start to work shorter hours, the study shows: 52 hours per week, compared with an average 58 hours for their male peers, as they adapt to their new double task. “They try to have both pieces,” Dr. Bertrand said.

About a decade after completion of the M.B.A. course, the gap in hours worked adds up to the cumulative equivalent of a six-month difference in job experience between men and women, and the difference is a costly one, the report says.

The relative earnings of female executives start to decline in the first two years after the first child is born, and the rate of decline accelerates thereafter. “Earnings decline linearly with hours worked in the first two years after the first birth, but hourly wage penalties, associated with career interruptions, become evident for M.B.A. women three years after the birth.

“A woman’s annual earnings drop by about $45,000 in the two years following the first birth, and the impact grows close to $80,000 a year in subsequent years.” In contrast, the earnings of male M.B.A.’s continue to rise after they become fathers. “Male labor supply is virtually unaffected by fatherhood,” the report notes.

Because top executive jobs are hard to fit with motherhood, high-flying women may quit the corporate rat race for self-employed consulting, and then cut back even further on working time: 10 years after completing an M.B.A., 62 percent of self-employed women in the survey sample had made that decision. “They want to be excellent professionally, but they want to be excellent mothers, too,” Dr. Bertrand said.

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MBA Live completes one year!

Hope all you are doing fine and MBA Live is keeping you all time update and ahead of others!

Thank you to all the readers of MBA Live. MBA Live has just completed one year with 2500 visitors (not bad!). I plan to put some more important and useful information, links and eBooks in near future, so keep visiting it. Your suggestions, comments and feedback is very important to me for improvement of this blog.

CAT 2009 online

Bangalore/Delhi: India’s deficient power, telecom and technology infrastructure is looming as a stumbling block in other educational institutions following the elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in taking their admission tests online.

The IIMs will conduct the Common Admission Test, or CAT, for 2010 online over 10 days at the end of this year. The B-schools, which have been conducting the entrance test for admission to their management programme in a paper-and-pen format for 33 years, have outsourced the conduct of the online test to Prometric Testing Pvt. Ltd, the India arm of Prometric Inc., a US-based testing company.

Other institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) also desire to take their admission tests online and avoid the logistical nightmare of administering it physically for tens of thousands of aspiring students. That may not be possible in a hurry.

For an admission test to be administered online, students need access to a computer with a broadband connection plus uninterrupted power supply.

For a country of over one billion people, the broadband subscriber base in India stands at just 3.87 million as of March 2008, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Personal computers, including desktops and notebooks, total 7.3 million.

Small towns in India bear the brunt of severe power cuts and have shaky Internet connections, if at all. A.K. Binda, sub-dean of examinations at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, also cites the same reason for not moving online in the next few years.

The IIMs, which said on Monday that they would take CAT online, have departed from the paper-and-pen format to cater to the rising number of applicants. About 250,000 students took the CAT in 2008, up from 95,000 in 2003. Students who appear for CAT are largely urban students with a degree in hand.

Computer-based testing companies have long regarded India as a large, untapped market with at least 36 million children enrolled just in higher secondary (class IX-XII) schools. The potential market in India is larger than in the US given the sheer number of students, says Pawan Adhikari, business development manager at Gurgaon-based Prometric Testing, whose parent conducts seven million tests every year including the Graduate Record Examinations, or GRE, and Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL.

Another problem is that online tests will require the creation of a question bank as students will take the tests over a period of a few days and questions cannot be repeated. In a paper-and-pen format, all students write the examination simultaneously and only one question paper is required.

IIT Madras director M.S. Ananth says IIT-JEE will not go online next year and several issues such as creating a large question bank need to be tackled first. Nearly 375,000 students sat for the IIT-JEE this month to win an undergrduate seat in engineering schools.

Despite the problems, “All exams will move online sooner or later,” says Gautam Puri, vice-chairman of Career Launcher India Ltd, a test-prepatory company.

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How Business Schools Have Failed Business

As we try to understand why our economy is so troubled, fingers are increasingly being pointed at the academic institutions that educated those who got us into this mess. What have business schools failed to teach our business leaders and policy makers? There are three profound failures of sound business practices at the root of the economic crisis, and none of them have been adequately addressed by our business schools.

Just about everyone agrees that misaligned incentive programs are at the core of what brought our financial system to its knees. Countless individuals became multimillionaires by gambling away shareholders' money. Incentive systems that rewarded short-term gain took precedence over those designed for long-term value creation.

We could chalk this all up to greed, as many pundits have. But first we should ask how many of the business schools attended by America's CEOs and directors educate their students about the best way to design management compensation systems. Amazingly, this subject is not systematically addressed at most business schools, and not even discussed at others.

Secondly, as Washington scrambles to restructure the financial regulatory system, those who still believe in the private sector are asking why corporate boards were AWOL as institution after institution crumbled. Why did it take rumors of nationalization and a drop in Citicorp stock to below $2 a share to inspire Citigroup to nominate directors with experience in financial markets?

American icon General Electric was stripped of its coveted AAA-rating because of problems emanating from its financial services unit. Yet its board has only one director with experience in a financial institution. If it is the board's job to oversee a corporation, it seems logical that there would be a segment in the core curriculum of every business school devoted to board structure, composition and processes. But most programs don't cover the topic.

The third breakdown came in the investment community. Nearly 20 years ago I wrote a book titled "Short-Term America" that warned about the growing chasm between those who provide capital and the companies who use it. The concept is simple: When money provided to homeowners or businesses comes from an anonymous source, possibly half way around the world, there are serious challenges to operating a functioning system of accountability.

Nationally, finance departments at business schools offer hundreds of courses in asset securitization and portfolio diversification. They have taught a generation of financial leaders that risk can be diversified away. But in their B-school days, few investment bankers examined the notion of "agency costs." That concept explains that as the gulf between the provider and the user of capital widens, the risks involved with selecting and monitoring the participants in the portfolio increase. It should come as no surprise that financial institutions amassed securities that consist of a diversified portfolio of deadbeats.

About 70% of the shares of American corporations are held by institutional investors such as pension and mutual funds. These organizations are brimming with MBAs. But how many of these MBAs took a class devoted to how shareholders should exercise their rights and obligations as the owners of America's corporations? Few, if any. When shareholders are uneducated about their obligations, how can a corporate accountability system function properly?

Recently, when I delivered a guest lecture at another school, a distraught-looking student pulled me aside after class. She explained that my talk was very disturbing to her. After investing two years and $100,000, she was only weeks away from receiving her MBA. But prior to our class, she had never heard a discussion about board responsibilities or the rights of shareholders. She said she felt cheated.

By failing to teach the principles of corporate governance, our business schools have failed our students. And by not internalizing sound principles of governance and accountability, B-school graduates have matured into executives and investment bankers who have failed American workers and retirees who have witnessed their jobs and savings vanish.

Most B-schools paper over the topic by requiring first-year students to take a compulsory ethics class, which is necessary, but not sufficient. Would Bernie Madoff have acted differently if he had aced his ethics final?

Could we have avoided most of the economic problems we now face if we had a generation of business leaders who were trained in designing compensation systems that promote long-term value? And who were educated in the proper make-up and responsibilities of boards? And who were enlightened as to how shareholders can use their proxies to affect accountability? I think we could have.

America's business schools need to rethink what we are teaching -- and not teaching -- the next generation of leaders.

Mr. Jacobs, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, was director of corporate finance policy at the U.S. Treasury from 1989 to 1991.

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Art and Science of an MBA

Often, the question of whether management can be effectively taught is reduced to the question of whether it's an art or a science, and that's too binary. It's both.

Renaissance man extraordinaire Leonardo da Vinci blended art and science quite nicely and in a highly individual way, particularly with his inventions. So did Gaudi, the Spanish architect who designed the huge, whimsical church La Sagrada Familia. So has Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who has written beautifully crafted essays about his patients' neurological disorders.

You'll notice a lot of disparity within this highly distinguished group, and that's for good reason. The trick to blending art and science successfully is finding the right combination for the individual and for the moment.

The art/science debate isn't unique to business academia. When I was working on an MFA in creative writing, it was fashionable--among many of my peers and professors, not just people who exclusively wrote for a living--to argue that artistry couldn't be taught. We were, the argument went, just jumping through academic hoops to get employed or published. No one was actually there to "learn" the craft. Writers had talent, or they didn't.

Some of the art-can't-be-taught people were downright uppity when they got going on this topic, and I never understood that. Set aside the fact that the cynicism wasn't constructive. For me, the bigger problem with the argument was that it was so narrow, just like the art/science dichotomy many folks are so eager to impose on business.

Yes, it's true that complex business problems involving conflicts of interest or conflicts of ethics don't always lend themselves to the tidy kinds of solutions you're likely to cook up as you're discussing a case study in an MBA classroom. It's also true that you don't need an MFA to write the great American novel--and that, in fact, many such novels wouldn't stand up very well to being "workshopped."

But there's certainly no harm in practicing and refining your skills in the relatively safe environment of school so that once you're set loose in the big, bad world, you're better equipped to handle a bolt of brilliance when it deigns to strike. And if you're already a successful manager with a flair for, say, talent development, but you decide to go back to school to brush up on some technical skills to improve your bird's-eye view of your organization, no harm there, either.

Maybe we can usefully divide responsibilities for the ethical management of businesses along these lines: Schools need to cover as many bases as can reasonably be covered in a curriculum, and individuals need to take it from there. It's the individuals' responsibility to figure out what precise balance of instruction and finesse--of science and art--makes sense for them, given their own circumstances.

To the extent that great management is a work of creative genius, it's incumbent upon the manager to come up with his or her own recipe for success, as Da Vinci and Gaudi and Sacks did. Schools shouldn't be absolved from accountability for the quality of managers they turn out--but intelligently and responsibly designed curricula will take us only so far. MBA programs can set up people to succeed. But then the individual's values and ambitions will inevitably kick in, for better or worse.

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UBS placements dip by 50%, best salary up

CHANDIGARH: With companies shying away from inducting fresh blood, the region’s premier business school has also felt the pinch of a sluggish recruiting season. Though there has been no drop in the number of companies visiting University Business School, less than 50% final-year students have been extended placement offers so far.

This is in sharp contrast to the track record of Panjab University’s popular department. Not too long ago - in 2007 and 2008 - each student had graduated from the department with a job in his hand.

Information collected from UBS placement office states out of a total of 131 final-year students of 2008-09 batch, 61 have been placed with an average package of Rs 5.96 lakh. However, with a few weeks still left for the process to end, the business school expects the number to cross 80.

‘‘The final word for 16 to 18 offers is still pending. The exact situation will emerge with declaration of results,’’ said coordinator of placements Natashaa Boparai. While 131 students had passed out from UBS in 2007-08, the previous batch - 2006-2007 - saw 125 students get placed from campus.

Over past three years, close to 30 companies have visited the campus each year. In fact, while the last two years saw banking and IT firms make up the major chunk of recruiters, this time saw entertainment and finance sectors too pick up some talent from the department.

Interestingly, in the three-year comparison, the highest package of Rs 13 lakh per annum came this year. Talking to TOI, placement coordinator SK Chadha said, ‘‘Economic slowdown is responsible for the present scenario.’’ He added with elections on, chances of more recruiters visiting campus were bleak. ‘‘Most of the placements this year been effected through alumni, who’re like the department’s brand ambassadors.’’

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XIMB 100% placement for postgraduates

KOLKATA: Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) has wrapped up Xuberance 2009, its annual campus recruitment programme with 100% placements for its post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM) students. The highest annual salary of Rs 16 lakh is 3% lower than last year’s top salary of Rs 16.5 lakh per annum.

The average salary, however, saw a steeper decline, falling over 23% to Rs 7.3 lakh per annum from Rs 9.56 lakh per annum last year. Also, there were no foreign placements this time for the 118-strong batch, as compared to four international offers last year. The median salary was Rs 7.5 lakh per annum.

Around 54 companies participated on-campus in the placement process, making 118 offers. There were 33 pre-placement offers and interviews.

Among the prominent recruiters this year were Godrej, Tata Group HR, Coca Cola, Cognizant Technologies, Deloitte Consulting, Ernst and Young, Hewlett Packard, TCS, Societe Generale, Axis Bank, SBI, SBI Caps, Tata Steel, IMRB, Cavin Kare, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Sebi, Indian Oil Corporation, Genpact, Vodafone, Idea, Tata Teleservices, ICI Paints, HSBC Global and Kalinga Soft.

Of the total offers, 32% were made by the finance sector while 23% of the students opted for marketing. Some 18% opted for systems, 8% for HR and another 7% for consulting and general management areas respectively while 5% students took up offers in the operations area.

FIGURES TALK

16 lakh highest annual salary offered this season.
7.3 lakh per annum is the average salary offered.
118 total number of students in the PGDM course.
54 companies participated in Xuberance ’09.

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Attitude, not certificate, marks success: Shiv Khera

MADURAI: “It is not the certificate in our hands but our attitude that matters in our journey towards success,” said Shiv Khera, noted author of You Can Win, here on Sunday.He was addressing the students of various educational institutions run by Velammal Educational Trust. Shiv Khera observed that the management students of today, nurtured an unhealthy overconfidence in their capabilities.

They considered their mark sheets as tickets to success and they wanted to start their professional life as a CEO and nothing less. But in real life, most of the MBA graduates possessed expertise in nothing and had only their certificates to show, he noted. He charged that in most of the cases they did not even understand the overall situation prevailing in the industry in which they worked.

For the older generation remorse was the major factor if they committed a mistake but today’s generation if they were caught for some misdeed they felt no remorse but wondered why they had been caught, Khera stated.“The accelerating number of HIV cases in the country is also an indicator of the moral degradation of our society.

A major portion of HIV patients is reported to be below the age of 25. Ninety percent of those affected by the killer disease are homosexuals, those having multiple partners and drug users. This shows that our youth have a weak moral background and are sexually promiscuous,” he said.He asked the students gathered to enrich their inborn talents through practice and to work hard for the fulfillment of their goals.

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How to Crack CAT 2009?

Here is some handy advice for students tackling the CAT. MBA is a career that is preferred by many engineering students, as the industry requires candidates from technical as well as management backgrounds.

The motive behind the preference for this strategic combination is that a techno-management candidate can implement the best of both fields in his job. A candidate opting for a career in management has to undergo an aptitude test, followed by a group discussion and a personal interview.

One of the most challenging entrance exams for entering the management stream at an all India level is CAT (Common Admission Test), which is conducted by seven Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) for admission to their PG programmes in management.

The most common question in the mind of a candidate aspiring to get into the IIMs is: "Why is CAT considered to be one of the toughest exams?" Probably the IIMs want to absorb only the best of the lot or perhaps the MNCs prefer hiring the most talented candidates. IIMs like to spring surprises to keep the charm and unpredictability of the exam intact.

Let us now take on the big question: How to crack the CAT? Generally, engineering students undertake CAT preparation from their sixth semester onwards. The syllabus of the CAT is based on eighth, ninth and tenth standard mathematics, along with verbal ability and reasoning, which includes reading comprehension, synonyms, antonyms and similar topics.

The methodology for cracking the CAT involves regular study for two to three hours, which includes reading books, problem-solving sessions and answering time-bound mock tests.

I would recommend candidates meticulously deal with each topic in the syllabus and be absolutely clear about the concepts. The CAT always tests your understanding of the basics. Once the candidate believes that his concepts are sound, he should attempt problems from the lowest level and gradually increase the difficulty levels.

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QS global 2009 Survey

BANGALORE: Employers are making a B-line for IIM-B, as per a survey. The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, (IIM-B) is among the top 10 preferred B-schools in the Asia Pacific region. The QS Global top 200 business schools 2009 survey has put IIM-B at sixth position in the region.

IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Calcutta and ISB Hyderabad are a close 11, 12 and 13th rank. Many factors went into the survey — quality of students, specialization, success of alumni and activities of alumni network — sources associated with the research told TOI.

The global survey has thrown up interesting trends in gloomy times. Business schools in India are becoming a major focus for employers as the country’s economy demands ever more professional managers. The report lists 200 business schools currently preferred by most international employers for hiring MBA graduates.

The report available with TOI demonstrates that MBA employers around the world are increasingly targeting a broader selection of regionally strong B-schools from which to hire MBA graduates. This trend may be accelerated by the recessionary environment, even as overall MBA hiring numbers fall.

The pressures of globalization mean that beyond the traditional MBA employers, there are growing number of regional MBA employers who may not have the budget to pay the salaries demanded by MBAs from elite schools. As a result, MBAs who are pro-active in their search and flexible in terms of salary expectations are expanding their range of opportunities, even in the time of recession, sources said.

Interestingly, B-schools in the Asia-Pacific region are strengthening their role in the MBA market. “In fact, the number of Asian and Australian schools in the QS global survey has increased from 10 in 2004 to 40 this year — a massive jump reflecting their growing status. It also reflects the importance of Asian recruitment amongst employers.

The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is said to be the most exhaustive research on global B-schools. It has won appreciation from the likes of Harvard and Wharton schools.

In the top 30 league is the Delhi University (22nd rank), which figures for the first time, and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (21 rank). The list consists — 72 schools in North America, 70 in Europe, 40 in Asia Pacific region, 12 in Latin America and 6 in Africa and West Asia.

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IIFT students land dream jobs

KOLKATA: Be it the highest salary offer or the number of top corporate houses making a beeline for its students, the Kolkata campus of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) has managed to throw in many surprises this placement season, despite the ongoing economic slump. The IIFT authorities said they were apprehensive about the way placements would go this year, but finally managed to place the entire batch.

IIFT, established by the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, in 1963, is a leading research and training institute in international business subjects. In an era of increasing globalization, IIFT programmes are unique because of their emphasis on international dimensions of economy and business. Continuous research has been the backbone for updating the IIFT curriculum to reflect fast-changing global business dynamics.

There was a sizeable increase in the number of companies that visited the Salt Lake campus for the first time. Of the 72 companies that visited the campus, 38 were newcomers. However, only 62 could recruit from the campus as students benefited from a wide choice and were choosy in their acceptance of offers. "This was especially encouraging, as many of these companies are multinationals and have put recruitments unless absolutely strategic on hold for the moment," said a spokesperson. "Also the diversity of recruiters across the sectors offering a plethora of profiles was more than what we expected this year," he added.

Industry leaders like Arthur D'Little, ITC, Colgate Palmolive, Nomura Holdings, Coca Cola, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Glenmark, Titan, Bajaj Auto, Cargill, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, ICRA, Unicon Securities, Eli Lilly, Vodafone, Virgin mobile, Philips Godfrey, Essar Group, Tata Steel, Reckitt Benckiser, ICI Paints and Avalon Consulting visited the campus to recruit students for positions in marketing, corporate finance, treasury, international business, general management, consulting and so on.

Some of the new recruiters, such as Usha International, AP Moller Maersk, Fino Analytics, Darashaw, Mitsui & Co, Merck, CARE Ratings, Siemens and Bertling Global offered diverse profiles. Big players in IT, like Wipro, Cognizant Business Consulting, HCL, TCS and Infosys were present, too.

A premier investment bank offered the highest salary Rs 19 lakh this year. The average salary was close to Rs 10 lakh. Interestingly about 30% students could wrest jobs in the most coveted international business and trading profiles. There was a major presence of public sector undertakings like BHEL, STC, Bank of Baroda, SAIL, IDBI Bank, NMDC and MMTC, among others.

Munish Bhargava, the corporate and placements advisor at IIFT said, "The recruiters included companies from sectors like trading, logistics, pharma, microfinance, and PSUs. Students were willing to compromise on their pay structures for good roles of their choice. Hence, many of them chose to go into PSUs even if they had managed berths in multinationals."

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Poor facilities at B-schools

B-SCHOOL means business school. Most of the students take admission in these B-schools to understand the business responsibility and to face the challenges of economy. Now-a-days B-schools have become the most profitable source of business for the big entrepreneurs. They charge lakhs of rupees from a single student and in return they provide them with improper infrastructure, such as-

• No proper industry interaction.
• Lack of qualified teachers.
• No placement.
• No summer training.
• No sports facilities.
• No proper learning environment.
• No proper computer labs with Internet community.

Along with all these disqualities some B-schools also offer poor canteen and food supplies to the students. Students of these B-schools feel that they are wasting their valuable time along with their parents' hard earn money.

How could the government give affiliation to such colleges. A strong smell of corruption comes, when it comes to affiliation and approval of the colleges.

Why don’t the government take necessary steps to check the facilities being provided to the students in such colleges.

But these B-scholls are run by big entrepreneurs, who aim at earning huge profits on the cost of students' career. These entrepreneurs are not at all approachable. They impose their own laws on the students.

The Indian government these days is talking about consumer rights, but what about the students' rights. If the students are not getting proper facilities from colleges even after paying abundant of fees. Is there any clause under jurisdiction, where students can file his complaints, so that they can save their carrier from being spoiled?

The colleges are not able to provide proper facilities to the students, then also the universities are giving more affiliations to the new courses in such colleges.

We the B-School students are suffering from such a cause. It’s a humble request to all the universities that please change your curriculum of giving affiliation and avoid corruption in education department. The affiliation of such colleges should be discarded.

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Small firms afford IIM managers

Global recession might have brought a number of top level corporate to their knees but it seems to be a "good opportunity" for numerous small and medium companies, which can now afford to hire hot-shot executives from top business schools at much "affordable" prices.

The pass-outs of the country's premier business schools like IIMs can now be hired at much lower packages than they used to get when the world economies were booming.

Analysts say, the placement scene at most of the IIMs this year is not much encouraging as compared to previous years. This year, number of big companies as well as number of international companies coming for campus placements has decreased.

"There is more than 30 per cent dip in the average salary offered to fresh IIM graduates. In IIM-A, this year's average domestic salary offer has come down to Rs 12.17 lakh from previous year's Rs 18.75 lakh," IIM-A Placement Cell Chairman, Dr Saral Mukherjee said.

He said the number of offers per students has also gone down as the recruitment process in most of the companies has come to an halt in view of economic slow down.

Similarly, the domestic average salary offered this year at IIM Calcutta has been Rs 12.70 lakhs with the highest offer at Rs 60 lakhs per annum. While the average figure for last year was Rs 16.40 lakhs.

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Poor placements take sheen away from ISB graduation day

Hyderabad, April 5 The Board of Director of Indian School of Business (ISB) will take special measures to ensure placements to all the students who graduated this year, according to Mr Rajat Gupta, Chairman, Board of ISB.

Speaking at the eighth graduation ceremony of the Hyderabad-based business school here on Saturday, Mr Gupta asked the board members to ensure “a better placement experience for ISB this year”.

Over 100 students of 437 students of the Class of 2009 did not find placements due to recession. The high-profile business school was ranked 15 among the top 100 global business schools by the Financial Times.

Mr Ajit Rangnekar, Dean of ISB, said the year was a challenging time for placements and the prospects of experienced professionals were worst hit.

“Today, you may hate the experience. ISB had faced (the) same trouble during the first batch of ISB eight years ago. But those students are now industry leaders,” he said.

ISB would also be setting up a taskforce to identify right opportunities for the students.

EXPANSION

The school plans to introduce four specialist schools at its second campus at Mohali, which is getting ready. The Max India Institute of Healthcare Management, BML Munjal Institute of Manufacturing and Operational Excellence, Bharti Institute of Public Policy and Punj Lloyd Institute of Physical Infrastructure Management would be coming up at Mohali.

“The main campus here will also have a doctoral programme and an executive post graduate programme from 2010-11,” he added.

Mr Arun Sarin, former chief executive officer of Vodafone Group Plc, who participated as chief guest, said the emerging economies, led by China and India, would a play major role in the years to come. “You will see more meetings of G-20 nations rather than those of G-7,” he said.

In the time of economic slowdown, innovation and new business models would keep emerging, he said, adding that students should think of entrepreneurship.

GLOOMY MOOD

The general mood at ISB, which had seen jubilant graduation days till now, was dull as one-fourth of the students were not successful in campus placements.

“It seems that our timing was wrong. The students (and their parents) who had taken educational loans and quit good jobs to pursue studies are the main victims,” a student who did not like to be identified told Business Line.

ISB assured them to provide placement assistance by including them in the campus placement programme for next two years, he added.

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100% placements at IIM-Indore

The Indian Institute of Management, Indore, has claimed to achieve 100 per cent placement for its 10th graduating batch (2009).

"Despite the global downturn, placements at IIM Indore have showcased the wide acceptability of its students by the corporate world. Foreign offers have seen a substantial jump with several organisations recruiting exclusively from the institute," Chairman of the Placements department, Professor Prashant Salwan said in a release today.

Regular recruiters such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC Global Research, Standard Chartered Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank, FuturesFirst, Johnson and Johnson, ITC, Deloitte Innovation, Knightfrank, Larsen and Toubro, Jindal Steel and Power Corporation, Infosys and CTS among others continued their relationship with the institute this year also, the institute said.

Besides, new recruiters like UTI Mutual Fund, Mahindra and Mahindra, Virgin Mobile, Unicorn Securities, Eli Lilly and Infrasoft Technologies also took part in the placements, it said.

Public Sector Undertakings like Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, SAIL, SEBI, IOCL and BPCL also recruited students for senior management roles, the release said.

Financial services continued to dominate in terms of the number of offers as nearly 50 per cent of the offers came from this sector, it said.

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Will markets bounce back?

KANPUR: The current recession has put to stake credibility of various professional courses including the most sought-after MBA. Students are making a bee-line for government jobs. However, experts says that no immediate switching of priorities is needed and demand for quality MBA students will continue to remain. During a seminar organised in the city on Tuesday, financial expert from IIM Ahmedabad, Shantanu Shukla said,"recessions have been always inter-linked with global business and after every recessionary cycle, markets have bounced back with more strength."

An another expert from IIM-A opined, "the time is optimum to do MBA because as soon as the depressionary trend gets-over the demand for quality market- experts is bound to shoot up."

The conference was held at Merchant Chambers Hall and was organised by ICC, a premier MBA coaching institute.

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ISB placement season extended

For the first time since its inception, the Indian School of Business (ISB) has extended its placement season indefinitely. Only 250 of the 440 students (around 57 per cent) in the class of 2009 have secured jobs in the placement drive that began in early January.

Placements should have been completed by the end of March, and the campus would have been readying for graduation day in the first week of April. However, the slowing economy appears to have taken a toll on this prestigious B-school, which ranked 15 in the 2009 global MBA rankings released by the Financial Times. Over the years, the placement trends were analysed and results announced by graduation day, scheduled for April 4. This year, that is unlikely to happen. There are already hints of a fall in the annual average salary offers from Rs 18-20 lakh to Rs 13-15 lakh.

In 2007, 581 offers were made to 416 students. In 2008, 657 offers were made to 421 students.

The IT-ITeS, finance and real estate sectors combined made 280 job offers in 2008. This year, all these sectors have been hit by the slowdown. The school had, in fact, sensed this and started inviting new companies for campus recruitment around November this year.

Many students graduating this April will still have access to ISB’s resources and services over the next few months to find a job. The school will be in regular touch with students to help them find a suitable job that fits students’ profiles.

The school, however, has not fixed any timeframe for students to find jobs. “We will continue to explore avenues till all students find the right job in accordance with their qualifications and work experience,” said an ISB spokesperson.

The premier B-school had earlier announced that it would increase enrolments by 560 to 600 for the class of 2010. It did not, however, explain how it would raise the number of job offers if the job market did not pick up.

ISB has six months to plan for the placement of the new batch after collecting the profiles of the students, their preferences for a sector or function, location choices and so on.

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ISB placement season extended

For the first time since its inception, the Indian School of Business (ISB) has extended its placement season indefinitely. Only 250 of the 440 students (around 57 per cent) in the class of 2009 have secured jobs in the placement drive that began in early January.

Placements should have been completed by the end of March, and the campus would have been readying for graduation day in the first week of April. However, the slowing economy appears to have taken a toll on this prestigious B-school, which ranked 15 in the 2009 global MBA rankings released by the Financial Times. Over the years, the placement trends were analysed and results announced by graduation day, scheduled for April 4. This year, that is unlikely to happen. There are already hints of a fall in the annual average salary offers from Rs 18-20 lakh to Rs 13-15 lakh.

In 2007, 581 offers were made to 416 students. In 2008, 657 offers were made to 421 students.

The IT-ITeS, finance and real estate sectors combined made 280 job offers in 2008. This year, all these sectors have been hit by the slowdown. The school had, in fact, sensed this and started inviting new companies for campus recruitment around November this year.

Many students graduating this April will still have access to ISB’s resources and services over the next few months to find a job. The school will be in regular touch with students to help them find a suitable job that fits students’ profiles.

The school, however, has not fixed any timeframe for students to find jobs. “We will continue to explore avenues till all students find the right job in accordance with their qualifications and work experience,” said an ISB spokesperson.

The premier B-school had earlier announced that it would increase enrolments by 560 to 600 for the class of 2010. It did not, however, explain how it would raise the number of job offers if the job market did not pick up.

ISB has six months to plan for the placement of the new batch after collecting the profiles of the students, their preferences for a sector or function, location choices and so on.

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IIM Lucknow cent percent placement

LUCKNOW: Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIML) has claimed to have made a cent per cent placement this year, with over 100 companies offering jobs to its graduates despite the global recession.

Chairman of IIML's placement cell, Sushil Kumar said, "Hundred and five companies had made a total of 284 offers making it the largest placement process this year across premier business schools, in terms of number of candidates successfully placed."

He said 40 per cent were placed in finance, 31 in marketing, 16 in consultation jobs and five in Human Resources. Four per cent opted for general management, while two per cent each were placed in operations and systems.

"As many as 267 students were to be placed this year. Of these, 25 had accepted Pre-Placement Offers, while seven chose to start on their own," Kumar told reporters.

Forty eight students got recruited through Higher Entry Placement Process (HEPP), which is given to those with a minimum of one year work experience.

Fourteen PSUs, including NTPC, SAIL, GAIL and Coal India, apart from 15 overseas companies came for the placements, Kumar said.

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Report in Economic Times

Crack the MBA Entrance

The word MBA is one of the most commonly heard words in the field of higher education today, and the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) simply tags along. It is one of the best opportunities available for achieving admission in to the bestmanagement institutes in India, like the IIMs.

Preparing for the CAT is not an easy task. A student preparing to appear for the CAT will have several questions in mind; the most important being: when is the best time to start preparing for CAT? Also, how much time does onerequire to effectively prepare for the CAT?

A student should start preparing for the CAT while studying in the pre-final year of graduation. This helps the student to balance college studies and the study for the CAT. Also, starting the preparation early gives the student more time to complete the portion and to appear for more practice CAT papers.

Moreover, with greater time and practice put in, the student is able to get better clarity of concepts, and better awareness of the strengths and weaknesses. If one starts late the pressure of study and performance in the tests become immense, and this affects one's confidence.

The three main areas tested in the CAT are:
1. Quantitative Aptitude.
2. Verbal Ability
3. Logical Reasoning and Data interpretation (LR and DI)

These are the areas tested in all the other MBA entrance examinations also. Hence, it is advisable to start preparing for the CAT even if one's focus is some other specific entrance examination.

The minor differences in some of the other exams are: Business Awareness and General Knowledge in exams like IIFT, SNAP and TISS; Higher mathematics in FMS and JMET; Essay writing in XAT; and Visual Reasoning in CET. These areas can then be systematically covered to attempt all the examinations in the exam season.

The CAT has changed its testing style in the past decade. Gradually moving away from its strong focus on concept application in the late 90s, it has now become an almost completely reasoning test.

The logic behind this shift, as most people perceive it, is to identify those who are well equipped to face the challenges in the corporate world.

In Quantitative Aptitude a student could easily prepare the basics of mathematics in Std. VIII, IX, X on his own, but the applications of these principles will have to be learnt with some effort in a formal academic setting of the class room under a faculty. Self study may help, but only to a limited extent. Classroom coaching can be of tremendous help in learning the different ways to approach a problem and to solve it in the shortest time.

In verbal ability, the focus has shifted from comprehension and proficiency in language to analytical skills. All the options for a particular question appear correct and demand much more than a casual or superficial analysis. Reasoning ability is the key requirement to solve these questions correctly.

In fact, DI was the harbinger of these changes in the testing style of CAT. DI questions were the first to change and were earlier dominated by varying types of graphs and tables. Questions were loaded with numbers and required detailed calculations.

The DI/LR section is now a collection of sets that are completely interpretation-cum-analysis based. Solving questions in the new scheme of things is not at all a function of how well an individual can calculate but a direct function of how much and how well the test taker can comprehend and logically process the given data.

So, what helps a student to solve the New-Age CAT paper is not sheer brilliance but a combination of sharp, swift intelligence and 'pin-pointed precision' in reasoning. A well planned strategy is essential in the preparation for the CAT to get the required confidence and to make a successful attempt to achieve one's goals.

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XLRI: 100 percent placement 2009

Jamshedpur , Mar 29 The global economic downturn has not stopped B-school XLRI School of Business and Human Resources here from achieving 100 placement for its class of 2009, although pay packets were a tad lower from last year. Of the 170 students graduating this year, 63 per cent students received offers from marketing and finance sectors, XLRI Placement Committee Chairperson Rajiv Mishra said on Friday.

He said the average domestic salary package offered on campus was Rs 12.12 lakh, which is 18 per cent lower from the Rs 14.75 lakh average offer made last year. The highest international offer of 1,10,000 US Dollar came from global pharmaceuticals major"Novartis"in the human resources sector.

Altogether, 76 domestic and international companies participated in the campus recruitment, held between February 13 and March 25, Placement Committee Secretary Subid Anand said. Many public sector units ranging from financial institutions like SBI capital to Bank Of Baroda and Securities and Exchange Board of India to Gail, BPCL, ONGC, BHEL and Coal India Limited were also in the campus for recruitment, Anand said.

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IIM-A fee up by 1 Lac

AHMEDABAD: The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) on Sunday increased the fee of its flagship Post Graduate Programme from Rs 11.5 lakh to Rs 12.5 lakh annually, citing rising cost of teaching.

With the increase, the institute has more than doubled its fee in the past one year.

It had increased the fee from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh in 2008. ''The hike will be applicable to the batch of 2009-11. Students will have to pay Rs 6 lakh for the first year and Rs 6.5 lakh in the second year. The institute is continuing the subsidy scheme but may introduce minor changes,'' said director Samir Barua after the meeting of the board of governors on Sunday.

IIM-Calcutta, too, more than doubled its fee in February, to Rs 9 lakh for students joining the institute this year. The fee for IIM-Bangalore is Rs 9.5 lakh. There's a proposal to increase the fee from Rs 5 lakh to about Rs 7 lakh at IIM-Lucknow.

The increase in fee comes at a time when IIM-A is at loggerheads with the Centre over attempts to curtail its autonomy. The decision was taken by the board of governors. IIM-A has been fighting a tug-of-war with the central HRD ministers since 2004, first over fee hike with Murli Manohar Joshi when the NDA was in power and then with Arjun Singh over OBC quota when the UPA came to power.

''Although, the Central government members on our board weren't present during the meeting, we had sent them the agenda in advance,'' Barua said. ''I have not received any objection to the hike so far.''

Management Development Programmes, the main source of income for IIMs, have seen a huge downturn in the second half of the academic year of 2008-09. The placement fee charged from companies participating in campus placements has also come down.

Barua said, ''By the time the 2009 batch passes out in 2011, recession is expected to fade out and students will get competitive jobs, with which it will not be difficulty for them to pay their loans. Also, in comparison to other business schools in the country, this fee is not very high.''

The hike is also seen as an attempt by the institute to replenish its depleting corpus. Barua said the corpus was Rs 130 crore till construction of the new campus began. ''Now we are left with Rs 50 crore,'' he said.

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XLRI achieves 100% placement

XLRI School of Business & Human Resources, Jamshedpur (XLRI Jamshedpur), has completed its final placement procedure with all its 180 students getting placed.

The highest salary offered this year was Rs 22 lakh, while the highest international offer this year was $110,000. Around 76 companies visited the campus this year and made 193 offers to a batch of 180 students. The average domestic salary package offered this year was Rs 12.12 lakh per annum.

This year companies were conservative in terms of pre-placement offers (PPOs), with 30 PPOs being offered. Around eight students ventured with their own niche business plans.

Last year, 57 companies came to campus and made 298 offers to a batch of 180 students. The average domestic offer last year was Rs 14.75 lakh and the highest domestic offer was Rs 28 lakh. Around 12 international offers were made with an average of $90,000, while the highest was $100,000.

Despite news about job cuts, recruitments in human resources continued in the consulting, FMCG and finance sector for international banks and group companies alike. Various specialised roles were offered, such as the one by global pharmaceuticals major, Novartis, offering its HR leadership role at Basel, Switzerland, exclusively to XLRI, making the highest international offer of $110,000.

XLRI’s commitment to promoting and fostering entrepreneurship received a boost this year. With the introduction of deferred placements for students starting out on their own, XLRI established a new legacy in promoting nation builders. This year saw the launch of three startups. Also, one student signed out with deferred placements.

XLRI recently raised close to Rs 14 lakh from its alumni network and other donations towards its XLRI Social Entrepreneurship Trust. The Singapore chapter has also generated close to SGD 5,000. This would go towards the seed fund reserved for student entrepreneurs.

Notwithstanding the financial crisis, XLRI maintained its stand as a premier finance destination with 30 per cent of the total offers coming from the financial sector. Offers were received in investment banking, treasury, corporate finance, commercial banking and insurance. The domestic investment banks were led by Centrum and SBI Capital. Banks such as Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, ICICI, Axis Bank and Bank of Baroda offered roles in their treasury and foreign exchange desks as well as their corporate and retail banking functions.

The Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) recruited from XLRI for the first time, while roles in trading were offered by Futures First. The insurance sector recruited in their product development and distribution functions. Firms such as Bharti AXA, HDFC Ergo, ICICI Lombard and ICICI Prudential offered product structuring roles to students. Corporate finance roles were offered by the likes of Pepsi, L&T, Tata Steel, among others.

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Demand for MBAs on rise

KANPUR: Despite global economic recession, demand for MBAs is expected to be around 10-12 lakhs within the next couple of years. The prophesy was made by management expert Anil Singh on Saturday.

Singh was giving tips to the MBA aspirants during a seminar organised on 'MBA preparation Demands'. Addressing a jam-packed hall, Singh said recession had proved to be a blessing in disguise for MBAs, as new employment avenues had opened up for them in the form of public sector undertakings.

He also made a special reference to CAT going online from the current year. He stressed that the students would now need to become computer savvy and thus must have strong conceptual skills and command on fundamentals.

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IIMK graduates get 228 offers

The Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, (IIMK) saw a total of 88 firms taking part in the placement process this year. These firms made 228 offers to a batch of 185 students (the largest batch till date).

Students bagged a total of 23 international offers this year. The highest international offer was US $120,000. Offers were made from firms in North America, Europe, South East Asia and other emerging markets.

The highest domestic offer stood at Rs 24 lakh made by an investment bank based out of Mumbai. Though this is a decrease from what was achieved last year, the institute managed to minimise the impact on both the average salary and the median package. Despite the global economic slowdown, IIMK students ended the placements with an average annual salary of Rs 10.56 lakh.

“The final placement process was largely successful due to our early planning and action to get the top recruiters on board as well as target new sectors both in India and abroad,” said Purani, placements chairperson.

Offers were made by Deutsche Bank, Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, American Express, Yes Bank, Axis Bank, Sebi, among others. Finance still remained the preferred destination for most of the students with as many as 37 per cent final acceptances.

In marketing and business development, students took up jobs in Coke, Pepsi, ITC, Reckitt Benckiser, Pfizer, JnJ Medical, Marico, Sony Entertainment, Britannia, Asian Paints, VIP, Titan, Idea Cellular and Godrej. The percentage of final acceptances in this segment stood at 28 per cent.

Other important recruiters included Deloitte, PWC, Maersk, Infosys, and Dr Reddy’s. Manipal Group, Tolaram Group and Essar were also on campus.

Public sector units such as IOCL, Sidbi, Bank of Baroda, HAL, SAIL, also recruited, some of them for the first time, apart from participation of some NGOs.

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NITIE Summer Placements 2009

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved. -William Jennings Bryan

As the students of NITIE, Mumbai geared up for their summer placements, these thoughts inspired them to chase their dreams; and the phenomenal offers stand testimonial to it. Summer Placements 2009 saw the participation of more than sixty companies, offering profiles to the students across the entire spectrum of industry – Leadership Programmes to Corporate Planning to the niche profiles in Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain and IT.

There is an age old saying that a good workman is never in need of a job. The wisdom of these words is reflected aptly in the current economic scenario, as the industry continues to demonstrate its confidence in graduates from the top B-schools in the country.

Recruitments for summer internships at NITIE have continued to show the upward trend, they have consistently exhibited over the past years. FMCG sector continued to be the major recruiter with 37% of the batch opting for roles across their variety of profiles; Sales and Marketing, Supply Chain Management and I.T. functions.

The major recruiters included Procter & Gamble, HUL, Cadbury, Nestle, ITC, Asian Paints, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, Colgate Palmolive, Britannia, Godrej, Cargill, Perfetti, etc., offering exciting projects across all domains. Cadbury offered the highest package of Rs 1 Lakh for the two month internship programme, while P & G made a total of 7 offers across its various divisions. A distinct trend at Summer Placements 2009 was the wide variety of profiles on offer, even from traditional recruiters.

The Consulting sector was well represented by corporate heavyweights like Ernst & Young, Deloitte Consulting, Cognizant Business Consulting and IBM Business Consulting, with Deloitte participating in the summer placement process for the first time. Notwithstanding the global economic slowdown, the Banking and Financial Services sector (BFSI) remained upbeat with corporate bigwigs like Deutsche Bank, American Express, Citibank, HSBC, GE, ICICI Bank, ICICI Prudential and HDFC Bank making a plethora of offers.

This further affirms NITIE's rapid foray into the BFSI domain in the last few years. The IT & Systems Sector was represented by the likes of Dell, Tata Consultancy Solutions, Cypress Semiconductors, Wipro and Genpact. Manufacturing and automobile giants like Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Anand Group, Castrol and Essar Group made their presence felt to offer the students with roles in Operations and Marketing. Commenting on the tremendous response received from the corporate world, Prof. Ashok Pundir,Associate Dean (Placements), said, "The excellent Summer Placements year after year once again reiterates the immense confidence the industry has in the quality of NITIE students"

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Job profiles score over salaries

The placements season in various B-schools, including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), is witnessing a new trend. With a dip salary packages offered, the placement process is taking longer to complete. However, according to faculty members and students, some changes are for the better.

The Department of Management Studies (DMS) at IIT-Delhi has completed placing its entire batch of 49 students, but not without difficulty. “Some recruiters backed out at the last moment; placements that earlier took three to four days now took over two months, and; there was a dip in the highest salary offered (Rs 15 lakh) as compared to the amount offered last year (Rs 20.7 lakh),” informed Chetan Kapoor, student placement co-ordinator at DMS.

However, student priorities have changed as well. “Earlier, salary was a top criterion for most students but now they are more focussed. They are taking their time in choosing a profile that will stand them in good stead,” said Munish Bhargava, corporate and placement advisor, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi. Bhargava added that with the highest salary offered this year being Rs 15 lakh, IIFT has experienced a 10% dip against last year. Also, about 8% students are yet to be placed.

There has also been a change in the profile of companies visiting the campus, with the number of PSUs and logistics companies increasing. Bhargava added, “Students are readily joining PSUs since they get to experience work life outside the corporate set-up. Besides, the increase in salaries in the Sixth Pay Commission, has helped this decision.”

At the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi University, placement started in the last week of February. “Placements are almost over and most students have got jobs. However, the number of companies visiting the campus and the number of jobs offered per-company has reduced. There is also a dip in the highest salary offered. This year, the highest salary offered is Rs 20 lakh,” said Arvind Narasimhan, placement secretary, FMS. He added that many students have joined PSUs, choosing stability over brand, location and salary.

IIM-Kozhikode has also finished placements for the 11th batch of its flagship postgraduate programme in management. The institute ended placements with an average annual salary of 10.56 lakh, a highest international offer of $1,20,000 and highest domestic offer of Rs 24 lakh. The highest number of offers was made in the area of finance, while many students also went for opportunities in NGOs and media companies. Further, two students from the graduating batch decided to opt out of this year’s placement process and start their entrepreneurial ventures.

Around 267 students of the batch of 2009 at IIM-Lucknow received their post-graduate diplomas in management. Unlike previous years, the final placement process at IIM-L was also extended over two weeks. By the end of placements, 105 companies had made a total of 284 offers. Students also managed to secure international offers from reputed firms such as Barclays Capital, Frost & Sullivan, Ernst & Young and Alshaya, among others. Summarising the season, Sushil Kumar, chairman, placements, IIM-L, said: “Despite the market scenario, the campus succeeded in securing job offers for the entire batch, while strengthening its relationship with regular recruiters and establishing new associations.”

Subir Verma, chairman, placements, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, said, “Usually we complete our placements in what we call in B-school parlance ‘Day-0.’ This is the first time that we are doing our placement in four phases, which started in end-January. We are now looking at a larger set of recruiters for two reasons. First, the number of offers made by a single company has gone down. Secondly, we have increased batch strength from 169 students to 269 students.”

Arindam Chaudhuri, dean, Centre for Economic Research and Advanced Studies, IIPM, said, “Nearly 1,520 students have been placed so far this year, which is marginally lower than last year. Also, last year’s average package was 5.2 lakh which is now 4.2 lakh; international placements were 165 and this year it’s 44. Many companies like Reliance ADAG and ICICI, which recruited over 100 students have reduced their hiring to only a small fraction of that number. As a result, we have opted to bring in more companies this year. Many of these companies are from the SME and manufacturing sector and are visiting the campus for the first time. Further, even though the financial sector has slowed down compared to previous years, insurance and IT are still big recruiters.”

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Should you do your MBA?

You just lost your job. Should you start looking for a new one or do the overstated MBA? After all, IIM grads do seem to be raking in all the moolah these days.

An MBA is not for everyone

"An MBA makes sense if you are doing it as part of your education i.e. before you start your career. However, if you are doing an MBA to boost your career, you must make sure you have sufficient years of experience," says Shashi Iyer, Partner, Harvest Strategies.

An MBA after just two years in a field is not completely worth it. It makes more sense to do an MBA after about five to seven years. This is because by that time you will have sufficient experience in the field and are looking for a break into a managerial role.

"If you are an engineer or any other professional, you could take a break for an MBA after about four years of working. This helps you get a feel of the industry and the MBA will help you refine your thought process," Shashi explains.

Does an MBA make a difference?

When companies are hiring, the harsh reality is that they would consider an MBA grad rather than someone with just talent for the job. "In my experience, I have noticed that MBA graduates from top B schools in the country have more structured thinking skills and require less inputs as compared to those who have not done an MBA," says Nupur Bhargava, VP Staffing, PepsiCo India Beverages.

Therefore, an MBA degree does give a person some edge over her contemporaries. However, at the end of the day it is only a starting point. What matters after one is hired is what one brings to the table, she continues.

Today, promotions are more performance-based than based on qualifications. So definitely people with talent can get ahead in the long run but it might take a little more time.

Money wise

If you are planning to get married and start a family in your late twenties, you are probably wondering if investing so much money in an MBA is worth it? Well, if you plan it out well, an MBA could work for you.

Say you start your career by 21. It would be a good idea to do an MBA by around 23 years. This way you can afford to take a break for marriage and post-pregnancy as well five years down the line.

Do a recognised MBA

Gayatri Parameswaran, Senior Officer, ADFC (a subsidiary of HDFC Bank) is pursuing a part-time MBA from Welingkars. She is specialising in Human Resources and hopes to get into senior level management.

But did you know it is not so much the MBA degree that counts as the institute from where you get it. Yes, any old MBA degree won't be worth anything.

"Very few companies accept any MBA certification for a managerial position," says Shashi Iyer. If you want to really grow in designation, it is important to do an MBA from a B school or a reputed international institute.

Also, it is important that you do a full time MBA because merely mugging textbooks isn't going to do you any good. It is the interaction with like-minded people and learning from them that will help you broaden your own knowledge.

But if you want to continue working, Manoj Varghese, Director of Human Resources, Google India says that you can pursue a part-time satellite based MBA through video conferencing. It is equally good as you get to interact with peers and learn from their experiences.

Arun Rajendran, Senior Account Manager with Adfactors was doing a part-time MBA from NMIMS but is now doing a part-time MBA from XLRI. "The XLRI MBA is a satellite based course. It is twice a week and hence, does not interfere with my work," Arun explains. "I am pursuing it primarily to better my prospects and gain perspective on dealing with my team."

Foreign MBAs

Doing an MBA from a foreign institute does not really give you an edge over your contemporaries. It is more important to do an MBA from a reputed institute than just a foreign one.

Fresh talent v/s experienced

Do companies prefer to hire fresh talent from B school and other MBA institute campuses? Well, it depends. Companies that hire from campuses are recruiting for various job profiles.

Every profile requires different qualifications. There are some openings that require more mature and experienced individuals while others require fresh talent that can be moulded into the organisational set up.

Company sponsored MBAs

Many companies offer their employees the chance to do an MBA while they work. This is great if you always wanted to do an MBA but couldn't because of lack of funds etc. However, you will not be able to do a fulltime MBA or choose the institute you want to do it from.

Often many people take up this kind of opportunity. Once they have completed their MBA, they have a degree in hand and usually wait to jump one level higher in their present organisation before they move on to higher ground.

Considering funds and a break

Opting for an MBA after working for a couple years makes sense if you do not have the funds to pursue an MBA immediately after a Bachelor's degree. However, after accumulating sufficient funds, you will probably be able to afford an MBA and take a planned break from work.

Also, if you plan on rejoining your old company, you must make sure that your company is okay with the extended break you plan to take. But if you are doing an MBA from one of the top institutes in the country you will be looking for a fresh start so that won't be much of an issue.

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IIMs to review placement plans

The falling job market is forcing the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to review their placement strategies. The options include doing away with Day Zero and reducing placement fees.

Day Zero is the name given to the day placements begin at IIMs. Day Zero and Day One are reserved for top companies like investment banks and consulting firms that confirm participation on campus.

The placement fees are higher on these first two days — each company pays Rs 1 lakh as participation charge and Rs 1 lakh as recruitment charge. These charges drop to between Rs 80,000 and Rs 50,000 each for participation fee and recruitment charges on the next few days.

In good times, most students are placed by Day Zero and Day One, which means many of the smaller companies that come to campus later leave empty-handed.

To cope with what one IIM official described as “the madness around Day Zero”, the B-schools are exploring ways of extending the placement process to over a week or fortnight so that all companies have a better chance.

“We are going to re-examine the entire placement process, including the Day Zero strategy and look into what needs to be done for a long-term relationship with companies. So far, we concentrated on a very narrow segment and pool of recruiters,” said Samir Barua, Director IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the oldest and most prestigious of the IIMs.

IIM-A finished its placements last week and recorded a 32 per cent dip in its salary packages. IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) and IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), which have also completed placements, will make the results public on Tuesday.

IIM Bangalore (IIM-B), too, said it will re-examine its placement strategy in the next few days. “We know that the present placement system is an imperfect system. But among all imperfect systems, this is the perfect system,” said Sourav Mukherji, placement chairperson, IIM-B.

The institute has decided to rename its placement cell “career development and placement cell” and will recruit a new person dedicated to look at placement and career development-related activities and liaison with companies.

The IIMs will also look at a reasonable placement fee. This year, many domestic and foreign companies in banking and financial services, consulting and consumer goods had written to the IIMs, requesting them to waive or lower participation and recruitment fees. IIMs said they charge placement fees from companies to meet scholarship and other educational needs on the campus, since the fees for the flagship management programme is heavily subsidised.

The IIMs are also looking at devising a strategy which could be specially made to attract government-owned companies (PSUs or public sector undertakings) on campus after this season’s experience.

This year, PSUs and banks made good the gap left by private sector companies. B-schools saw a 20 to 50 per cent jump in the registration of government companies visiting the campuses. They recruited some 40 students from IIM-A this year, with Union Bank among the top recruiters.

“We are looking at how we can take a big share of the PSU pie and make it attractive to the students. PSUs offer a great career development path and we need to talk to the students about this,” said Professor Prafulla Agnihotri, placement chairperson at IIM-C.

IIM-B also said it would need multiple companies on the campus to provide a meaningful profile to an MBA student, since it is expanding in terms of number of students and programmes. Barua of IIM-A agreed there is a need to convince students to consider opportunities and challenges that PSUs offer.

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