Interview with Ms. Rekha Sethi, Director General, AIMA

Q 1. Over 22 years of Experience in CII what make you to join apex body AIMA

22 years of grooming in CII made me ready to take up the challenge of the top executive job at AIMA. Lot of synergy between the kind of work done at CII and AIMA and so it is like a natural progression.

Q 2. What's your next step, after becoming the Director General of AIMA?

AIMA is a great Institution and a great Brand!
My key KRAs at AIMA, while all the while working towards AIMA’s vision to be a leader in management development movement and facilitate individuals and organizations realize their potential include International ties and linkages, enhance AIMA’s profile, E Learning and E Testing and more mega events from the AIMA portfolio.

Q 3. Any plans to improve the standard of MAT ?

The purpose of an aptitude test is to assess the potential of the candidates. In the case of Management Aptitude Test (MAT) it has been designed and structured to assess the potential of the candidates to undergo management programs.
We are working towards taking MAT online.

Q 4. What is the strategy behind conducting 20 to 25 events every year?

Events are one of the vehicles through which AIMA reaches out to its membership. They also profile AIMA. The differentiating factor is that AIMA events and programmes are based on industry needs. The mix of programmes is such that it caters to all managerial levels including b-school faculty and students.
The vision is to organize mega events – with a much higher profile while maintaining the content and depth of each event.

Q.5 Comment on “Business Responsibility Summit”

This Summit was path breaking, as it marked the beginning of a new movement of Responsible Business- a clear departure from CSR on the side. We set out to propose a definite agenda on Responsible Business for the professional community to follow and the response we got was satisfactory. We plan to take this further to ensure that the movement grows and businesses voluntarily assume responsible ways.

Q.6 What are the new courses in AIMA?

(a) In association with IGNOU, we are planning to introduce a few sectoral specialization courses in the areas of Energy, Transport and Education sectors. Some of these courses would be made available through e-learning mode.

(b) We are also planning to launch one year Post Graduate Diploma programme in Financial Planning to meet the growing demand for financial planners due to the exponential growth in the Financial Services sector.

Q 7. What do you think about the management talent in India?

Every year almost 1.5 to 2 lakh Management Graduates are passing out of over 1500 B-Schools in the country. A large percentage of the graduates passing out from the average (not well known B-Schools) lack analytical and soft skills. There are enough jobs but companies are complaining that they are not able to recruit people with right skills.

Q 8. Kindly comment on AMT session held on July 21st?

To contribute towards quality management education, AIMA offers certification service popularly known as Accredited Management Teacher (AMT). The certification recognizes the academic achievements and professional expertise of management professionals and management teachers. It aims at identifying capable professionals from any arena not necessarily academics who can effectively impart management education by virtue of their academic achievements and professional experience.

The idea of AMT certification is to create a pool of experienced and knowledgeable management faculty from academia and industry. AMTs become benchmark of quality management faculty for B-Schools. Accreditation sessions (presentation and interviews) are conducted once in a month i.e. normally on third Monday of each month at AIMA, New Delhi. The forthcoming AMT sessions are planned for 18 August and 15 September at Delhi. To facilitate the applicants from Kerala an AMT session is planned at Cochin on 29 September this year.

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B-school placements may take 25-30% hit this year

The economic downturn is expected to take its toll on B-school placements too. The premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) do not appear to be perturbed, but other prominent B-schools anticipate a 25-30 per cent drop in placements this academic year.

They are concerned that several regular companies may drop out of the placements and others may recruit fewer numbers than usual.

For instance, Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) discovered that although 60 per cent of the companies have committed to recruiting the regular numbers, 30 per cent said they are not sure if they would recruit in regular numbers and 8 per cent said they would freeze recruitment for the time being.

Placement officials of B-schools who spoke to this paper still hope the situation won’t be as bad but admit that the students might have to compromise on their dream profiles this year.

As a precautionary measure, the management institutes have already started expanding their company base by approaching new firms, such as smaller private equity players and wealth management firms. Unlike most years, the Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) sector is not expected to be the best performer on the campuses this year. FMCG, trading and the services sector might take the lead instead.

“The number of offers on B-school campuses by the financial sector could come down with some companies even opting out of placements this year,” said Professor Subir Verma, chairperson, placements, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.

Some companies, however, see a silver lining in the current slowdown as they stand a chance to recruit students even at a salary they would have to offer.

According to a placement officer of a reputed Mumbai-based B-school, these companies, including banks, found it difficult to recruit from campus earlier because of relatively low salary levels, despite good job profiles.

“It helps us in the sales and marketing scenario. It’s a win-win situation for the company as well as the students because they will find growth and we will get the best of talent from second rung B-schools. Given the ambition and expectations, one cannot afford an IIM or an FMS student,” says T N Radhakrishna, HR Head, UTI MF. The company, however, would be careful in terms of articulating its recruitment needs, said Radhakrishna.

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MBA students in biz venture

In business, it’s the early bird that rakes in the moolah. Taking cue from the age-old proverb, two MBA students have turned entrepreneurs even before graduating.

H.R. Sampreet and Saurav Dhiman, second-year students of the Vinod Gupta School of Management at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, have launched their own company, Enfount Business Solutions. Their maiden venture is Bulkdeals.co.in, a Bangalore
based online retail window specialising in institutional and organisational buying of laptops, desktops and other electronic items.

“Across campuses, students form groups to buy computers so retailers give them a discount,” said Sampreet. “But this happens locally and in an unorganised manner,” he explained.

The duo saw a business opportunity in this campus trend and created an online platform that is a one-stop-shop for bulk deals of laptops and desktops of all brands.

“Here, students can register and get great deals directly from the brands,” Sampreet said. “We estimate this to be a Rs 200-400 crore market. The brands, too, were looking for a single window to reach out to the student community. We had the business model and wanted to hit the market early, so we started even before graduating,” he added.

The company is partnering with almost all top brands such as Dell, LG, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo and HCL.

The website had over 1,000 visitors in the first three days of its launch and already has more than 300 members and over 20 registered colleges, including all the IITs.

When asked how they plan to balance studies with running a business, Saurav said: “It is all about time management. Our business requires just two or three hours a day, which we can easily put in.”

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Business schools make merry in economic slowdown

The Indian economy has run into rough weather. B-schools, however, are not feeling the pinch, since companies are increasingly sending mid- and senior-level executives to management schools for skill enhancement programmes in a bid to increase productivity and motivate employees.

B-schools have seen an increase of 25-30 per cent in their revenues as more students take up the Management Development Programmes (MDPs) this year.

JK Organisation’s eastern division plans to send around 275 mid-level executives for training to IIM-Bangalore for these short-term MDPs. It plans to spend around Rs 4 crore on corporate training over the next two years. National Thermal Power Corporation will be sending 350 executives to B-schools against 250 last year.

GK Agarwal, executive director, human resources and Power Management Institute, National Thermal Power Corporation, says: “Training and development during a slowdown becomes even more important as an organisation needs to multiply its efforts and produce better results.”

The programmes include courses like ‘Case-Based Turnaround Management’, ‘Personality Development’, ‘Resilience Programmes’, ‘Entrepreneurial Development’, ‘Managing People’ and ‘How To Avoid Another Slowdown’.

Deepak Chandra, associate dean, Centre for Executive Education, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, says: “When the markets are down, there is a need to acquire skills. This helps companies in their talent management strategy.”

Among IT firms, the bottom line is affected the most while the mid-management gets a hit in the realty, manufacturing, automobile, investment banking, insurance and brokerage businesses.

Prakash Bhide, president, corporate human resources, JK Organisation (eastern zone), says: “Sending executives for training helps in keeping them motivated. Productivity levels are also maintained. It’s a good investment even when the market is bad.”

Ganesh Shermon, partner and head, people and change solutions (Human Capital Advisory Services), KPMG, says: “Re-skilling will definitely go up during the current economic trend. Organisations will use B-schools to polish skills of their employees.”

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Raining jobs for techies

Ranchi, July 24: Plum jobs await students who will graduate from BIT, Mesra, in 2009.

Within a fortnight or so, about 500 students pursuing BTech, MTech, MCA and other courses, have already been placed during the first phase of the recruitment drive this year.

The rush for BIT students among Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Tata Motors, Maruti Udyog Limited, Tata Consultancy Service, Wipro and Satyam among others has led authorities to believe that by August 15 — the last date for the first phase of placements — all students would have one or more offers.

“TCS recruited 264 students while Microsoft’s offer is the highest — Rs 9 lakh per annum. A boom in civil engineering and manufacturing sector is evident,” said B.B. Pant, the head of training and placement department, BIT, Mesra.

Pant said at this juncture he could not reveal whether the average annual salary this year would surpass that of last year. But the overall response shown by the companies was impressive, he said.

The campus recruitment drive started from July 4 and authorities are hoping that all 800 students, would be placed suitably before August 15.

Students from all BIT centres — Patna, Jaipur, Calcutta, Allahabad, Noida, Muscat and Bahrain — are taking part in the recruitment process.

Today, officials of three companies — LG Electronics, Tata Consulting Engineers, John Deere — visited the campus.

John Deere, a name to reckon with in tractor manufacturing, would continue their drive tomorrow.

At least 200 students were yet to be offered suitable placements. By the next week or so BIT, Mesra, hopes to ensure 100 per cent placements.

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