Showing posts with label IIPM Best B School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIPM Best B School. Show all posts

Saturday, October 06, 2012

The Storm is over

The Small Wonder has been Struggling to Match The Demands of its Target Group after The Settlement of the Initial Hype. The Storm is over. B&E gives a Detailed Analysis of The Past Issues and The Future that Lies Ahead for The Nano

And then came a clinching shocker when I picked up the newspapers in the early hours of December 2, 2010. Each month, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) publishes the latest sales figures of all auto brands in India. In November 2010, the SIAM report said that 509 units of the Nano were sold. This, when auto sales actually grew by more than 40%. And believe it or not, Nano sales were lower than that of Mercedes Benz which managed 518 units in November. Look at it this way: the cheapest car in the world sold 509 units in a month when close to 200,000 cars were lapped up by the Indian consumer.

Quite clearly, Ratan Tata seems to be pre-occupied with other unsavoury things even as his Nano dreams seems to be on the verge of unraveling. At the moment, he is angry (let me add justifiably) with the Radia tape leaks and has even taken the matter to the Supreme Court. But sooner or later (if he is not already doing so already), Ratan Tata must summon his top lieutenants and strategists to revive the flagging fortunes of the Nano. At Business & Economy, we refused to be swayed by the early hype about the Nano becoming the best selling car of history. And now, we don’t think it is time to pronounce that the Nano is a colossal bomb. But surely the time has come to ask that simple and straightforward question: Can Ratan Tata Salvage His Nano Dream?

Our colleagues and reporters in Business & Economy and The Sunday Indian spoke to dozens of dealers and people associated with the auto industry in Guawahati, Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Delhi, Chandigarh and many other places. The first impressions that we gathered was that Tata dealers were stubbornly optimistic about the future prospects of the Nano – now based more on hope rather than hype. Most of the Tata dealers blamed the many incidents of new Nanos catching fire and the negative publicity surrounding it as a dampener on sales and new bookings. Says Dinesh Shukla of Ahmedabad based Swati Autolink, “Few instances of firing in the engine are also a matter of concern. Though you can’t state it as a manufacturing defect, but it has created some impact on potential consumers.”

Talk to auto industry analysts and you get a similar sense of hope being the overriding factor when it comes to the future prospects of the Nano. Says Vaishali Jajoo of Angel Broking, “It will not be right for now to say that the Nano has failed in the Indian market. The unit sales fell in the month of November. It was mainly because of the operational shift at the back-end wherein the company is trying to shift the entire production from its Uttarakhand plant to the Sanand plant apart from many other reasons”


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face


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Friday, October 05, 2012

The Faculty Dearth Goes On

Indian B-Schools are Facing an Acute Crisis of a Faculty Crunch and if Steps On War Footing are not Undertaken, Indian B-Schools might fall short of their Own Quality Benchmarks Themselves

When it started in India a few decades back, it was ‘just another professional course’. Soon Indian management education took the entire world of management by a storm. But as things stand, it stands at a juncture where it might get lost into oblivion in the coming years. The reason can be explained by simple demand and supply economics. The coming up of a number of management institutes in India has in a way afflicted the entire B-school with a unique problem – a problem that has given rise to an acute dearth of quality faculty. As per statistics, there were 600 colleges offering 70,000 MBA seats in 2000. However, by the end of 2009, the number increased to 1,400 colleges offering 120,000 seats. Even considering that one institute needs about 35-50 full-time faculties, 1,400 institutes would need roughly 70,000 professors. In a country of 1.2 billion, that would seem like a small number. But only 40% of this demand is being met currently and the rest is met through part-time visiting faculty.

While one reason for quality personnel avoiding the academic field is clearly the low salaries in India (see chart for the salaries international professors get), another is plainly lack of Ph.Ds. As per the emerging trend in the last decade, B-schools have gradually turned towards taking the services of industry professionals who can bring hands on experience from their respective fields to share real-life experiences within the framework of the theoretical models existing in text books. But the biggest drawback of the presence of a huge number of guest faculties in Indian B-schools is the lack of extensive and quality research work that could prove to be the knowledge base of the future. This is because guest faculty work on per lecture or per class basis and do not have the time or the interest to leave their high paying jobs in the corporate world to indulge in quality research within the university or institute.

Even Dr. Vijay Govindarajan, Professor of International Business at Tuck School of Business and founding director of Tuck’s Center for Global Leadership sounds his concern (read his interview in this cover story package). According to him, the quality of Indian management faculty is abysmal. “The student quality is world-class and as good as Harvard or Wharton. But the quality of faculty is abysmal because there is no research culture in India. If you don’t research, you keep teaching the same things over and over again. Research is the process of discovering knowledge, without which, you are retelling someone else’s ideas.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, September 10, 2012

MSMES: CREDIT AVAILABILITY AND GROWTH

Independent India has seen the MSME sector grow by leaps and bounds and is proving to be the most promising and reliable sector for job creation and poverty alleviation in India. Despite an elaborate and dynamic policy framework, the road to the next level for MSMEs continues to be hindered largely due to the lack of adequate and timely credit.

Any collateral or third party guarantee free credit facilities extended by eligible institutions known as Member Lending Institutions (MLIs, at present 117 in total) with a maximum credit cap of Rs.10 million are eligible to be covered. The maximum guarantee cap is set at Rs.6.25 million or Rs.6.5 million. The extent of guarantee cover is 85% for micro enterprises for credit up to Rs.5 million. The coverage under CGS has made a record by covering 150,000 guarantee approvals in FY 2009-10, which was the highest so far in any single year. With this, the cumulative number of credit guarantees crossed the 300,000 mark on March 31st, 2010; covering an aggregate credit of Rs.115.51 billion, extended by 85 MLIs in 35 States/UTs. The corpus of CGTMSE is being contributed by the Government and SIDBI in the ratio of 4:1 respectively and has contributed Rs.19.06 billion to the corpus up to March 31, 2010. By the end of the 11th Plan, the corpus is to be raised to Rs.25 billion. Although the government has placed institutions and mechanisms to deliver financial help and other assistance to MSMEs, the implementation of these schemes needs to be monitored at the ground level. Unless the credit guarantee system is strengthened and streamlined, smaller units would continue to suffer neglect in accessing the much needed credit for both inception and expansion.

In India, the situation is further complicated by the fact that the preferred mode of finance is either self or other sources. According to the MSME Annual report 2009, more than 85% SMEs source finance either through the self-finance route or are unable to get funds, while only around 15% of the total approach financial institutions and non-institutions like moneylenders. Financial institutions like Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), SIDBI, Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI), and other major public sector banks like SBI, Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda and private banks like ICICI, Standard Chartered and others are providing financial assistance for commercialisation of domestic innovations and importing relevant technologies for growth. Small Industry Development Organization (SIDO) is another prominent government institution offering a number of financial services to SMEs. In addition to the above, government has recently emphasised on the importance of ‘credit rating scheme’ to help smoothen the loan facility process by banks and financial institutions for the SMEs. Under this scheme, the credit rating agencies assess a company’s credit worthiness and give it a rating which is widely accepted by banks and other financial institutions. This, in turn, facilitates hassle free flow of credit to SMEs, while enhancing the comfort-level of the lending banks. The other cherry on the cake is that the government reimburses 75% of the fees charged by the rating agency subject to a ceiling amount. T. R. Bajalia, Executive Director, IDBI Bank says, “Credit agencies have played a vital role as we welcome independent and reliable credit assessment. As credit agencies have done due diligence for an enterprise, it lessens our work and fastens the entire loan granting process.” Still, one of the largest problems in this is that most MSMEs are not aware about this credit rating facility. Outstanding credit to MSMEs has increased at a CAGR of 32.55% from 2005 to reach Rs.2.57 trillion. But total contribution of MSMEs to credit disbursal by financial institutions has improved very slightly from 8.8% in 2005 to 11.4% in 2009. So a more comprehensive information dissemination programme is a must to reach out to the others. Only 1.5 million of the 30 million odd MSMEs are in fact registered.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, September 03, 2012

SRI LANKA: PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

Rajapakse is turning the Lankan constitution into a useless shred of paper

By destroying the self-governing nature of key institutions and reducing them to puppets, Rajapakse is obviously not going up in global popularity ratings. To further cement his hold over the government, Rajapakse is also employing dynasty politics. Now, he is also in charge of various ministries – defence, finance and ports and aviation – and has appointed his brother (who is not an elected member of parliament) as defence secretary, in charge of all three divisions of armed forces. Two other brothers have portfolios and his son is also an MP; this is apart from many cousins getting plum bureaucratic postings.

Not only can Rajapakse now easily manipulate the state machinery to keep himself in power, he has also managed to leave little of what the contemporary world knows as democratic governance. Yes, elections are still held – the last opponent (Fonseka) has been jailed and a court martial is in progress. Long live Sri Lanka; long gone democracy!


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Saturday, September 01, 2012

Despite a fall in profits in the last fiscal

Despite a fall in profits in the last fiscal, nmdc is still among the top 20 profit makers in the country. But will the honeymoon continue for the mining giant? Deepak Ranjan Patra finds out... 

Meanwhile, considering NMDC’s ambitious expansion plans, the first quarter results seem to be just the beginning of another era for it. With intentions to diversify, the company at present is setting up a 3 MTPA steel plant in Chhatisgarh and two pellet plants with installed capacity of 1.2 MTPA and 2 MTPA in Chhatisgarh and Karnataka, respectively with a capex of `26.5 billion to be spent over the next five years. As expected, once the plants become fully functional, NMDC will witness huge rise in its cash flows from FY2013 onwards. Moreover, in order to securitise its position and expand its reach in the global arena, the company is currently looking forward to acquire mines in regions like Africa, South America and also Australia.

But then, before stepping into the future, NMDC has to deal with the biggest problem of iron ore pricing. While metal prices are on rise in the global market, the company has so far passed on only two-third of the increased cost to its customers. So, the question remains that for how long can NMDC sustain the same stand without getting its bottom-line affected?

Nevertheless, the company sounds confident to sail through the odds as Raghavan says, “The year ahead holds much promise for NMDC. It will excel its performance through the next three quarters and achieve all-time high records.”


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Friday, August 31, 2012

INDIA’S 100 MOST PROFITABLE COMPANIES

John Danner, Senior Fellow, Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
 
Conversely, big company managers need to understand what it takes to really listen to customer’s needs and wants, be willing to improvise as well as maintain high quality consistency, and give their people freedom to explore as well as execute new ideas. These are precisely the skills and culture that entrepreneurs relish, whether by personal style or market necessity or both.

But, today’s business schools train students to manage the enterprises of yesterday’s successful entrepreneurs. Classes focus on the issues involved in running large, established companies. Indeed, many MBA graduates see their future careers in the offices and cubicles of these firms. The crucible for both entrepreneurship and innovation usually requires experimentation, failure, reformulation and resilience. Reality is probably the best teacher for this.

Even business schools can provide such a crucible, by encouraging students to “creatively collide” with one another’s ideas, and experiment with their business visions early and often knowing that failures are highly likely but also represent superb learning opportunities to improve strategies for later efforts. The more interdisciplinary the crucible, the better opportunities for experimenting and learning at an early stage.

Profound economic growth, not to mention meaningful improvements in global security and environmental sustainability, will not come from today’s markets in the developed world; it will come from new ventures, products and services focused on the needs and aspirations of the four billion people who now live on less than $10 a day. This is where the future and fate of capitalism resides.

That’s the entrepreneurial challenge for which B-schools need to prepare their students, whether as future CEOs and business managers responsible for ensuring their large corporations survive for another generation, or as would-be entrepreneurs courageous enough to create the next “Power 100s” of the world.


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Thursday, August 30, 2012

“THE #2 RANK IS NOT THE ONLY THING THAT ONE WORKS FOR.”

Arvind Saxena, Director – Sales & Marketing, Hyundai Motors India, explains to B&E why competition is no threat to Hyundai in India, and why Hyundai does not need to worry about capacity expansions

B&E: Over the past few months, the competition in the small car segment has been growing thicker. And the future promises nothing different. Is this situation a threat for Hyundai India?
Arvind Saxena (AS): Competition pushes you to bring in more innovation and enhance the market size. We fight with the same brands worldwide and we haven’t really limited ourselves on any front, during the past 12 years. Actually, Hyundai has been the most lethal competitor for players in the Indian auto industry. We are far stronger today as compared to what we were when we entered the market. We have a wide network, full range of cars and most importantly, have consumer trust. Hence, we are today very much geared up to face the rising competition.

B&E: After Hyundai launched the Santro in 1998, it took the company just six months to capture the second spot in the Indian market. How do you plan to save that spot now that your company is under great threat from the Tata Nano?
AS: Slots, positions and spots in the Indian automotive industry are very subjective matters to talk about. We definitely want to be a major player and we will do everything possible to achieve greater heights. For instance, we are expanding out network and working on future models. Many things are being done to retain our #2 position in the industry.



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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Jailhouse ruckus

Serving jail term, Lindsay Lohan is reportedly receiving preferential treatment, and the jail authorities are believed to have been extra kind to her. She is allowed to cry and speak with the personnel, and moreover she does not have to share her cell either. No wonder the other inmates flipped out and refused to indulge in recreational activities with her, and some even threatened her! Meanwhile her ex, Wilmer Valderrama, says he still adores her and hopes that she sails through this tough time.


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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Fatwa’ed!

The times they are a-changin’ and established norms and beliefs are now being challenged...

When people strongly believe in something, then sometimes, their minds become less receptive to factors that threaten to alter what they hold close to their hearts. This subconscious mind-play subjects people, and religious heads especially, to contend with the difficult tight-rope walk between religious diktats and changing mind-sets. Battling a similar situation, the Darululoom Deoband group, was recently in the news, allegedly for issuing a fatwa against women working alongside men without veiling themselves. The Darululoom Deoband is an Islamic school located in a town called Deoband in Uttar Pradesh. Founded in 1886 by renowned Muslim scholars, this school propagates Sunni Islam in the Indian sub-continent.

This injunction was vehemently condemned by liberal Muslim women around the country. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Darululoom Deoband, Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, however clarified, “We did issue a fatwa, which was based on the religious ruling, but it was an opinion meant to be personal and not to be issued for public interest. This fatwa was not for all women. It was for one person only.” The meaning of fatwa is also misunderstood by many. It’s said to be a legal pronouncement in Islam issued by religious specialists, but it is to be noted that the opinion of the religious specialist may or may not be followed by the advice seeker. Talking about the fatwa, Maulana Abdul further elaborated, “We keep getting a lot of letters where several problems of people have to be addressed. The fatwa department sends back the instruction issued by the clerics in a sealed envelope. Similarly, we had received a letter where a woman needed advice on what she should do to support her family. So, we issued a fatwa to her advising her to work in a place where there are women only and if not, then definitely do purdah (wear a burka).”


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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

POWER: TRANSMISSION LOSS

T&D losses and power theft have to be addressed in a flagrantly strict manner – arrest the power stealers and publicise their conviction

They not only trouble consumers but also lead to huge financial losses. Assocham estimates that 1/3rd of the investments in the 11th five year plan is wasted because of T&D losses.

Regulation over return has hurt private interests in T&D which needs to change. Privatization of the distribution process has helped states like Delhi and parts of Maharashtra, but the model has not been successful in Orissa. The reason is that state electricity boards play a role in regulating tariffs and political interests come into play, which discourages private companies from investing. States like Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, which are considering giving their power grid to private hands, must keep this in mind.

But there’s a shortcut to all this. Start arresting power stealers and publicise this in a big way to reduce power theft. It worked for reducing drunk-driving, it’ll work for this too.


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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

largest m-cap growth by steven philip warner

Despite litigations, Sun Pharmaceuticals has managed to give its investors the largest m-cap growth by steven philip warner
 
Over the past half-a-decade, Sun Pharma has outperformed the Sensex by 168.65%, while it outdid the Nifty by 170.71%. There is certainly more to just profits that has made Sun Pharma gain a literal “Hold” call for many years now, as Baldota says, “We work towards maximizing ‘long term’ shareholder wealth. In our history, any shareholder who has held on to Sun Pharma shares for typically over two years, has seen positive returns.” Sun has a base of 8000 multi-cultural employees – arguably the largest amongst all drug makers in the country.

But Sun Pharma has gone against global statistical research and claims that it has always kept R&D and quality control on top of its priority list. Since FY2002-03, the company has consistently spent anywhere between 8% to 13% of its annual turnover on R&D. Till date, Sun has filed for 233 patent applications, with a success rate of 33%. To ensure quality, the company has quality centres placed at six USFDA & German approved plants across the country. During the past financial year, the company introduced 42 new products. Strangely, the company was also involved in providing healthcare, education, disaster relief and utilities in the country – in other words, CSR, an area which modern management theorists advise a corporation to stay away from, as investments in CSR definitely reduce shareholders’ wealth.

But Baldota defends, “It’s difficult to attribute price changes of the stock to something very specific, but suffice to say that our consistent message to our investors has been that we create lasting value. Exceeding shareholders expectations requires as a necessary condition that all stakeholders feel proud of their being a part of Sun.”

Baldota’s statements could have been easily relegated by any critical analyst as being plain marketing speech, if it were not for the 2010 report by HDFC Securities, which confirms that now Sun Pharma’s addressable market size is all set to touch $12.6 billion by 2011!


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Monday, August 13, 2012

Actors and style icons, film stars are influencing fashion on the ramp and the city streets

The year that followed, Bunty aur Babli created a rage among people who would line-up outside their tailors just to get a kurta stitched like that of Rani Mukherjee’s in the movie. “It is interesting to note how films set the trends for masses and in certain cases evolved films tend to inspire designers providing not only the mood board but also a story supporting the theme of the collection, which influences the design elements. Madhuri Dixit’s outfit in Dil To Pagal Hai was mass copied by the trade (the fashion industry), Kareena’s harem pants in Jab We Met became an iconic street fashion statement. The red carpet occasions are highly looked upon for driving aspirations of millions across the world. Awestruck customers do want a piece of the same, of course styled to suit the individual’s needs. There’s been a huge fashion evolution in India where Indian film stars have benefitted because they have had the privilege of being dressed and styled by talented Indian designers,” says noted fashion designer Lina Tipnis, who has showcased her creations at various fashion weeks in India.

Fashion trends set by the film fraternity clearly influence people in a big way. They even steer fashion designers to toe their line and adopt the theme of their movies as the theme of their collections. Though it is still only occasionally when the tables are turned such; alert fashionistas have realised that it is not just the fashion gurus who dictate the terms of the trade and the style and look of the season. For they need to also watch closely the fashion statements being set by movies and by stars on the red carpet... so that at the next bash too, they’re just as stylish as ever!


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