Naissance 2010 kicks off @ SDMIMD Mysore

SDMIMD's annual management fest Naissance is all set to kick off today with a large turnout of contestants from various B-schools.The 3-day extravaganza has loads of exciting events on the anvil pertaining to various streams like Marketing,Operations,Finance,HR etc.

There is a Business Quiz too to tickle your grey cells.I am a part of the B-quiz team.

More updates in my forthcoming posts.

Keep smiling and stay tuned!

Thoughts after watching "Corporate"

DISCLAIMER-This is not a movie review.

I watched the movie Corporate for the first time yesterday night.A movie I had longed to watch for quite sometime.

The movie depicted the dark side of corporate life beautifully.But two pertinent questions were raised in the movie to which there are no easy answers.I am saying this after 4 years of business management education (3 years BBA+1 year MBA).I am undergoing a course on "Ethics and Indian Values" in the third term at SDMIMD and I think the movie is an excellent case reflecting the way business is done in India (may be globally too, with minor variations)

Q1. Is the business of business a strong bottom line at any cost?
Q2. Does business need politics more or is it the other way around?

I have been thinking hard over these questions but reality seems to be a far cry from the ideal situation.

A free market economy must provide a fair/level- playing field to all players.But corruption and nepotism in the business-politics nexus deny a fair chance to all players, which stifles competition and defeats the very purpose of a free market economy.India is gradually transitioning from a mixed economy to a free market one thanks to reforms post-1991.But the transition is fraught with myriad issues pertaining to corruption,unethical behavior etc. that have put serious question marks on the India growth story.Business-politics nexus is found globally and history bears testimony to this.The giants generally bribe their way through whenever any obstacle arises in their plans--be it protest against land acquisition, public health or environmental impact.Regulators in general and Indian in particular, haven't been successful to that extent in curbing such unethical things, with far-reaching repercussions.

Lobbyists are hired to fight for corporates in parliaments (and paid millions of $) and its an open secret in developed economies like the US, but we don't have such an open system in India, though things are going on discreetly.

I think a stronger and more efficient regulatory mechanism along with a more aware/pro-active civil society can check this old menace that has the potential to jeopardize India's ambition of transforming itself into a TRULY developed nation.

Inclusiveness in B-school admissions in India (from my Wordpress blog)

Hi folks,
Penned this article in October 2008 while doing BBA at Kolkata

The MBA mania has already gripped the nation with the dates for all the major entrance exams out. The frenzy for those coveted 3 letters in one’s resume’ is turning more insane with each passing year. Sample this: More than 2 lac aspirants appeared for the CAT last year with barely 1700 odd students finally securing admissions into the hallowed portals of the seven IIMs. Simple arithmetic tells us the seat-candidate ratio, a mind-boggling 1: 118. All this might send a chill down the spine of any MBA aspirant. But it is hardly surprising to know that it is relatively easier to get into Harvard or Kellogg’s which attract students globally (and are the topmost B-schools in the world) compared to our IIMs which attract the students locally.

Some argue that the top-rung management institutes should maintain their exclusivity by keeping their annual intakes as low as possible so that the quality of students does not get diluted. But then is everything alright with the entire B-school selection process in India? A closer scrutiny reveals something terribly wrong. An analysis of the batch profiles of IIMs and other super-league Indian B-schools tells us that engineers constitute more than 80% of the total students, with students from humanities barely present. The entrance exams are heavily focused on quantitative aptitude and data interpretation which come easily to engineers. Excessive focus on entrance exam percentiles deprives many of the highly deserving students from non-engineering streams, the opportunity to pursue an MBA from such renowned institutions. As a result they have to settle for the mediocre B-schools. With the increase in the number of engineering graduates (mass-produced) every year, it is not difficult to imagine the day when only engineers shall constitute the students of such top B-schools.

The major reasons behind this phenomenon are firstly, most of the bright students in India opt for engineering or pure sciences after completing their higher secondary education. The rigor of a 4-year long course fails to instill the spirit of creativity and original thinking in them. The lure of fat pay packets and swanky offices prove too much for such students, who instead of working in companies where they can utilize their knowledge of engineering or pursuing their master’s for a career in research, end up sitting for B-school entrance exams. This not only deprives the core industrial sector of quality engineers but also severely dents India’s indigenous research and development (as there aren’t enough people with PhDs in engineering subjects further worsening the crunch for quality faculty in engineering colleges).The fundamental nature of the MBA entrance exams confers on them an overwhelming edge over students from other streams. In a rapidly globalizing world, companies need managers who are thought leaders and who can execute their plans keeping in mind all the stakeholders with minimal conflict, not people who are good at solving complex mathematical problems in limited time. The ability to think over an issue holistically is ignored altogether whereas this is one of the most essential traits of a successful manager in this modern era.

It is therefore essential to look at the B-school admission process abroad for any remedies. In the U.S, as well as at other places, an entrance exam is conducted to gauge the aptitude of the applicant for an MBA to some extent. However it is not used as a rejecting tool like the CAT and other entrance exams in India. A host of other parameters like work experience, academic track-record, co-curricular and extra-curricular achievements are given due weightage while evaluating the application of a student. Almost one-third of the students in top B-schools abroad are from business studies background with students from humanities aptly represented. The demand-supply situation is not so skewed abroad when it comes to quality management education. Having optional papers like psychology, G.K, economics etc. in the place of quantitative aptitude and data interpretation in the MBA entrance exams would encourage students from diverse streams to showcase their talent properly. This is just one of the ways to make the entire admission process more inclusive so that students don’t feel left out. A well-balanced pool of students graduating from such top-class institutes shall definitely bring much more to the table for recruiters as well as create world-class entrepreneurs to propel India’s economy to a new level altogether. Educationists and academicians of top Indian B-schools need to rethink and restructure the whole admission process without any further delay.

7 months at SDMIMD Mysore

I joined this institute on the 13th of June, 2009 with a heart full of aspirations and bags full of luggage!

7 months have passed by in a jiffy.Well into the third trimester, it is indeed an interesting thought to look back and reminisce the time spent here.

The institute is one of the most beautiful B-school campuses in India.Single room hostels and vegetarian mess are a few of the differentiating factors if not USPs.It took me 2-3 months before I could immerse myself entirely into the MBA (PGDM technically) programme.After all, I was a fresher straight out of college (09 passout).

BBA at BIT Mesra-Kolkata Centre was so relaxed and easy.Rather I took the course easy, as you can interpret. MBA, a completely different ball-game together.Loads of books and very limited time to study.Cant blame time as I dint utilise it to my satisfaction.All the courses appeared familiar and so complacency crept in.

Two trimesters passed by.A few courses done in marketing,finance,operations,systems etc. Enjoyed Corporate Finance and Microeconomics courses a lot. Excited about Macroeconomics course this term, something I dont mind spending more time on.

Life in Kolkata and Mysore were as different as chalk and cheese.Still adaptability holds the key and I am more than happy here.Missing Kolkata and the friends there though.Fish,sweets and fast food on Kolkata's streets still water my palate.

Folks here are nice and friendly.Have made some great friends in Dinesh,Nitish,Shastry,Chandu et al and changed the room from 13 to 27, for reasons I am not too sure of.People here celebrate all kinds of festivals--Diwali,navaratri,uttarayan,pongal etc. managing time really well despite hectic schedules.Something I had never imagined at a B-school.Keeps people in good humour and builds camaraderie though.

What else?I have already typed a long post.My batchmates are from varied backgrounds and blessed with varied skills.A few of them have considerable IT sector experience.Profs are good in general (exceptions are always there, you know!).

We ( I and Robin) had been to Institute of Public Enterprise,Hyderabad to present our paper which was selected from 25 such entries including the IIMs.It was a great experience.More on that in another post.

Keep smiling...

Indian Education System-Need for Radical Reforms (from my wordpress blog)

I penned this article in August 2009 which was published in "Dimensions"-quarterly journal of SDMIMD Mysore

“A 2006 evaluation of universities and research institutes all over the world… has not a single Indian university in the world’s top 300”

India has been widely hailed for being the second fastest growing economy in the world, with an 8%+ GDP growth over the past few years, before the current global financial crisis set in. There is a gradual transition towards a knowledge economy from the current status of a service-oriented economy. Highly skilled knowledge workers are the fuel required to drive this transition. The need for quality education has never been so acutely felt before. So let’s look at the Indian education system to find out what’s the ground reality.

2001 government statistics hold the national literacy to be around 64.84%. The rate of increase of literacy is more in rural areas than in urban areas. Female literacy was at a national average of 53.63% whereas the male literacy stood at 75.26%. Within the Indian states, Kerala has shown the highest literacy rates of 90.02% whereas Bihar averaged lower than 50% literacy, the lowest in India. The 2001 statistics also indicated that the total number of ‘absolute non literates’ in the country was 30.4 crore.

India has made a huge progress in terms of increasing primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately two thirds of the population. Although no Indian university made to the top 300 of the Chinese-conducted Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2006,three Indian universities/institutes were listed in the Times Higher Education list of the world’s top 200 universities — Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2005 and 2006.Six Indian Institutes of Technology and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani were listed among the top 20 science and technology schools in Asia by Asiaweek. The Indian School of Business situated in Hyderabad was ranked number 15 in global MBA rankings by the Financial Times of London in 2009^.while the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been recognized as a global leader in medical research and treatment. The private education market in India is estimated to be worth $40 billion (about Rs. 2, 00,000 crore, almost double the size of the FMCG market in India) in 2008 and will increase to $68 billion by 2012, according to reports.

There are 1,346 degree-granting engineering colleges in India with an annual student intake of 440,000, plus 1,244 polytechnics with an annual intake of 265,000. The higher education systems in India comprise of more than17000 colleges, 20 central universities, 217 State Universities, 106 Deemed to Universities and 13 institutes of national importance. This number will soon inflate as the setting up of 30 more central universities, 8 new IITs, 7 IIMs and 5 new Indian Institutes of Science are now proposed.

However things are not all that hunky-dory as they might appear at the outset. Thousands of crores of rupees have been pumped into the education sector, which continues to be a state subject, every year since independence. Every year the annual budget allocates astronomical amounts for primary and secondary education but any significant qualitative improvement still remains to be seen, especially in the primary education arena. Despite growing investment in education, 40% of the population is illiterate and only 15% of the students reach high school. As of 2008, India’s post-secondary high schools offer only enough seats for 7% of India’s college-age population, 25% of teaching positions nationwide are vacant, and 57% of college professors lack either a master’s or PhD degree. The Gross Enrollment Ratio in Indian higher education is estimated to be about 12.4%, as compared to estimated world average of 26%. We may boast of our IITs and IIMs to be the centres of excellence in education in India but even they are fraught with several administrative and infrastructural problems, which prevent them from being the global centres of educational excellence like Harvard, Stanford and other Ivy League universities. About 500 students refused to take admission in the newly set-up IITs owing to poor infrastructure and inadequate faculty forcing the HRD ministry to rethink on setting up more IITs and IIMs.

In the Union Budget 2009 a substantial hike in the Plan Budget for higher education, a new loan interest subsidy scheme and scholarships for university-level education, along with a National Mission in Education through ICT are some of the key features. Education has been allocated Rs 36, 400 crore with Rs 26,800 being earmarked for school education and Rs 9,600 crore for higher education. The allocation, including the non-plan component, is Rs 44,528.21 crore, up 19 per cent. But the funds are not spent fully in most cases. Reasons cited are that the state governments do not release funds in time or the implementing agencies are inefficient and only wake up to expenditure at the end of the year before the reporting process begins. The government has certainly been ordinary in its achievements in the primary education sector. A host of programs like the Universal Primary Education, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan etc. have not yielded desirable results. There is certainly no significant improvement at the grass-root level i.e. primary schools in the rural areas, where still 65% of India lives.We no more require “just literates” in this age of science and technology.

By radical reforms, three things are imminent. These are deregulation, globalization and privatization. The liberalisation process started way back in 1991 has helped India become one of the most happening economies in the world with considerable development across all sectors. However a similar liberalisation process in education is drastically needed to sustain India’s 8%+ GDP growth for the next 3 to 4 decades to achieve the status of an economically developed nation, ready to take on anyone, in any field.

1. Deregulation: We need to have a single umbrella regulator named Education Regulatory and Development Authority with 100% authority to regulate the various players and create a level playing field for all the “for-profit” and “not-for-profit” players in this area, thereby ensuring the overall quality standards. It should not pose unnecessary barriers on the entry of domestic or foreign players. It should stress on educating the students by coming up with authentic quality ratings for all the institutions and let them decide on their own. However, it must take strong action against unscrupulous and fly-by-night operators.

2. Globalization:”What Dr Manmohan Singh did to the economy in 1991, should be done to the education sector in 2009,” said Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, on the sidelines of the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers. The government is encouraging reputed foreign universities to set up base in India so as to upgrade the quality of higher education and stem the exodus of students to foreign shores, which is an welcome move by all means. The IITs and the IIMs should also be allowed to set up campuses abroad to foster globalization of quality Indian education.

3. Privatisation: The entire primary education sector needs to be privatized. Education is too critically important for the future of India for it to be left to the government. In today’s world, more than ever, education is a dynamic service. It requires innovation, creativity, entrepreneurial talent, risk-taking ability and human resources—all of which are sorely missing in the government. Corporate foundations, under corporate social responsibility, have done a commendable job in providing elementary education in the remotest of villages in India like the Infosys foundation. This fact adds to the credibility of the above idea.

The consequences of privatization are manifold. The supply of educational services will increase, the quality will improve, and prices will come down. These are all everyday first-order efficiency effects of letting markets work. Secondly, there will be increased productivity, increased production, and better allocative efficiency within the sector. Thirdly, benefits will arise from the increasing returns to scale associated with the production of education. Finally, there are very important forward and backward linkages that bind the sector with the overall economy. One of them is the use of information and communications technology (ICT) tools. It will give a boost to the IT sector in a way that is unthinkable in any other endeavor. Companies like Educomp and NIIT have leveraged the opportunities available in this area to make profits by providing digital lessons and computer hardware to rural Indian schools.

Access to quality primary education must be made free for all those who cant afford it so that the goal of social equality can be achieved. Quotas in premier institutes is just a quick-fix solution with catastrophical repercussions. There needs to be a paradigm shift from rote-learning to conceptual learning with better teaching aids by creating an environment where learners can ignite their inherent desire to learn. The evaluation system which is heavily marks-based, needs to be replaced by one that tests the students’ conceptual clarity and innovative thinking. We can certainly take many cues from the American higher education system in this regard.

Nothing short of a radical surgery of the entire education system is required if India has to “really” compete with China and other developing economies. It is beyond doubt that we Indians are highly talented, but we need to have that necessary education system that can produce the likes of CV Raman, Amartya Sen, NR Narayana Murthy and others, in more numbers. Lastly, although this is an issue of considerable debate and controversy, affirmative action is absolutely essential. After the Green Revolution and the Telecom Revolution , India seriously needs an Education Revolution that shall catapult it from the quagmire of poverty and mediocrity to the zenith of prosperity and brilliance.

References:

1. 1. www.wikipedia.org
2. 2. Atanu Dey’s blog
3. 3. www.forbes.com
4. 4. World Bank’s India Education Report, 2008
5. 5. Union Budget 2009 speech.

..

Note:

Certain statistical figures and a few lines which better expressed my views have been quoted as they are. I duly acknowledge the concerned authors.

IPE Paper Presentation (from my Wordpress blog)

Hi folks,

This was our paper (Robin,a batchmate and I) which was shortlisted for presentation at Institute of Public Enterprise,Hyderabad.

Executive Summary:

The global financial crisis and the subsequent recession in the Western economies led to an economic slowdown in India. The slowdown which started in July 2008 still continues and has been tackled reasonably successfully, thanks to the concerted efforts of the central government and Indian corporates. Exports were badly down and lakhs of Indian workers lost their jobs. Credit crunch and low domestic demand further aggravated the woes of Indian companies. Fiscal stimulus packages along with drastic cost management helped India Inc to register a healthy growth of 6.7% in the last fiscal. A strong and conservative regulatory mechanism along with a sound banking system, little exposed to the toxic assets of US banks, saved India from further doom. The sensex has risen to 17000 in December 09 from 8000 in February 09 clearly indicating the rebounding confidence among domestic and foreign investors in the India growth story.

The next 18 months pose significant opportunities as well as challenges. Challenges include a high cost of borrowing, corporate governance, leadership and the same old infrastructural bottlenecks. Most of the major companies have improved their toplines and profitability in some way, though some sectors like real estate are yet to turn on the significant volumes.FDI and FII flows have resumed interest and ample liquidity exists in the system. The focus of India Inc needs to be on implementing corporate governance standards,inclusive growth, skill-building and “going green”. Political will and a pragmatic approach to policy-making would do wonders to further the sustainable growth of Indian companies. Any amount of complacency in reformist policy-making and subsequent implementation can severely jeopardize India’s chances, as it can’t take its place as the second fastest growing economy for granted.

Maiden post

Hi folks!

Welcome to my new blog.I will be as honest (politically incorrect!) as possible regarding topics I write about.You are welcome to agree or disagree.

The whole idea behind the blog is twofold:
1.To let my friends and acquaintances know what’s on my mind.
2.To refine my writing skills and articulate things better.

I will try to write as often as possible.