‘SANGAM 07- The Reminiscence’

It was that time of the year when the alumni take a walk down memory lane and revisit the fun b-school life they left behind to pursue their careers. Yes, we’re talking about Sangam- a reunion event hosted by Kalaikom (the cultural society at BIM) where the alumni came to BIM for a night full of music, dance, camaraderie and fun. Aptly termed as ‘SANGAM 07- The Reminiscence’, it was a night where, even as current students acted, danced and sang, it brought back all the memories of the good times shared with friends.

Sangam saw a fiery and sparkling start with the fireworks show. The event saw a number of dance performances both from BIM 23 and BIM 24. The event was kickstarted with Vishwanath and Venupradeep singing a popular song. Following that was a game where couples were invited from the alumni. The girls had to stick bindis on their partners’ faces within a minute. Amidst loads of cheering, Pavithra and Choka emerged as winners! Following this game were a number of dances performed. Rakshita and her group perfomed to a medley of songs and ended their performance with a dance to celtic tunes. Shilpi and Avirupa danced to Madhuri’s tunes with the title track from the movie ‘Aaja Nachle’. Bonny gave a stellar solo dance performance to bhangra and indipop beats whereas Sowmya and Dhananjay sang and strummed on the guitar.This was followed by spectacular dance by ‘Rolling Rockers’ of PGP-1. A short play was performed by PGP I students which talked of love strategies to win over the lady. The event ended with another fireworks show and then the dance floor was opening up to students. Students and Alumni danced the night away and in the end, each one retired to their rooms after having loads of fun and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Hopefully, this SANGAM helped forged new bonds between students and strengthening the old ones.The entire event was hosted by PGP I students and Kalaikom to make it as enjoyable to the alumni as they enjoyed staging the show.

Spl Lecture on "Management Consulting"

BIM students had a privilege of interacting with Mr. Jayaraman, a B. Tech from IIT Madras and MBA from Wharton, working with the Boston Consulting Group, Boston for the past five years.

Mr. Jayaraman spoke to the students on “Introduction to Management Consulting”. He started off with the history of consulting explaining how initially Banks were providing Consulting services but this practice of combining Financing & Consulting functions under the same roof was soon called into question. Though Frederick Taylor is supposed to have pioneered consulting it was Arthur D. Little the world's first management consulting firm and today is one of the world's leading management consulting firms, working closely with Fortune 500 firms across the globe. McKinsey started its operation in 1920’s as a strategy consulting firm, BCG, known for having a more analytic approach to strategy formulation, was started in the 60’s. Many consulting firms were later formed by the former employees of leading consultancy firms.

The Big Four is a term used to indicate the main powerhouses of consulting, PWC, Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst & Young. They all began as auditing firms before leveraging their expertise and knowledge to succeed in the field of Management consulting.

The functions of Consultancy firms can be broadly divided into Strategy, Process & Implementation. Any project is carried out through these phases. Mr. Jayaraman gave an overview of the functions involved in these phases. He also spoke about the career prospects in Consulting.

In India, McKinsey started its operation in 1970’s to become the first firm into Management Consulting, Boston Consulting Group is present in the country from 1985. Recently various Indian software firms like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, etc have forayed into the implementation phase; they are seen as potential competitors to global majors like Accenture and IBM in the near future.

During the second session, the students were given a real life consulting case & Mr. Jayaraman explained how to approach the problem in a systematic manner. The case was handled in an interestingly and innovative method employing the various management concepts and bringing out the solution from the students in a phased manner.

Some moments from Diwali 2007@ BIM

BIM successfully conducts Crescita 2007.

While students have abundant information on the great Indian growth story, questions about its sustainability and challenges constantly haunt them. In an effort to unravel some of these questions BIM Trichy had organized a two day seminar in association with ET Empower on ‘Emerging Issues in India Inc’ in Chennai on 3rd and 4th November.

‘Crescita’, the annual conference of the BIM Trichy saw speakers from various sectors share perspectives on issues such as currency appreciation, inclusive growth, energy requirements, supply chain establishment, financial inclusion, effective communication with target audience and talent retention.

“The theme is important for youngsters who will be part of powerful sectors and companies tomorrow. They need to be aware of bottlenecks such as inadequate infrastructure and social exclusion that might affect growth”, said Prof M Sankaran, director-BIM.
Mr. BL Ghasolia, executive director-chief corporate finance, ONGC, who inaugurated the two-day seminar, outlined the energy requirements to fuel India’s burgeoning growth. He also advocated the need to tap alternative sources of energy.

The 200+ management students who attended the seminar also tuned in to issues pertaining to specific sectors such as the retail and communication.

B Venkataramana, VP-human resources, Reliance Retail spoke about HR had moved beyond payroll management and data entry to drawing the image and culture of an organization. “Since the traditional HR can be automated or outsourced, the focus is increasingly moving to designing retention strategies”, said Mr. Venkataramana. This was especially important in the retail sector where there are too many jobs chasing few people, he said.

Mr. Alvin Saldanha, national creative director, Shobiz Integrated Marketing Communications acquainted the aspiring media planners in the audience with innovative means to capture consumer mind-share. “Increasingly, press and TV advertising are playing a support function in driving consumer traffic to the net. Consumers today are not available in the same media and spot as before”, said Mr. Saldanha. Companies were leveraging blogs, social networking sites and pod casts to attract consumers.

The diverse perspectives and chunks of advice from the speakers went down well with the students who kept the speakers on their toes by shooting them with a flurry of questions after each session.

During the day, the quizzing club of BIM organized BIM Quest, a corporate quiz event. The event was sponsored by Club Mahindra. The Event was orchestrated by Mr. Lloyd Saldanha of Grey Caps. The event had 2 stages, first one was a preliminary stage, open to all teams and the top 6 teams went on to play the finals. More than 100 teams from various corporate entities around the country participated in the opening round of BIMQuest. Top six teams comprising of Bhilai Steel, TCS, GE Money, Irevna, Cambridge Solutions and Sun Microsystems made it to the finals of BIMQuest. The finals had four rounds where the business acumen of the participants was judged to the core by the quiz master. The audience was kept wired to the quiz throughout by Mr. Saldanha with loads of audience questions and witty comments. The team from Sun Microsystems emerged as the winners and won a cash prize of Rs 25000. The team from Cambridge Solutions came second and got a cash prize of Rs 15000. TCS team came third and got a cash prize of Rs 10000. All the winning teams got holiday packages from Club Mahindra worth Rs 15000.


Day 2 of Crescita 2007 had started with Mr T. R Ramachandran, Country Head, Cards Division of Citibank Group, an alumnus of BIM, talking about various economic and financial trends related to the banking industry and its impact on India Rising.

Mr. Moorthi Chockkanathan, Senior VP, Head Delivery, Hexaware Technologies sharing his views about the role of the IT industry in India Rising and what more needs to be done in that direction to sustain the growth rate.

Ms Punitha Arumugam, Head of Madison Communications, took over the stage next and shared her views on how the Media industry, in particular the impact of media agencies in India Rising. She also spoke about the dearth of talent in this sector due to pay scale being incomparable with the BPO industry.

The afternoon session saw Mr Hariharan, Associate Director P & G India, share his views about the economic growth in general and how to sustain it but the emphasis was on the FMCG industry. He spoke about the growth of FMCG industry in India and how the changing demographics are affecting it now and how they will affect the growth rate of the industry in the future. He also shared few points on CSR initiatives of various companies that have a huge role to play in India Rising.

During both days of Crescita 2007, Government representatives in the form of Mr. R. Christodas Gandhi I.A.S (Secretary to the Govt of Tamil Nadu, Social Reforms) and Mr. Ashok Vardhan Shetty I.A.S (Secretary to the Govt of Tamil Nadu, Rural development and Panchayati Raj) applauded the efforts of India Inc for the rising growth rate but spoke about the huge gap in the increasing divide between the rich and poor. They had a common view on the industry going in for inclusive growth that benefits all sections of the society and also would help in sustaining the economic growth over a longer period of time.

All the sessions were highly interactive as the students kept shooting questions at the speakers regarding their queries.

The event came an end with the valedictory function being presided over by Mrs. Pamela Ramalingam, Director, ISoft Technologies. Mrs. Ramalingam, an alumna of the 1st batch on BIM, shared her view on the theme of the event and highlighted a few points that as budding managers and futures we need to keep in mind to ensure India keeps rising.

More details can be found on www.crescita.in

CRESCITA 2007

Crescita, that began its journey in 2005, is the annual conference of Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM), Tiruchirappalli. Crescita, conducted by the BIM students, aims at bringing together the stakeholders of organizations to understand the various shades of growth in management. Crescita began as the confluence of the business minds, making the sharing of experience beneficial for experienced, and for the innovative and aspiring minds. This annual conference was started with a view of enhancing the quality of the event year to year with different themes, serving modern organizations that face many challenges on their path to growth.

Crescita 2007 comes forth with the theme ‘India Rising’ and aims at bringing out the ‘Emerging issues in India Inc.’. Crescita 2007 is to happen at ‘The Accord Metropolitan’, Chennai on the 3rd and 4th of November. Economic Times is the media partner for Crescita 2007.

Website: http://www.crescita.in/ Email: info@crescita.in

How do you summarize a country which is touted to be the next superpower? And which - according to predictions, along with China would dominate the global economy in the next few decades. Analysts who used to dismiss India as at best a caged tiger only a decade ago, now believe that it will be one of the two drivers of economic development of the 21st century.
India Inc is coming of age, with its growth story continuing to attract overseas investors and is paving the way for Indian corporate to execute global strategies by acquiring companies both within and outside India not only to remain competitive but also to achieve scale. This is likely to lead to further overseas deals from India, providing building blocks to Indian corporate to emerge as large, competitive, global players. While some are yet to take notice of India Inc., it has already taken major steps in emerging as an economic superpower. In this juncture there are many a challenges to manage, like the emergence of China, deteriorating inflation dynamics, surges in capital inflows, high levels of public debt, and the unfinished structural reforms.

CRESCITA 2007 is about the next super power, India. This conference will create the platform for discussing the challenges, opportunities and ideas that are paving the way for India rising as an economic super power. Industry captains from diverse sectors would be discussing this behemoth phenomenon and try to evolve strategic solutions for the opportunities and challenges ahead.

BIMQuest

BIMQuest the quizzing club of BIM, conducted a corporate quiz during Crescita 2006. The quiz was hosted by ‘Pick Brain’ Giri Balasubramaniam of Greycaps – one of India’s leading knowledge Services Company. More than 80 corporate teams participated in the quiz competition and it was a runaway success among the quizzing community. Team from Sanmar Group won the first prize and Infosys the second, prizes worth Rs 60000 were distributed to the winning teams. BIMQuest, teamed up with Greycaps, is coming bigger and better for the corporate quiz to be conducted during Crescita 2007 on 3rd November 2007.

Ganesh

Chaturthi

2007 @

BIM

Some glimpses

BIM Students bag top 3 places at Southern Zone Regional Finals of Chanakya

AIMA's "Chanakya" was conducted during the Second week of October'07 in Coimbatore.

BIM Students won the Regional Finals of Southern Zone of India consisting of over 150 teams.

AIMA's "Chanakya" is a computer simulated business management game based on specifically created scenarios that focus on developing business acumen and to hone up decision making skills of participants. Conflicting situations induce the participants to take decisions under extreme pressure, as in real life situations. These situations/scenarios closely resemble business events and are similar to what one encounter in life span of an organization.

The top 3 positions were bagged by teams from BIM. 2 teams of 2nd year students shared the first prize at the regional finals and a team of 1st students took the runners up position.
The details of the winning team are mentioned below:

Winners:
1.Dinesh Raja, Madhusree, Nisevitha, D.Karthik(PGP-2)
2. Rahul Sangle, Shilpi Tyagi, Rahul Bubna, Nikhil Choudhry(PGP-2)

Runners up:
Kumaran C, Venkatesh MK, Varun kanth, Pearly Persheeba(PGP-1)

TCS on various profiles at its end

An HR Team from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) visited BIM Trichy on October 20th October 2007 to give insights on career options MBA students have with an IT major like TCS. With an employee base of over 1 lac including its subsidiaries, the Q2 profit being up at Rs 1250Crore, the IT sector booming, winner of the best employer award for 3 years in a row, TCS is again on a hiring spree of under graduates and post graduates.

Mr. Samraj, HR Manager with TCS at Chennai, spoke about the various avenues TCS offers in the field of Systems, HR, Marketing and Operations to the MBA recruits. He told that as a system’s MBA one could get into the role of a Business Analyst where the job description focused on client interactions, requirements gathering, analysis and estimation models etc.

For someone who is an MBA with a specialization in marketing, he said TCS had job opportunities for them in the marketing divisions of its various verticals. The job description here was related to discussions with potential clients across the globe to pitch for projects, finding out new markets for TCS etc with the designation most probably as that of a Business Analyst.

TCS now has operations across 75+ countries all over the world. Some of these are onsite development centers, delivery centers, technical support offices etc. With such a huge employee base spread all across the globe, managing human resources is one of the most important tasks for TCS. As a result, today TCS is recruiting HR students from various premier MBA institutes to manage its human resources. According to Mr. Samraj, TCS now has HR people at all its onsite offices, so HR people also get a chance to go onsite like techies. He said every new MBA–HR was made to go under special training programs on a periodic basis to keep them up to date with the current HR trends in the IT industry and that the career growth in a company like TCS was phenomenal.

The session was highly interactive and Mr. Samraj gave insights on various queries raised by the students regarding recruitment procedure, career growth, package structuring for MBA's, life at TCS, and what TCS means to its employees.

Overall it was a very informative session for all the students at BIM Trichy as they got to have a first hand view of what a career would look at TCS after placements, 5 years down the line and probably also 10 years down the line.

ENIGMA – Quest for Excellence

BIM Trichy organized its first ever online quiz for graduate and post graduate students. The event was named ENIGMA – The Quest for Excellence. The quiz was organized over a period of 3 days with 2 stages. The first stage was the prelims and the 2nd stage was the finals. The event was a joint effort between PRCOM (PR Committee of BIM) and BIMQuest (Quizzing club of BIM).

The first stage of the event received 500+ registrations from B Schools, Engineering Colleges and other graduate/post graduate institutes. The question paper was mailed to the participating teams and they had to mail back the answers in a excel sheet with a specified format within an hour.

The 2nd stage of the event was the finals. Top 30 teams from the first round competed in this round. Teams from institutes such as FMS, IMT Ghaziabad, IFMR, IIM A, IIM L, SIBM, XLRI and BIM formed a major chunk of the 30 teams. The same format for quizzing was followed except that the numbers of questions were reduced to 30 this time but the level of difficulty was increased.

Finally the results were out and the top 10 teams were declared. Top 3 teams got cash prizes of Rs 5000, Rs 3000, Rs 2000 for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd position respectively and certificates of merit. The remaining 7 teams that formed the top 10 were issued certificates of participation. The list of the top 10 teams is given below.

Rank
Team Name
Institute Name
1
Mocking Birds
Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad
2
The New Juggernaut
IMT Ghaziabad
3
Oscillating Ocelots
IIM Ahmedabad
4
Blitzkrieg
SIBM, Pune
4
B Nine
SIBM, Pune
4
Fraxers
XLRI, Jamshedpur
4
Question Under Intelligent Zone
IFMR, Chennai
4
Quixotics
Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Trichy
5
Somers
SJMSOM, IIT Bombay
5
X-quizIT!
Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad

http://enigma-bim.blogspot.com

We would like to thank all the teams for their participation. We are planning to come up with another event in October 2007. Hope to see more participation in that event.
We will also be conducting BIMQUEST, our annual quiz event at Crescita 2007, our national seminar and conference to be event held in November.

Holi@2200 Hrs at BIM

The motto of BIM is value based education. That includes appreciating and celebrating our rich culture. India is known for its numerous festivals across its length and breadth, ranging widely in practices and traditions. And each is built strongly upon a lush historical legend.

The legend goes that when all of Hiranyakashipu's attempts to kill his son, Prahlad, failed. finally, he ordered young Prahlad to sit on a pyre on the lap of his sister, Holika, who could not die by fire by virtue of a shawl which would prevent fire affecting the person wearing it. Prahlad readily accepted his father's orders, and prayed to Vishnu to keep him safe. When the fire started, everyone watched in amazement as the shawl flew from Holika, who then was burnt to death, while Prahlad survived unharmed, after the shawl moved to cover him. The burning of Holika is celebrated as Holi.

The Holi, the festival of colours, brings with it promises of newer colours in life every year and sees the States in the north and west make merry and let loose to celebrate with the vibrant colours.

Holi, is celebrated with aplomb every year at Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Trichy. Students bring out the traditional colors and play with great enthusiasm and vigour. This year was no different. Students of the 22nd and 23rd batch let down their hair and doused each other in rich colours as they luxuriated in the spirit of Holi. As a change this year, Holi celebrations took place in the night this year.

The evening arrived and as it struck seven, the air was filled with an unmistakable spirit of excitement and sounds of joy and greetings. The play began slowly with the fewer plucky ones venturing out to slap shades and dyes on each other and exchange hugs of greetings. Soon, the field was awash with mini rivers of colours flowing zigzag and students covered from head to toe in variant colours, exchanging greetings.

‘Rang barse…bheege chunar wali..’ came the line from the evergreen song, echoing the spirit of Holi. The pulsating and energetic music, that started up only added to the air of festivity. And was soon followed by animated dancing and shouts of laughter. Soon more voices joined in with the music. Interspersed was the repeating clicks of many a camera, as some students took on the role of photographers, capturing the many moments filled with colour and smiles.

After a bout of playing and running around, all gathered around to end the celebration filled night with traditional snacks of kalakand, jalebi, kachodi and kesar mithai. As the tired students trooped back, one voice was heard singing, “Rang barse…bheege chunar wali..”..the spirit..of colours..of Holi.

Female 'Schumachers' at BIM


“A man’s worst nightmare...a woman driver !” goes that saying. Well..here they were proved wrong ..in the annual All Women’s Car Rally 2007, called Fastrak’ 07. Held in Trichy on February 18, 2007, it was organised by The Aura, Trichy in association with Madras Motor Sports Club. “A rally, not a race,” was emphasized repeatedly, as the contest involved a drive over a 54 km stretch, within a specified time. The difference being, the earlier one arrived, the more penal points one was awarded, thus nullifying the incidence and risks of speeding.

The contest this year saw over 70 teams from Trichy, with each team consisting of three ladies, each taking on the role of driver, navigator and the person who calculates TSD ( time, speed, distance ) respectively. Among the huge turnout was two teams representing BIM, with Nishevitha, Aparna and Deepa in one team and Kohinoor, Yamini and Sowmya in the other.


The rally involved meticulous calculations of TSD over the stretch as one had to cross various strategically placed check posts over the rally, at the precisely marked times. As mentioned, arriving late would command a penalty, but arriving earlier would fetch a higher one. A drawn map of the route and a sheet with TSD instructions was handed over at the beginning of the race. To make it more challenging, there was also a quiz which consisted of questions regarding landmarks along the ride.


The rally began from St John’s Vestry Higher Secondary School and involved participants returning to the same spot over a period of two and a half hours, after the rally, along with the filled in answer sheet. It also covered areas of Thillai Nagar, BHEL and the main market. Trichy, on that Sunday, saw cars of various makes, models and colours zoom past each other, driven by ladies, trying to test their wits and driving abilities to make the best of their given resources.

Visit to BIM by Shri H K Mittal , Head & Advisior NSTEBD

There is nothing more powerful than an idea, whose time has come.

“Entrepreneurship is not about starting a business, it is about new ideas,” began Shri H K Mittal, on a talk on entrepreneurship. And it is being practiced in organizations as intrapreneurship, which involves being innovative within the framework of organizations.

India is a country of great potential, but the factor that holds individuals back is the risk factor, which discourages them from following up on their ideas. Successful entrepreneurs possess certain qualities that enable them to handle all that comes their way. Entrepreneurs manage risk, Shri Mittal said, taking risks that they can afford, and can handle. This is known as taking calculated risks.

They also have a positive self concept and a need to achieve that spurs them to greater and newer heights. But the question raised was, can this need to achieve be built in individuals ? And the answer given was, that yes, it can, through correct training and counseling. Entrepreneurs, more importantly, are open to and learn from feedback, which enables them to initiate corrective action, in time, if needed. Persons possess three characteristics when related to problems. They are problem identification, problem solving and avoiding. The first two should be built upon.

He concluded by stating that the encouraging fact is that the scenario in India is now changing, with people taking up entrepreneurship rather than jobs. An address that led many people to recognize the traits that they need to develop to fulfill their dream of becoming entrepreneurs in the future.

Seminar on Business Incubators held at BIM


“Business incubators are the greatest innovators of the 21st century,” has been said by Jhiang Zameen, Chinese Premier. To illustrate the point, was an address by Shri R.M.P. Jawahar.

Business incubators are organizations that support the entrepreneurial process, helping to increase survival rates for innovative startup companies. Only entrepreneurs with feasible projects are admitted into the incubators, where they are offered a specialized menu of support resources and services. The resources and services open to an entrepreneur include: provision of physical space, management coaching, help in making an effective business plan, administrative services, technical support, business networking, advice on intellectual property and sources of financing. The incubation process is intended to last around 2-5 years.

Most of the business incubators in India have been set up by educational institutions, the first being set up National Institute of Technology, (NIT) Trichy. The objectives of a business incubator include supporting new ventures, technological development involved in these ventures, thus leading to contributions to the tech world as such, and industrial development, as many of these projects are in varied areas across industries. The also impart technical and management skills to entrepreneurs and assist in the dissemination and replication of discoveries to other new businesses, to help enhance productivity and growth. “A business incubator,” remarked Shri Jawahar aimed at, in essence, “promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and technology”.

The support extended by a business incubator lends credibility to any project and provides a resource network for development. Its interventions come in the form of providing physical location, knowledge inputs and counseling to an entrepreneur who has ideas but no access to resources. A business incubator, thus, brings together technicians and experts under one roof.

STEP-TREP has sponsored over 161 ventures in 12 years, of which the ten most successful ones are worth over Rs 300 crores and have created over 140000 jobs.

A business incubator contributes in more than obvious ways. “Each rupee invested in a business incubator, pays back four times to the government in 5-7 years and is expected to grow manifold.” cited Shri Jawahar as an illustration. Business incubators create jobs through new endeavors and encourage all social classes, thus leading to regional development. They also create investment in infrastructure, essential for any development. New products and projects are discovered, through these enterprises, thus crossing the innovation barriers.

In spirit, an entrepreneur gains invaluable exposure, experience and insights through a business incubator. But practically, records show that the mortality rate of new ventures inside is a business incubator is 20%, whereas outside its as high at 70%.

A valuable address on the role of business incubators, one that provided information and insight to many budding entrepreneurs here.

Life@ BIM Trichy

(Dr) -Dinesh Ravindran


well ppl...this is dinesh aka "Dr"....this happens to be the 9th month of me at BIM.....i got to learn a lot in this place........(this of course is an ambiguous sentence)....life in here is very different from any dimensional thinkin u might have.....

isolated hostels...further, quarantined college amidst a woodland.....a secluded computer centre that u might find near a detached mess.....though dissociated, the placidity of a B-School is very much present with a good gang of amigos who stay connected for life......

u'll have ur dashboard of life filled in totally with errands n chores that keeps u occupied all the while....an example(specimen-me):ive my book of "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" to be completed as the due date is gonna end by day after tmrw.....got the Mid-Term Exam tmrw-Corporate Finance II......got CFassignent to be completed....Have to prepare for my the "International Business Environment" presentations.....Economics Presentation's Deadline is nearin....Tmrw is "FoxTrot"-an intra collegiate Dance Event for which i have to Video Shoot.....also thr is a Line-Up of Xaminations in 2 days for 3 days thereafter.....also i have to start thinkin about EM(mech engg don't mistake it for Engg Mechanics....its Environmental Mgmt) project.....RM Case Studies along with few exercises he gave have to be completed.....ooops... almost forgot the worldcup that comin up which i have to catch up in the TV hall....with a coffee cup(bought from the dusk cafe) at 12 in the night..... i'm sittin in here ponderin over the this thread thinkin wat to write as the "Life at BIM"....???...........