Virginia Tech Contact Session - Dr. Luiz A. DaSilva

It is great pleasure to have with us on campus, Dr. LUIZ A. DASILVA.

Dr. DaSilva who is an Associate Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, is here between August 29th and September 2nd 2007 as visiting faculty, for the participants of PGDSM-MIT 2007-09.

Dr. DaSilva is a powerhouse of knowledge on Computer Networks and Telecommunications and his presence will indeed be a great opportunity for all participants of SPJIMR to interact and gain insight into these areas.

India Calling! Independence Day Celebrations...

Ethereal beauty descended upon the campus and the students who were working their way off for the morning celebration. It’s a tranquil delight, serene sanctity, burning pride, upholding attachment, binding sense of duty and an overwhelming sense of belonging and togetherness.

Such is the spirit of the golden moment frozen in history for eternity. One could sense this spirit of India alive in the wee hours on 15th august, 07 buzzing through the SPJIMR campus. A plethora of impending exams, pending assignments and a flurry of Autumn placements did not discourage the students from working their way off till 7.00 A.M on the morning of 15th of August.

The campus was alight with a new ethnic aura. Girls clad in salwaar kameez flaunting their bangles and bindi every now and then, boys looking dapper in their sherwanis- it was perfect salute to the nation’s culture.

As the flag unfurled its glorious colors into the sky, and the college burst out with the bliss of the national anthem, a feeling of pride en gulfed every Indian standing there. The campus was abuzz with festivities. It was the first time all the students came together to celebrate the occasion on such a grand scale.

On a very touching note was the song “Aye mere watan ke logon” sung by a Saregamapa finalist and participant of PGDSM-MIT . The soothing voice and the aura of the frozen moment reminded each and every Indian of the sacrifice of the Indian army and price that was paid for the freedom we enjoy today.

The hall looked breezily adorned with flashes on green, white and orange with electric lamps now and then, all over the stage in the wonderful classical dance and a very innovative theme dance on "Vande mataram" performed by the PGDM students. Flying streamers of flag colours waving in unison with the dancers, the blue clad girl in the centre depicting the blue epitome of the ashok-chakra was a spectacular virtual display of the Indian flag.

The PGDM students also addressed intriguing social issues in a very thought-provoking skit. The play revolved around the story of a troubled freedom fighter who could re-kindle the forgotten dead spirits of materialistic countrymen and was indeed inspiring. The most popular pick was though, the performance of the song “Mile sur mera tumhara” by students, all hailing from different states, different languages. It was but a true amalgamation of cultures!

The message of unity in diversity was best displayed by the folk dance performed by the PGDSM-MIT students on various regional dances of India. Salve and soothing south Indian classical numbers along with the peppy garbha and stirring bhangra numbers set the crowd cheering. Indeed a tribute to our tradition of tolerance and peaceful co-existence!

And then a small game and video kept the audience on their feet. A short write-up on “ What does being Indian mean to you” kindled the patriot within everyone. A five minute video on “ What does freedom mean to you” shot across Mumbai in the various segments including slums of Andheri, Juhu and Infiniti mall reflected the true spirit amongst people. It ended on a an inspiring note wherein all the students of SPJIMR sang “ hum honge kamiyaab “ to symbolize India’s climb to the top.

“Sangharsh”- brought to fore the memories of the freedom struggle and the contribution of the young legendary Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Azad and Rajguru. The stirring lines “ Sarfaroshi ki tammanna ab hamare dil mein hai” rang in chorus throughout the hall. To see young and agitated; brave and selfless blood in action was a befitting message to all the students reminding them of their duty to the call of the nation. A very interesting debate between Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh was enacted to perfection symbolizing the importance of both forces in the freedom struggle.

The celebrations did not end there. The batch of PGDSM-MIT 03 was not to be left far behind. The PGDSM-MIT 04 classroom was alive with the shadow play video on the “True Freedom” being played. A classic combination of perfect lighting and shadows with the backdrop of flag colours gave the video a creative edge. Patrotic songs rang through the hall with students performing numbers from Swades and Lagaan.

The high point of the morning was the performance by Uma Narain madam who sang the number “Aye mere watan ke logon”. It was a heart-rending song. The dedication and passion with which it was delivered spoke every bit of the reverence she held for the nation. It was a very special moment for the students of PGDSM-MIT who were spell-bound with the exemplary performance. It was a wonderful example set for the students.

The excitement built up through the day with the screening of Swades as the Flick-Pic movie in the auditorium. The whole day was alive in elegant ceremony and every bit of it paid a tribute to the nation. We thank all the faculty members, Usha Madam, Varsha Parab Madam, the administrative department, the entire staff of SPJIMR and finally the participants who made this event a grand success!

Cheers,
Pratibha

Dilli ab duur nahin.. Chirag Bhatia and Shubham Arora in the Finals of AIMA contest!

Team Saksham represented by Chirag Bhatia and Shubham Arora of PGDSM-MIT 2007-2009 have made it to the Finals of the AIMA national level paper presentation competition.

The topic is 11th Five Year Plan’s theme “70 Million Employable Indians: Strategies for Global Competitiveness”. They emerged as the winners of the western region where 23 teams fought it out for the finals. The Finals will be held in Delhi on the 25th of August.

The Director-CMD of AIMA mentioned that the champion team in the finals would get an opportunity to have a structured visit to industrial units in Macau and Pearl River Delta in South China for a 3 day training Program. This would provide them a unique exposure and interaction with their counterparts in China.

Others through to the finals from the western region include teams from SCMHRD, Pune and St. Francis, Mumbai.

Wishing them all the best for the finals!!

SPJIMR PGDSM-MIT Autumn Placements 2007 - Scaling New Heights!

The autumn internship placements of PGDSM-MIT batch of 2006-08, were an astounding success, with 100% batch placement and an average of 1.6 offers per student. PGDSM-MIT is a unique two-year globally focussed dual degree program in Systems management. The course is celebrating its third year since inception. The autumn internship model was introduced for PGDSM-MIT for the first time this year.

As an integral part of the Systems Management course, autumn internships are designed to provide management students an opportunity to put their learning into practice, while enabling companies to assess quality managers-in-the-making by exposing them to real-time projects.

With 27 companies making a beeline to SPJIMR’s campus on day 1 for a batch of 63 candidates, it wasn’t much of a surprise when a total of 104 challenging profiles across varied domains were offered. The recruiters competed against each other, luring the participants with exciting projects in the areas of Marketing Strategy, Process Consulting, SCM Consulting, IT Strategy, Business Research and Pre-sales. It was indeed a dilemma of sorts for those with multiple offers!

The list of companies included some of the giants in the industry such as SAP India, IBM, GE, Capgemini, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant Technology Solutions, HP, HCL, RPG, Aditya Birla Group, Honeywell, Frost & Sullivan, Alcatel Lucent, Aricent, ICICI, Siemens, M&M, NCDEX, i2 Technologies and Nihilent to name a few, with GE making the maximum number of offers. The overall highlight of the program was Siemens Information Systems Ltd making pre-placement offers.

The companies found that the course PGDSM-MIT fosters superior expertise in terms of functional, domain and business knowledge along with values through the pedagogic practices at SPJIMR.

Prof. Abbasali Gabula, Chairperson, External Relations remarked that the companies gave positive feedback and were looking forward to come back to campus for final placements.

Prof. Sunil Rai, Joint Director, SPJIMR said, “The enthusiasm and involvement of each and every participant, both in the junior and senior batches were commendable. And of course, the results speak for themselves.”

All in all, the staggering success of the first ever autumn internship process has left impressions in the minds of one and all that promise to last forever, setting a new precedent for the final placements.

The news regarding Autumn Placements of SPJIMR's PGDSM-MIT Batch has been featured online. Do check the following links:

http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/news.php3

http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/070801/spjimr-autumn-plcmt-1.php

The news is also linked from the Home Page of the site.You can also check Google News for listing of the same:

http://news.google.com/news?&q=site:coolavenues.com&hl=en&scoring=d

Cheers,

Manisha

(On behalf of PRCom)

CRM Sessions by Dr. Lakshmi Mohan: 16-20 Aug

Dr. Lakshmi Mohan is a member of the Information Technology Management faculty of the School of Business, State University of New York. Before joining SUNY, she taught at the Sloan School of Management, M.I.T and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

At SUNY, her empirical research on decision support systems (DSS), executive information systems (EIS) and management of information technology has been supported by over US $ 2 million in grants from Fortune 100 firms and government agencies. Her current research interests are in Enterprise Systems including CRM, SCM and ERP systems, e-Commerce and e-Business, Data Warehousing and Data Mining.

She has also lectured and consulted worldwide including Argentina, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland. She has conducted several two-day Executive Programs on CRM in Kuala Lumpur (in Jan 2005), in Mumbai and Delhi (Feb, Aug 2004/05), in Shanghai and Mumbai (Feb 2003. She has also conducted in 2005 two programs on Business Intelligence in Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai and a specifically designed workshop on Human Capital Management in Mumbai.

She was invited by the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore to teach the MBA course on CRM in July 2002 and has continued to teach that course every year since then. In March 2003, she was invited by the Graduate School of Business Administration, Zurich, to conduct a two-day workshop on e-Business for executives and deliver a public lecture on “Re-thinking the Net: Where is the value?” at the MBA Forum 2003. She received the Best MBA Workshop Award at the Zurich MBA Congress in October 2003, where she delivered a public lecture on “Management Imperatives to Make IT Business Smart”. She has also taught the course on Managing IT at GSBA in Apr, Aug 2004 and in Feb, Apr, Aug 2005.

Dr. Mohan’s clients include Colgate-Palmolive, Dannon, DuPont, GE, General Foods, PepsiCo and Pfizer in the U.S; the Dharmala Group (a large conglomerate in Indonesia), Edgars (the top retail store chain in South Africa), the multicampus affirmative action university in Malaysia (Institut Teknologi Mara), the Hotel Millenium Group in Monterrey, Mexico, the two leading banks in Singapore (DBS and United Overseas Bank), Singapore Airlines and Unilever.

In 1986, Dr. Mohan extended her consulting practice to India and has developed customized DSS and EIS systems for several companies including Bajaj Electricals, Britannia, DCM Shriram (sugar business), Glaxo, Hindustan Lever, ITC, UB and Voltas. She has also conducted in-house programmes for several firms including Colgate-Palmolive, Hindustan Lever, Marico, Reliance Textiles, UB and Singapore Airlines.

Dr. Mohan graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, with a first class first in Mathematics, and then obtained her Master’s degree in Statistics from the University of Bombay, again standing first class first in the entire University. Among the many prizes and scholarships that she received during her college education is the prestigious Chancellor’s Gold Medal of the University of Bombay for topping the list in the M.A exam with a record percentage of marks. She began her doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and received her PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Columbia University, where she was awarded the President’s Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Scholarship.

Cheers,
Ganga

Guest Lecture by Mr Subinder Khurana: Company President marketRx

Mr. Subinder Khurana, Company President, marketRx, paid a visit to our campus to speak about the evolving face of the pharmaceutical industry. marketRx is a leading provider of specialized Sales and Marketing Effectiveness solutions to global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. marketRx today, is a "Best of the Breed" global organization headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, with a strong presence in Europe and other countries across the globe.

Mr. Khurana started the India operations for marketRx, and has helped it evolve into one of the largest third-party analytics solutions provider in India. Before joining the VC industry, he was the founder and CTO of EZPower Systems Inc., a Philadelphia-based software-products company. EZPower developed an award-winning suite of products for managing content of large web sites. He grew the business for 4 years and exit successfully when EZPower was acquired by DocuCorp International (NASDAQ: DOCC), a Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. company. Mr. Subinder Khurana has a B.Tech Degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi and an MBA (Finance) from Tulane University.

Mr. Khurana started by talking about the distinct features of the pharmaceutical industry. There was an absorbing discussion on whether the doctor or the patient is the customer of the industry. He elaborated on the exciting changes the industry is going through in the wake of the patent regime and globalization. He also mentioned the shift of marketing perspective from creativity to ROI. He stated that “Changes create opportunities” and that they should be grabbed.

Mr Khurana stressed on the need data driven marketing through high end analytics, data warehousing, modelling and analysis. He ended the session by pointing out that marketing analytics offers promising career opportunities and challenges for B-School graduates.

Mein kahiin kavi na ban jaoon...

What do you do when you have end term exams boxing you in the face..
And you have had such less sleep that you dont know the difference between yesterday and tomorrow..
Submissions galore...!
And loads of management funda books waiting for you to dig your head in them..
GULP.. GASP..
Well.. maybe the most creative things are born out of despair.. :D

Here is what spun out of ADY aka Aditya on one of the usual multi cast chats of the evening before the deadly Managerial Economics exam! :D

Ashima ki Aparna apaar hai,
jiski pratibha itni Ruchira maye hai ki Ras iska...
Ki Ras iska Ram ya maan ka ish hai,
is ish ki ipsita ke kinjal maan ki awaaz suni ti hai
Radhika aur usko aah shoo ke nikal jaati hai,
pir bi harsh in ki anko me aanso ban jata hai.....!!!

The girls of the class are beaming, trust me! :)
Kudos to ADY!
Lage raho!

Cheers!!!
Aparna

Management and Business Law!

That’s what the two sessions, back to back were centered around.. :)

The class of PGDSM-MIT 04 which had requested for these additional sessions from Prof. Pallavi Mody on ‘Legal aspects of a business’ was only too glad to have Prof. Damle enrich their knowledge in the same. Prof.D.M. Damle, a visiting faculty at SPJIMR, has been a practicing chartered accountant for over 3 decades now. That his knowledge of the various corporate laws that govern the country is vast was but established in the first 5 minutes of the session.

The session revolved around the various business laws, be it Financial, Marketing, HRD, Systems, Contracts and the like.

Law of limitation, S. 138 negotiable instruments/IPC, arbitration, collaborations, L/C, cyber laws, labour welfare laws and what not! Those and many more such complex terms were dealt with such precision and ease, that the class was thoroughly involved.

Filled with examples and sample cases from real life, the session was truly enjoyable. The case where the doctor had made a wrong judgement of not performing an operation or the one where entire families were wiped off by a criminal gang or the anticipatory breach of contract with a singer were relatable to. The LIFO logic being used in determining which among the twins is older will remain to be the most memorable of the lot. :)

The sessions concluded with a warm thank you to Prof. Damle for having taken the time out of his schedule and sharing his views with the class.

Cheers, Aparna

SAM-I-AM!! :)

As a part of the "Friday Leadership Series”, the Leadership committee invited Ms. Laura Parkin to share her experiences about ‘Leadership in Entrepreneurial Ventures’.

Beginning her lecture with verses which spoke of a certain stubborn and negative minded Sam, Ms. Parkin had the audience with her in the very first minute. Ms Parkin is the Executive Director of the Wadhwani Foundation, where she leads the foundation’s investments in non-profit programs. The overarching mission of the foundation is to create more economic opportunities for individuals in India. The foundation works in two areas: developing business entrepreneurs and helping the disabled build livelihoods or achieve gainful employment.

She is also the Executive Director and co-founder of the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), the foundation’s key program. NEN is a leading catalyst which launches next generation entrepreneurs in India. Since its inception in 2002, Laura and the NEN team have built NEN to include over 200 top tier institutes, including SPJIMR, across 26 cities. NEN is helping develop a pool of over 300 entrepreneurship faculty members, and reaches over 200,000 students.

In her address Laura spoke about the characteristics of a good entrepreneur – excellent people skills, risk taking ability, optimism, creativity, negotiation, strong conviction and a clear vision. A keen ability to ‘think out of the box’ is also important. She said that a budding entrepreneur must know his customer segment well – their tastes, traits and abilities.

She then talked about NEN and described their various activities. NEN currently has plans of expanding into the international domain and is working on key catalyst programs that will help achieve this goal.

She concluded by quoting Prof. Howard Stevenson of the Harvard Business School - “Entrepreneurs pursue opportunities regardless of the resources they currently control”.
Reciting the ‘Sam-I-am’ lines along with the students, Ms. Parkin left the audi resounding with positive notes.

Cheers,
Manisha

Thanks to Debasis Sir, Preeta Ma’m and Lalwani Sir

As the classes of microeconomics, macroeconomics and finance were coming to a close the students of the Public Relations committee of PGDSM MIT junior batch came up with the initiative of expressing their gratitude in a special way. Much to the surprise of Debasis Sir and Preeta Ma’m they were presented with a card and memento after their classes were completed. Adding value, was the fact that Vikas ensured that the ‘Thank You’ card was signed by all the 60 participants of the batch :)

The class enjoyed the teaching methodology and the enthusiasm that the faculty had towards making economics fun to learn. Avdhut aptly remarked that these economic sessions made them comprehend ‘Economic Times’ better!!

Aparna aptly addressed the card for Debasis Sir as– “To someone whose marginal utility will never diminish”. And the one given to Preeta Ma’m’s was addressed – “To someone whose macro image will always stay with us”.

Prof. Debasis wished the class for all their future endeavours and also said that this was a very memorable day of his life. Preeta Ma’m also expressed her appreciation by saying that such moments make a teachers life more special. The class cheered them on.

A similar card was presented to Prof Lalwani when the financial accounting classes came to a close. Financial Accounting, an unfamiliar subject for many was made interesting and fun to learn. In his address to the class Lalwani Sir remarked that he enjoyed teaching such a lively batch of participants!!

And of course, the card to Lalwani Sir said – “To someone who brought out the ‘Mavji Bhai’ in each of us” :)

Cheers,
Manisha

Guest Lecture on Capital Markets: Mr. Jigar Shah

“Never before have so many unskilled twenty-four year olds made so much money in so little time as we did this decade (the 1980s) in New York and London.”Thus began Mr Jigar Shah, Director and head of research at ‘K.R. Choksey Shares & Securities’ in his address to the participants of the PGDSM MIT junior batch.

Mr Shah is a prominent personality and he has appeared on various television shows for CNBC, NDTV, Doordarshan on behalf of his organization to share his opinions on the capital market mainly in the equity segment. He is a pioneer in equity research and conducted various chat shows from time to time on Investment Strategy on various financial portals like www.myiris.com and http://www.moneycontrol.com/.

He started by speaking on the history of capital market. He spoke about works by prominent analysts like the ‘Theory of Speculation’ by Louis Bachelier, ‘Portfolio Selection and Diversification’ by Harry Markowitz and the ‘Brownian motion in the Stock market’ by MFM Osborne and how these theories apply to current capital market scenarios.

He shared his ideas on how one’s approach towards analysis of fundamental valuation should be. He explained his ideas on the argument of whether the study of capital markets is an art or science. He also spoke about the significance of the markets and its influence on the society as a whole. He concluded by suggesting some interesting reads like ‘Mega Trends’ by John Naisbit, ‘The alchemy of finance’ by George Soros and ‘Irrational Exuberance’ by Robert Shiller

Birthday Bash at the Bistro

With the end of the day’s classes, and the cakes ready, it was time to celebrate the birthdays of the month of the PGDSM-MIT batch. Everyone had waited for the occasion for a long time now. Ruchira, Ganesh, Ashwin, Ankur, Maneesha and Laxmi did the honours while the bistro echoed the birthday song.


There were some who ate the first piece of the black forest and others who used it on the faces of the birthday boys and girls. There was a lot of cheerful banter in the bistro while the cakes were being consumed. The cake fiesta was then of course followed by the birthday bumps for the birthday boys. That was the end of the celebrations and left everyone waiting for the next birthday bash.