Deceitful Investments?

FDI inflows should be well tracked to restrict black money

Evading tax has always been a common practice among the affluent. While this may seem an off-handed primary opinion, there is no denying that traditionally, certain big business houses used to keep parallel books of accounts in order to show lower profits, and eventually evade taxes. Loopholes were easy, due to inconsistencies between corporate accounting principles and those followed by income tax authorities. But with technology, and with advances in accounting reconciliation mechanisms, the age-old practice of maintaining phantom books of accounts became futile (yes, for all our arguments, there will always be a Satyam to prove us wrong...still). Amidst all this, parking/routing money in nations where tax rates are relatively lower has become the most sought-after option to evade taxes. In simple words, corporations and individuals today are re-routing their money to their home nations via tax havens (where tax rates are generally around one per cent). The tax haven concept has always been a problem-child for developing and under-developed nations with respect to lost taxes, but has been advantageous with respect to FDIs.

A research paper titled, ‘Estimating Tax-Elasticities of FDI: The Importance of Tax Havens’ by Peter Schwarz concludes that “for US multinationals, a reduction in host country tax rates corresponds with higher FDI-stock. The estimated elasticity suggests that a one per cent reduction in host country tax rates leads to an increase of total FDI between 0.3 to 1.8 per cent, depending on the specific tax burden indicator.” A study by Blanco and Rogers shows that “less developed countries in the neighbourhood of tax havens exhibit significantly larger FDI inflows” and higher FDI flows strengthen the investment confidence level for that particular nation. In India, reportedly, around 40 per cent of FDI is being redirected from tax havens, like Mauritius.

So what should India do in such cases? The first step should be to immediately initiate researches into finding out whether India on the whole has been advantaged or disadvantaged due to tax havens. The second step should be to have a due diligence process that ensures that any FDI coming into India is through clean sources.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
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IIPM B-School Detail
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BBA Institute

Book Review : London Company

Off the beaten path

It is interesting how popular culture focuses on certain aspects of a particular society while totally ignoring others. If popular culture was to be believed, one would think that racial dispute was the sole problem of the USA. The most that the United Kingdoms are supposed to have suffered by way racial conflict is protests of Scotland and Ireland against the yoke of England. That the UK had an equally complex racial equation with African, Asian and Caribbean  immigrants, is largely ignored.

Farrukh Dhondy’s London Company is a rare work of fiction that walks away from that beaten path. He does not talk of the terrorism of the IRA. Instead he talks of the street protests of “Ridley Road, Notting Hill, Harlesden, Brixton and elsewhere” in the heady days on the British Black Panther movement.

When Dhondy arrived in England with a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1964, England was going through tumultuous times. Immigrants were flooding into the country. Simultaneously, it was an age of social change. The Civil Rights movement was quickly gaining momentum. The country was waking up to sexual maturity with the sexual revolution. Several racial freedom movements, especially those across the Atlantic in America, were making their influence felt on the English shores as well.

It was such a climate in which Dhondy arrived and quickly identified his calling as an activist an writer on race issues, as he worked for   the publication Race Today. The book gives a fictionalised account of how he entered the world of activism, joined the British Blask Panther Movement and his later disillusionment with the same.

He begins at the end – with narrating an event that forced him to differ with the direction the movement was taking and his disenchantment with it. He then smoothly goes back to how he came to join the movement in the first place and his progress through it. The book is fast paced and tightly packed, reflecting well how exciting Dhondy’s life as a young Indian student in 1960s England.

London Company is the story of a rebel. Feeling claustrophobic with the norms, rules and conventions of the Indian society, Farrukh and his girlfriend Natasha move to Leicester, looking for freedom and a chance to build their lives on their own terms. Here they face for the first time an evil that they had been largely insulated from – racial discrimination. Landlords refuse them rooms, local bars refuse them service and they are directed to the Asian ghettos to live.

They are suggested to “go down to the Asian areas of town...”, for “filthy accomodations down the side street”. They get co-opted into an Indian Workers’ Association from where they get a taste of street politics, holding successful strikes and desecrating pubs in the process.

Later, the couple moves into London, joining the British Black Panther Movement, inspired by the more famous and rather militant movement of their trans-Atlantic cousins. He gets a job as a teacher and also begins to explore writing professionally. However, he is yet to find his feet on that front and rejects his own work as “fairy tales”.

As they delve deeper into the movement, inherent differnces in opinion, ideological rifts adn complexities begin to rear their heads and it is at this point that Farrukh begins to lose some of his enthusiasm.

What is particularly noticeable about the work is that Dhondy uses highly authentic idioms and description of the lifestyles of the community he describes. There is a very interesting passage where a character protests against the supposed Rastafarian pronunciation of Shakespeare as “Shek-zapeeree” saying: “I have lived three or four times as long as you among Caribbean people and I have never heard the name Shakespeare pronounced in the way you said it. You should have some respect. I know that all of you have changed your names but please don’t change Shakespeare’s.” Dhondy’s sensitivity, probably arising out of the fact that he himself was from a racial minority, is commendable.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Herr Bose?

Netaji's ideological grounding was weak and his lack of political acumen only compounded his mistakes

The ideological commitment of any individual is best tested when he or she is pushed to the wall. Because it is here that the option to take an easy way out or strike a compromise appeals the most. And it is in such circumstances that one of India’s most prominent nationalist leaders Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose made some of the biggest strategic mistakes of his life.

Bose's tryst with Nazism and Fascism has always remained a matter of debate. Experts have variously called his decision a “tactical folly”, “lack of political acumen” and “genuine flirtation”. The truth – as always – lies somewhere in between.

Let's consider Bose's initial tryst with the ideology. Throughout the 1930s and even later, Bose's basic ideology was grounded in socialism. Sugata Bose – grandnephew of the INA leader and professor of history at Harvard – writes that Bose's differences with MK Gandhi were primarily because he thought that the latter had no plan in place whatsoever for a post-independence India. Besides, Bose’s idea that the independence movement “should depend, for its strength, influence and power on such movements as the labour movement, youth movement, peasant movement, women's movement, student's movement” was abominable to right-wingers like Vallabhbhai Patel.

Bose tried to reach out to the leaders of both Fascist and Nazi regimes in the late 1930s but without much success. Some suggest that he secretly entertained middle-rung Nazi leaders in Bombay in 1938 when he was president of the Indian National Congress (INC) for a brief period. However, his efforts to connect with Nazi forces till then were mostly based in and around the principle that an “enemy's enemy is my friend”. He certainly displayed no particular liking for the Nazi or Fascist ideology as a whole. The admiration was selective. And that was not unnatural because even Gandhi had praised Mussolini’s “care of the poor, his opposition to super-urbanisation, his efforts to bring about coordination between capital and labour”.

Around the same time, Hitler, who was clearly in awe of the British Empire and definitely wanted to have a respectful share in its sphere of influence rather than  substituting it with a German empire, saw little strategic value in entertaining Bose. “The land for us, the seas for England,” visualised Hitler. However, he did see the tactical benefit in using Bose as a chip to bargain with the British. On the other hand, Bose was sceptical of Hitler's hatred for the Soviet Union and was uncomfortable discussing it. Hitler was shrewd enough to judge that and advised him to reach an agreement with the Japanese to avoid "psychological mistakes".

Ideologically speaking, they did not particularly admire each other – at least it was not the kind of mutual admiration that Mussolini and Bose shared. In fact, during his initial tryst, Bose tried hard to have Hitler's racist references to Indians excised from further editions of Mein Kampf. The relationship grew worse as Bose had by then little appetite for racism and went as far as to rebuke Hitler at a press conference in Geneva after yet another rabid racist speech by the latter. Some historians claim that he even asked for a trade boycott against Nazi Germany.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Has the 100-crore club reduced movies to IPOs?

Monojit Lahiri investigates B-town's latest, booming bimari!

Film critic, Anupama Chopra had lamented about this earlier when Sallu bhai was on the rampage with his monster hits, - Ready, Dabangg, Body Guard – but the obsession with this figure took on very sad, disappointing dimensions when recently the release of the late Yash Chopra’s swan song,  Jab Tak Hai Jaan, was completely hi-jacked by how soon this dazzling SRK-Katrina-Anushka rom-com would blast the Rs 100 crore mark; and not whether the film was the perfect ending to a filmmaker’s magnificent obsession of using love as a passionate leitmotif of all his films. Not whether SRK, despite his 45 years age, managed to wow and charm the mickey of his zillion fans with his matchless, stylised body language and histrionics; not whether the two heroines, in their own respective ways, fleshed out their roles with the sense of abandon and sensitivity demanded and not whether the Gulzar-Rehman magic, the spectacular locales and canvas out-excelled Yash ji’s earlier efforts. Whatever happened to old-fashioned movie-going experience - the thrill starting from the time the lights dimmed, submitting to magical willful suspension of disbelief right through and returning satiated and enthralled?

Even up till a few years ago, life was different. Mainstream publications and TV channels did reviews. Hits were defined by Silver, Gold and Diamond jubilees, with dazzling, glamorous parties marking the occasion, with reports splashed across film mags. Details of daily/weekend/weekly/monthly collections were restricted strictly to the ‘trade magazines’. In recent times however, this Rs 100 crore disease has spread like a fungus and today, in crass, blatant and brazen manner, First day/Weekend/Weekly collections – real or fictional – are blitzed across mainstream and film publications with depressing regularity! Has the fun and enjoyment of going to the movies reduced to an IPO-watch? Have the merchants taken over from the mavericks and magicians?

Many heavyweights of B-town share this concern. Rajkumar Hirani (Director of Munnabhai and 3 Idiots) is extremely uncomfortable with this fact and articulates it in no uncertain times. He suspects it is a chilling sign of a consumerist and market-obsessed time when people are encouraged to know the price of everything and the value of nothing! “For God’s sake, it’s not an IPO but a film! Sure I understand and am concerned about the ROI factor, but for me audience appreciation is the key. People loving your film and recommending it to others remains a matchless high. For me, the shoe-string-budgeted Jane Bhi Do Yaro, made three decades ago, is way beyond any Rs 100 crore movie because even today it is remembered, loved and given cult status.” Both Anurag (Barfi) Basu and Kabir (Ek Tha Tiger) Khan agree. Basu – returning after a big budget disaster, Kites, admitted he was apprehensive about the commercial viability of his movie. “Transforming young, hot, popular, glam stars like Ranbir and Piryanka into sexless deaf-dumb-artistic creatures could be risky. The content, too, was anti-glam. Would the audiences respond to the soul to the film? I guess I got lucky! If you go with your heart, chances are, it will find another.” Kabir agrees. “You can’t sit down with the self-created agenda of writing a Rs 100 crore film! Stupid! You have to go with your sense of self-belief. I did exactly that for Ek Tha Tiger and God was kind. It worked.” And how!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
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IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

Be kind on the ‘ney

Stringent laws and complicated procedures are delaying the kidney transplantation process killing more people in the process

Anation like India, already severely affected by numerous pandemics, has tried to put its maximum effort to combat diseases like AIDS, polio to say the least. But amidst all these diseases, one of the largest killers in the world (even in India), the kidney disorder, has got swept under the carpet. This is in spite of the fact that in India, two deaths occur every five minutes (that translates to 200,000 deaths in a year) due to permanent kidney failure. Timely kidney transplantation is undoubtedly the only saviour for these patients but the stringent rules regarding kidney donation and lack of adequate kidney banks are acting as blockades. Sadly, unnecessary delays to get approvals for kidney transplantation in India are pushing many lives towards death.

Till today, kidney ailments are not seen as being fatal – despite the reality being completely opposite. Most of the times, the detection for the same happens at the last stage. And now, the scenario of kidney problems in India has reached a situation where it is set to damage the so-called ‘demographic dividend’ massively. Doctors estimated on the last World Kidney Day (March 8, 2012) that anywhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people develops end-stage kidney disease (kidney failure) every year in India. In the same light, the National Kidney Foundation of India projected that 100 people in a million suffer from kidney diseases in India. As per the Multi-Organ Harvesting Aid Network Foundation, merely 3000-3500 kidney transplants take place every year as against 150,000 requirements. Out of all transplants, only 5% come from brain-dead patients while the rest are contributions from healthy donors.

Of course, the recent years have also seen the illegal kidney transplant racket growing. The infamous kidney racket scandal in Gurgaon is a case in point. Several reports highlighted that hundreds of poor labourers had been duped or forced into donating organs to wealthy clients, including foreigners. The government subsequently took the professed noble initiative to protect them and the rules governing unrelated kidney transplant became very stringent since 2008, following an amendment to the Transplantation of the Human Organs Act, 1994. The law states that “only medically compatible relatives are permitted to donate organs.” However, “non-related and willing live donors can supply a part of themselves by reason of affection or attachment towards the recipient or for any other special reasons, provided that the transplantations have the approval of the Authorisation Committee, established under the Act.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

It is critical for organisations to adopt a scientific approach

It is critical for organisations to adopt a scientific approach to understanding how they can meet customer needs, and to firmly ingrain a customer-focused culture throughout the organisation

1. Make a list of the values you’d like your company to exemplify. Then, examine your current culture, and ask yourself if those values are apparent in your company and driving your everyday efforts. 2. Before you can convince your company’s end customers of your focus on satisfaction and service, you need to convince an even more important customer audience – your internal customers – the employees who represent your company to the world. Talk with all your employees about corporate values and ask for input and suggestions. 3. Customer focused companies constantly seek and document feedback. They have a system to analyze and feed this information back into the loop so that response is immediate and not an annual feat 4. A strong customer orientation also demands that the company treats customer complaints positively. They not only make toll-free numbers and helpdesks available, but also staff it with knowledgeable people to work on them. 5. This means that they get back to these customers within an acceptable time frame So how does one tell if the customer is truly on your side? Most companies survey their customers in some way, shape or form – formally or informally. After decades of forms, interviews and focus groups, studies have shown that in gauging a particular customer’s overall satisfaction, a single question is needed to provide a fairly accurate answer: “Would you recommend us to your family, friends and colleagues?” If the answer is “Yes,” you are meeting or exceeding that customer’s expectations; if it’s “No”, it’s time to get to work.

It’s important to have carefully defined, written standards for a customer service-centric culture. Don’t be afraid to keep raising the bar; after all, that’s exactly what your competition will be doing. By visibly measuring – and rewarding – superior customer service, you’ll establish it as a top priority in employees’ mindsets. By holding associates accountable for the agreed-upon standards, you’ll build a high level of trust—one from which your customers will ultimately benefit. At the same time, it’s important to take advantage of “coachable moments” when employees occasionally fail to meet established standards. Don’t “blame”, but just analyze the situation and offer encouraging, constructive feedback. In time, your employees may actually welcome the occasional complaint as an opportunity to improve service.

Globally, companies like Apple and IBM have reaped rich rewards by being customer focused. In India, Microsoft aims to become relevant to the country’s one billion population; it made a start by introducing the Windows 2000 and Office 2000 range, which supports Hindi/ Devanagari and Tamil scripts. In 2001, it launched the Office XP and Windows XP, which supported 11 Indian languages. It also launched Project Bhasha to promote local language computing in 2003.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

20 years of change after Rajiv Gandhi

Known as one of the brightest stars in Indian politics, Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination shook up the foundation of the Congress party. A documentation of how his death reversed fortunes of the party, and dramatically altered the Indian political scenario...

Twenty one years ago on May 21, 1991, a bomb explosion killed Rajiv Gandhi, while he was campaigning for the Congress party in Sriperumbudur, about 40 km from Chennai, on the second day of the 10th Lok Sabha elections. [Rajiv who had served as the PM of India between 1984-89 (at the age of 40 – he was the youngest ever PM of India) is till this day regarded as perhaps the most charismatic figure that ever took the stage of Indian politics.] The sudden, premature demise of Rajiv not only shocked the world, it also marked an end of an era that saw India being led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty for all but five years since independence.

Though nobody took immediate responsibility, the attack was blamed on Rajiv’s arch enemies, the LTTE, that was fighting for a separate homeland for the Tamils in Lanka. Rajiv could not contain the political problems afflicting India, and found refuge in international entanglements and commitments. He committed the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Lanka in July 1987 in an endeavour to help the government there to eradicate militants agitating for a separate Tamil homeland. [The IPKF had to be withdrawn in 32 months.] His period in office was marred by scandals and allegations of corruption on so huge a scale that he undoubtedly lost the election of 1989 partly on account of public perception. The Congress suffered an electoral defeat. His successor, V. P. Singh, could not hold office for long, and Rajiv started campaigning in earnest in 1991. But then, his assassination put an end to his half-finished political career.

Most people remember Rajiv as a visionary who encouraged foreign investment, a freer economy and rejuvenated his own party. “People had sympathy for Rajiv. He was not aware of the problems of the people at the grassroots level. However, he was a very dynamic person,” recalls Mohan Dharia, a former Union Minister who had served in the Indira Gandhi cabinet, but resigned on his differences with her ideologies. He remembers Rajiv as someone who wanted to modernise India.

When US denied to give India the technology of supercomputing, it was Rajiv who encouraged the creation of the indigenous Param Super Computers. Agrees Dr. M. P. Narayanan, former Chairman of Coal India (1988-91), who says that with the demise of Rajiv, India not only lost a visionary, but a receptive and encouraging human being. “His leadership style was such that would even allow mid-level officers to walk up to him and he would listen to their ideas. I wonder if subsequent PMs have ever found time for that,” he says.

Rajiv’s vision for India was that of a modern nation that takes full advantage of technology. We’re living his vision today. Says political observer Suvrokamal Dutta, “Many people believe that it was Narasimha Rao that initiated the globalisation process. However, it was Rajiv who created the ground for that process. He was also working on various missile treaties with Western countries.” Rajiv’s other revolutionary move was to lower the voting age to 18 from 21 years in India. Having said thus, it is important to note that Rajiv’s political career also became mired with allegations and scandals. The Bofors scandal is an unsettled blot on his otherwise glorious career. It cost him three-quarters of his MPs.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

How deals between unequals surprisingly work

Professors James E. Austin and Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard, of Harvard Business School discuss whether the marriage of a “virtuous mouse” and a “wealthy elephant” work to the benefit of both

What happens when small iconic brands are acquired by large concerns – think Unilever. What happens when giant MNCs acquire relatively small companies that enjoy iconic status as socially progressive brands? Such marriages can be good for business and good for society. Tom’s of Maine acquired by Colgate, Stonyfield Farm Yogurt purchased by Danone, Ben & Jerry’s bought by Unilever, L’Oreal’s deal for The Body Shop, Cadbury Schweppes’ acquisition of Green and Black’s, and Coca Cola purchase of a significant interest in HonestTea are examples of such deals.

Q: According to you, a company that enters an M&A deal is either a “mouse” or an “elephant.” What are the characteristics of the two?

James Austin and Dutch Leonard (JA/DL): Actually, the key descriptor is not simply a difference in size but rather in kind. We are not referring to every small company, but only to those that have become social icons because an integral part of their distinctiveness and success is rooted in the social value that they bring to the marketplace. Hence our nomenclature refers to “virtuous mice.” And there are a lot of large companies attracted to these successful social icons, but not all “wealthy elephants” are capable of entering into a successful marriage with this special breed.

Q: Why is acquisition such an attractive strategy for the “mice”?

JA/DL: Compared to organic, self-funded growth, it can allow much more rapid scale-up – for example, through the ability to reach new markets faster, or through the ability to invest quickly in significantly expanded facilities. Compared to an IPO, it allows the careful delineation of accountability and performance. An IPO puts pressure on the social icon to perform. Through an agreement, a social icon can define with its acquirer terms of accountability for its performance that may be much better suited to what it is trying to accomplish. And, finally, a key virtue of acquisition from the perspective of the mice is that it may, if structured correctly, provide access to managerial systems and capabilities that are needed for going to and operating at scale that would take the social icon years to build. So structured correctly, an acquisition strategy can effectively marry the brand strength and “social technology” know-how of the icon with the access to capital and managerial capabilities of the acquirer. And that is why the search for a partner should be deliberate and careful.

Q: What is attractive about these arrangements from the perspective of the “elephants”?

JA/DL: Most successful large companies excel at business planning, allocation of capital, and execution. Many are also good at product innovation. But few are good at exploring significantly new ideas and radically different business approaches. Empirically, it is hard for these more novel ideas to compete inside large businesses in business planning and investment allocation processes against better defined, more traditional innovations. This implies that, if large companies want to get the benefits of these new products and the potential growth of these markets, acquisition may be the most effective route.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

Research Methodology

METHODOLOGY – TOP 30 B-SCHOOLS
FIRST PHASE:
ICMR prepared an initial list of 200 B-schools in India that have been providing full-time management courses for at least the past three years and which were also the most-recalled amongst the student fraternity (sample size of 2000 students who are currently pursuing a management course, spread across five metros). This initial list comprised both private and government-affiliated institutions. Subsequently, ICMR conducted a perception survey amongst MBA aspirants, management students (currently pursuing their MBA) and executives from the corporate world. The survey was based on the parameters of awareness, recall, legacy and image & perception. A sample of 4500 respondents was thus covered in the study across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, using a structured questionnaire. Based on the frequency of responses, the final list of top 30 B-schools was shortlisted.

SECOND PHASE:
The final ranking was based on the average of weighted scores per parameter (details below) given by the esteemed panel of experts. The respected panel of experts comprised of Keertan Adyanthaya, Managing Director, FOX International Channels; Sandeep Tyagi, VP – HR, Videocon Industries; Ramandeep Singh, Head – HR (Talent Acquisition & SME), Bharti Airtel; Sandeep Bhushan, VP – Digital, HT Media; Srivathsan S., Head – HR, Times Television Network; Anupam Bansal, Executive Director, Liberty Group; Sharad Mathur, Head, SBI General Insurance; Prashant Singh, VP & Country Head – FOS & Agency, Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company; Chandan Choudhury, MD, Dassault Systemes India; Mudit Bhatnagar, Deputy Vice President and Head – Marketing & International Business – DHFL; Pradeep Kashyap, CEO, MART and President – Rural Marketing Association Of India; Pramoud Rao, Managing Director, Zicom Electronic Security System; Sudarshan Mazumdar, Country Head – California Almond Group; Akash Sureka, Founder, MD & CEO, Hoopz Planet; L.S. Krishnan, Business Head – Amagi Media Labs; Dhananjay Chaturvedi, MD, Miele India; Soumya Kanti – President and Head (PPP initiatives & Global Business), Educomp Solutions; Harinder Dhillon, Sr.VP – Sales & Marketing, Raheja Developers; Altaf Halde, MD (South Asia), Kaspersky Labs; Anuj Jain, CEO, JSL Lifestyle; Archana Browne, VP – Sales & Marketing, International Recreation Parks Pvt. Ltd. (India); Ronesh Puri, Managing Director, Executive Access; Dr. Alok Bharadwaj, Sr.VP, Canon India; Nipun Singhal, President, Lloyd Electric & Engineering [For a complete list, please refer to the detailed profiles].

Each panelist was provided with the write-ups (sent by the participating B-school) and detailed secondary data generated by ICMR for the 30 institutes based on the following parameters (mentioned along with respective weightages):

l Quality & Volume of Course Contents 40% l Quality & Volume of Industry Interface 15% l Quality & Volume of Research & Writings 15% l Quality & Volume of Global Exposure 15% l Placement & Packages 15% It is important to note the context of the weightages given to the parameters in question. We firmly believe that the most important factor for any B-school to be ranked has to be necessarily its course contents. This factor is what differentiates the world’s leading management institutions from the also-rans. No amount of teaching, interface & exposure is helpful unless the course structure is world class – and that is the reason why this factor has been given a 40% weightage by us, while all the other factors have been assigned a weightage of only 15% each.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

Why everybody at SpiceJet loves Raymond

Two years back, Neil Raymond Mills took over as SpiceJet’s new chief. Then, the airline was unwell. He began by slashing costs. Strategies that didn’t make economic sense were forgotten. Today, the airline appears a turnaround tale. Reality is, the job isn’t over yet. Worse, harsh history could repeat itself

A simple analogy. If you drive a car at a constant speed minus stops, you burn less fuel. The gains don’t become apparent after each short drive. But in a quarter of a year, the reduction in fuel consumption starts to show. The results become more pronounced in a year. Much is saved in gas and cash. Common sense. But most airlines in India ignore such small money-saving acts. SpiceJet is not one of them. At the airline, this “constant speed” philosophy is communicated as a compulsory key message to each of its newly recruited pilots. These cockpit handlers are supposed to remember it every time they leave an air strip. The idea is to get the pilots to save anywhere between 0.5% to 1% of the airline’s fuel bill. A small chunk saved. But at SpiceJet, if a cost can be avoided, it is.

Cost-cutting doesn’t always help
The company’s hardheaded emphasis on lowering costs does affect its operational efficiency metrics. Unfavourably at times. In July 2012, SpiceJet’s On-Time Performance (OTP) on domestic routes was 84.3%. That meant, about 16 of every 100 flights were delayed beyond 15 minutes. Much of this is can be blamed on the constant speed norm that is in place at the airline. This makes the airline’s record only better than the havoc-stricken Air India’s (OTP of 81.2%) and now-stripped-to-the-bone Kingfisher Airlines’ (81%). All other airlines recorded OTPs in the 90%-plus range [IndiGo: 95.3%, GoAir: 90.3%, and Jet: 91.6%]. The company isn’t one to worry about offloading passengers to peer carriers (and cancelling flights) either, when load factors don’t justify economics. The carrier strives to maintain an average load factor (LF) of over 75%, and plans to increase it over the quarters to come [in Q1, FY2012-13, LF was 80.8%]. Result: SpiceJet’s flight cancellation record (2%) is only better than those of Air India (3.2%) and Kingfisher (8.2%). Others boast of a lower figure (IndiGo: 0.1%, Jet:1.4%, GoAir: 1.6%).

Mills... a number-loving turnaround guy
But CEO Neil Mills, who has turned around the airline in the past two years, knows that these numbers only tell a part of the SpiceJet story. He is familiar with how budget airlines work. An industry veteran of over 20 years, this former CFO of Middle-Eastern LCC Flydubai knows his numbers fall on the rational side. He measures every paragraph in the book by weighing data. That is exactly how he helped build Flydubai from scratch. He plugged cost holes at the company, and improved its balance sheet, helping the airline grow from a drawing on the whiteboard to a fleet of nine operating aircraft in just a year-and-a-half. Before Flydubai, he was at easyJet for 12 long years. Under him, the company grew from 4 to 174 aircraft, and became one of the biggest, most profitable airlines in Europe.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

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