Archive for the ‘IIM Calcutta’ Category
Top business schools like IIM-B, IIM-C and FMS add muscle to finance labs
Top business schools like Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bangalore, IIM-Calcutta and Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi are putting in place massive investments for expanding and setting up finance laboratories to aid research, enhance students’ proficiency in financial markets and assist them in placements. The finance labs at campuses are equipped with Bloomberg terminals and other national and international databases that provide real-time information on government securities, equity markets and capital structures.
IIM-Bangalore has allocated Rs. 10 million for an extension of its existing facility, which is expected to provide students access to 50 terminals and data from Bloomberg, Newswire 18, CMI, and CRSB early next year. The institute is serious about expanding the existing facility as these databases give students access to large amounts of empirical data for research and projects, says professor Sankarshan Basu, chairperson, career development services at the institute.
“This also benefits students looking at a career in the banking and financial services industry as the companies expect them to be familiar with such databases. Accessing them earlier makes them industry-ready from day one,” he adds.
This month, FMS opened its financial laboratory at an investment of Rs. 4 million. It is equipped with 12 Bloomberg terminals. These will help students in improving the standard and level of detail in their final-year dissertations and their term assignments, case studies and research with faculty members, besides assisting them at the time of placements.
“Most finance professionals work on Bloomberg terminals regularly, and being familiar with the scope and operations of such databases will boost a prospective recruits’ candidature,” says Nitesh Goyal, head of the finance society. Summer placements will begin at FMS next month. About 26% of the class of 210 in the 2012-14 batch found internships in the BFSI sector.
IIM-Calcutta too plans to replace its existing makeshift financial research and trading lab with a 4,000 sq-ft centre which will be accessible to students and faculty members from November this year. “The centre will function like the labs in overseas B-schools, providing students access to live national and international databases, fundamentals and other banking and non-banking data,” says professor Ashok Banerjee, Dean of New Initiatives and External Relations.
At XLRI, the primary purpose of putting in place such databases stemmed from placements. “Companies expect students to be familiar with such systems,” says HK Pradhan, professor of finance and economics and coordinator of the financial market centre at XLRI.
Source: The Economic Times, September 27, 2013
B-school student body not diverse enough
While diversity is the buzzword at premier management institutes worldwide, there seems to be little change in the student profile of Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) this year, with engineering graduates still dominating the composition of new batches.
Of the candidates joining IIM-Calcutta this year, 90.4 per cent are from an engineering background. At IIM-Bangalore, this percentage is as high as 91.09 in the 2013-15 batch — up from 88.84 per cent in the previous batch.
Other streams, such as commerce, science, management and the arts have seen only 21, 8, 4 and 2 students respectively in the total batch-size of 404 students at IIM-Bangalore.
While premier management institutes in India have always had a skewed representation of engineers, internationally acclaimed business schools have made a conscious effort to include diverse candidates from various backgrounds.
For instance, Harvard Business School’s 2015 class comprises 43 per cent economics and business undergraduate majors, 39 per cent of science, technology, engineering and mathematics students and 18 per cent students studying humanities and social sciences.
In the 2014 batch of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, 46 per cent of students are from the humanities and social sciences background, 37 per cent from engineering, mathematics and natural sciences and 17 per cent from business, while 18 per cent are advanced degree holders.
Prof M. Jayadev, Chairperson, Admissions and International Aid, IIM-Bangalore, says: “The number of engineers appearing for the CAT (Common Admission Test) entrance is much higher than the non-engineering stream candidates. This, Jayadev said, tends to ensure a higher proportion of engineering students get into the IIMs. Traditionally, IIMs have given higher weightage to CAT, which places greater emphasis on quantitative skills, and not on other sciences. This puts prospective students with a social science background at a disadvantage.
Some years ago, the admission weightages given by IIMs were an internal matter known only to the relevant institutes. But things started changing after the Right to Information (RTI) Act came into force. “Before the RTI Act came into existence, most IIMs used to modify the admission process a bit to add diversity to the student profile. At that time, the strength of engineering students was only around 60-65 per cent in the batches. However, with too many questions being asked about the admission process, IIMs do not have the liberty to tweak the admission process,” said the CEO of a leading financial institution and an IIM-A graduate.
Source: The Hindu Business Line, June 24, 2013
IIM-Calcutta pips its peers in research projects
The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) is leading the way in research project, pipping its peers IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B).Of the top three IIMs, IIM-C published 40 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, and presented 25 papers at international conferences during 2010-11, according to the institute’s annual report. IIM-B, on its part, saw eight research and seven case writing projects being completed and published during the same period. In comparison, however, the oldest premier B-school IIM-A saw only one research project being completed as against 42 in 2009-10.
Such has been the struggle for improving research at its campus that in the annual report, Samir Barua, Director, IIM-A said, “Several new initiatives, including organisation of case writing workshops, were taken during the year to increase the number of cases being written by faculty of the institute.”
IIM-A has initiated a new performance system wherein research will be given equal weightage as teaching in annual appraisals of faculty members. In terms of consulting projects being completed, IIM-A scored against its peer with 105 in 2010-11. Its counterpart, IIM-B, saw 19 consulting projects being completed for the same period.
Even in terms of research projects being initiated in 2010-11, IIM-C pipped its peers with 13 new projects, followed by nine by IIM-A and eight by IIM-B. IIM-C also had more number of projects published on international platform as compared to its peer institutions.
“Our faculty members published around 40 research papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented around 25 papers at international conferences during the year. The institute funded 13 new research projects undertaken by faculty members and two projects received external funding support,” said Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman of Board of Governors at IIM-C.
Further, a new faculty promotion policy was implemented this year at IIM-C with the objective of further strengthening the research environment. During the year the IIM-C funded 13 new research projects. Of these, 12 projects were in the Rs. 100,000 category and one was in the Rs. 500,000 category. In addition to this, two other research projects were launched by faculty members through external funding.
“In line with the institute’s long-term vision we saw significant progress in our efforts to transform into a research-based organisation, in terms of growth in scholarly publications as well as case studies and teaching aids,” said Pankaj Chandra, Director of IIM-B in its annual report of 2010-11. IIM-B has already entered into an agreement with Harvard Business Publishing, under which the latter will distribute its collection of teaching cases.
Experts, however, believe that Indian institutes need to put in more efforts to improve quality to achieve international standards. “India’s research base already has some outstanding activity but, it appears, thinly spread; and while research generally is often ‘very good’ it is more rarely ‘internationally excellent’. The underlying patterns of excellence and an explanation for India’s ‘deficit’ compared to other countries requires further investigation,” said Jonathan Adams, Director, Research Evaluation, Thompson Reuters, had told Business Standard.
Indian universities, added Adams, produce a modest output of research that has really high global impact. By comparison, other growing research economies are producing not only more research but also more high quality research.
Source: Business Standard, September 13, 2012
IIMs shelve global expansion plans
After years of fighting with the government to go international, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) may not spread their wings at all. The three IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta — confirmed to Business Standard that the economics of having an international campus is not in their favour and the same may not happen in the near future.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), had in October 2009, allowed the IIMs to go international, but only as a collective brand. Some IIM directors, however, felt it would affect individual brand identity of their campuses, and had made known their fears to the MHRD, which then allowed them to go international with their individual brands.
“I am not in favour of splitting my faculty across 10 locations. We have been getting proposals from various state governments to set up campuses in their respective states, but at this juncture, we want to take the advantage of ‘everybody together’ and grow here. We will, however, do activities abroad,” said Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIM-Bangalore. Chandra’s five-year term as IIM-Bangalore director comes to an end this November.
Chandra added that IIM-Bangalore has been doing strategic partnerships with six schools globally, and are involved in research on “deep activities”. “We are in executive education globally. We are doing international students and faculty visits and conferences together. Our strategy has been to embed ourselves more globally through this process which we find very enriching for us as well as our partners,” added Chandra.
Indian institutes with campuses abroad generally go for a two-cycle approach, which involves setting up operations through a rented place for two years and branching out to their own campuses in three years’ time. Barua, whose term also comes to an end this November, added that an overseas campus may not happen during his tenure. “The time is very short as far as I am concerned. I am not sure if it is possible to have an overseas campus in just seven months.” Barua had earlier told Business Standard that the institute may look at its first overseas campus either in Dubai or Singapore on a rented premises. He had said that IIM-A’s international ranking may help it get a foothold in the international market. IIM-A was ranked 11th position in the Financial Times ranking published this January.
At the IIM-Calcutta, a board member echoes similar views. He added that economics are not viable for the institute to think of a campus in the near future. “There is no specific plan in terms of opening a campus. There are many different ways IIM-Calcutta and international partners can collaborate. For instance, we have long distance programmes in the Middle East for which many people have signed up. We also have affiliations of about 43 different B-schools. I think this is good enough to have a virtual international presence,” the board member added.
A fundamental reason for the IIMs to junk their overseas plans is the shortage of funds, they say. While the IIMs did not disclose their respective corpus, they said they have been drawing resources from the same to meet any need on campus. IIMs are now looking at various means to raise funds by setting up a separate department to look at the same. IIMs are also trying to tap into their alumni pool. IIM-Calcutta and IIM-Ahmedabad have an estimated 10,000 alumni, while IIM-Bangalore has 8,000 alumni.
Today, the bulk of the money that IIMs generate is through the Management Development Programmes (MDPs) or executive education programmes they conduct. In absence of these, they would be running at a loss or just marginally breaking even.
Source: Business Standard, April 12, 2012
IIM-Calcutta wraps up final placements within four days
Students with work experience found 15 new takers at the recently concluded placement season in Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C). Lateral placements — for students having a work experience of at least 10 months — saw companies like Sovereign Wealth Fund amongst those that recruited exclusively from IIM-C, the final placement report of the institute, said.
IIT alumnus launches education tablet Classpad
Rohit Pande, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) and Indian Institute of Management- Calcutta (IIM-C) comes back to his alma mater to launch his latest innovation Classpad. With his academic background Rohit, plans to make education accessible to each student according to one’s own merit and intellect.
Classpad facilitates personalized and interactive learning in the classroom and makes education accessible to every student according to his/ her individual intelligence level and talent. Using the Classpad, teachers can transfer class work to the students’ tablet, share their own content instantly and conduct tests/ assessments. Students can also give undivided attention to class lessons, attempt assessments and get results to further enhance their learning. Classpad has a touch screen with a 7 hour battery life, 1.3 Ghz processing speed and a built-in memory of 4 GB expandable upto 8 GB.
Addressing the participants at the launch, Mr. Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher Learning Systems said, “Our education system does not differentiate students according to the learning capabilities and teach them at the same level, but the software installed in Classpad tests students’ problem solving, creativity and application of language skills. It provides them with personalized teaching as per their learning capabilities. Equipped with artificial intelligence, Classpad can help to categorize students as fast learners, average learners and slow learners. Classpad can assist in reducing the monotony of repetitive sessions in the classroom. Teachers can now complete their syllabus within schedule and get considerable time to focus on slow learners.” Classpad is available for students in standard 3 to 12.
Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), January 2, 2012
IIM-C widens its net to catch more students
Every year over 200,000 students take the CAT (Common Entrance Test) examination aiming to join the premier management institutions, but only about 3,000 make it. Some enter the IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management), a few more join other premier institutes like IMS, FMS and others. Those who do not clear the examination settle for other private management institutions, or foreign universities, or choose a different profession.
Here is an opportunity for those others to look at online courses offered by the top management institutes of the country. IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C), which is celebrating its golden jubilee this year, declared an ambitious five-year plan to reach out to more students. The institution has already started offering online courses on management, and plans to do this in full measure. “We are the only institute of this repute, 10 per cent of whose revenue is generated through online programmes,” says Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director of IIM-C.
The institute presently houses 462 students. Its strength can be increased to 700 in the coming years. “Yes, we are developing infrastructure to accommodate more students, and our target is to take 500 students this year. But how far can we increase the strength? We cannot accommodate the thousands of students taking the examination,” says Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman of the board of governors of IIM-C. “It is not economically viable. [On the other hand,] we can certainly educate thousands through online courses.”
There are always apprehensions among students that online courses are not as effective as full-time courses. But here IIM-C is offering Internet-based courses which will enable an online education in real time. They will be in no way inferior to full-time campus courses, says Chaudhuri. “We designed the courses so that the candidate will also be visiting the campus for a few days to learn,” he adds.
IIM-C has about 600 students on its campus every year, plus about 4,500 through its distance programmes. With the introduction of Internet-based models the institute is expecting to add 2,000 more students this year, and reach out to 5,000 more students in coming years. “The courses offered online are socially motivated to reach out to different geographies and different sections of people who would otherwise miss a quality education,” says Sougata Ray, IIM-C’s Dean.
To address the woes of the manufacturing sector, which complains that the best management people enter the service sector, IIM-C is offering a programme titled “Visionary Leadership in Manufacturing,” in collaboration with IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Madras. The institute is also planning to develop a one-year Advanced Teachers Management programme, that will help institutions across the SAARC region to enhance the quality of their management faculties. These teachers will also participate in doctoral programmes at the institute. IIM-C will also tie up with other universities, foreign and Indian, to develop a diverse faculty and student body. It aims to become an International Centre of Excellence in Management Studies.
Source: Business Standard, October 28, 2011
IIM-Calcutta to tap corporates for funds
The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) is planning to tap Indian corporates for funds to complete some of its infrastructural projects following increased intake of students over the last three years. “The student intake has gone up. This year the total intake is around 450 students. Earlier, the intake was around 260 students,” IIM-C Director Shekhar Chaudhuri said.
“We are building around 530,000 sq. ft. of new facility. Half of the project is over. We have built 14 classrooms out of 19 planned. Two new hostels are under construction. The total project outlay is around Rs. 195 crore (Rs. 1.95 billion),” he added. He said the institute has decided to approach corporates for Rs. 50 crore (Rs. 500 million) to complete the infrastructural projects.
Dean and strategic management professor Sougata Ray said: “We have spent from our internal accruals and our corpus. We would like to have some balance in our corpus built over the years and hence the decision to tap the corporates.” Asked about the response of Indian corporates, Chaudhuri said: “We have not approached any corporate till now to gauge their response.”
Institute officials said corporate philanthropy for higher education in India is not popular though some Indian groups have made donations to foreign universities. “Making donations to foreign business schools by Indian groups may also be a brand building strategy,” an official said.
Speaking of finances, Chaudhuri said the institute is self-sufficient in funds generation and has not received any funds from the government since 2003 for day-to-day activities. “Our revenue is around Rs. 100 crore (Rs. 1 billion). We are earning good revenue – around Rs. 30 crore (Rs. 300 million) – from our long duration corporate training program,” Chaudhuri said.
According to Ray, all the IIMs are planning to join hands to bring out a high quality management magazine on the lines of Harvard Business Review. “It may take around a year to come out. The magazine’s name is yet to be finalised. It could be Indian Management Review,” Ray said.
Citing various business school ranking surveys, Ray said IIM-C has moved upwards one slot and is now number two among management institutes in the country. Chaudhuri said the institute has decided focus on research work as a major strategic initiative. “We have increased funding for research and also the stipend for post doctoral students. In the faculty promotion, weightage for research work will be given,” he said.
Meanwhile, like the Chennai Chapter of IIM-C Alumni Association that conducts marketing workshop for the students, the Bangalore chapter of IIM-C Alumni Association has decided to hold an entrepreneur workshop mainly focusing on social entrepreneurs. The first workshop is slated next month and it will be an annual event. There are many IIM-C alumni who have turned social entrepreneurs, Ray said.
Sources: The Hindu, September 24, 2011 & http://www.ndtv.com
IIM-B, IIM-C may extend campus placement period
A year after the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), changed its final placement process, its peers in Bangalore and Calcutta, IIM-B and IIM-C, plan to alter their final placement process for the next year. Both institutes are in consultation with each other to put in place a process that will extend the final placement period, making it less stressful for both students and participating companies.
“In the next five-six weeks, we will introduce changes in the placement process. Companies have expressed that they want more time for it. We, too, realised that it gets too stressful and hectic for students,” said a placement official from IIM-C. The changes in the placement process also take into consideration the fact that these institutes have increased their batch sizes. Thus, students and companies would get more time to interact. IIM-B, for instance, will have 375 students, against 350 from the earlier batch. At IIM-C, 362 students will be placed this year. The numbers will go up to 425 and 462 students at IIM-B and IIM-C, respectively, for the 2011-13 batch.
A professor at IIM-B said till IIM-A changed its placement process, most firms visited IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C during the same time of the year for final placements. A poor job market in 2009 had forced B-schools to review their placement strategy. In fact, the changes IIM-B and IIM-C are bringing in, are more or less in sync with that of IIM-A’s, where students and companies can get ample time to evaluate each other. “A spread out placement process will make our task easier to schedule firms during placements,” said the professor.
IIM-A, incidentally, was the first IIM to make changes in its placement process last year, by bringing in the cohort-based system. Under the system, every weekend saw firms from a particular sector visiting the campus as a cluster. International investment banks and consulting firms formed the first cluster. The process carried on for well over a month. The new system will ensure more interaction time between students and firms.
Source: Business Standard, September 8, 2011
>Auto-driver’s techie son heads for IIM-Calcutta
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Braving all odds, the son of a poor auto-rickshaw driver from Patna has made it to the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, (IIM-C). Anupam Kumar, a resident of Bhadra Ghat locality in Patna, scored a 97.09 percentile in the Common Admission Test (CAT) to qualify for the prestigious institution.
Anupam says he owes his success to his family. “Whatever I have achieved today is because of my parents,” he said, adding, “God should give everybody parents like mine.” He said his family had often found it difficult to make both ends meet while he was pursuing his goal. Anupam’s father Srikrishna Jaiswal has been an auto-rickshaw driver for more than two-and-a-half decades in Patna.
“Our family income was quite low but my father never lost hope. He has been working hard for many years for the family,” Anupam said. This was not the maiden success of Anupam, though. In 2005, he had cracked the joint entrance examination (JEE) for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) as a student of Super 30, a free coaching institute for underprivileged children run by a young mathematician Anand Kumar.
He subsequently completed his first year of the M Sc. integrated course in Physics at IIT-Kharagpur but left it to join Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad. He has since been pursuing a five-year dual course there in mining engineering with MBA. Anupam’s father Jaiswal has been toiling hard for years to fulfill the dreams of his children. He leaves every day at 9 a.m. and returns home as late as 11 p.m., so that he could earn sufficient money to help his three children pursue their dreams.
Hardly surprising then, his eldest son Anupam’s success has brought cheers to his family. “God has answered our prayers,” Anupam’s mother Sudha Devi, a housewife, said, adding “When my son called up to say he has been selected for IIM-C, our joy knew no bounds.”
After doing his matriculation from a private school and intermediate from the Hindi medium Guru Gobind Singh College at Patna Sahib in first division, Anupam focused on making it to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). But the road to success was not easy because of resource crunch. Anupam said he started giving tuitions to children to supplement the income of his family. “I used to earn Rs. 1,000-1,200 by giving tuition to the students of classes VI and VII. At times, I had doubts whether I would be able to fulfill my dreams. I also thought of becoming a teacher at a coaching institute at one point of time,” the IIT protege said. Anupam had disappointment in store when he failed to qualify in his first attempt at IIT-JEE in 2004. But he got admission in Super 30 as one of the 30 students and went on to crack the IIT-JEE the next year.
Recalling his student, Anand said he was pleased to know that he had made it to the IIM-C. “He was a very talented and hard working boy,” the founder of Super 30 said. “I am sure he will go far in his career.” Anupam’s success has also inspired his younger brother Abhishek and sister Anamika to pursue careers in engineering.
Notwithstanding Anupam’s success, his father Jaiswal does not intend to stop driving his autorickshaw on the roads of Patna. When Anupam informed his father about his latest success, Jaiswal told him to keep focus on his studies. He would keep running the auto-rickshaw for another two years before thinking of retirement, his father said.
Source: Mail Today, April 21, 2011
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