Category: Uncategorized

Silicon India Reports: IIMs High Salary: The true story has a twist. Bangalore: As 2010 placement session of all the seven IIMs draws to close, it is being witnessed that the role offered to these graduates are more or less traditional and the salary packages are different than the packages which were making the buzz.Following the placement session getting over, the debate started across the corner that which institute managed the best offer? An IIM-Ahmedabad student was tipped to have bagged an offer for Rs 1.4 crore two weeks ago, which has reportedly been breached by the Rs 1.6 crore offer made by a British investment bank at IIM-Calcutta. But seeing these eye-popping numbers that have dominated headlines for some weeks, Saral Mukherjee, Placement Chief at the IIM-A said, “The truth is that the readers are being fed garbage.” This year, it has been totally different scenario, as the average salary offered by international banks at the IIM campuses are in the range of Rs.12-20 lakh per annum, while that offered by private sector banks is at just over Rs.9 lakh for IIM graduates. The top 30 percent were offered packages of Rs.12-15 lakh, the next 40 percent get salaries in the range of Rs.8-12 lakh and the remaining 30 percent get offers between Rs.5-8 lakh. Supporting the range of salary being offered, K Ramkumar, Executive Director at ICICI Bank said, “For a person with less than three years of experience, whoever is paying more than Rs 15 lakh is doing a disservice to their organization.” ICICI Bank has picked up 50 students from various IIMs so far this year. It looks really bad to see that how wide is the gap between the lucky few with ‘Rs.1 crore-plus’ salaries and the rest of the crop from the same elite campuses who are stuck with salaries of Rs 50,000 per month. For reader’s comment on silicon India, click here.

Lately there is been lot of confusion in aspiring students related to management education. The privatization of education in our country and the popularity of management education with media creating hype about the kind of salaries being offered to the IIM graduates have led to a deformation to the image of an MBA course. Over then, not only the students even the parents who were very much into medical & engineering as the option for their child’s career got attracted to management education.Why not? It promises good grooming, practical exposure, it fetches you a placement as early as in 2 years which is otherwise unlikely in the medical & engineering education. The invasion was expected as the starters were making good money and the economic conditions were even encouraging. From there aroused a great confusion in the middle class who always aspire to provide the best education possible. The expensiveness of management education was known as the pioneers in management education had already established it as a premium education that ends with a good paying job. The sudden need of management education opened the idea of having a B-school for many. This need led to 100s and then 1000s and still increasing number of B-schools which ultimately caused lot of dilution in the quality standards of education & its facilitation formats. More & more universities added a management program which was very much on the lines of their master programs. This was a major drawback & differentiation to what we call management education & B-school education. The results started coming and the placements dipped in such programs which had almost negligible industry exposure for the students. The quality of the faculty/facilitators dipped as they were all the more replaced by the college tutors or those who were themselves not exposed to the B-school education. The differences were clearly visible but the common man was so much so bombarded with options and so much unaware that he suffered. As a result a bad name for management education because what media spoke about packages was not for all. Even today, I get several doubtful calls from friends & family, colleagues & references asking me to choose from the list of B-schools they have got the letters from, it’s difficult. I am glad we got into the decent ones without having anyone to guide at that time. Nevertheless, the following could be checked at least: Do’s: Their affiliations & accredit-ions. Program Design & Module. The curriculum can be checked. Whether it’s a PGDBM or an MBA degree. Remember, MBA qualifies post graduation; the former is more like a diploma course. The modus operandi & course structure. Faculty & Value Added Services like soft skills training, language classes etc. Talking to previous batches is also recommended. Don’ts: Avoid going by the advertisements & lavish infrastructure. A check on the curriculum, some universities do a mere repetition of your BBA. Don’t go by the foreign affiliations at once. Check that. Hyped up packages & salary. Prefer checking the average salary instead. *Image source:http://www.sssieducare.org

Retailing is booming. Really! The Attrition rate in retail is comparatively high in retail than as compared to the other employment options in the industry. What is the entire concept like? What is the manufacturer’s perspective in retail? Why is special about Walmart’s Retail mix? What are private labels? How does value addition happens in a retail? What do we mean by retail management? What are store layouts? These were certain questions, the answers to which I had prepared for my very first session at IIM Shillong. A batch with a mix of Assam Rifle officers who were on the verge to putting an end to their service with Indian army, then there were corporate executives and few business people from the North east region. Yes, I was prepared but at the same time nervous too. Most of my listeners were almost my dad’s age or even older. And I was dressed as per a Saturday in corporate world and they were all in absolute formals. Anyways, we commenced.Briefly on Retailing as a service, the value proposition and the value add strategy in retail with the Indian perspective of retail industry was discussed in the first phase. Decision Variables in Retailing, The Wal-Mart’s retail mix was also a major area of interest. I also tried to cover the basic kind of services in retail: Self service, assorted service & Full Service. A detailed discussion phase was on the Retail Formats, largely: Food Oriented Retailers: Ø Convenience stores Ø Conventional supermarkets Ø Food based super stores Ø Combination stores Ø Box stores Ø Warehouse store Ø Hypermarkets General Merchandise retailers Ø Mom-n-Pop Stores Ø Specialty Stores Ø Full line discount store Ø Variety store Ø Off Price Chain / Factory outlets Ø Membership Club Ø Category Killers Ø Department Stores Ø Boutique From here we went on discussing Private Labels & Mall Management in details….you can read about that in the next post.

          Haan! Eh Sach Hai Ki Main Bharat Nu Murr ‘Soney Di Chirri’ Baneya Dekhna Nahin Chahunda. Kyuki Main Nahin Chahunda Ki Koi Vi Afghan Ya Firangi Aave, Te Sone Di Is Chirri De Khamb Noche Ke Aapne Pinjrey ‘ch Qaid Ker Lavey. Main Ta Bharat Nu ‘Kalghidhar Patshah’ De Baaz Di Tarah Faulad Da Baneya Dekhna Chahunda Haan, Ta Jo Eh Nidarr Te Nirbhey Ho Ke Ambera ‘ch Nit Naviya Uchaiya Nu Chhuhey.