Monday, December 24, 2007

GMP students return from the International exposure module

Students of General Management Program (GMP) (2007-08) went to Graduate School of Business, RMIT Australia, for 3 weeks International exposure programme, launched in partnership with RMIT University, Australia.

The program involved two parts, the first being an overview of Australian business climate and industrial scenario.

The second part of the program involved internship in an Australian organization. The work placement was designed to enhance understanding of local business operations and provide Australian companies with an opportunity to gain valuable insights into doing business in India.

Renowned companies from a range of industry segments, like KPMG, Wackett Aerospace Center, CSIRO, Yoober and others participated in the process.

Commenting on the internship experience with XLRI students, Neil T Faulkner, Partner KPMG, said "The General Management Program students who spent time in our organisation in Melbourne were marvellous ambassadors for the program, XLRI, their previous employers, their Country and themselves. They demonstrated exceptional skill, commitment, knowledge, teamwork and global industry awareness."

Dr.Ron Harper, Director GSB, RMIT, who led this engagement with XLRI, said "The exercise is regarded by RMIT as an important grassroots engagement of Australian industry with the new economic superpower that is India."

The sponsored candidates from Tata Steel were sent for a similar stint to Corus, UK.

GMP is a one year full-time business management program for executives, who have had a prior work experience of five years or above.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Some changes in XL

I am sure, many of you may be aware of this, given the network

...nevertheless still thought worth informing of these changes....

Fr Casimir Raj, the current director, is retiring this month end.

Fr E Abraham, the current Director of XIM Bhubneshwar (and the earlier director at XL during 1989/90-94) will be taking over as the new director...he is also an XL alumnus of 78 vintage.

Fr PT Joseph, with whom some of the recent batches may have done courses on EI, PEL, etc., will take over as the director of XIMB.

ciao
madhukar

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Vineet Nayar's (BMD 85) interview in USA Today

CEO's bold experiment: Management by democracy
Updated 1d 1h ago | Comment | Recommend1 E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this
CEO Vineet Nayar is dedicated to making his workplace a democracy. It's a concept that could bring about a corporate renaissance, he says.

CEO Vineet Nayar is dedicated to making his workplace a democracy. It's a concept that could bring about a corporate renaissance, he says.
NAYAR'S TIPS

• Let go of command and control. In business, as in nations, dictatorship is out. Democracy is in.
• Business leaders must be open to criticism, just as elected officials are.
• Customers don't come first, employees do, because employees are the product that your customers are buying.
• Democracy and feedback allow employees and managers to gravitate toward their strengths.

ABOUT NAYAR, HCL

• Joined HCL as a management trainee in 1985. Named president in 2005, and CEO this October.
• Holds bachelor's degree in technology from G.B. Pant University ('83), and an MBA from XLRI-Jamshedpur ('85) in 1985. Both schools are in India.
• Married. Kids ages 15 and 13.
• Likes adventure sports. Has done glacier trekking in the Alps of Europe and in New Zealand. Favorite scuba destination: Hawaii.
• Favorite books: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom.
• Favorite city is New York. Favorite country is New Zealand.
• HCL employs 45,600 workers in 17 countries, up from 36,400 one year ago. In the latest quarter that ended Sept. 30, revenue grew 43% to $429 million. Net income rose 42% to $77.4 million.

India is the world's largest democracy, so it seems fitting that the New Delhi-based information technology services giant HCL Technologies is attempting what may be the most ambitious effort yet at installing a workplace democracy. That may sound impossible, but so did running nations as democracies in past centuries.

CEO Vineet Nayar, 45, has written a case study about HCL's experiment for the Harvard Business School. He spoke to USA TODAY corporate management reporter Del Jones about his bold experiment and why he believes that in the future, democratic companies will outperform the command-and-control dictatorships that have persisted since the industrial revolution.

CORPORATE PULSE: Executive Suite index

Q: When can I vote my boss in or out of office?

A: That would be a disaster. Rather, business should borrow from democracies the concept of reverse accountability. Just as elected officials are there to serve the public, management should not be commanding employees to create value.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: CEO | India | Jones | Executive Suite

Nelson Mandela and other great political leaders understood that their job was to enable people to find their own destiny.

Q: Sounds like a recipe for anarchy and chaos.

A: Employees aren't free to do whatever they choose. But if they want to collaborate with someone in Hong Kong, they don't need permission from hierarchy.

What we are changing is leadership's accountability to the employee. Employees remain accountable to the organization. What changes is the loss of command and control.

Q: Be honest. Shouldn't leaders have ultimate power, even if it's in their back pocket?

A: Command and control is the easiest management style. It may not be the most productive for the company, but it is very easy. The democratic, accountability model is very difficult on management, but it's very productive. Leaders must see themselves differently.

Q: If employees can't vote the executive bums out of office, then what can they do in a corporate democracy?

A: Any of our employees can open a trouble ticket on anyone in this company, on (human resources), on payroll, on a manager, on anyone. Those with trouble tickets have to respond. It's like a customer opening a trouble ticket. A response is required. Otherwise, some departments can become gods in an organization, because they control the power.

Q: What do you do to respond to your employee constituents?

A: I volunteered to display the weaknesses of my 360-degree feedback for all employees to see. A lot of people said I was crazy to make it public. I encouraged my senior managers to experiment with the same idea and overcome the fear of having their flaws exposed. We launched it with a positive mindset, not an evaluation mindset.

If you launch it to unlock value, for the purpose of collaboration, people love it. You don't destroy the hierarchy, you increase the accountability of leadership to employees the same way as it is in a democracy.

Q: Sounds like workplace democracy is just a version of putting employees first. What happened to the customer always being right?

A: In our business, employees are the products. Customers come to us for our employees. When we say employees first, customers second, what we are saying is that we as management will create systems and methodologies to nurture employees and allow them to create more value than anybody else can create.

People used to say the customer is always right, but we have moved away from product to experience. It's a different paradigm.

Who creates the value for the customer? Who does the customer want to deal with? Who is the organization for the customer? The employee. What kind of company does a customer want to deal with? The one where the employees are most important.

Q: Nation democracies have been around since ancient Greece. If workplace dictatorships were not best, why have they persisted for so long?

A: In manufacturing, it's been command and control, because it is a single process.

In service companies, especially knowledge-based service companies, the value gets created in the interface between the employee and the customer. When you travel on an airline, it is not the CEO who makes a difference.

Q: What about shareholder democracy?

A: Management started becoming more accountable to shareholders 20 years ago. Companies have only become better.

That democracy, or reverse accountability to shareholders, has brought positive energy into the stock market, and a huge amount of value has been created. It has not created chaos.

Shareholders are not telling business what do, but it has created a higher accountability. The same principle applies to employees in knowledge businesses. It unlocks energy, ideas and growth.

Q: Do you know of other companies that have tried workplace democracy?

A: I'm not aware of any. A lot are in the process of understanding it and trying it, especially our customers who have seen the change in our employees.

Q: What do you do with the employee underperformer, the slacker?

A: There is no difference in the way we handle underperformers. Sometimes, you still have to let people go. People have more opportunities to succeed in this environment than they do in command and control. They gravitate toward their natural strengths, rather than being suffocated in a job they are not aligned with.

But if they underperform despite the enabled environment, the outcome is the same as a command-and-control organization.

Q: How about weeding out bad managers?

A: If I constantly get feedback that I'm a poor manager, I'm going to look at other options, such as becoming an individual contributor in a technical role. I will gravitate to that area because of the feedback. Then, maybe I start excelling at something else.

With this system, you come to know whether you are a good manager or not, whether you have good communication skills. You can work on your weaknesses, but most people I've seen gravitate toward their strengths.

Q: You have workers all over the world. Will workplace democracy be easier to implement in some countries than others?

A: India for centuries has been a command-and-control society. We even control our kids for 10 more years than you control your kids, at least until age 27 or 28. We run their lives until they get married.

Similarly, the workplace in India is very command and control. I believe it's easier to introduce workplace democracy in Europe and the USA. As a society, the U.S. is more open to feedback. It gravitates more easily toward its strengths. But eventually, democracy works everywhere.

Monday, December 17, 2007

YWCA Tribute to Sandra Mahadwar (IR86)

Sandra Mahadwar (IR86) has been selected to receive a 2008 YWCA of Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Award (TWIN) and will be honored at an Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose.

The Tribute to Women Awards Program is in its 24th year and has long been considered one of Silicon Valley's most prestigious awards. The purpose of the Tribute to Women Awards Program is to honor both wom en who exemplify excellence in executive-level positions and the companies who employ them. Sandra was nominated by John Kispert for this award based on the outstanding achievements and critical contributions she has made to her company. Nominations are reviewed blindly by the Tribute to Women selection committee made up of former Honorees.

The mission of the YWCA of Silicon Valley is to empower women, children and families, and to eliminate racism, hatred and prejudice.

Congrats Sandra !!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

BT Acumen - XL team in finals

To all quiz enthusiasts!

The BT Acumen National Finals are being held on the 15th December in Mumbai, and have quizzes and debates. The part that should be a draw for you folk is the National B-School Quiz Finals at 1800 hrs - Shrikant Narasimhan and Raghu Reddy, BM 2006-2008, are finalists.

Be there, to cheer, and quiz!

Open to all, no entry fee or passes required. Just show up at the ITC Grand Central, Parel :-)


Details:
NATIONAL FINALS
Date: December 15th , 2007.
Venue: The Ballroom, ITC Grand Central Sheraton & Towers,
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Road, Mumbai-400012.


Business Today – Aditya Birla Group Acumen 2007 Event Flow

Reporting by all Teams

11.30 am

National Debate Semi Final 1

12.00 noon - 12.45 pm

Audience Quiz / Draw of Lots (Audience Prizes)

12.45 pm - 1.00 pm

Lunch Break

1.00 pm - 2.00 pm

Audience Quiz / Draw of Lots (Audience Prizes)

2.00 pm - 2.15 pm

National Debate Semi Final 2

2.15 pm - 3.00 pm

Audience Quiz / Draw of Lots (Audience Prizes)

3.00 pm - 3.15 pm

Debate Finalist / Topic Announcement

3.15 pm - 3:20 pm

National B School Alumni Quiz Finals

3.20 pm - 4.20 pm

Audience Quiz / Draw of Lots (Audience Prizes)

4.20 pm - 4:30 pm

Tea Break

4:30 pm - 5.00 pm

Audience Quiz / Draw of Lots (Audience Prizes)

5.00 pm - 5.15 pm

Debate National Finals

5.15 pm - 6.00 pm

National B School Quiz Finals

6.00 pm - 7.15 pm

Presentation Ceremony

7.15 pm - 7.30 pm

Cocktails & Dinner

8.00 pm onwards

Singapore Get-together this Sunday (16 Dec 07)

We are having a XL Singapore Alumni get together this Sunday (16 Dec 07) evening at 6pm.
This will be at Normanton Park Function Room (near the pool).
Prof Madhukar Shukla will be joining us for the get together.
Please help in confirming the attendance asap to help in arranging for the food.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Vinod

Thursday, December 6, 2007

XLRI signs MoU with triple accredited French business school

From The Financial Express

Jamshedpur, Dec 6 Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), which aims at transforming students into dynamic managers with an international perspective, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Audencia Nante School of Management, a leading European B-school in Brittany (France).

Audencia, with a worldwide outlook, is among the four French B-schools that feature in the list of the top 100 management programmes worldwide. The school is ranked 11th in terms of faculty quality.

Under the MoU, both XLRI and Audencia plan to explore student and faculty exchanges and undertake joint research projects, thereby promoting cross-cultural learning and international co-operation.

Audencia is ranked 37th in the world in terms of international diversity.

XLRI is on its way to gaining deemed university status from the UGC. The B-school has tieups with Manila-based Asian Institute of Management, UAMS Belgium, the EM Lyon University (France), the Malardalen University (Sweden), the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia), the University of Victoria (Australia), the University of Tulane (US), and the Loyola School of Business, Chicago.

XLRI has, during the last couple of years, been seeing a spurt in demand from its students for exchange programmes with global varsities and B-schools.

Under the exchange programme, the student has to spend a three-month semester at the foreign university/institution he/she has opted for.

Reciprocally, an equal number of students come over to the B-school from the foreign varsity/institution for the same period.

Thus, while the core course subjects are to be completed by the student at the B-School, the scores of the 'electives' they choose at the foreign university/institution is transferred to their score-sheet back home.

Certain foreign universities with which XLRI has tieups offer better course material on certain subjects, such as health management, transportation management, etc, which have been attracting students who want to specialise in them.

For example, the transportation management course offered by Antwerp University in Belgium is said to be popular among B-school students opting for transportation as an elective.

With the transportation problem getting acute in Indian cities, specialised knowledge in the field could be of great help to the country in the coming years, feel some professors at the B-school

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Madhukar Kamath Visits XLRI

Creative juices got flowing in XLRI on Thursday, and the man responsible was none other than Mr. Madhukar Kamath, MD and CEO of Mudra Communications and also President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI). He is also a 1976 alumnus of XLRI. He was in XLRI as part of the b-school's CEO Forum in which CEO’s of different companies visit the college campus to share their insights and experiences with the students. He spoke about the importance and effectiveness of creativity in building a business brand.

He started off his interaction with a few personal reflections about the time he spent in XLRI as a student. On the advertising industry he said that while the previous decade had been a period of excitement and growth, he believed that the next decade would be a decade of heightened competition and international exposure, where only people who with passion and youthfulness would survive. He explained to the students that advertising was not the simple 10 to 30 second ad that we see on television but involved a total brand building exercise across different media. He spoke about the challenges faced by the advertising industry. He said that due to the high diversity of the target segments, companies were looking at innovative media other than the traditional television, radio and print media to reach them.

In the next part, he spoke about the creative brand building campaigns that had brought about turnarounds in the fortunes of companies, with varied examples from across the world. These campaigns mainly focused on the integration of technology with products we never tend to associate technology with. He gave examples of a jeans company starting its own radio station, a monopoly board game company which built its brand around a virtual reality game and a shoe company tying up with an iPod company to market its product!

He contrasted this with Indian campaigns, which were equally innovative but cheaper. He gave examples of a paint company which designed a campaign using the Pushkar Mela as its theme at a cost of less than thousand rupees, whereas another sari company designed its campaign around the marriage of a famous Tamil actress! The students were left dumbfounded and were amazed by the creativity of the campaigns; the importance of using creativity to improve business was wedged into their minds.

He then had an informal interaction with the audience where he addressed various queries ranging from brand equity and surrogate advertising to celebrity endorsements and corporate branding. The event culminated with the audience spellbound by the examples of creative branding and more aware of the need to think out of the box to build a successful enterprise.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

MAXI Fair - A Resounding Success

Born of the vision of XLRI’s eminent professor Dr Sharad Sarin in 1979, the Marketing Fair, then a novel concept, is today an accredited marketing research tool. Conducted by the Marketing Association of XLRI, this brilliant and innovative method goes beyond the blind testing concept and uses a “mela” or carnival milieu to conduct meaningful consumer behavior research. The underlying concept involves designing games and events as surrogates to actual research questions, in order to elicit unbiased and accurate information from customers regarding their preferences and perceptions. Tales from the Mahabharat, a Bhool Bhulaiya, even the legendary Vikram aur Betaal served as themes for the stalls, and helped in eliciting the unbiased responses of more than 4000 visitors during the MAXI Fair held on Sunday, 25th of November at XLRI Grounds.

The 29th edition of MAXI fair was inaugurated by the District Magistrate cum Deputy Commissioner of East Singhbhum District, Jharkhand, Dr Nitin M. Kulkarni. Dr Kulkarni lit the ceremonial lamp and went around the fair visiting the various game stalls set up by the students.

With corporate support well established over the years, the fair associates itself with top brands in all categories across sectors. This year saw an entire gamut of research problems from the top manufacturing and FMCG companies and from the fast growing retail industriy. With the Steel City now among the top 10 richest cities in India (according to a survey by Delhi-based Indicus Analytics, one of India’s leading economic research firms), the companies can expect higher research quality from the fair than ever before.

Besides this, there was also the 2nd edition of Rural MAXI Fair conducted on 24th November at Swaspur, a village near Rakha Mines. The research problems for Rural Fair were given by top corporates, Tata Steel and Aditya Birla Group, which wanted to find out more about the vast, untapped customer base made famous by C.K Prahlad. Committed to social causes, this initiative saw the students take a small step to help the society at grassroots levels. The entire setup was done keeping the rural population in mind, with lucid games which could be easily understood by the villagers; it attracted nearly 500 people from the villages to experience the fair.

Also conducted under the umbrella of the Marketing Fair was Shilp Mela, in association with SIGMA (Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance of XLRI). The Shilp Mela acts as a platform for local artisans to market their handicrafts and agriculture products, thus enabling XLRI to translate its mission of social responsibility into reality.

The biggest compliment to the efforts of the marketing community of XLRI has been the popularity of the event among the localities. With footfalls increasing year on year, the fair has captured a place in the hearts of people and has now becoming a part of the history of Jamshedpur. It is a platform for the management students to interact with the community of their residence, and is an annual event which children and adults of Jamshedpur look forward to.

Not only are the Marketing issues being addressed through an innovative manner, the students are also able to practice what they have learnt in the classrooms, design research games and events and implement them in the running of the “mela”. This year MAXI took a step further and collaborated with IMRB International (part of the WPP group), the leading market research company, as its Knowledge Partner to ensure an enhanced quality of study. The sponsors for the event included Tata Steel and Aditya Birla Group as Associate Sponsors, BIG 92.7 FM and also Pepsi as beverage partner.

Amar Babu (89BMD) as Lenovo's Managing Director

Lenovo names Amar Babu as Managing Director
2007-11-27 15:57:10

http://www.moneycontrol.com/

Lenovo today announced the appointment of R K Amar Babu as Managing Director, Lenovo India. Amar will be responsible for the overall business and growth for Lenovo in India.

Amar Babu has more than 17 years of multi-functional experience of which over 10 years have been in leadership roles. He was most recently the Chief Service Delivery Officer of Idea Cellular Ltd., and a member of Idea Cellular’s Executive Committee.

Prior to this, Amar served as Managing Director (South Asia), Sales & Marketing Group, Intel Technology (I) Pvt. Ltd., and was in charge of Intel’s business in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh), as well as all sales and marketing operations. As an integral part of the regional management team, Amar’s mandate included driving business growth and strengthening Intel’s brand and presence.

Before that, Amar was Vice President (Operations) for HCL Information Systems, where he was involved in all key strategic decisions and responsible for consumer, channel and retail business. Amar’s achievements at HCL include leading the marketing and operations resulting in significant business growth, and re-establishing HCL’s Toshiba business.

“We welcome Amar into Lenovo Asia Pacific’s senior management team. Lenovo India is a key contributor to Lenovo’s global momentum. I am confident that Amar’s ability to lead and manage high performance teams, his track record for developing internal talent and his understanding of the role of culture in a company's success will aid our growth in India,” said David Miller, President of Asia Pacific and Senior Vice President, Lenovo Group.

“Lenovo is a growing force in the global PC market and has achieved impressive traction in India, in a short span of time. I’m delighted to be part of an organization that takes pride in its multicultural heritage and customer-centric innovation,” said Amar Babu.

Amar has also worked at Citibank NA and HCL Hewlett Packard Ltd. Amar is a Management Post Graduate from XLRI, Jamshedpur and has an Engineering degree in Electrical & Electronics from PSG Tech, Coimbatore

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

XL Singapore - First Convocation

The first convocation for the XLRI Singapore branch will be held this Saturday 01 Dec 07 at 09:30am.

Mr. Gautam Banerjee, Executive Chairman, PwC Singapore will be the Chief Guest.

Dr. Shree extends the invitation to all the XL Alumni.

The Event would be held in "Possibility Room", Fifth Floor of NLB, Victoria Street.

The Function would start at 9:30 AM. Kindly be seated by 9:15 AM.

Monday, November 26, 2007

2 XLers on CNBC

please do have a look (it features two xlers of 84 and 87 vintages....
and someone else who looks quite familiar to me ;0))

http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/video/stockmarket/09/13/newsvideo/314454

ciao
madhukar

~~~
A fast growing economy is good news for everybody. But not for the HR Head. For him it is one big battle out there for skills and talents.To reward the trying efforts of organizations, to keep talent staying and growing, CNBC-TV18 has initiated the best employer of choice awards for the first time this year. And it was not easy deciding the winner. It took a close door daylong debate amongst an eminent jury to decide the winner, reports CNBC-TV18.

Knowledge partner Watson Wyatt placed before the jury members the findings of its survey based on its international methodology - WorkAsia ™. The core focus of this methodology is ranking employee engagement. Employee engagement constitutes commitment that is employees are motivated to help the organisation succeed and line of sight, that is employee knows what to do in order to make the organisation successful

70% weightage is given to the employee perspective. So it is an Employer of Choice awards but based on the employee perspective. The Employer is judged on the HR practices, he has put in place for which 30% weightage is given

The Jury comprising K Ramkumar, Group Chief Human Resources Officer, ICICI Bank, Madhukar Shukla, Professor, XLRI, Jamshedpur, Ganesh Chella of Totus Consulting, Chennai and Tarun Seth of Shilputsi debated the findings day long, throwing up learning’s for everyone.

The key revelation from this debate was that the adoption of well known HR practices do not necessarily bring in the highest employee satisfaction scores. This threw up surprise findings, where companies known to adopt the best HR practices did not figure in the top ten as their employee satisfaction scores were low.

But to know more and catch the winners, we will need to wait till November 27 where the Employer of Choice Awards will be given out at a glittering function at Mumbai.


XL's Summer Placement coverage on IBN Live

here:
or at

ciao
madhukar

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Employer branding is tokenism in India

From Economic Times

There's a perception-reality gap
/photo.cms?msid=2560824
Madhukar Shukla
Professor at XLRI Jamshedpur

A brand is something that is woven around a product. A good employer brand would, and should, represent the personality, the soul of the company. Building such a brand requires a lot of introspection by the company, and answering the question, “what kind of company we are, and want to become”; it must involve all the constituents of the organisation.

In most cases, however, companies treat ‘employer branding’ as a mere short-cut for attracting the talent. Instead of soul-searching, the HR departments tie up with ad agencies to conjure up an image that may be attractive to their target market, even if not their own. That’s a real dampener for new recruits––there’s a perception-reality gap they’re confronted with. The myriad ‘Best Employer’ media surveys add fuel to fire as they bring out checklists. So a ‘fun place’ for some may not be the same for others.

If one looks at successful employer brands carefully, one finds that companies do not do it consciously. For instance, when Sasken Technologies was a growing company in 2001, they decided what kind of organisation they want to be. Out of this introspection came things like their single-status policy, wherein all employees, whether the CEO or the young programmer, would be treated at par––such as every company executive would travel in the same class, etc.

Now this may attract certain kind of people, and it may also ward off others who wouldn’t like to ‘work in a commune’. Sasken certainly didn’t do this to attract talent. But later, such policies became the chief constituent of the company’s employer branding policy.

Similarly, Infosys, Wipro and TCS never consciously built a brand. They just built a workplace that would be productive and where people would be happy. Employer branding becomes a tokenism when it doesn’t fit in the DNA of the company. And, there needs to be a lot of self-sustained and conscious effort needed to create such a fit; to ‘become oneself’.

The Tatas would never like to become like Reliance, or vice-versa. The brand as an employer must provide a long-term advantage. And this advantage comes only when the profile of the candidate fits well with the profile of the company. Also, one must also appreciate that employer branding works mainly at the entry-level since the mid-level workforce and upwards look at other things, such as job profile, career enhancement et al.

Monday, November 19, 2007

XLRI Alumni Homecoming 2007 - Photos

folks...
just got back from the XL Alumni homecoming... totally awesome to go back after almost 7 years... those of you who've been back for recruitment etc will know how much the place has changed since we've been gone... but for the one's who haven't been back for a long time .. well...
the students live in the lap of luxury, at least compared to our time... ac classrooms... access controlled keypad locked doors in the hostels... indoor baddy court.. floodlit tennis... different canteens... wi-fi enabled campus.. 10 mbps internet conection... music and movie servers... the list goes on...
there are also almost 800 students on campus... how is that, you ask?.. well.. the 130+240 students of both years of the flagship PMIR and BM programmes... then there are the 1 year General Management Programme students... the 6 month Defence programme students.... the Accenture-XL programme students... the ICICI Pru-XL programme students...
it's a pity XL-IIMC is not happening anymore.. else we'd have whooped some serious joka a*ss.. by sheer weight of numbers alone... sportscomm ka wet dream and all that...
physically the place is pretty different.. new hostels for the men and women... swanky acads block... neat gym... ATM... library that's open 24 hours... no CC anymore... well-tended gardens and lawns..
anyway.. link to photos i took is below...
~nitin

XLer launches a gyan sharing website

Hi

If you’ve seen Scribd.com and wondered where you could head to for management gyan, here’s the answer.

XLer Avneet Jolly has come up with a web 2.0 answer for management knowledge sharing.

Check out http://insightory.com

Here’s my review

http://gauteg.blogspot.com/2007/11/insightorycom-for-knowledge-sharing.html


For suggestions and feedback, mail Avneet directly.

Gautam Ghosh

Senior Consultant

Tvarita Consulting: http://www.tvaritaconsulting.com

XLRI Homecoming 07: The Idli Boy Steals the Show

[http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071119/asp/frontpage/story_8563193.asp]

Jamshedpur Nov 18th (The Telegraph): A packed Tata auditorium listened with rapt attention to Sarathababu Elumalai, who was here to share his rags-to-riches story during the XLRI annual Homecoming ceremony.

The other speakers on the topic "Entrepreneurs - Carpetbaggers or Nation-Builders" included, Mr S Sivakumar (Chief Executive, ITC Agri-Business), Mr Manish Sabharwal (CEO-Founder, Teamlease), Mr Gautam Mallick (CEO-Founder, LSI Financial Services).

The youth from Chennai, an IIM graduate who refused a brilliant job to start a catering service, said: “I was born in a family of five children in Chennai and my mother worked with the government’s mid-day meal schemes. The money was not sufficient to sustain the large family, so she set up a small idli shop near our home in one of the slum areas of Chennai.”

The founder of FoodKing Catering Services, which today serves home-made hygienic food to offices in Ahmedabad and Goa, recalled how in Class IX his teachers had to persuade him hard not to quit studies.

From selling idlis on the pavements of Chennai to binding books for students, Elumalai had done it all till he reached BITS, Pilani. “I had never heard of the institution as we never got such an exposure. Someone told me that if I study there I will get a job,” he said.

After the engineering degree and a three years’ stint in the corporate world, Elumalai moved to IIM (A).

“The kind of salary and position an IIM graduate is offered is very difficult to turn down. But if I had not taken such a decision, I would have never been able to start my business,” he said.

The business, which started with a mere Rs 5,000 and a small kiosk at Ahmedabad, has today spread to over six branches employing over 175 people whose only job is to supply nutritious home-made food to corporates.

“It was an idea that I chanced upon during my internship at Pilani when I learnt that 30 per cent of the country’s population go to bed without food,” he said.

“More than working for somebody I wanted to give jobs to people like me, who did not have other means of livelihood.”

Soon his company would venture into other cities and provide employment to at least 15,000 people.

And while Sarathababu surprised everybody with his stories, XLRI today too put its first step in the same direction. After almost three years of negotiations, the much talked about Social Entrepreneurship Trust (SET) was formed today.

Aimed at funding and supporting innovative social entrepreneurship ideas, the trust which is the first of its kind would also work for different tribal upliftment projects in Jharkhand and would provide scholarships to tribal youths for further studies....

--
Posted By Madhukar to XLRI Alumni: Making News at 11/19/2007 10:04:00 AM __._,_.___