B-school roundup: SP Jain wins Cognizant’s Board Room Smart Business Plan contest

• SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Wins Cognizants Board Room: Smart Business Plan Contest, 2009
• IMT-Dubai, Institute of Management Technology Dubai hosted its first inter-college annual festival, VAUDEVILLE 09
• C3EO Summit for EPGP IIM Indore
• JBIMS, Mumbai hosts Ravi Narain, MD and CEO, NSE

SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Wins Cognizants Board Room: Smart Business Plan Contest, 2009

Neeraj Jain, Parag Mehra and Palaniappan N from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, won the finals of Board Room 2000, a Smart Business Plan contest organized by IT, consulting and BPO major Cognizant for B-Schools across the Asia Pacific region. The runners up were Ankit Agarwal, Mandar Kulkarni and Jasmeet Bhatia from Xavier Labor Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur. The winning team from SPJIMR received a cash prize of Rs. 250,000, while the runners-up received Rs 150,000.

The finals of the Board Room 2009 contest were held on November 20, 2009, at Cognizants Thoraipakkam techno-complex in Chennai. The other finalists included Indian Institute of Management, Indore (IIMI), Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi.

Aimed at promoting a spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation among the management students across B-schools in India and the Asia Pacific region, Cognizant had launched the ‘Boardroom: Smart Business Plan Contest’ in 2007. This was the third edition of the contest.

The contest, held in three phases spanning two months, provided a unique opportunity to budding management students across B-schools to get creative, propose new business avenues for Cognizant, and draw up a business plan on what they think should be Cognizants next move for growth, differentiation and leadership.

For the preliminary rounds this year, Cognizant received about 150 entries from students of B-Schools across India and the Asia Pacific region. Of these, 125 entries were found eligible and 12 were shortlisted for the semifinals. Cognizants senior management members and domain experts with substantial experience mentored the shortlisted teams for about two weeks on various aspects of their business plan and global business issues, and introduced them to the dynamics of the corporate world which is a unique feature of B-Plan contests.

The B-Plan contest provided a platform for the students to learn what it takes to successfully grow a business reckoning all aspects of business across strategy, competitive dynamics, financials, marketing and operations, said R Chandrasekaran, President and Managing Director, Global Delivery, Cognizant, who himself is an alumnus of IIM, Bangalore.

IMT-Dubai, Institute of Management Technology Dubai hosted its first inter-college annual festival, VAUDEVILLE 09

Institute of Management (IMT), Dubai, organized VAUDEVILLE, a dawn to dusk extravaganza held on November 23, 2009 which comprised of a series of academic events such as Convince ME! debate, Eclectica presentations and Wiz- Quiz held during the day and cultural events including You n Me singing competition, Ad for Mad show, Show Stopperz and Lets Tap dance mania in the evening. The fest was attended by Taner Topcu, Senior Accounts Manager and Partner Support Services at DIAC, Mahesh Shahdadpuri, Director of NIKAI and other eminent faces of the U.A.E corporate community.

Nine colleges including BITS Pilani Dubai, S.P. Jain Centre of Management, MAHE-Manipal-Dubai campus, Middlesex University-Dubai campus, Mahatma Gandhi University, Heriot Watt Dubai campus, University of Bolton, Skyline University College and IMTD participated in the fete bagging numerous awards.

While the teams from BITS Pilani, Skyline, Mahe Manipal, Middlesex, Heriot Watt, and S.P. Jain won accolades in various event categories, it was however the home team, IMT-Dubai that bagged the trophy for overall achievement in VAUDEVILLE. On the other hand, Team S.P. Jain won the home theatre system for winning the Eclectica presentations.

IMT D, the only Indian MBA college in the U.A.E to offer an accredited program is all geared for the next episode of VAUDEVILLE despite the hectic schedule of its students. Their enthusiasm and efforts has rendered VAUDEVILLE09 to be a grand success.

C3EO Summit for EPGP IIM Indore

As part of the ongoing dialogue of EPGP students of IIM Indore with business leaders, three business leaders from diverse industries were introduced by Professor N.Ravichandran to sensitize the students with the challenges they face as leaders in their organizations on November 22, 2009.

In a joint session with EPGP students, Raghavendra Rao (MD, Orchid Chemicals), B.Santhanam (MD, Saint Gobain Glass India) and Arun Balakrishnan (Chairman and Managing Director, HPCL) suggested how EPGP students can become future business leaders and sustain themselves in leadership positions.

Raghavendra Rao, founder of Orchid Chemicals, endorsed the fact that matrix organizations provide managers various opportunities to understand different business functions, and attain more responsible positions and grow faster in their careers. He emphasized the ability of a leader to see beyond immediate predictions based on statistical data. He pointed out that a leader should recognize the capabilities of his team and entrust it with appropriate responsibilities. Therefore appropriate delegation of authority and responsibility was important according to him.

Santhanam, highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence for a leader and explained how emotional intelligence coupled with good analytical skills helps to collaborate and compete simultaneously. He mentioned that envisioning, delegation and emotional intelligence are the most significant characteristics of a leader. He advised the students to focus on networking and social commitments along with their managerial responsibilities in the future.

Balakrishnan discussed the importance of transparency, equal opportunity and boundary management in an organization. He underscored the importance of healthy relationship between management and worker unions in an organization like HPCL. This is in parts due to the fact that PSUs like HPCL, both the management and the trade unions are equally powerful and therefore both are equally aware of their responsibilities and authorities. He encouraged students to be a part of growth in PSUs, as they offer larger responsibilities at an early stage in career. He further stressed that, given the demographic changes of the students in terms of their ages and academic value addition it may be a good idea for the PSUs like HPCL to revisit their recruitment policies so as to benefit from full time executive programme like EPGP.

JBIMS, Mumbai hosts Ravi Narain, MD and CEO, NSE

In its continued attempt to help student interface with the industry stalwarts, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai hosted on campus Ravi Narain, MD & CEO, NSE for a session on ‘Developments in Indian Markets and Global Trends’ on November 19, 2009. Narain is also the Chairman of the National Securities Clearing Corporation Ltd. and NSE. IT Ltd. He is on the Board of the World Federation of Exchanges and several other companies.

Narain started the session by sharing his experiences of setting up the NSE despite not knowing much about a stock exchange and the various challenges that he faced in the course of doing so. Hestressed on concept of de-mutualised stock exchanges and compared the same with the game of cricket and how the umpires were not involved in the game and still regulated the same, highlighting importance of regulation and business not to be intertwined.

Narain also threw light on history of exchanges worldwide and how NSE went about the transition to an electronic based exchange and a benchmark of a world-class exchange. He stressed on how transparency and efficiency are important for a stock exchange. He then moved on to recent developments in Indian Securities market. He explained Interest Rate futures and Currency futures, both recently launched by NSE. He also gave his opinion on extension of trading hours and ways in which it will impact Indian markets.

Narain went on to explain various terms like Value at Risk, dark pool of liquidity and their relevance in stock market trading. He also talked on how OTC markets in India are performing when compared to Exchange traded markets. Explaining the impact of Global Financial crisis and the takeaways for Indian markets from the same, he talked on how NSE tackled huge amounts of trade position when Sensex hit circuit-breaker after election results.

Narain said that India must have more sophisticated products and that there is a need to build up a more robust Financial system. He talked on prospects of a specialized platform for raising capital for small & medium enterprises through a SME exchange. He also talked on IDR listing and Mutual funds trading on exchange and the ways in which they would impact Stock Exchange Revenue model.