Project @ OUA

I am working on a project work for Open Universities Australia (OUA). Open Universities Australia is owned by seven leading universities and is the country’s fastest growing online higher education service. Over 110, 000 people have already studied with them since they began in 1993. One can choose to study from over 100 subject areas and graduate with qualifications from 15 academic providers. There are no entry requirements to start studying with OUA.
OUA believes India to be an attractive market and they have already had some success in the Indian market following certain recent initiatives. The focus of our project is to prepare a roadmap/strategy for OUA to expand their business in India.

Melbourne Ahoy

Hi guys! Sorry for not posting for quite a while. I'm in Melbourne currently for the international immersion programme. XLRI has tied up with RMIT for conducting this programme. The duration is approximately 3 weeks. As part of the programme we will be attending some classes at RMIT and work on projects for some organizations in Melbourne. Tomorrow the project groups will be allocated. Some of the companies participating in the programme are KPMG, Delloit, Citi Group etc. I'll share more info. with you as and when I come to know.
BTW, over the weekend 5 of us drove down to Sydney & had a blast. I'll post the details and some snaps in my next post.

Alumni Homecoming: Idli boy steals the show

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....

ALumni Homecoming

Like the previous 3 years, XLRI will be organising the 4th Annual XLRI Alumni Homecoming during the weekend (Nov 17-18, '07). This annual event brings some alumni from across six decades back to the alma mater, representing different geographies, and companies.

Besides appraising the alumni and the interactions, one of the main events of the Homecoming is the panel discussion which will be held in the evening in the Tata Auditorium (Nov 17th, 6:30pm). Every year XLRI selects a contemporary issue and invites practitioners from the field to share their thoughts and experience on the issue.

This year the topic for panel is Entrepreneurs: Carpetbaggers or Nation-Builders?
The purpose of the Panel is to profile the entrepreneurs / entrepreneurial ventures (from various sectors) whose work also aims at initiating systemic changes in the society.

1. Mr E Sarathbabu (the young IIMA graduate who founded the Food King Catering Services Pvt Ltd. to create employment)
He is from the 2006 batch of IIMA, he created a stir when he refused a high-paying job at the campus, and decided to start his own enterprise, The Foodking Catering Services. The vision of his enterprise states (http://foodkingindia.com/). He was inspired by his mother who brought him and his sibling up by working in the mid-day meal scheme and selling sold idlis on the pavements of Chennai. Inaugurated by the Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy, Foodking has grown from a small kiosk to six branches (four in Ahmedabad and one each in BITS Pilani campuses in Pilani and Goa).

2. Mr Manish Sabharwal, Founder & CEO, TeamLease Services,
He is the Chairman and co-founder of Teamlease Services, India’s largest temporary staffing firm with over 75,000 employees in 675 cities locations across India. He is also a member of the Planning Commission steering committee on labor and employment for the Eleventh five year plan (2007-12) and is a member of the CII core group on labor reforms.

3. Mr S Sivakumar, Chief Executive ITC - Agri-Business/e-Choupal
He is the CEO of the Rs.3,500/- division, he is also the brain behind the largest internet-based initiative in rural India. 'e-Choupal' services today reach out to more than 3.5 million farmers growing a range of crops - soyabean, coffee, wheat, rice, pulses, shrimp - in over 38,500 villages through nearly 6500 kiosks across nine states...

4. Mr Anjan Dutt, Socio-Cultural Entrepreneur, Director/Producer of “The Bong Connection” & “Bow Barrack Forever”
He is a pioneer in Bengali music, and a multi-faceted artist who is a singer, composer, actor and director. He is the producer/director of the cross-over films like “The Bong Connection” and “Bow Barrack Forever”, besides working for Films such as “Mr & Mrs Iyer”, “City ofJoy”, Yugant”, “Antareen” etc. He is known to have rejuvenated the Bengali music by blending it with the modern and contemporary culure and social issues (e.g., his songs about the killing of Christian Missionaries in Orissa, Bandra Blues, etc.)

5. Mr Rajeev Dubey, Dy Editor, Business World will moderate the discussions

My career plans

Although after successful completion of the GMP course a candidate receives a diploma in general management, students can focus on certain key areas of concentration (such as Marketing / Finance) based upon their career interests. For example, in our batch an unusually high proportion of candidates aspire to shift to finance. The reason is that there are a lot of guys from the core sector who have fairly limited career options such as finance / IT domain consulting. Consulting though is another option which is open for the initiated / focussed candidates. Here, of course, I'm assuming that they are not interested to return to the core sector.
As far as I'm concerned I had my priorities clear before coming down to XLRI. I will go back to the IT sector but not in the same function. I am looking for a Business Development role (preferably overseas). I do not have any plan B right now so I'm not too sure what I will do if things do not happen as per my plans. Nowadays, irrespective of size and stature, almost every Indian IT company is planning a ‘big expansion' in scale and scope of operations which implies requirement for new business / clients. Hence, the need for Business Development Managers / Opportunity Managers.

50% MBA

Finally end terms are over...
The last paper was Strategy and it was a 4 hour marathon exam. As I mentioned earlier that this time there were no term-breaks. So 3rd term commenced from today. The schedule was planned this way to accommodate our international exposure programme. As part of this programme we will be travelling to Melbourne for 3 weeks. I will provide more details regarding this trip in my subsequent post. I am planning to go home for a few days. Let's see whether the plan materializes.

Happy Diwali

End Terms

End terms exams have started from today.

The exam schedule is as below:

Nov 5th - Legal Environment of Business
Nov 6th - HRM
Nov 7th - MIS: Technical and Social Perspectives
Nov 8th - Production and Operations Management
Nov 9th - DEEPAWALI
Nov 10th - Financial Management I & II
Nov 11th - Strategic Management

Luckily OMMD paper was scheduled last week along with a host of other submissions & presentations et al. Only LEB exam is open-book.

Here's wishing all of you 'A Very Very Happy Diwali' !

I'll be back soon. This time there are no term-breaks so term III commences on 12th Nov.