Monday, December 05, 2005

XL Homecoming-----Pradeep's (72 batch) EXPERIENCE

Hi,

had a very nice time at the XL Homecoming. I was going there after 12 years. The no. of buildings at XL has mush-roomed, and, it seems quite a grand edifice from the basically 2 buildings we had – Admin block and Hostel. Sadly, the playing field has had to make way for the main Teaching block, however the field has been moved some distance away.

At Howrah station itself for the Steel Express the re-introductions started. There were Mel Pinto (BM 71), D.P. Ghosh (BM 73) who now teaches at XL, Sandeep Ganguly (BM 73), Anand Nayak & wife (IR 73), Harriet Vidyasagar (IR 73), John A. Diaz (BM73), Chintamani Rao (BM74), photographer Vivek Das, Indira Basu (IR 73) and some more seniors of IR some as early as ’66 ! The oldest alumni was of IR ’59, who was felicitated at the concluding function at the Beldih Club.

Everyone was accommodated in the MDP block which has nice guestrooms for staying. In fact Mel Pinto and me were accommodated in the Tisco Guest House for the first night, which we thought was a privilege for seniority, till we discovered that the MDP accommodation was even better !

The next morning 19th was the official presentation on ‘What has changed in XL and what is constant’. The Director is Fr Casimeer Raj, an old Loyola Chennai hand. Fr Mcgrath was there, all of 84 yrs in age. There was an intense debate on whether the XL brand needs to be changed from the BM & IR of yesteryear to ‘XL School of Management’ with many views for and against. Us old timers pitched in with our bit. Madhukar Shukla who is the OB prof and good old Jitu Singh, together with prominent alumini Rana Sinha MD of TELCON, and, Bhushen Raina MD of Tinplate, were the main persons orchestrating the event.

In the evening was a panel discussion at the grand Tata auditorium in XL premises where TISCO MD Muthuraman and Subodh Bhargava were part of the keynote panelists. Muthuraman hosted dinner in his palatial house that night. Next morning was a golf session and breakfast at the Golf course which I missed. Closing session was a lunch at Beldih Club, tho’ Bhushen Raina added a bonus with a grand dinner at his superb house to those who remained, as many had left J’pur by then.

From our batch I met only Manjeet ‘nee Dhanjal’ Kaur (IR 72). Met elder sister of the Kastuar sisters IR 72 (Ranjana is in the US and Anjana is a housewife in Bhopal, Shoeb Ahmed BM 73 is ED Mktg SAIL, Sandeep Ganguly BM 73 is a big gun with Hyatt Hotels, Ajay Kaul BM 89 is CEO Domino’s Pizza, Chintamani Rao is CEO ITV, Bijou Kurien BM 89 is CEO Titan, of course Anad Nayak is HR chiefof ITC Limited. Ajit Roy BM 72 tho’ a localite did not attend as he was not well.

Had a look around the facilities – the lecture halls were out of this world – a/c and everything else. Our classrooms in the old building is the present Director’s office. The Library is as extensive as a football field and well-stocked. There is a huge computer centre with over 50 brand new machines. Every task is done on line on computors and all the students have their own computers in their rooms. The hostel rooms look pretty much the same tho’ !

All in all a very enjoyable occasion. Homecoming ’04 had 42 outstation alumni whereas this year it was over a 100. I believe next year it should be more as they are coordinating with the Washington and Singapore alumni for an international event. Hope we meet there again.

Bye,
Pradeep

XLRI gets new brand & badge

XLRI gets new brand & badge
- B-school includes ‘School of Management’ in its name
PINAKI MAJUMDAR

Jamshedpur, Nov. 28: What’s in a name? Well, almost everything. At least that is what the premier B-school Xavier Labour Relations Institute
(XLRI) believes.

Though a late realisation, the B-school authorities believe that the old name is not in sync with what the school is all about. Therefore, it has decided to incorporate “school of management” into its name, which is XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Management.

The logo of the institute is also undergoing changes. Replacing “Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur” with “Excellence and Integrity, 1949”, the B-school authorities are contemplating to add the word “relationship” in the logo.

“We started off with a curriculum on labour relations. But, since about four decades we are imparting various business management courses, which are not getting reflected in XLRI’s brand name. Keeping this in view, we have incorporated school of management in the new name. The school of management tag, along with the XLRI badge, will give equal importance to all functional areas of management as well as industrial relations,” said Sanjay Patro, a senior professor of marketing and head of values and brands at XLRI.

According to Patro, school of management is a broader term and gives a real perspective. The institute has started collecting feedback from students and faculty on its decision to amend the name and logo, he said. In fact, during the recently concluded “Home Coming-2005”, the XLRI alumni members brainstormed on the issue of name change with the faculty members and the director, Father N. Casimir Raj.

Sharad Sharin, a senior professor, said the new tag wouldgive an extra dimension. “Everybody looks at labour relations when they refer to XLRI. But, the new addition in the name will definitely help them in looking at the institute in a wider perspective,” he explained.

CRISIL Young Thought Leader Award for XL

WINNERS FOR THE CRISIL YOUNG THOUGHT LEADER 2005

Congratulations to all the winners. We shall inform the details of the Award ceremony to be held in January shortly. The award for the maximum number of CYTL winners from an Institute for 2005 is shared between IIM Lucknow, XLRI Jamshedpur and Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi.

XLRI was represented by:

1. Suraj Chatrath (Dissertation on "Risk based pricing - Are India's credit markets moving towards this paradigm?" )

2.Rahul Bhargava (Dissertation on "How can India achieve 8 % plus growth? What is the recipe?" )

The award ceremony shall be held in January, 2006.
(Last year this award was won by Sonia Chawla of 05BMD, XLRI)

XLRI ties up with Accenture

Jamshedpur, Nov. 25: The Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) has entered into a collaboration with Accenture, the international consultancy firm for setting up a human resources (HR) academy.

The HR academy, the authorities claim, shall be the first of its kind in the country. It will provide training on human resource exclusively for those employed in the IT and the BPO sectors. .

Sources in XLRI informed that a memorandum of understanding was signed between both the authorities earlier this week.

The director of XLRI, Father N. Casimir Raj, confirmed this and said the nitty-gritty of the training schedule and course curriculum is being worked out so that training may begin at the earliest.

“The objective of establishing the academy is to improve the HR skills of IT and BPO employees. These sectors are fastest emerging sectors in the country,” he said.

The academy will provide a two-year certificate course on the subject, which will cover various facets of human resources including organisational behaviour, rewards and compensation as well as outsourcing. The certificates on HR management will be jointly issued by the XLRI and Accenture.

Sources in XLRI informed that a senior professor of organisational behaviour and strategic management, Madhukar Shukla, will be coordinating the affairs of the academy.

In the first phase, a training programme will be undertaken for about 34 employees of Accenture. Significantly, XLRI is known for its world- class faculty in personnel management and industrial relations (PMIR). PMIR faculty members will assist in the academy training .

Meanwhile, keeping with its tradition, XLRI is all set to organise its 15th annual JRD Tata Oration on business ethics at the Tata Auditorium tomorrow.

The theme for this year's oration is “Corporate ethics and the bottom line: why fighting corruption matters for business.”

The oration on business ethics, which is one of the sought after event on the XLRI calendar, will be delivered by Peter Eileen, founder and chairman of Transparency International (Germany).

The event will be graced by Sarosh J. Ghandy, professor, of the JRD Tata ethics chair. Last year, the oration on business ethics was delivered by James J. Spillane the professor of economics at Sanatan Dharma University, Indonesia.

XLers (1st Year) Bag Award

A team of 3 of our 1st Year BMD students (Aravind.R.N, Arunabh Chaudhuri, and Vaibhav Saini) participated in the MasterPlan business plan contest organized by
IIM Ahmedabad and won the second prize of ($3,000). More than 350 teams from international and indian b-schools participated in the event, and the final round was judged by Mr.Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries. They were the only 1st year team to reach the final round of 6, and their interview was telecasted on CNBC last week.

The following is the news published in Financial Express

URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=109840

IIM AHMEDABAD- CONFLUENCE 2005
B school grads bag top honours
Jyotsna Bhatnagar Ahmedabad, Nov 26

They held Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani spellbound with their business plans. The IIMA team walked away with top honours in the MasterPlan contest and a booty of US$ 6,000.

The brief of evolving a business plan with $5 billion forced the participating teams to “think big”.

The IIMA team, evolved an entire plan on ‘fruits and vegetables completing the supply chain’ using the model of cold chain management to source fresh farm produce directly from farmers and retailing it thereby eliminating middlemen.

The second award winning team was from XLRI Jamshedpur, which walked away with a prize of $3,000 with their entry ‘Skyjet’. Essentially a model of public transport combining the mass rapid transport system with the personal rapid transport system, the model seeks to evolve a magnetic levitation model for Bangalore.

The third award winning entry was from the IIM Indore team, whose plan seeks to electrify rural India starting with an energy generation of 4,000 MW using energy crops, which will be converted into energy plantations.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Live Webcast Homecoming 19thNov AN - thru Reliance Webworld

Folks!

For those alumni who are not able to make it to the Alumni Homecoming 2005 (Nov 19th-20th).

You can still "participate live" (it is a 2-way video/audio platform) in the Homecoming events on
19th Nov (Sat) Afternoon (2:30 - 5:00)
through the following 13 Reliance Webworlds in
Bangalore, Channai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune

During this time, we have the following events
1. Director, Fr Casimir Raj, will be sharing the XLRI Vision on which we have been working since lst year or so - and are in the process of implementing.
2. An exclusive session of the homecoming alumni with the current batch students on "What It Mean's to be an XLer"

The following is the list of centers and the contact persons (with their numbers). No Fee/Charges.
Please be there (and so, 'virtually' here;)

BANGALORE (3 centers)
CMH ROAD
#540, CMH Road,
Indiranagar 560038
CONTACT: Tejas Chandrasekhar 09341213051
CONTACT: RAJESH GOPAL - 09342506950

JAYNAGAR
Narendra Plaza, 452/3-16, 27th cross,4th block, Jayanagar, 560011
CONTACT: Arun B N - 09341967676
CONTACT: RAJESH GOPAL - 09342506950

MALLESWARAM
#232/1, Krishna Chambers, Between 15th and 16th cross,
Sampige Road, Malleshwaram 560003
CONTACT: Anil Kumar / Rajesh - 09342511444
CONTACT: RAJESH GOPAL - 09342506950

CHENNAI (2 centers)
ANNASALAI
#190,Hamid Buildings,
Opp to Anand Theater,
Annasalai,
Chennai 600002
CONTACT: Mr.Murali Govindan 09381014353
CONTACT: SURESH - 09382331516

Besant Nagar
T 45 A&B, 7th Avenue, Besant Nagar, 600090
CONTACT: VIPIN KHANNA-'09381073645
CONTACT: SURESH - 09382331516

DELHI (2 centers)
NEW FRIENDS COLONY
6, Community centre New Friends Colony 110065
CONTACT: Rajesh Shukla -09313100178
CONTACT: RAJAN MARWAHA- 09350581950

KAMLA NAGAR
29, UA Bunglow Road Near Kamla Nagar 110007
CONTACT: Rajinder Valecha -'09312208695
CONTACT: RAJAN MARWAHA- 09350581950

HYDERABAD
BANJARA HILLS
Astral Heights Nagarjuna Circle
Road No 1 Banjara Hills panjagutta 500082
CONTACT: Veerender Cilamkothi-09396245531
CONTACT: PRAVEEN KUMAR - 09391000729

KOLKATA
SHIVAM CHAMBER
Shivam Chamber, 53,Sayed Amir Ali Avenue,(opp Ice Skating Rink)-- 700019
CONTACT: SOUGATA BASU-9331003979
CONTACT: AYAN CHAKRABORTY 09339871816

MUMBAI (3 centers)
SION
"Reliance Web World
Tashkent Textorium, 2A, Amba Bhavan,
Sion Circle,
Sion" 400022
CONTACT: Sunita Dadra -'022-30900361/09322229032
CONTACT: VISHAL MAHAJAN -09322405598

HEERA PANNA
"Reliance Web World,
Shop No. 1, Vellard View,
Tardeo Road,Heera Panna, Haji Ali, Mahalaxmi." 400034
CONTACT: Shabbir Motorwala -09322218568
CONTACT: VISHAL MAHAJAN -09322405598

JUHU
"Reliance Web World,IPCL, JVPD Scheme,Near Invitation 365,Juhu, Vile Parle (W)" 400049
CONTACT: Rahul Bhide - 09322621220
CONTACT: VISHAL MAHAJAN -09322405598

PUNE
Bajirao Road
1358 A, Bajirao Road, Natu Baug, Shukrwar Peth, Bajirao Road. 411002
CONTACT: Ajay Mirgal - '09372478465
CONTACT: RAJIV KALWANI - 09371013000

Saturday, November 12, 2005

XLRI Summer Placement Prog this year

XLRI Jamshedpur flooded with offers from foreign cos

Arindam Sinha

Jamshedpur, Nov 10 ‘Summer Placements 2006’ at premier B-school Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) here touched a new high when as many as nine overseas offers were made and accepted for the first time ever, indicating the changing perception of global companies towards Indian managerial talent.

The offers included Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) at Zurich, the niche division of ERP major SAP America, ICRM, the ICICI International Banking group at Hong Kong and TAS.

The B-School, which has been first among the major management institutions in the country to place 182 first-year students (comprising 122 business management and 60 personnel management & industrial relations students) for summer 2006, also witnessed the highest domestic stipend of Rs 40,000 per month being offered by SAP America followed by the Hay Group offer of Rs 32,000.

Following the trend at XLRI for some years now, consulting firms, including first-time recruiters like Deloitte Consulting, KPMG Consulting, SAP America and Watson Wyatt as well as regulars like Ernst & Young, Hay Group, Hewitt Associates and Mercer picked up as much as 17% of the batch. IBM (20), HLL (11), Deloitte Consulting (9), Cognizant (8), Aditya Birla Group (8) and ICICI Bank (8) were among the highest recruiters.

With new entrants like Google and Motorola picking up four each, the IT/technology sector accounted for 23% of the batch.

However, banking, finance and insurance sector companies ranked among students’ preferences with 34 offers accepted from CitiBank, ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered and Edelweiss Capital among investment bankers. AIG, with six accepted offers, led the insurance sector.

The FMCG/manufacturing sector, which picked up around 26% of the students, saw regulars like Cadbury, Colgate Palmolive, GlaxoSmithKline, Godrej, HLL, ITC, Marico, P&G, Pepsi, Reckitt Benckiser and Seagrams maintaining their faith in the B-School from previous experience.

“The placements have been the best ever on all counts: a significant increase in the portfolio of companies, number of companies visiting the campus for the first time, the diversity of the project profiles as well as the stipend offered,” said Prof Sabyasachi Sengupta, chairperson, placements, XLRI here on Thursday, adding that the “Nine foreign offers for summer internships and the active participation by top consulting firms augur well for the final placements of the senior batch.”

The recruiters included the Aditya Birla Group, Murugappa Group and TAS, with 16 students opting for them.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

DJ Night on campus

From: surya s
Date: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:36 am
Subject: For alumni in Jamshedpur today suryasbest

Hi,

We are having a performance by DJ Shartz from NY at Small Audi from 7 pm to 9 pm, thanks to Dracula. If you guys can come, please drop in as this might be the last DJ performance at XL for a long time to come...

--Surya S

PS: Please note that daaru will not be served as alcohol serving and consumption is banned in campus as per Fr. Paul Fernandez; our Hostel Prefect & Student Affairs coordinator.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

check out http://www.abhishekdasgupta.com/

From: "Mohan Monteiro"
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2005 3:16 pm
Subject: check out the website...

http://www.abhishekdasgupta.com/

bose (aka abhishek dasgupta) from the 2002 IR batch has put tremendous fight
to create this...definitely worth a dekko.


Here's a sampling of what to expect.....


Welcome to the first edition of my webmag...
…and it has taken me a while to get here myself!!

I’ve wanted to do this for a while now, create a website; a sort of playground for my creative side. It started 4 years ago at B-school campus, designing a basic photo-sharing website. The site was www.pixelonline.f2s.com and it quickly became a repository of memories for friends at campus, a collection of the good times, the tough times, of that time in our lives. It was hosted on a free server, but its popularity caused some alumni funding to come my way, to create a larger, more comprehensive website with a dedicated server.

As the story continued, www.xlripixel.com went on to become the ‘unofficial official’ website for XLRI …whether one was a new applicant looking for information, or an old student looking for memories and milestones. A lot of work went into that site, from researching the history of XLRI, to keeping abreast of latest developments at campus or in the curriculum.

From there went on to form a little photography club – Pixel …..It’s still very much in action at the XL campus…not so little now of course…a lot of emotions invested there for me! In those days owning a camera and pursuing photography as a hobby was sort of an expensive option, for a kid just out of architecting campus and fresh into B school. I bought my first camera, a Nikon FM 10, with the money from my Summer Internship at Chennai…..and that’s how pixelonline happened.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

XL celeb watch - BT best companies to work for

From: Gautam Ghosh
Date: Mon Nov 7, 2005 2:28 pm
Subject: XL celeb watch - BT best companies to work for gautamghosh

I could spot 3 XLers in the issue...

Two with pics - Vineet Nayar - BMD 85 CEO of HCL Comnet, ranked in the top 10 as one of the best companies to work for.

Nitin Dheer , PMIR 98, the Principal Consultant of Mercer who executed the methodology and survey.

Preneet Sinha PMIR 99 also was quoted in the article on Sapient which is ranked no. 6

Friday, September 09, 2005

XL Kolkata Regional Alumni Meet - 10th Sept

Hello folks!

This is to inform and invite all - if you are travelling to Kolkata on that day - to join us in the Regional XLRI Alumni Meet being organised by the Kolkata Chapter on September 10th.

Fr McGrath has kindly accepted our invitation to join us from Bhubneshwar and grace the occasion.

The details are as follows:

Date: Saturday 10 September
Venue: Nalbon, next to Nicco Park
Time: 6:30 pm onwards
Cover charges: Rs 400 flat for drinks and dinner (*I think this is for couple - for singles, it will be, I think, around Rs 250-300)
Food: Catering by Rajiv Neeyogi BMD 1974 (one of the founders of "Bhojohori Manna" chain - the latter being the name adapted from the 1970's song - ‘aami sri sri bhojohori manna’)
Agenda:
- Fr McGrath to meet Kolkata alumni;
- Have fun; renew contacts....
- Fr Casimir Raj (current director of XLRI) will also attend (** your truly - and Mr Bushen Raina, National XL Alumni President - 73batch - will also be there)
- There will be a fun-filled quiz on XLRI through the decades, quiz masters from XL vintage;
- Carlton Kitto and his band will be in attendance.

To confirm your participation, please contact:
Surajit Sanyal (75BMD) - 09331935051 - surajitsanyal@hotmail.com
DP Ghosh (73BMD) - 09830298979 - ghoshdp@vsnl.net
Ranjeev Lahkar (00PMIR) - 09830932423 - Ranjeev.Lahkar@intl.pepsi.com

Hope to see you all there

ciao
madhukar
=====================
Dr Madhukar Shukla
Professor (OB & Strategic Management)
XLRI
Jamshedpur (India) 831001

Friday, September 02, 2005

XLRI revamps its suite of Economics courses

Students of XLRI Jamshedpur would now be able to get more choices to pursue an MBA in economics. The Academic Council has approved the introduction new courses in the economics Area for BM and PMIR programs from the current academic year. Thus a student from XLRI could take up a major in HR, Finance, Marketing, Operations and systems areas will now have a wider range of courses to choose from in the Economics area.
Recognizing the trends in the private sector where employment of economists is expected grow faster than the existing rate of 36%, courses on advanced economics would be extremely relevant. At the entry level global consultancies, credit rating agencies, portfolio management companies, Banks and IFIs, multilaterals (Bank- Fund and UN family) and bilaterals with private sector portfolios are areas where the roles of managers require a sound knowledge of economics. Senior executives across the world’s largest organizations need to take into account the economic environment across the globe to formulate strategies for global growth.
The various courses being floated are Economic Analysis for Global Businesses, Econometrics, Demand analysis and Forecasting. These are in addition to existing courses on Industrial Economics and Competitive Strategies, Management of Private Public Partnerships, Entrepreneurship and New Ventures and International Business Economics. The courses would be offered to the Business Management (BM) and Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (PMIR) students of XLRI. Recognizing the recent trends of movements of labor across geographies and the new dynamics in labor management, it would be useful for the PMIR students to learn some of these courses. All the courses would be taking holistic perspectives of the global economy. Another trend observed by XLRI was the large increase among its PMIR alumni turning entrepreneurs and thus the courses would be on offer to them too.
The new full time faculties at XLRI for the economics courses are Dr. (Ms.) Suma Damodaran, Dr. Ms Sangeeta. Dr. Suma Damodaran is an expert in Market Structures, Competitive Strategies, Management education and on issues in Economic Development. Dr. Sangeeta is an expert on Econometrics and reforms in Transition Economies. Apart from this a number of noted economists would be taking guest lectures in the various courses to create an enriching learning experience.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Dr. Ram Kumar Kakani - Best Young Teacher

Our faculty in the area of Corporate Finance and Strategy will be conferred the “Best Young Teacher Award” by the Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS) on the 30th of August at its 17th AIMS annual convention to be held in Hyderabad. The award consists of a gold medal (sponsored by Blue Shift) and a felicitation.

He dedicated the award to his teachers without whose support, he said, he could not have come such a long way. Dr Kakani also thanked the XLRI community by saying, “XLRI as an institute and its faculty are known for their commitment to carry out research and impart quality education. The environment and resources available at the institute facilitate an individual’s penchant for research. I am grateful to my colleagues and students who have time and again facilitated my research and appreciated my teaching methodology. At times they have added to the experience by giving me valuable feedback”.

At a young age of 34 years, Dr. Kakani has various laurels to his credit. His research interests which are in the areas of Corporate Strategy, Business & Financial Analysis, Corporate Governance, and Business Families.

This is a proud moment for all in the XLRI family. The students, faculty members, administration congratulate him for this achievement and wish him greater success in the future.

XLRI News (2) - August 22, 2005

New Ventures:
- XLRI tied up with Reliance WebWorld to offer a 14-months Post-Graduate Certificate Course in Logistics Supply Chain Managment on a 2-way virtual classroom platform to practicing managers. The course start in October '05, and will be available in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ch.nnai, Hyderabad and Pune. Prof TAS Vijayaraghavan is the coordinator of the course.

- XLRI entered into an agreement with Accenture to design and deliver a 12-month Certification Course in Human Capital Management. The course, first of its kind in India, will be customised to the specific requirements of BPO industry, and will be offfered to selected HR professionals of Accenture. The course will be coordinated by Prof Madhukar Shukla.

Rural Programme Initiative:
- The First Rural Programme Initiative was launched with the 05-07 of students. The purpose of this initiative is to sensitize the students to the 'reality on the other side'. During this term, all students from the new batch visited and stayed for 2-3 days in the villages. They interacted with villagers, with NGOs, local officials - and came back refreshed, shocked, reflective, and educated.

Kudos:
- Dr Ram Kumar Kakani was judged for the AIMS Best Young Teacher Award 2005.

- Dr TAS Vijayaraghavan was nominated the Education Chairperson of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals in India.

Publications:
- Dr Ashis Pani published a book "Real Estate Market: New Economy New Business" (co-authored with Prof Biswajit Das - Excel Books, 2005)

- Dr Ram Kumar Kakani published the book "Financial Accounting for Management" (co-authored with Prof N Ramachandran - Tata McGraw Hill, 2005)

- Fr Paul Fernandes, S.J., published the book "Economic Ethics and the Moral Perspectives of the Golden Rule".

Additions to Faculty:
- Dr ML Agarwal rejoined the Institute in Marketing Area after being on lien for last few years.

- Dr Himanshu Rai joined XLRI as a full-time faculty in PM&IR Area.

- Dr Trishit Bandyopadhyay joined XLRI as full-time faculty in Production & Operations Management Area.

- Dr Amita Mital joined XLRI as a a full-time faculty in Strategic Management Area.

Departure:
- Fr. Theo Mathias, S.J., passed away on July 6th, 2005. Fr Mathias was the Director of XLRI during 1978-81, and since then had been a Professor at XL, and also the editor of Management & Labout Studies.

=====================
Dr Madhukar Shukla
Professor (OB & Strategic Management)
XLRI

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Abhijit Bhaduri's visit to Hyderabad

14th August was a great day for the Hyderabad XL alumni. We hosted Abhijit Bhaduri, in town for 12 hours, to regale the alumni with the reading of portions from his book "Mediocre But Arrogant". 20 alumni turned up for the meet at the unearthly hour of 4 pm on a long weekend!

The venue was the picturesue covered lawns of Country Club Begumpet and we had XLers from the batch of 1974 (Hari, the sponsor for the visit and the venue!) to 1984, (Abhijit himself) to 1994 (Ravi and Vish) to 2004 !

After the initial 1.5 hrs we spent in chatting with people, Abhijit discovering old friends not just from XL but even his Railway Colony days !

Then we got down to the reading.

Abhijit was introduced to us by his senior, SV Nathan, Head of HR of Deloitte, who informed us a lot about "Abhijit's using him as a courier boy during XL days" (more grax only on verbal basis ;-)

Then Abhijit told us about the amazing journey he's had due to the fact he's promoting the book and the opportunity he got to meet XLers in Kolkata, Jampot, Mumbai, Delhi , Bangalore and now Hyderabad. He told us how Gurcharan Das said that the way English is spoken by the characters in the book showed the way English is going to develop in the future. He also shared that Shyam Benegal during the Mumbai launch said that the book was ripe for a screenplay !
He also shared that he wrote the book in a B School because that offered two things:
1. An opportunity to blend in diverse charecters
2. Focus on relationships that the characters develop with each other, their profs., the staff and shopkeepers around.

After that he had us laughing with the portions of how the protagonist, Abbey, succeeds in doing his summer project, how he gets terrorised by his QT prof and the letter he gets from the Scottish priest when he graduates.

Abhijit then fielded questions from the XLers present, where he reiterated that the book is not an autobiographical story, and therefore apart from characters like Dadu, Basanto and the roomie, Pappu, other characters are fictional. He also shared his process of writing and how the story evolved over the last 8 years ! He also shared some plans for the future and the sequels he has planned.

It was a great meet and we missed the folks who were travelling out of town.

There's no such thing as a free book, so call Hari when you need to hire HR pros or when you're looking for an HR job. Fortuna Consultants, The exclusive HR placement agency. Phone: 93911 65157 Email: hari@fortunajobs.com

regards
GG
http://gauteg.blogspot.com

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Reliance WebWorld, XLRI in e-learning pact

XLRI and Reliance WebWorld on 11th August 2005 launched a post-graduate certificate course in Logistics Supply Chain Managment programme on a virtual classroom platform.

The course would be conducted in the WebWorlds in seven cities through two-way video conferencing on the broadband platform."Our tie-up with RWW to offer the course on real broadband platform will take the management training expertise of our XLRI's faculty to several virtual classrooms across India," XLRI director N Casimir said in Kolkata.

More about this story could be read at:http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/11ril.htm

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

14th August ! Abhijit Bhaduriexpected in town ! - Hyderabad

Just to make it clear, Hari is also paying for the copy of "Mediocre But Arrogant" (1 per XLer) to be given FREE to the alumni !

So let us know, how many of you want the book, so that we can block it with the publisher !

Apparently the book is doing very well, Oxford Bookstores told Abhijit yesterday that this book is trailing Harry Potter in their bestsellers list (for the last week)
"Mediocre But Arrogant - That's what MBA stands for according to Abbey! This is a funny story of how an unambitious undergrad from Delhi Univ lands up in the highly competitive Management Institute of Jamshedpur. How the 2 years there change him and his relationships."

See reviews and hear audio excerpts at: http://mediocrebutarrogant.blogspot.com

There's no such thing as a free book, so when you're looking for HR resources call Hari:

S. Harinarayana
(XL batch of 1974)Fortuna Consultants The only recruitment consultancy EXCLUSIVELY for HR professionalsMobile: 93911 65157
hari@fortunajobs.com

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Mediocre-But-Arrogant: Release Schedule/News

All India Release of Mediocre-But-Arrogant


A novel about love and life in "Management Institute of Jamshedpur" by Abhijit Bhaduri (84PMIR)

Abhijit is traveling through India for the launch:Schedule is as follows:Mumbai 9th Aug 2005 at 5:30pm (by Shyam Benegal)Oxford Bookstore Apeejay House, Dinshaw Vacha Marg, Churchgate, Mumbai. Delhi 11th August at 6.30pm (by Gurucharan Das)India International Center40, Max Muller RoadNew Delhi - 110003.Bangalore (1) 13 August at 1:00pm (by Dr Prakash Apte, Director, IIM/B)Apeejay Oxford Bookstores Pvt LtdLeela Galleria, The Leela PalaceShop # B4 - B8# 23 Airport Road, Bangalore 560008(2) 13th August at 7:30pm (exclusively for XLers + spouses)Karnataka Golf AssociationAirport RoadBangaloreHyderabad14th August at 1:30pm (exclusively for XLers + spouses)Country ClubHyderabad
The Novel was earlier released at:Kolkata3rd August 2005 at 6:30pm (by Russy Mody)at Oxford Bookstore17, Park Street, Kolkata 700 016, India. read coverage:The Telegraph (August 4th, 2005)Indian Express (August 4th, 2005)Jamshedpur 4th August at XLRI (1:00 pm) (by Bushen Raina)Read Coverage:The Telegraph (August 5th, 2005)

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Abhijit Bhaduri relives "The best days of his Life" on Campus

Abhijit Bhaduri (PMIR '82-'84) was on campus today, 4th August 2005 to launch his much awaited book Mediocre But Arrogant (MBA).

Mediocre But Arrogant (MBA) is about Love and Life in a fictitious B-School called Management Institue of Jamshedpur (MIJ). It is a description of how Abbey a graduate from Delhi spends the two best years of his life. The story, he said, was quite generic which most people could relate to. It was about life in MIJ, an institution built by the sustained and selfless efforts of Father Hathaway and his team, about living in a campus hostel, about characters whom one come's across during his college or school days. More about this book can be tracked at http://mediocrebutarrogant.blogspot.com

The book was launched by Mr. Bushen Raina, the President of the XLRI Alumni Association. Abhijit addressed the XL family in his characteristic humorous style. The packed auditorium had some wonderful moments when he read certain chapters from his book. He distributed autographed copies to XLRI students. Later he had lunch served by our very own Basanto at the XLRI mess, who would serve him when he was on campus. Being a guitarist himself he had a jam session with our own band on campus "The Bodhi Tree" and interacted with the current students.

More about the story could be tracked at:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050805/asp/jamshedpur/story_5076578.asp

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Making Learning Fun...

Deccan Herald carried this story today under the column "Pioneers"

A high profile job fetching an obscene salary could not confine him to the corporate circle; when he decided to quit his corporate job years ago and took an entirely different path. A graduate from XLRI, Tarun Chandna wanted to give tomorrow a different perspective so he chose to be known as “a social entrepreneur” instead of an entrepreneur.

Tarun Chandna (92PMIR)Tarun is one of the pioneers in the field of ‘adventure education’ and one of the co-founders of iDiscoveri. He has also worked with programmes like Pacific Crest Outward Bound School, California and Singapore.

iDiscoveri is a learning, teaching and research organisation that works at making learning more experimental, meaningful, understanding and interesting. The organisation works in coordination with schools by guiding their teaching and overall techniques, to impart lessons in children more conveniently and interestingly. “We believe that children can realize their true potential by getting in touch with nature. We guide them instead of imposing lessons on them,” says Tarun.

His passion for adventure, strong belief in outdoor education and learning by hands on experiences drove him to start small projects that could help children learn immensely while having fun. “They grasped their lessons faster because they learnt them through experiences and could understand them well,” mentions Tarun. ....At present, iDiscoveri has three sub-branches. Besides this, it also conducts workshops on positive parenting and maintaining relationships. iDiscoveri also helps people make a school and training its faculty from scratch. By now, three such schools including two Heritage schools in Delhi have asked him to join them.

Note: The article fails to mention the other co-founders of iDiscoveri - so I must mention them: Gaurav Sakhlani (92PMIR), Ronny Gulati (92BMD), Ashish Rajpal (92BMD) and Lokesh Jindal (92BMD).

posted by Madhukar on http://xlalumni.blogspot.com/

Monday, June 20, 2005

Shantonu Aditya (84 BMD) to join Sahara One as CEO

MUMBAI (June 10, 2005): SET Discovery president Shantonu Aditya has quit and is joining Sahara One as Chief Executive Officer. His responsiblity will extend to all Sahara's media and entertainment businesses (excluding news).

Aditya is likely to join Sahara One in the first week of July, a source said. SET India and Percept officials were not available for comment.

Sahara's media and entertainment businesses operate under Sahara One. Last year, Sahara entered into a joint venture management company with Percept. Aditya will replace Peter Isaac who was heading this company.

Sahara has ambitious movie plans with 40 projects on the floor. Aditya will drive this as well as the domestic and international distribution of movies. Sahara is also planning launch of a movie channel later this year.

...Aditya joined SET India in 2001 to lead Sony's distribution business. He went on to head the distribution joint venture company between SET India and Discovery Communications India set up in 2002.

SET Discovery expanded its bouquet and currently distributes not only the Sony and Discovery group of channels but also MTV, Nick, Animax, Ten Sports, Sab TV, NDTV 24x7, NDTV India and NDTV Profit.

A management graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur, Aditya had worked with UB group ( McDowell &Co ) in sales and marketing in Delhi and luggage major Blow Plast in various capacities.

XL Celeb Watch

Ramchandra Rao (80PMIR) has joined the Hinduja group as Senior Vice President (HR). He was earlier the Vice President (HR), Wockhardt

Shantonu Aditya (84BMD) is joining Sahara One as its CEO. Shantonu was earlier the President, Alliance One (a JV between Discovery and SET) and the Head of Distribution of Sony Entertainment Television, India.

Gautam Sen (84BMD) will be the Editor of Top Gear, an auto magazine from the BBC stable, which is being launched in india by the Times of India group. Gautam ws earlier the Editor of Delhi-based "Auto Motor & Sport".

Dr Om Sitoula (84BMD) was decorated with Mahendra Vidya Bhusan Class 1 by His Majesty King Gyanendra of Nepal. Mahendra Vidya Bhusan Class 1 is the highest medal of Nepal for academic achievement

Abhijit Bhaduri's (84PMIR) forthcoming novel Mediocre But Arrogant ("a story of love and life in the fictitious Management Institute of Jamshedpur (MIJ)") was featured in the article "A Novel Pastime" in Business World (June 13th)

Ajay Bagga (90BMD) who was CEO, Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund has taken over as the new CEO of Sabre Capital. Sabre India is an AMC, promoted jointly by Sabre Capital (of former Stanchart CEO, Rana Talwar) and Tamasek Holdings.

Homecoming 2005 - Invitation from XLRI

Please block your dates, make your travel reservations, and do plan to be at XLRI for the

Homecoming 2005
on
Nov 19-20 (Sat-Sun), 2005

I am sending this invitation on behalf of the collective comprising of the
- President, XLRI Alumni Association (Mr Bushen Raina, 73BME & MD, Tata Tinplate),
- President, XLRI Alumni Association - Jamshedpur Chapter (Mr Rana Sinha, 78BMD & MD Telcon), &
- Director, XLRI, Fr N Casimir Raj
...and yours truly;0)

... So please do plan to return to/revisit the roots: have a trip down the memory lane, network with those who passed through the same portals across batches, interact with the current batch and faculty (and old stalwarts in the mess, hostel and staff;0), discuss and participate in what XL and alumni need from - and can do for - each other, etc.... and of course, touch base with the alma mater (remember Bodhi Tree? Dadu's? Evening Dosawala? Enright Hall?;0)

The first Homecoming 2004 was organised last year, with reasonably favourable response from the alumni community... to be honest, we got the brainwave slightly late for many outstation alumni to plan to join in. The information also did not reach many... still, we had a gathering of around 80-100

That is why I am sending this advance invite - I will keep on updating you as the format of the two days gets finalised.

But please do plan to be here for the Homecoming!!

It will be great for all of us to have you here once again

ciao
madhukar
=====================
Dr Madhukar Shukla
Alumni Coordinator &
Professor (OB & Strategic Management)
XLRI
Jamshedpur (India) 831001

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Moving to Bombay

Hi all,

I'm moving to Bombay. Will be busy with shifting procedures for the next month or so. But hope to get settled down soon.

So if this blog looks unrefreshed for awhile, please excuse.

Kim

Venkatesan Chandramouli joining Cadbury's as director Strategy

A year after he brought the ONIDA DEVIL back on television screens, MIRC electronics Head of Marketing, Venkatesan Chandramouli, has gone soft. That is, he's quit MIRC(which markets ONIDA brand) and is joining Cadbury India as Director of Strategy, Innovations & International Business.

An alumnus of XLRI, the 37 year old played a key role in transforming MIRC from aaa color TV company to a multi-product marketer, besides re-launching MIRC's famous mascot, the ONIDA devil.

At Cadbury, Chandramouli's key challenge he says will be growing the chocolates business. "It's an under-penetrated product" he says. Dentists, rejoice.

- Business Today, June 5th

XLRI News (1) - June 14th, 2005 Update

- The XLRI@NETTECH Certification Program: XLRI, in association with NETTECH, concluded a 30-day summer course on Network Management (Linux Environment) on June 14th, 2005. The certification program was attended by 220 students, from around 20 engineering colleges from all over India. The program was coordinated by Prof Ashis Pani (Sytems Area, XLRI).
http://www.xlri.ac.in/nettech/

- Prof HK Pradhan, Finance Area, is proceeding on a one-year lien from the institute. Prof Pradhan will be taking up the assignment as Advisor (Debt Management & Fiscal Policy), Commonwealth Secretariat, London for the South-Pacific Region, and will be located in Fiji & London.

- Dr Rajiv Mishra joined XLRI as full-time faculty in Operations Management area.

- Dr Suma & Uday Damodaran joined XLRI as full-time faculty in Economics and Finance Areas, respectively. Prior to joining XLRI, they were teaching at IIM, Kozhikde. With their joining the Institute, XLRI has now 43 full-time faculty on rolls.

- Fr Paul J Fernandes, SJ, Finance Area (and also an alumnus of 1986 batch) has been appointed as the Associate Dean for Students's Affair, and will be in-charge of hostels and students' activities.

- New Names on Campus:
XL Campus buildings have finally acquired a name and identity:
Father Enright Men’s Residence (the Old Men's/Boy's Hostel - the "original" hostel)
Saint Thomas Men’s Residence (the new Hostel, till recently called GH-3)
Nilima Acharji Women’s Residence (the old Girls'/Ladies Hostel, next to Enright Hall)
Mother Teresa Women’s Residence (the New LH)
Father Prabhu Hall (the new name of the Examination Hall)
SC Sarkar Gymnasium (the new Gymnasium building, with indoor badminton court)

- GMP Convocation:
The 4th Batch of 1-Year Full-Time General Management Program (Executive MBA) for practicing executives convocated on May 3rd, 2005.

- Preparatory Program for 2007 batch:
Since last year, XLRI had started a 10-day optional preparatory program for the incoming students to help them inducted, settle down and gell as a batch. Like last year, this year also more than 150 students (out of a PM/BM combined batch of 180+) have opted to attend. The program starts of June 15th.

- The regular teaching term will start from June 27th.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

A GG report from xlbang

It was time for the XLers in Bangalore to party on the 28th of May, and party they did !!
All the 270 of them and the 50 family and friends who turned up ! They burned up the dance floor and relived old memories as the drizzling Bangalore summer shower and cool breeze was the time for XLers from the 70s to the 2000s to reach out across 4 decades.

The chief guest for the meet was the XL Director Fr. Casimir Raj, SJ who spoke about the "alumni homecoming" at Jampot every year and invited the alumni to participate in this year's homecoming!

Other guests from Jampot were XLer of the 77 batch and current IR Prof Pranabesh Ray (aka "Pray"!) and the current head of the Jampot Alumni Association, Mr. Rana Sinha!

Our thanks go to the current batch of 2006 XLers doing their summers for their unbridled enthu and fight to make this meet a resounding success! The XLBang Alumni Committee would specially like to acknowlege the efforts that Desmond, Dhananjay, Surya S, and Vijay put in - three cheers to them! From the alumni side awesome effort was put in by Titto, S Suryanarayan and Kuru (but, of course!). XL kids, Nikhil, Nisha, Krishna, Lester, Rahul, & Rhea helped us out with the registrations. And a big thanks to Angira for the pics (we're waaaaitinggg...)

The XL Alumni Comm also gave Rs.13,001 to Satish Venkatachaliah's Round Table as our annual contribution to a worthy cause.

Cheers to Panna & Nash (of BM 96)for winning the "much coveted" hamper for the first couple to dance.

And we would like to thank our sponsors who made the drinks, entry and dinner all economical for all of us! They are:

National Sponsors
------------------
Naukri.com
Cognizant Technology Solutions

Principal Sponsors
------------------
Allegro Capital Advisors
Titan

Diamond Sponsors
-----------------
Adecco People One
ITC

Gold Sponsors
-----------------
Eicher Consultancy Services(ECS)
SAP Labs
3M
Fortuna Consultants

Liquor & Beverages Sponsors
-----------------
Seagram
SAB
Pepsi

Batter Fried Prawns Sponsor (and were they yummy!!)
-----------------
Pure Waterhouse (David D'Costa from the 1976 batch)

Gift Sponsors
-----------------
Metro Cash & Carry
Indus League
3M
Fortuna Consultants (Harinarayan of the '74 batch)

Media sponsors
-----------------------
Businessworld
Business Standard

The pens from Fortuna were much sought after as were Indus-League's T Shirts for the event (designed by Zameer!) which were a big hit and were sold out by midnight (if you have an extra t shirt pleeeze pass it on to me !)

Thanks are also due to Bob Punch who came down to MC for the meet all the way from Kolkata ! (sorry Kolkata, your loss!) and Anuja Singh who conducted the "make the mummy" game for the kids (no, not what you are thinking about !)

Lots of people turned up and some prominent XLers were N Krishnkumar (KK), Bijou Kurien (also the president/COO of the XLBang Alumni), Bharti & Jacob Kurian, John Idicula (Treasurer of the XLBang Alumni), Mervyn Raphael, Prateik Kumar, Saji Zacharia, Ravi Parmeshwar, NS Muthu, Azfar Hussain, Satish Venkatachaliah, Vishy Shenoy (the Biryani Merchant!) amongst others.

Some conversation pieces that were picked up by our undercover journalists:

"Do you really think I should invest in commodities....what should I do with my shares in the tech sector...?"
"Oh my god, how she's changed, she was such a nerd in XL, and just look at her now...! wow !"
"Since when have you been in Bangalore?? Seven months? And you haven't bothered to contact me??"
"Hmpfh, my batchmates never turn up for the alumi meet....idiots !!"
"So are you really looking out for Branding people for your company....wellll...I've got 3 years experience in sales and one year in Industrial marketing...could we meet sometime next week...? What's your cell number ?"
..."yaar, mujhe koi naukri dila de re...xljobs mein mere liye kuch nahin aata"
"I'm looking for guest lecturers to address my students...can you spare 1 hour in a month..?"

....till next year folks !

Ciao,
Gautam Ghosh
http://gauteg.blogspot.com
http://www.geocities.com/gautamghosh

(P.S. This was my last report for the XLBang alumni ...Hyderabad, here I come !)

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

FromMD(India) to Head (Asia-Pacific) - CVL Srinivas (93BMD )

CVL Srinivas, who is the managing director of Maxus India, will now also look after the agency's operations across the Asia-Pacific.



CVL Srinivas (93BMD - Maxi Secy, too!!)


Speaking to agencyfaqs! from Bangkok, where he is at the moment on a trip, Srinivas delineates his role. “My responsibilities would entail building the Maxus brand across the region. I will be working with the heads of the agency at various offices in APAC to further this objective.”

With blue chip clients such as Titan, Britannia, Hero Honda, Hutch, Walt Disney, Pidilite, Tata Motors (Maxus handles the SUV business) etc on its rolls, Maxus is a strong entity in India.

...“There are markets, however, where operations are not as large as in India, and I would concentrate my attention in these areas. Overall, growing the business in the region through new and existing clients is part of my responsibility,” says Srinivas, who will be based in India.

A mechanical engineer from BITS, Pilani with a management degree from XLRI, Srinivas took charge of Maxus India early 2004 after Bashab Sarkar, the erstwhile head of the agency, put in his papers the year before.

Prior to heading Maxus, Srinivas was the COO, north & south at Madison Media – an agency he joined in mid-1998.

He was part of the start-up team that set up Fulcrum in 1995, and spent a year before that at Lowe (then Lintas) working largely on brand Brooke Bond.

Friday, May 27, 2005

The Pyramid of what an XLer needs !

XLBang's Hierarchy of needs

Move it, Maslow !!

Physiological Needs
Party starts on Saturday at 7:30 PM and will last as long as you can
Registration - Make the process by easier and faster by bringingyour visiting cards.
Make sure you write your mobile number and the email ID on which youhave subscribed to this group on that visiting card
David D'Costa's ordering up a great menu like always and has also sponsored the Batter Fried Prawns.
Each plate is very expensive and our wonderful sponsors make it veryaffordable [We'd appreciate it if you don't take separate plates for very small children]
If it rains, we have a hall as a back-up

Security Needs
Rates - 150/300/400/20 - Single/Couple-Family/Guests/Drinks [Honey, the sponsors shrunk the rates]
[Thanks to Naukri.Com, Cognizant Technology Solutions, ITC, Manhattan (Standard Chartered) Allegro Capital Advisors, Titan Watches, Adecco People One, Eicher Consultancy Services, SAP Labs, 3M, & Fortuna Consultants]
Free booze before 8:00 PM and after 10:30 PM to incentivise you to come early and leave late
All the soft drinks that you can possibly want, thanks to PEPSI
Getting there - Park Plaza is right behind Diamond District on Airport Road. You can approach from either Airport Road or from the Inner Ring Road [Call/Email for detailed directions]
There's plenty of parking

Social Needs
You'll find tons of batchmates, seniors, juniors, friends, colleagues, associates, movers & Shekhars.
There's a huge batch of summers and 2005'ers
There will be lots of pretty woman
Ladies, if the guys fall for the above there should be lots of guys too
Be sure to call 3-4 of your batchmates and make the most of the evening
Would anyone like to organise 2-3 games for the kids? Do let me know

Esteem Needs
Our great DJ will have you begging for more
All your wet nite favourites will be playing
Dance on the edge of the Golf Course Cliff [Dance off the edge of the Golf Course Cliff]
Cool stuff like hampers, watches, sunglasses, Johnnie Walker, Post-Its, mugs and T-shirts to be had and won... for no reason at all !!
[Thanks to Naukri, Allegro Capital Advisors, 3M, Metro Cash & Carry, Titan, Fortuna, Indus League, Himalaya Herbal Healthcare]

Self-Actualisation:
Amigo's, Fling, Blender's Pride & Castle Lager courtesy Seagram's & SAB
The money from every drink goes to charity
ek, do, teen, chaaaar...
Please drive home safe

Personally looking forward to seeing all of you there.
Kuru
BM-96 98451-41464

XL Alumni Meets in India (27th-29th May)

Hello folks!

Just to share (as your "brand-new" second-time alumni coordinator;)... we have all these alumni meets happening this coming weekend - organised by the current 06 batch during their ... it will be great if you can make it and catch-up with the latest gossip of XL community (besides of course meeting the batchmates, seniors and juniors once again)..

Please confirm your participation with the organising junta (contacts), to help them plan better (so that we dont run out of food or booze).. and also to check the cover charges since they vary across the venues (and are still changing as sponsorships are getting confirmed)

This is also an advance warning that this year some of us from XL plan to to gate crash... I, for example, plan to be htere in the Delhi/Mumbai/Hyderabad meets;0)...

Hope that you attend and also hope to meet many of you there

ciao
madhukar
================= ============================
New Delhi
(May 27th), Friday
India Habitat Centre
Contacts:Mohit Raina - mohitspace@yahoo.co.in (9810943279)
Rajiv Chandran - rajiv.chandran@gmail.com (9334624641)
Nikhil Moorthy - nikhilm.06@astra.xlri.ac.in

Bangalore
(May 28th), Saturday
Royal Orchid Park Plaza
Contacts:Desmond Nikhil D'Souza - desmondnikhil@yahoo.com (9880544623)
Dhananjay Misra - dhananjaym.06@astra.xlri.ac.in
Kuru (96BMD) - kuruvilla@gmail.com (98451-41464)

Hyderabad
(May 29th), Sunday
The Taj Banjara
Contacts:Ankush Kedia - ankush_kedia@yahoo.com (9848738202)
Piyush Sarode - piyushs.06@astra.xlri.ac.in (9848467574)

Kolkata
(May 28th), Saturday
The Park, Park Street
Contacts:Sujot Malhotra - sujotmalhotra@yahoo.com (09331213222)
Sivaram Yadavalli - yds_ram@rediffmail.com

Mumbai
(May 28th), Saturday
The Hyatt Regency, Andheri East
Contacts:Abhishek Tripathi - tripsabhishek@yahoo.co.in (9892123970)
Nitya Wakhlu - nitya_wakhlu@yahoo.co.uk
========================

Ok, as I said, this year some of us from XL are planning to invade the meets;0)...

- Director, Fr Casimir Raj will be there at Delhi and Bangalore meets (am also trying if he can attend the Hyderabad meet... he had left by the time the dates got rescheduled to 29th)

- Profs P Venugopal (Dean), PK Padhi, EM Rao and Shahid Akhtar (94PMIR - also the Secy, National Alumni Association) will be there at the Kolkata Meet

- Mr Bushen Raina (73BME and President, Alumni Association) and self will be present at the Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad meets

(and we promise that we will not disturb the DJs with speeches... well, we promise!!;0)

ciao
madhukar
ps: I also promise to keep spamming you about "what is cooking at XL" now and then;0)
=====================
Dr Madhukar Shukla
Professor (OB & Strategic Management)
XLRI
Jamshedpur (India) 831001
ph: 91-657-2225506 x 300(O) / 603(R)
mail: madhukar@xlri.ac.in; madhukar.shukla@gmail.com
webpage: http://www.madhukarshukla.com
weblogs: http://madhukarshukla.blogspot.com/; http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/
ryze: http://www.ryze.com/go/madhukar

Alumni Meet in Hyderabad

Dear Xlers,
Its time for all of us to meet, have fun & refreshfond memories of our XL days. We are happy to announce the XLRI Alumini Meet, 2005 at Hyderabad.

We hereby invite you to join us with family for the event and relive the moments that indeed none of us can ever forget.

The details have been finalized as:
Date: 29th May, 2005 (Sunday)
Time: 7 PM
Venue: Taj Banjara, Banjara Hills

We apologise for the inconvenience caused by therescheduling of the dates. We tried our best toschedule on a Saturday but due to unavailability of asuitable location we had to reschedule to Sunday.We will be informing you about the cover chargesshortly, after sponsorships are confirmed.

Please send in your confirmation to the followingemail ids with the number of attendees and yourcontact details ( E-Mail, Phone No.) so that we canplan accordingly.

Ankush Kedia ( ankush_kedia@yahoo.com , 9848738202 )
Piyush Sarode ( sarode123@yahoo.com , 9848467574 )

We welcome your comments and suggestions to help usmake the evening more enjoyable. Also, do let us knowif you’d like to be a part of organizing any specialevent for the evening.Please pass this message on to any Xler who might nothave access to this group.

Looking forward to meetingyou all and having a great evening together!!
Yours truly,
Ankush Kedia
Piyush Sarode

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Ganesh Chella's article on HR outsourcing in Deccan Herald

XLer Ganesh Chella, founder and CEO of Totus Consulting, a strategic
HR Consulting firm. (ganesh@totusconsulting.com) has written an
article in today's Deccan Herald looking at the myths of HR
outsourcing.

Read the article online at
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/apr202005/avenues19180200541
9.asp

Interesting part of the article is towards the end, I quote
-------------------------------
"On the contrary, India must be the country hiring the most in the
world. In fact, HR in India would rank as the most dynamic and
turbulent in the whole world today. So many new jobs, so many to
hire, so many to train, so many to retain and so many to keep happy!
After many years of fighting for identity, HR in India has come of
age. HR and organisation building issues are centre of the plate in
any Indian CEOs agenda today. CEOs are willing to spend as much as
it takes to manage their people and people processes well. It may
never get any better for HR. Under such circumstances, cost
arbitrage is the last thing on their mind.

What is on the minds of our CEOs is the competence gap. They are
most worried about the acute shortage of HR talent and HR
competence.

At a time when good HR support is needed the most, it is just not
available in the measure they would like. The situation is
compounded by the fact that there is virtually very little India
centric thought leadership on HR issues.

While economic development in the US in the 1960s, 70s and 80s was
supported by a significant number of organisation development and HR
thought leaders and their research initiatives, we cannot say that
of India. We continue to inappropriately apply ideas from the
western world.

What India lacks is both original thought and strategic HR support.
This is a gap that CEOs will not live with. They have already begun
to access help from outside and if the growing number of boutique
and large HR consulting firms are any evidence, real HR outsourcing
is actually happening in India. There are of course a few important
differences:

The focus will be on augmenting internal competence and not really
on outsourcing the function. It will not be driven by cost.

Thankfully, this is will be supported by a growing awakening about
the need to renew and strengthen the employee relations role and
function.

So we might conclude that many business leaders in India (with the
exception of the very large ones) will seek strategic and specialist
HR support from outside in significant measure while they strengthen
internal HR to play the equally important role of focusing on
business partnering and employee relations. "

Friday, April 15, 2005

Madhukar's Photo Blog

you can also have a peep at "...World Through My Lenses" aka:
http://bestofmadhukar.blogspot.com

(I started it today - OK, yesterday, 8th - so, if ou are interested in photography, watch this space and see it grow)

ciao
madhukar

Whom does this Blog belong to ?

Madhukar posted this blog entry on grax...
Ive reproduced it verbatim below.

Any guesses on who the author could be ???
who from your batch, do you think is the most likely author ?
Add your comments
Kim
~~~~~~~~~~~`

No, I will not give you the URL - this is the only entry in the blog (so if you have read this, then you have read the whole blog;0)
madhukar
===================================

Tuesday, June 01, 2004
i wonder
I wonder if blogging is the thing for me.

As i sit here in front of the screen, all the blogs i've ever read flash in front of me eyes (ya..film ishtyle)...and i'm thinkin...blogs are profound and/or witty and/or hilarious ... all in all, bloggers write smart and write well.

And the most writing I've ever done is graffiti crap on walls and desks... (Hope this doesnt hold up in court)

But then, part of the flashin_scene_pictorama in front of me is also all the friggin loser blogs i've read (pardonment: cudnt find milder words) ...

And i'm thinkin, the supercilious #(@ that i am, heck mate! i can do better than that!

:-D

so here's to yet another pretentious blog on the internet...mine.

syko

PS: for those of ya who kno me...well, nothin i write can ever be complete without a liberal dose of my fave emoticons... not to mention ellipses and gibberish. the appendix below lists the most common offenders. please take note. :-D

Appendix II-A ( I start counting from II )
------------------------------------------

I stick my tongue out...Ptooey - :p
Wild manic grin - :D

Ellipsis - ...
Gibberish - @#*&@#)

Wild Exclamation - !!!

------------------------------------------

Cya all nxt time then! And to all my fellow bloggers - Let the pretentious writin flow! :-D


==================================

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Vineet Nayar (BM 85) - President and COO of HCL Technologies

Please join me in congratulating Vineet Nayar (BM 85) who has been nominated as the President of HCL Technologies where he will handle the software and infrastructure business of about $600 million. He takes over from Mr.Raman the COO of the company.

Vineet is the CEO of HCL ComNet and now takes over at HCL Technologies.

One of those rare cases of someone sticking to the same group company for years.

Shanks
(IR-84)

Monday, April 04, 2005

Convo news

Long Service medals were awarded at this years convo to......

1.Prof. Pranabesh Ray
2.Prof. Reshmi Mitra
3. Prof. Madhukar Shukla

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Paging 81 batch XLers

The 81 batch alumni are trying to relocate each other, in preparation for their SJR in 2006. In case, you are from 81batch, or know the contacts of anyone from the 81 batch, please communicate them to KP Naidu (81PMIR)

KP Naidu
Sun Microsystems
USA

Friday, March 25, 2005

Rajiv Kaul moving to Redmond

Microsoft India managing director Rajiv Kaul has moved to the company's headquarters in Redmond as the senior director in the Windows client emerging market group.
Rajiv would now focus on driving specific technology initiatives in emerging markets including India, a company statement said in New Delhi on Thursday. Neelam Dhawan, former vice president, customer solutions group of HP, has replaced Rajiv as MD for sales and marketing of Microsoft India.

http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/mar/24ms.htm

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

XL Celeb Watch - Manoj Verghese - 97 batch

Spotted - Manoj Verghese - 97 batch, grinning out of the Business page of TOI (pg 13), Hyderabad edition.

He's Head of HR for Google's operations in Hyderabad. So spam him guys n gals n check how good his email filters are.....

Friday, March 18, 2005

Xlers on Campus need YOUR Help

With the placement report already posted by Dr. Madhukar Shukla, indicating the success we had in this year's placements, I would like to specially thank Mr. K.N. Venkataraman and Mr. Narsimha Rao for sparing time for talks on careers in Finance and IT (IT consulting) respectively.

The senior batch (and the junior batch) found both the sessions very useful in making the decision during the Campus Recruitment Program, 2005.

We are in process of organizing more of such talks and solicit your support in this regard. In case you are interested in counselling the students on any topic which can be helpful in choosing the career path, please reply back to me. This could be related to academic or non academic aspects. (e.g Careers Overseas: the ground reality etc.). A similar talk on Business consulting by Mr. Jeevan Joshi is already in line.

Secondly, two other events are happening this year.

A more useful Alumni meet
In the summers, we are trying to organize brain-storming sessions along with the alumni meet conducted every year, so as to maximize the opportunity which the meet provides. However, this depends on the interests of the alumni members largely, whether they want such a session or would like to come for party only.

National Finance Seminar
The other event would be the National Finance Seminar, happening in the month of August. For this event we need suggestions on the theme. We want to make it attractive for the industry personnels as well as the students. To attract professionals from Mumbai, we intend to invite someone from the political circles so that the professionals feel that their opinions would be heard and considered.
Suggestions for the theme and in general related to the seminar are most welcome.

Rahul Bhargava
BM - Ist Yr.
XLRI, Jamshedpur
Drop mail to Rahul Bhargava

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Alumni Meet up in London 19 March

Deepa Abraham has been co-ordinating this meet up. Her contact details are at the bottom.

Hi People,

I have booked Eriki for lunch. Food is consistently good and they have great reviews at Toptable and Time-out. It is normally closed for sat lunch but they will open especially for us. I have 13 confirmed attendees and 3 tentatives.

Charge will be GBP 18 per head for food (incl service tax etc) - drinks will be as consumed. I negotiated this price for min 15 attendees

Tentative menu
Starters : chicken tikka, sheesh kebba, dahi batata, paneer, samosa/ pakoda Main : 1 chicken, 1 lamb, 2 veg, dal, raita, salad Dessert : Mango margoa/ kulfi

Address :
4 - 6 Northways Parade
Finchley Road
Swiss Cottage
London
NW3 5EN

Nearest tube station : Swiss Cottage (jubilee line) - 2 stops from baker street. also buses 82, 13, 113, C11 go past the restaurant.

check out write-up on toptable

Confirmed (please let me know if more people are coming or bringing along
partners)
1. Ambe+1
2. Arifa
3. Sanjiv Bhatia
4. Jayanth
5. Shailesh Sreedharan +1
6. Rama + 1
7. Rakesh Kapoor
8. Reema
9. Deepa + Anil

Tentatives
* Rekha Gomes
* Dipayan
* Gaurav Singh

Please let me know if there are any additions to the list...... would be lovely to see as many people as possible. I need to confirm numbers at the restaurant tonight. Email or call me for any changes. Also, on the day, if you need directions etc, feel free to call the restaurant at 020 7722 0606.
Deepa Abraham

Thursday, March 10, 2005

XLRI Placement creates New Records in a Unique Year

First placement season with increased batch size concludes with new records
Mittal Steel makes International Offer on first visit
Boston Consulting Group, HSBC Bank make highest domestic offers
31% of batch recruited by Banks, Financial Institutions and Insurance Sectors

It is placement season and the students of XLRI Jamshedpur have reason to rejoice as the final placement of the batch of 2005 concludes on a successful note yet again. The placement of the outgoing batch of 2005 was unique, as this was the first year after XLRI increased its Business Management batch size from 60 to 120. In all, there were over 180 XLers to be placed instead of the usual 120, as was the case until last year: increase, or no-increase, the confidence that the Corporate world reposes on XLers was reinforced, with the finest names in full action.

The statistics: XLRI had a first time international offer from Mittal Steel with a US $ 80,000 package – based out of Europe. XLRI also welcomed the prestigious Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for the first time – BCG made the highest domestic offer of Rs 12 Lakhs. This was closely followed by HSBC Bank, which made an offer of Rs 11 Lakh. The average salary of the batch was Rs 7.4 Lakhs, with Rs 4.5 Lakhs being the lowest.

The biggest recruiters this year were GE and IBM, which picked up 11 students each. Banks / Financial Institutions and IT / ITES sectors were tied at the top with 36 accepted offers each. Banks, Financial Institutions, and the Insurance Sector accounted for 31% of the batch, reaffirming the strong Finance base that XLRI has created over the years.

The FMCG Sector had 25 accepted offers (15% of the batch). Companies that made offers comprised regular big shots: Asian Paints, Cadbury, Coca-Cola, Colgate Palmolive, GlaxoSmithKline, HLL, ITC, Marico, Nestle, Pepsi, Reckitt Benckiser and Seagram. While ITC recruited 6 XLers, Asian Paints and Coke closely followed with 5 and 4 respectively.

Banks and Financial Institutions made their presence felt in a remarkable manner this year: Banking Majors included ABN Amro, Citibank, HSBC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Standard Chartered and UTI Bank. Standard Chartered had the highest number of accepted offers at 6, closely followed by UTI Bank with 5. Financial Institutions that had accepted offers were GE Money, GECIS, NCDEX and SBI Caps.

The sunrise Insurance Sector was a big hit this time with AIG, ICICI Lombard and ICICI Prudential having 12 accepted offers amongst them. ICICI Prudential and AIG had 6 and 4 accepted offers, respectively. Together, Banks, Financial Institutions and the Insurance Sector recruited 31% of the batch.

Consulting Firms accounted for 13% of the batch – the elite club had Accenture Business Consulting, BCG, Ernst & Young, Hewitt Associates, Mercer Human Resource Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers. While Hewitt had 6 accepted offers, E & Y had 5.

Recruiters from the Pharmaceutical Sector – Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Novartis and Ranbaxy – accounted for 6% of the batch. The Telecom Sector picked up 4% of the batch with majors Bharti and Mahindra British Telecom (MBT).

The other biggest recruiting industry was IT and ITES accounting for 24% of the batch – Cognizant Technology Solutions, eServe, HCL Technologies, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Infosys, Tata Technologies, TCS and Wipro had offers being accepted. IBM had 11; Cognizant 9 and TCS, Wipro had 5 accepted offers.

The Core Sector included L & T, Mittal Steel and Tata Steel, while General Management companies in the fray included Aditya Birla Group and TAS. Air India, iGate, Fleetguard, ICI Paints and Titan represented other diverse sectors.

XLRI welcomed first-time participants in Accenture (Business Consulting wing), Air India, Bharti, Boston Consulting Group, ICICI Lombard, MBT, Mittal Steel, NCDEX and Novartis. Cadbury, L&T, Nestle and Titan returned to XLRI’s Final Placements after a short break.


XLers also created a new record by bagging over 30 Pre-Placement Offers from companies, based on Summer Internship projects. The details:

BPCL, GE and HLL made 3 offers each.
AIG, Cognizant, Hewitt, Hewlett Packard and Mercer made 2 offers each.
Coke, DRL, Ernst & Young, Fleetguard, HSBC Bank, ICICI Prudential, L&T, Marico, NSEIT, Seagram, Standard Chartered and TAS all made an offer each.

In all, 35 Lateral offers and 30 pre placement offers were made. A combined number of 35 students signed out by accepting Pre-placement and Lateral offers.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

CRP 2005 Accomplished

well.. as usual everyone got placed [ho hum ;-)]

the key highlights would perhaps include the first international offer at XL ... LN mittal.. a cool $80,000. Also BCG recruited one person and so did HSBC Bank after quite some time..

the new companies: cadbury, nestle, novartis, accenture business consulting, intel & a few others the rest of the facts and figures are being compiled... In a day or so, we will have the exact numbers.. how many in each sector etc.....

Mohit Kishore
BM '05

On a lighter note :
In the meanwhile, the placecomm is working hard to calculate the average salary which was accepted by XL students. Average salary, incidentally, is not as easy to calculate as it seems. Hard decisions have to be taken, e.g., should the travel cost of the company executives to attend CRP be added to the CTC or not? is the market rental value of the office-space part of the monthly emoluments or not? if the company uses 3 bottles of Harpic to keep the office toilet, clean, and it is used by 23 people, how does one calulate the value to be added to the CTC? etc...

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Xl movements

Prasad Oommen Kurien (POK) PMIR 98 - joins HP GlobalSoft in Bangalore as a Organizational Effectiveness Consultant from StanChart's BPO SCOPE, in Chennai

Chand Narayan PMIR 2001 joins CNBC at Mumbai from Nipuna Services in Hyderabad

Gunjan from 2000 batch has moved to London.

Gaurav Narasimhan, BMD 99 has moved to Reston, VA to work with iGATE Global Solutions as a Principal in the Oracle Practice. He was previously with Oracle Consulting.

Reema Sen of PMIR 1995 who was with HSBC Hong Kong is now studying at LSE in London.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Job throb in B-School

Jamshedpur, March 6: Companies from the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector dominated the first slot of the annual campus recruitment process which entered its third day today. The campus recruitment programme (CRP) began on Friday.

XLRI sources said more than 20 companies, majority of them from FMCG sector, took part in the first phase selecting a sizeable number of students.

The companies included Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), Godrej, Glaxo, Coke, Reckitt Benckiser, Pepsi, Nestle, Cadbury, General Electric (GE), Accenture, Pricewater Coopers (PWC), Ernst and Young, ABN Amro, ICICI Bank and ICICI Prulife Insurance Company.

Olam International Limited, an international trading company, took part in the placement process for the first time and selected a few students. Sources said Coke, which had offered the highest salary last year, picked up four students — three from Business Management and one from Personnel Management and Industrial Relations offering attractive package.

XLRI officials said the second slot of placement process will see participation of companies from FMCG, banking, financial services and pharmaceutical sectors. Some of the prominent companies which will participate in the second slot are Marico Industries, IBM, Ranbaxy, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), IDBI Bank and Aditya Birla Group.

Last year’s batch had created a record with the entire batch bagging good job offers in just nine hours. Last year, the batch-size comprised 124 students as compared to 180 this year.

The campus wore a lively atmosphere and the mood among students was upbeat.

“The campus recruitment process is the culmination of two years of hard work. The portfolio of companies visiting XLRI this year is impressive not only in its size but also in its diversity. The companies are offering a attractive salary package this year,” said a student, who got an lucrative offer from Coke.

Last year, the highest salary was offered by Coke — Rs 8.78 lakh — while the average salary was Rs 7.14 lakh.

XLRI sources said this time too the placement process would be completed much before the expected time.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Alumni Cell created in XL.

Hi,
The students have created an Alumni Cell in XL. They are looking at co-ordinating with XL alumni all over the world.
Below is a appeal that they have sent out, to get in touch with Xlers.
Kim

Dear XLer,

Over the years XLRI has always taken pride in its strong Alumni Network and its importance in defining the image of the Institute in the Corporate world. In order to further strengthen this relationship, we are pleased to inform you that an Alumni Cell has been constituted by the students. The key objectives of this cell include:

Promotion of interaction between Alumni and the current student batches
Consolidation of Alumni information and creation/maintenance of an updated database that is easily accessible and can be a quick reference for all XLers
Coordination of Alumni Meets that will be held during the Summers and Alumni Homecoming celebrations
We seek your help to consolidate as well as update the current Alumni Database.
You are requested to verify your details mentioned below as well as those of your batchmates whom you know.
Any information regarding XLers from other batches is also welcome.

Kindly let us know about your expectations from this Alumni Cell, feedback on past Alumni Meets held during the Summers and suggestions/ queries We look forward to your valuable inputs.

Warm Regards,
The XLRI Alumni Cell (alumnicell@xlri.ac.in)

Batch
Program
Title
First Name
Last Name
Designation
Company/Institution
Country
Location (City)
Mobile
Telephone (O)
Fax(O)
Email (O)
Telephone (R)
Email (Personal)
Address (Contact)
Address (Permanent)

Friday, March 04, 2005

Domino CEO - Ajay Kaul (89BMD)

news item from Economic Times (March 2, 05), reports:

"It’s the year of homecoming for the Fredies (Foreign Returned Desi Executives).

So it wasn’t surprising when Coca-Cola India announced Vikas Gupta as its marketing head recently. He comes back after a five-year stint at Atlanta. Mr Gupta follows many other Fredies who have come home in the last few months.

They include the high-profile CEO of Britannia , Vinita Bali, Whirlpool MD, Arvind Uppal, Pepsi’s marketing head Punita Lal, and the new Domino CEO Ajay Kaul, who has been moved from Indonesia to head the pizza major’s Indian operations."

(the news about Vikas Gupta (88BMD) was already covered in an earlier posting)

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Dawn to Dusk Cricket mela on Mar 6 & March 20th!!! Chennai

Great news finally for all CRICKET LOVERS and FANS……. We are having a one day DAWN to DUSK cricket tournament this coming SUNDAY, 6th March, 2005 at the MAYAJAL CRICKET GROUND on the EC Road, just past the TOLL PLAZA.



Details are as below:



The 4 Participating teams are : XLRI, IIM-(A), IIM-(C) and a mixed team from the alumni of IIM-(B),(L) and (Kozhikode) institutes.
The trophy up for grabs will be the last year’s WINNERS Shield and RUNNERS UP Cup, the current holders of which are IIM-(A) and XLRI respectively.
The matches will be played on a 15 overs basis per side, each bowler will be allowed 3 Overs, each batsman to retire on reaching 25 runs, each wide ball bowled will be counted and 2 runs granted to the batting side. In case a team still has overs left to play and batsman at the crease is out, then any batsman who had retired earlier on reaching 25 runs will be allowed to return and bat on with the remaining batsman at the crease till the full quota of 25 overs is completed.
The schedule of matches shall be decided by draw of lots and shall be as below:


TEAM A vs TEAM B ---- starting time 7.45 am
TEAM C vs TEAM D ---- starting time 10.15 am
Winners of Match 1 vs Winners of Match 2 --- 12.45 pm
Losers of Match 1 vs Losers of Match 2 ---- starting time 3 pm if enthu still persists to play for the 3rd and 4th position.


Breakfast and lunch will be arranged for all participants at the venue on cost sharing basis. Beer is also available from MAYAJAAL on payment basis by respective individuals.
It is suggested that car pools be formed to transport all players and SUPPORTERS to the venue and back.
A combined alumni get together will be subsequently held at Madras Cricket Club on 20th March, 2005 wherein the various TEAM and Individual Prizes for best bowler, best batsman and best fielder shall also be distributed.


All XL alumni reading this, please pass on this news to others who may not be on the email yahoo group. Also very importantly, those interested in playing especially from the 1999 batch onwards please contact me or Tommy Philip.Equally important, we need cheerleaders to keep the ancient bodies moving on the ground !!! So ladies (oops girls) do come in numbers to cheer us. Transport will be laid on for all players and cheerleaders.

Hope to see lots of XLers in numbers at the MAYAJAAL ground on 6th March, 2005

Ciao,

Murali( XL – 84)

LG Ramaswamy

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Redmond Kaul-ing - Rajiv Kaul (92BMD)

Rajiv Kaul (92BMD), will be, as was reported in Economics Times earlier (Feb 4, 2005), the Head of "the Emerging Markets Group including the BRIC countries. Emerging countries are estimated to contribute about 40 pct to 50 pct of Microsoft’s business. In his new role, Mr Kaul will lead three teams in the US to devise strategies to create new business models and develop new partnerships suited for emerging markets."



After nine years in Microsoft India, four of them as Managing Director, Rajiv Kaul is moving on to bigger things at the software colossus. More specifically, he's headed to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond where he will head a newly-created group that will look after Windows in emerging markets.

"Discussions had been on for a few months," says the 36-year-old Kaul, when asked about this move. It will be some time yet before he moves out. "I do not expect to move before April or May at the earliest. It's not too easy to physically leave India," he says.

Kaul is particularly proud of Project Shiksha (computer literacy in schools for teachers and students) and Project Bhasha (computing in local languages), which he conceptualised and implemented in India. "These two have become global best practices for the company, and working on them, particularly Shiksha, has given me project experience at a global level, which I guess will hold me in good stead for my new assignment," he says. It's a window of opportunity, alright.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Finance seminar over video conference by XL alumnus KNV

From The Telegraph, Friday, February 18, 2005

Students of Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) got an opportunity to interact with USA-based alumni K.N. Venkatraman at a seminar “Careers in Forex, risk management and derivatives market”. The finance association of XLRI, Finax, organised the session. A distinguished alumnus of the 1990 batch, Venkatraman owns a consultancy firm in Delaware, USA. The interactive session was conducted through video-conferencing.

Full Story....

Thursday, February 17, 2005

New Marketing Chief of Coca Cola India - Vikas Gupta (88BMD)

Coca-Cola India has announced the appointment of Vikas Gupta (88BMD)as the Vice-President (Marketing for) India division that also includes Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives.

He will assume his new responsibilities at Coca-Cola India from March 1, 2005. Gupta replaces Shripad Nadkarni, the erstwhile marketing chief of Coca-Cola.

Vikas has worked with companies like Brooke Bond and Procter & Gamble India in their marketing departments between 1984 and 1994. He joined Coca-Cola India marketing team in 1994 and held various portfolios, including brands and regional marketing assignments. He moved to join Coca-Cola's marketing team at Atlanta in 1999 until his return to India last year.

Making the announcement, Sanjiv Gupta, president & CEO, Coca-Cola India, said, "We are delighted to have Vikas Gupta join us and look forward to propelling our marketing success to even greater heights under his leadership."

Vikas Gupta said, "I am excited to return to the Coca-Cola family that continues to create excitement in the markets and has won scores of national and international marketing excellence awards."

Vikas is an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur where he specialized in marketing and finance. Along with an extensive experience in marketing, he brings along an excellent knowledge of Indian markets, consumer insights and hands-on experience of having worked with the Coca-Cola system in India and Atlanta.

Temple raider - Ravi Mehrotra - 85BMD

Economic Times
February 15, 2005

Ravi Mehrotra, head of Franklin Templeton Investments, is one of those who believe that the mantra to success in the competitive world of investment management lies in being guided by virtues like discipline, patience and independent thought.

Some of these have paid off, as reflected in Mehrotra’s success in taking Templeton to the top of the mutual fund sweepstakes as the leading private fund house managing assets worth Rs 16,000 crore now.

There is another reason to gloat: the IPO of Templeton Flexicap fund has made history, mobilising over Rs 1,950 crore — a new high for an open-ended equity fund in the country.

Not to mention the record number of investor applications, estimated at two lakh, which poured in riding on the success of star performers in its funds’ stable like Templeton Prima and Templeton Bluechip.

All this could be gratifying for Mehrotra, who was part of the founding team of Kothari Pioneer, the first private player to enter the domestic MF business back in 1993.


A decade later, since taking over the reigns at Templeton, the fund house’s fortunes have been on an upswing, marked by an impressive growth in assets and in the performance of various schemes. For Mehrotra, donning the garb of a marketing man has come quite late.

Prior to his appointment as president of Templeton India in early ’03, Mr Mehrotra was director and chief investment officer (equity). He was in charge of investment strategy, asset allocation and directional support for Templeton’s equity schemes.

The XLRI alumni cut his teeth in investment banking. Starting off at Bank of America in Kolkata, he moved on to Mumbai as a member of the investment banking and treasury group.

In 1991, he left BankAm and co-founded Prime Securities. Two years later he moved to Kothari Pioneer. When Templeton took over Pioneer in ’02 he remained with the fund house.

Mehrotra has the rare gift of being able to demystify the stock markets in a simple, yet intelligent, manner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ravi Mehrotra (85BMD) has been in the media articles (BT,BW, BI, ET, BizStandard,, etc.) so many time during last 8 months or so, that one can create a separate blog to cover him:0)

He was covered on xlalumni blog in August:
http://xlalumni.blogspot.com/2004/08/movements-at-franklin-templeton.html

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Politics D-graded by B-grads

From The Times of India, Feb 14, 2005

JAMSHEDPUR: There is some bad news for the Rabri Devis and Chautalas of the country. B-school grads are disillusioned with the political system in the country and some of them are all set to take the political bastion by storm - armed with a vision of "people management".

If this assembly election has seen more than two MBAs, both from foreign universities contesting against political veterans, Jharkhand can expect more management gurus in politics in future - if concern expressed by a student of the Xavier Institute of Labour relations (XLRI) for the country is any indication. Shashank Abhishek who hails from the mica town of Giridih has a sincere urge to weed out "the crop of politicians who are dividing the country on caste and community lines.

The first-year student of this management school, which dominates the human resource segment in Asia, visualises himself as a political leader in future but not before he establishes himself in the corporate world to earn some big money. "Both business and politics are about managing people and if I can manage my business with elan, why not politics?

However, a majority of students, who had just graduated into voters and gathered at the cafeteria on Sunday evening, preferred to remain aloof from politics and politicians and most of them did not have the urge to even exercise their franchise. "It's a waste really since my vote will neither change the system nor will it raise the poor voter turnout in the country," said Kaushik Venkatraman, who was registered as a voter in Chennai.

Full Story...

POISE ... - International Student Exchange @ XLRI

POISE stands for Program for International Student Exchange - XL's student committee for the exchange programme. POISE has been in existence for a few years, but was formalized only two years back.

This year, we've managed to formalize tie-ups with Malardalen University, Sweden and Asian Institute of Management, Philippines. The exchange programmes will commence this year from the batch of 2004-06 - modalities are being worked out. Also, some other tie-ups are in the pipeline.

Vikram P. Dhunta
Business Management II (2003-05)
Secy., Program for International Student Exchange,
XLRI, Jamshedpur
poise@xlri.ac.in
www.xlri.ac.in/studentexchange

Monday, February 14, 2005

XL Celeb Watch : Nandita 2001

From: Shariq Siddiqui

Guess who's the latest XL Celeb on the block! Nan-da-cool! (ref attached)

That too not in some boring corporate supplement, but on the original Page 3 (i.e. Bombay Times). Well technically Page 2, but never mind!
:)

For those (on grax) who don't know who I'm talking about (how dare you!), it's Nandita da Cunha of BM 2001.

Full marks to Harish "Hawkeye" Balan for scanning the party rag even on Sunday ;)

Nan, you'll probably wanna kill me for passing this around...but hey, you gotta bear the price of fame!

Congrats babe!
~~~
Note : Unfortunately it being a scanned picture I couldnt figure out the technology to post it here : (

Saturday, February 12, 2005

A Virtual Finance Interaction...

KN Venkataraman aka "KNV" (90BMD), and the Finax Secy of that batch - and currently based in USA - met the present batches in the virtual space on the night of Feb 6th-7th.



This was the first among the (hopefully) many more such virtual interactions to come in future between the batches and alumni.
[for those who passed out long back, the venue "LH" mentioned in the poster above stands for "Lecture Hall"!!]

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Best Of X Factor - Blog

just to inform you, we have started a new blog: bestofxfactor.blogspot.com :-)

it has some of the best stuff that has come out on the x-factor...

- Mohit Kishore
Editor, X-factor

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Madhukar's new pastime : )

It is really unfortunate that all of you on this list are MBAs (or doing their MBA)... and are not aspirants for doing a MBA course.

So I feel really sad that, in your this life, you are going to miss this opportunity, which an MBA-aspirant can avail of posting a query to me (or to any of the other 6 people) on the BW MBA Advisory Panel:
http://www.businessworldindia.com/b%5Fschool/advisory_panel.htm
and get some gyan on high-funda issues in life

really sorry for you;0))
madhukar

Monday, February 07, 2005

XLRI kid wows world

XLRI kid wows world
- Kumar Anand wins laurels at global managers’ meet
PARVINDER BHATIA

Jamshedpur, Feb. 6 2005:

His paper on “intellectual capital and innovation” was adjudged “the most thought-provoking” one in the 26th MacMaster World Congress held in Canada. The sole delegate from India, his vision drew plaudits from no less a person than the former deputy Prime Minister and federal finance minister of Canada John Manley.

Meet Kumar Anand, a second-year business management student of Xavier Labour Relations Institute, who has returned to the city after winning laurels in the international circuit. “It is a great feeling. I am proud that my efforts have been rewarded,” said Anand.

The McMaster World Congress, a forum that brings management brains from across the globe together, was organised by the DeGroote School of Business, Canada, in association with the Management of Innovation and New Technology Research Centre (Canada) and the Taiwan Intellectual Capital Research Centre. The three-day conference was held from January 19 2005 at Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. Students from 70 universities across the world, including the University of Missouri, USA, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, and University of Basilicata, Italy, took part in the meet.

Anand's paper titled — “Managing Intellectual Capital in Growth Organisations in New Knowledge Economy” suggested a framework for organisations to manage their intellectual capital in the present hyper-competitive global economy. “ This is an age of knowledge-based economy. Consultants like MacKinsey have been able to capture the world market because of their knowledge base,” said the budding manager. He added that corporate houses in the country would have to focus more on knowledge capital.

Sharing his experience at the meet, Anand said, “It was a wonderful opportunity to learn, share and network with some of the best management brains across the globe. Equally stimulating were the queries from the international delegates about the Indian economy.” This is not the first time that Anand has impressed a global audience. He won accolades in the World Congress on Disaster Management held in New Delhi last year.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Prof. Dholakia's Speech at XL... From FE

Prof. Nikhilesh Dholakia, Professor of Marketing, E-Commerce, and International Business in the College of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island (URI) visited XL on Jan 31.

He spoke on "IT-enabled Globalization: Interplay of Economics, Politics, Culture"...

Excerpts from The Financial Express, National Edition, Feb 2, 2005:

BOTTOMLINE

‘India, China could become the tail that wagged global IT dog’



JAMSHEDPUR, FEB 1: The share of India and China in the global IT industry would go up in the near future despite the fact that India’s current share is a mere $50 million in the $2,600 billion worth global IT industry, as per Nik Dholakia.

Giving his views on the business process outsourcing (BPO) scenario the world over, especially in the Indian and the US context, Prof Dholakia said the momentum was definitely tilted towards China and India.
The global IT industry is currently estimated to comprise an electronics goods market worth $300 billion, a computers and software market worth $1,000 billion and a $1,300 billion telecom market.

Speaking at XLRI campus here on IT-enabled globalisation of what he described as his “aerial view” of India, Prof Dholakia said even though the numbers were very small and India’s contribution was not even a drop in the bucket, yet in the global IT industry, India and China (the latter because of its hardware base) could become the tail that wagged the global dog.

“Right now India to them is some kind of a nebulous threat where all the IT and call-centre people are sitting and taking away jobs,” said Prof Dholakia while describing the common perception in the US. He added, “The changes we are seeing in India are catering to only the 20 million elite (which includes 5 million people associated with the information and communication technology sector) with a per capita annual income of $3,000 to $20,000 or more.”

Though it was a phenomenal change, but it was still, even in India, just like scratching the surface, he added. Prof Dholakia was confident that BPO was not going to disappear but would only grow with companies outsourcing finding newer ways of ‘slicing’ jobs and manufacturing processes.

According to the professor, although for overseas clients the cost-advantage for outsourcing jobs to India was gradually narrowing down, it would still be the ‘overtaking of skill’ factor which would bring jobs to India. Thus, availability of better skills in India, he thinks, would continue to bring outsourced jobs into the country. Other countries like China (which is currently doing a massive English-language training), Vietnam, the Philippines, Ghana, South Africa and Pakistan were all gearing up fast and eyeing at BPO, he observed. Simultaneously, the phenomenon of ‘near shoring’ — outsourcing to nearby countries where the time-zone was not a factor — was also on the rise.

The EU, with its expanding membership, was giving preference to the new aspiring member-states for bagging outsourced jobs, he said. According to Prof Dholakia, companies like Infosys and Wipro are opening up offices in the Czech Republic, Romania, etc, for bagging ‘near shoring’ BPO jobs. The issue of cultural comfort was also a matter to be reckoned with in outsourcing, he said.

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