Amway India ties-up with IIM Calcutta for a special course focused on entrepreneurship and leadership for its high potential direct sellers

Kolkata: Amway India, the country's leading direct selling FMCG Company, has tied-up with IIM Calcutta for a special course focused on entrepreneurship and leadership for its identified high potential direct sellers. This is the first time that Amway India has tied-up with a premier management institute for a special course for its direct sellers.  The company has shortlisted 100 direct sellers who have demonstrated strong performance and business excellence over the past few years for this program.

Amway India strategically invests in skilling and nurturing entrepreneurship amongst its direct sellers. The company offers free training to them by conducting more than 18,000 training sessions during an average 12-month period besides the presence of a comprehensive digital learning portal (E-learning).

Speaking on the occasion, Anshu Budhraja, General Manager, Amway India, said, "The tie-up with IIM Calcutta is focused on building skills and competencies of our high potential direct sellers to help them compete in an evolving entrepreneurship landscape. Micro-Entrepreneurship, generating self-employment through skilling is a key priority for government of India. We too are aligning our training strategy by focusing on enhancing skills and competencies of our direct sellers."

 "Amway India approached IIM Calcutta to arrange a series of workshops for their high potential direct sellers on subjects related to Entrepreneurship, sales, marketing and motivational leadership. The key takeaways from this short residential course at IIM Calcutta would include (1) building their direct selling businesses through innovative thinking, (2) training team members in latest sales skills, and (3) becoming a motivational leader and team builder through effective communications," said Prof Ramendra Singh, programme coordinator and faculty at IIM Calcutta.

 
Source: Indiaeducationdiary, 25-01-2017  

Cabinet approves Indian Institute of Management Bill, 2017 

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the Indian Institute of Management(IIM) Bill, 2017, under which the IIMswould be declared as Institutions of National Importance which will enable them togrant degrees to their students.

Following are the salient features of the Bill:

         i.            IIMs can grant degrees to their students

       ii.            The Bill provides for complete autonomy to the Institutions, combined with adequate accountability.

      iii.            Management of these Institutions would be Board driven, with the Chairperson and Director of an Institution which will be selected by the Board.

     iv.            A greater participation of experts and alumni in the Board is amongst otherimportant features of the Bill.

       v.            Provision has also been made for inclusion of women and members from Scheduled Castes/Tribes in the Board. 

     vi.            The Bill also provides for periodic review of the performance of Institutions by independent agencies, and placing the results of the same on public domain.

    vii.            The Annual Report of the Institutions will be placed in the Parliament and CAG will be auditing their accounts.

  viii.            There is also a provision of  Coordination Forum of IIMs as an advisory body.

Background:

Indian Institutes of Management are the country's premier institutions imparting best quality education in management on globally benchmarked processes of education and training in management. IIMs are recognized as world-class management Institutions and Centers of Excellence and have brought laurels to the country. All IIMs are separate autonomous bodies registered under the Societies Act.

Being societies, IIMs are not authorized to award degrees and, hence, they have been awarding Post Graduate Diploma and Fellow Programme in Management. While these awards are treated as equivalent to MBAs and Ph.D, respectively, 

Source: indiaeducationdiary, 24-01-2017

the equivalence is not universally acceptable, especially for the Fellow Programme.

IIM Amritsar to start classes in July

IIM Amritsar, being mentored by IIM Kozhikode, is likely to have distinct advantages of being in one of the best locations among the 6 new IIMs coming up this year. The new Indian Institute of Management in Punjab is all set to commence its activities from July this year, with site selection committee finalizing land in the city of Amritsar.

IIM Amritsar would launch the most prestigious programme from IIMs – Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management for which the institute would be selecting up to 65 best students from those who have appeared in Common Admission Test (CAT) of IIMs and have indicated interest in ‘IIM in Punjab’.

Shortlisted students are now invited to confirm their interest on IIM Amritsar website currently hosted at www.iimk.ac.in/iimamritsar/

The admission process is likely to be completed by July 20, 2015 and the classes would begin from July end.

The fee for two-year Post Graduate Programme at IIM Amritsar has been fixed at Rs.9 lakh which includes hostel accommodation, books and learning material apart from tuition fee. Leading banks would offer financial assistance in the form of educational loans at the terms they generally offer to students admitted in any other IIM.

IIM Amritsar campus is proposed to come up at a site near Manawala on Amritsar-Jalandhar GT Road in 60 acres of flatland. While it may take about 2–3 years before the infrastructure and campus is setup and ready for use, the institute would begin operating from the Punjab Institute of Technology located in the Government Polytechnic College, Amritsar compound till its own campus is ready to use.

IIM Kozhikode would develop the programme and put together systems and process to lay a strong foundation in building of another great institution of professional learning.

Give the IIMs their freedom

There is an irony here that is hard to miss. The three oldest Indian Institutes of Management — IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore — were established many years before India embraced the market economy model. With recommendations that came from the Planning Commission and working in a socialist framework, they have functioned autonomously to evolve best management practices and, with some help from America, today figure among India’s best-known global brands. Over the years they have benefited from the autonomy granted to them, which has enabled them to work independently in deciding what is best for them. In the true sense of the term, the IIMs have essentially been market-oriented institutions. The government that is now at the helm has an avowedly pro-market disposition too, and has in the recent past cut budgetary support for many welfare measures. The real objective of seeking to impose controls on the management institutes — of which there are 13 today — has therefore perplexed observers. To be fair, the NDA government is not to be blamed entirely. The Congress-led UPA, under Minister Kapil Sibal, set the process going. A committee that he appointed was accused of pursuing the objective of out-and-out privatisation of the IIMs. The Ministry of Human Resource Development under Smriti Irani is now seeking to regulate them by means of the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2015, in the text of which the word ‘regulate’ recurs with regularity. The Bill is now in the public realm for comments and will of course pass through Parliament. There is reason to believe that the special status enjoyed by the institutes is being sought to be diluted by bringing in other business schools also within the ambit of the Bill. That is not to say the Bill is without any positive aspects. It promises to meet a long-pending demand to convert diplomas awarded by the IIMs into degrees.

But the real question is whether government control would help make these institutes centres of excellence. Public-funded institutes in India figure nowhere in the top 100 global ranking index. The Indian Institutes of Technology have functioned autonomously in deciding their own curriculum, yet evidently the government is seeking to interfere in their functioning. In the case of the IIMs Bill, it is not clear to what extent the government intends to meddle with the academic structure. What is evident is that major decisions can be taken only with prior government approval. Also, determining the fee structure, a contentious issue in the past, will be subject to governmental nod. The government ought to tread carefully here. It would be appropriate to take the IIMs along while giving final shape to the Bill, which has the potential to alter their structure.

Keywords: Indian Institutes of Management Bill, IIM, IIM bill

100% placement at IIM-Trichy, average salary escalates

In the present scenario, not just the major IIM’s, but also the newer ones, are setting excellent placement records. IIM’s have always set benchmarks for academic excellence and this year, IIM-Tiruchirappalli (IIM-T) has recorded 100 per cent placement, with marginally higher average salaries than last year.

It may be mentioned here that sometime back, Prof Saral Mukherjee, who served as Chairperson of the Placement Committee at IIM Ahmedabad during 2008-12 and as Member of the Placement Committee (2012-13) had said that placements at IIMs are not an entitlement, determined by mood in corporate India.

IIM-T has informed that out of the total 106 students belonging to the batch of 2013-15, 103 registered for placements and all were placed. In all, 103 recruiters visited the campus as against 76 companies last year. 106 offers were made, with students getting multiple offers, compared to 86 offers last year.

The highest salary offer this year was Rs 19.50 lakhs, marginally higher from Rs 19.25 lakh offered last year. The institute said that the number of offers at the higher band exceeded last year’s numbers. At the lower end, the minimum salary package witnessed a 20% increase from last year and ended at Rs 7.5 lakh. The median annual compensation levels continued to be around Rs 11 lakh.

Abhishek Totawar, chairperson, placement & external relations at IIM-T said, “Our biggest efforts this time was to match students’ interests with the recruiters and job profiles and we have been able to satisfy majority of our students”.

IIM-K Student Bags Rs 43-lakh Global Offer

Sreeradha Basu

Mumbai:





Top local offer at . 29.5 lakh; offers ` per recruiter up 13%

`Offer in hand; out of the process' has been the norm at the IIM Kozhikode placements so far. This year, in anticipation of a flurry of offers, the business school rolled out the dream offer provision where, even with one job offer in hand, students could try a second time for the `dream company' of their choice.The institute has just wrapped up its final placements with a top international offer . 43 lakh made by a conglomof ` erate -a 30% increase over last year -and a top domestic offer of `. 29.5 lakh by an ecommerce firm.
The average package at the institute is ` . 14.92 lakh, as compared to ` . 13.7 lakh last year.The top 50 students in the 347strong batch have bagged an average salary of ` . 21.89 lakh, while for the top 100, the corresponding figure is ` . 19.7 lakh.
There has been a 13% increase in the number of offers per recruiter.
While the idea of the dream offer came about last year, it was only implemented this time around, AF Mathew, chairperson -placements at IIM-K told ET.
As per this provision, students are allowed to choose a dream company before the start of the placements. Those who have received pre-placement offers (PPOs) are not eligible for the dream offer provision -the aim being to introduce it in a staggered manner -but these students, along with the rest of the batch, are eligible for `open' companies that are designat ed so by the faculty placements committee.
This year, two companies have been classified as open companies at IIM Kozhikode: McKinsey and Catamaran Ventures -the venture fund backed by NR Narayana Murthy. The results for both the companies are awaited.
A total of 97 recruiters participated in the final placements, with 34 being firsttime recruiters. Over 15 international offers were made from companies including Tolaram Group and Paramount Systems, with roles being based out of Africa and the Middle East.
The number of PPOs, at 72, saw a marked rise of 38% over last year. The major recruiters this season were Goldman Sachs, IBM Consulting, KPMG, Samsung, Snapdeal and Vodafone, who made a total of 73 offers.
New recruiters included Axis Bank, Bluestone, Britannia, Cinepolis, Future Group, HP, Heinz, Hexaware, Idea, Infosys Management Consulting, InMobi, Lenovo, Snapdeal, Tata Communications, The Royal Bank of Scotland and ZS Associates, among others.
Finance firms made offers to 19% of the batch while sales and marketing domain absorbed another 23%. Another 23% were made offers in the consulting space, while roles in general management went to 15% of the batch.