HDFC Bank

Ages ago (it seems), India had a nationalised banking system, and they used to treat customers like dirt. And for housing, there was no one to turn to for loans. Then Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) was set up and the rest is history. They became the pioneers of the housing finance industry in India. All others were imitators. Later on, the company ventured into banking for retail and corporate sectors. All through, they preserved their ethical standards of doing business. Briefly, we worked for the erstwhile HDFC as their market research agency when I worked in industry in the mid-eighties. I was struck by their professionalism and niceness towards everyone, customers and others, while dealing with the company.

The reason for such a long spiel about the company is that even today, they come across as a very honest, conservative bank- which is probably how a bank should be- if you don't want to send the financial world into a tailspin, that is. They have a program of recruiting managers for their fast-growing branches through a collaborative effort with select B schools, and IMT Nagpur is one of those B Schools.

Activity filled week at IMT Nagpur

We just finished doing an MDP (management development program for those unaware of the acronym) for the GMR group. Their executives came in for a 3-day program at the campus. We also had a visit fron HDFC for a campus recruitment program for the first leg of a sort of combined training-cum-recruitment process. The offers will be made to successful students after a training program of a few weeks done both by HDFC and our faculty. This is an interesting way to recruit students.

We also just finished a 2 day conference on MSME sector (Micro, Small and Medium is the expansion of the acronym). Some interesting stats on MSMEs and their contribution to the GDP and exports came up. But some of their problems seem to be timeless. Anyway, researchers made a great effort to document many different facets. This was our second conference since June. Three more are slated in the rest of the year.

We are doing an SPSS (Stat Package for Social Sciences) training program from tomorrow for 3 days. This package is useful for statistical analysis, and doctoral students and faculty in particular. You can do stuff such as regression and other analyses using this.

We also have an entrance test for our Ph.D. program offered in partnership with National Law University at Jodhpur on 27th. So the action continues through this week.