Events at Prestige University

 We recently invited members of our Board of Studies and a couple of other committees to the campus for deliberations on current curricula and future directions.

We had some stalwarts from companies such as Ernst and Young, KPMG, and some academic heavyweights who came from IIT Delhi, IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore and so on. 

We got a few good ideas, and intend to work on them. Our 5-month internship for MBA students was roundly applauded. Also our emphasis on industry interaction at all levels, and our innovative pedagogy.

Some pics from the event. 

Some members also enjoyed a visit to Mandu.

Dinner at a rooftop restaurant, and 

below, a photo op in a classroom.

Some of the deliberations that went on...

IIM Indore-NASMEI Marketing Conference 2017

One of the most successful conferences we organised when I was with IMT was  the Case conference at Goa's International Centre. Looks like the IIM Indore Marketing Conference on July 28th and 29th with NASMEI and UT Austin is all set to surpass that one. We have 300 plus papers on a variety of marketing topics, and top academicians from leading management institutes are participating either as presenters or invited speakers, making it one of the biggest marketing events in India. In addition, we have a few global stalwarts like Raji Srinivasan, Manoj Agarwal, and Phil Zerillo who will grace the occasion. Industry is also well-represented, with people like Shiv Kumar from Pepsi and Rama Bijapurkar, consultant, speaking at the event.

My young colleague Abhishek Mishra and his able conference manager Veenus, aided by a team of FPM students and staff, are the reason for the success.

Next week is going to be a power-packed and interesting one. Looking forward to it.

Visiting Faculty

Visiting faculty are of many kinds. This is my observation based on "years of experience" with them.

1. The humble, do my job and get on kind.

2. The arrogant, I know it all kind-usually from industry

3. The crowd-pleasing types, equivalent to the populist politicians (both from industry and academia)

4. Extremely boring but technically proficient in a narrow field

5. Full of war stories-boasting about what they did (many of these are a result of wild imagination rather than fact)

6. Good blenders of theory and practice (many with modest experience of both industry and academia)

7. Good researchers with lots of publications to their credit, with little idea of how practicable any of their research is (academicians, of course)

8. Good communicators, and little else- they can speak on any subject under the sun.

That's all for now. Will be back when I can remember other types.

HR Analytics

Can human beings be analysed? There are jokes galore about men being an open book and women being difficult to figure out. But seriously, HR analytics is an idea whose time has arrived. In line with analytics of customers (marketing analytics) and Financial analytics (analysis of anything financial, such as instruments, investments, companies or what have you), HR analytics- both explanatory and predictive, has the potential to improve HR strategy and its impact on the organisation.

IMT Nagpur today launched its centre of excellence (a research centre) on Human Resource Analytics in style- at Hotel Airport Centre Point, Nagpur. It brought in HR experts from corporates in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and of course, Nagpur. There was a good gathering of all HR faculty and some others, student managers with interest in the area, and faculty research associates. An old friend, Mr. Vijay Phanshikar, who had launched my autobiography in Nagpur a year ago, was also there.

We hope many good things will come out of this initiative.

Making Life Interesting

How to make life interesting is a challenge. One can focus on oneself, or you can look outwards. Both have possibilities. You can learn new things, do new things, delve into philosophy or the meaning of life whatever interests you. You can learn to sing, or play an instrument. Or more easy, read. Or travel. Blogging might be an option too, though it is a little harder for some.

I visited a factory set up by an engineering classmate today, and refreshed a few engineering fundas that I had forgotten long ago. This is an engineering niche product sold across the world by only 3-4 companies, his company being one of the elite crowd. We got to discussing competition, and surprisingly, he said there was little of it. In this day and age, I thought it was amazing that there are businesses without much competition. Wouldn't we all love to be in one such? But then, look around and you will find that in each industry, there are some companies that customers love, and others are also-rans. Worth thinking about the reasons. Not all of them are realising their potential. Same with us? Maybe. Maybe interesting to think about it in our own context. That should make life interesting for a while.