Review of the Last Few Months of 2025

 First three or four months of 2025 were spent in retirement- turned out to be a break. Because by end- April, I was back working full time, in a new place. JIS University, Kolkata, a 10- year-old private university. The pluses- an established university, unlike Prestige, my last workplace where I was the Founding VC.

Another plus was that the top management team including the VC and the other Pro VC, was new. So we could view things differently.

Of course, legacy issues were there- a closed loop view of West Bengal for admissions and some of the placements. Affecting diversity and output, to a certain extent. The campuses being spread out also affected coordination at times. 

Some achievements during this period- improving processes, accountability and governance structure within the university. Establishing a structure with new Deans for Research, and Student/alumni interaction, for example, will have a long term impact. Regular discussions on how to improve diversity in admissions have been taking place, with some actionable plans from the team.

A couple of good FDPs and conferences have also happened, across departments. Student participation in placements is looking up, and so is the faculty participation. Ph. D. admissions in most departments have a good demand. Admissions in B.Sc. Agriculture have gone up. Entrepreneurship related events and cultural activities have picked up steam. An MoU with a Malaysian Tech university (APU) has been signed.

The Medical college under JIS University has got permission to run Post Graduate courses recently. The brand is bound to make its presence felt in many ways, beyond the state. 

Personal Branding Vs. Organisational Branding

 Just how much of personal branding is 'personal' and how much of it is intertwined with the organisation you are with?

My thoughts are - your personal attributes are a part of your personal brand. They create other peoples' impression about you. This is an image built on your expertise, or your charisma (for celebrities, particularly, but not always), or your character - as in reliable, friendly, non-judgemental, kind and so on.

Organisational/product brands are purposefully created to reinforce a certain image (positioning?) that the company wants to reinforce so that target customers buy/continue to buy their product. As in Britannia biscuits brands, or a restaurant brand like Chaayos. Their characteristics are related to that product/service and (hopefully) differentiated from others.

Sometimes, these two intersect, with a founder or long-serving CEO, whose image kind of merges with that of his organisation. In the first couple of decades of Infosys' growth, Narayana Murthy became the brand ambassador and his persona merged with that of Infosys. Virgin Atlantic's founder Richard Branson, and Vijay Mallya (King of Good Times) also come to mind.

However, with people who work for many different organisations during their lifetime and contribute in each, their personal brand may be stronger than a particular organisation's. Some IAS/IPS officers who serve in different roles leave an impression for their personal qualities such as integrity or efficiency. So do a few in social sectors, not just corporate roles. Or in journalism. Or education, for that matter.

Alumni of NMIMS Bangalore

 

Jab we met- for lunch (above) and for Golf at campus (below)

A BBA alumna and an MBA All-rounder (above and below) 

The BBA team which won Entrepreneurship awards (above)

Below- A couple of alums from MBA and Exec PGDM

Golf practice, with some current students -above

farewell for Placecom of the graduated batch -below. 

Convocation above, physical, 2022.

Below, with President of Alumni Association, NMIMS Mumbai.

Successful Branding

 Branding involves Product + Image in case of physical products. Or, Service Experience + Image in case of service brands. The intangible part is mostly in the image, creating which usually takes a long time, and involves word-of-mouth plus imagery created through associations, communication etc. The tangible part can often be copied.

Some Indian brands that have done very well over the years include-

Amul

Asian Paints

Fevicol

D Mart

Flipkart

Coffee Day

Good Knight, Ujala, Krack, Moov

International Brands or Global Brands (people) include- 

Parasuraman of Services Marketing fame, CK Prahalad of BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) fame, Raghuram Rajan of Chicago, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, etc. 

Professors can brand themselves by publishing, consulting or writing books, apart from teaching well or uniquely. I can remember some from IIMB and Clemson (Cantrell, McNichols, Stahl) who were unique, after many years.

Students can excel in class, or in extra-curriculars. My suggestion is that you also do something unique, or much better than anyone, like blog, take photos, make films, play online games or create some, write cases or research papers.

A word about image of some politicians- 

Putin, Xi, Kim of North Korea, and the first Prime Minister of Singapore- Lee Kuan Yew. What's the word that comes to your mind when you think about each one? That's called Association, and can be a good test in reverse, as in "What's the brand that comes to mind first when given a word, say a 'crunchy treat?' "

And a word about Brand Value. There are many ways to estimate this, and for listed companies, one formula is Market Cap-Book Value. This measures the contribution of perceptions about the intangible value that can be attributed to the "Brand" that the corporation represents.

Marketing research can show you the health of a brand through Tracking studies done regularly. Unaided recall, Aided recall, loyalty, and perceptions against competing brands are some of the brand-related research studies done by many brands.

Bonus- Adding some Social Media Use Pointers (for better branding) from various sources- Guy Kawasaki is one.

1. Do more rather than less. Many reasons- it's an ocean, you are likely to get lost in it. Of course, this assumes you are sharing sense and not nonsense (from your followers' point of view, before you ask).

2. Be bold, and take positions. This establishes your credibility (assuming you want it).

3. Choose a good picture of yours for the Media, and stick to it for a while. If you don't have a good picture, God help you. Also, be visual, in general.

4. Don't use bad words. Bad words are bad on any medium. Learn to do without them, unless you are a teen trying to be cool. (Everything is pardoned THEN)

5. It's impossible to generate loads of new content regularly. Use curated stuff mixed with original content. Cite the source, where applicable.

6. Provide information, analysis, help or entertainment. They work better than other content, particularly if you are trying to build a large or regular following. How to Videos on Youtube are one example.

Thought Leaders

 These are few and far between. In any field. This is ironic, since as a species, humans are supposed to be thinkers of a higher order than other animals/species. Maybe the way we have built society, politics, governance, bureaucracy, education etc. has something to do with it. Thinking skills are hardly rewarded anywhere, from education to corporate work cultures, despite the usual lip service to 'thinking outside the box.'

But there have been a few souls that I can think of in India, who contributed immensely to our country's progress, through thinking big, fresh and also helping implement those thoughts-at least one of these two. 

Verghese Kurien, through spearheading the White Revolution, ensured availability of milk, to a population that was malnourished and deprived of this basic nutrition-especially children. Farmers' interests were also protected, because it was done through cooperatives.

Sreedharan, on the other hand, implemented Metro railway and other projects successfully, and brought to urban commuters a safe and reliable mode of transport. The founder of Nirma showed us the power of advertising and pricing, albeit with help from an ad agency that created the best-selling campaign. Similarly, Amitabh Kant spearheaded advertising campaigns for Brand India and Brand Kerala with the Incredible India and God's Own Country campaigns. 

The Tatas set up institutes of learning in diverse fields such as Science and Social sciences, when none existed-at least not of high quality.

ISRO did some good things.

Manmohan Singh and Narasimha Rao at the centre, and Chandrababu Naidu in his stint as Chief Minister, brought in a vision of something drastically different from the plodding on governance and licensing. Maybe the Healthcare crisis brought on by COVID 19 will spur something in the healthcare sector? Maybe we can become vaccine suppliers to the world, at the very least?