Even as domestic average pay packets in the top B-Schools closed on the Rs 10-lakh mark this year, some students have opted for what they call the ‘right job’ instead of getting attracted by the lure of the lucre.
These students of top management institutes, including the IIMs and ISB(Hyderabad), took an offer that had package differentials to the tune of upto Rs 3 lakh, which translated into a differential of 20-30% of their total pay package.
In the case of the ISB, Hyderabad, whose placement cycle is in its final stages, at least seven students declined offers with a bigger pay packet. The list included Karthik Ramakrishnan, who has opted for a job in the media sector which offered him Rs 3 lakh lower than the offer from a consultancy firm.
According to him, “Although I always wanted to get into consulting, an entrepreneurial offer like the radio offer is hard to come by straight out of B-school. It involved a trade-off, since the consulting offer was higher paying, but for me the thrill of doing something new scores over money anyday.”
Some other students who opted for a lower package for a different job of their choice included - Akshay Singhal who opted for a consultancy over an IT company(differential of Rs 3 lakh), Amit Gupta who opted for consultancy over financial services (Rs 2 lakh) and Bhasker Mehdi who accepted the offer of a medical services company instead of an IT company with a difference of about
At IIM -A at least two students opted for A relatively lower packet within domestic offers, which translated into a differential to the tune of Rs 1-1.5 lakh per annum. These include Ravi Swaminathan and Preeti Patel.
In the case of IIM(Calcutta), which clocked the highest average domestic package amongst all IIMs(Rs 9.81 lakh) this year , the differential was to the tune of Rs 1.5-2 lakh where a student opted for a position in a FMCG company over a bank even though the latter was offering more.
As expected the biggest differentials were accounted for by students who opted for a domestic job over the dollar salaries offered for an international posting. This, however, needs to factor in higher living costs abroad.
These include names like Yashraj Erande of ISB who opted for consultancy firm Boston Consultancy Group(BCG) over a Dallas posting of an IT company, which had a package of $80,000 attached to it. The difference was to the tune of Rs 27 lakhs in Indian currency.
The differentials were again substantial in case of two IIM Calcutta students Abhimanyu Ganesh and Arpit Badjatiya who declined international offers in the Investment Banking space amounting to about $110,000 to opt for management consulting in India.
Two other ISB students also opted for a domestic job even as they had an international offer –– Bhagyashri Shinde settled for an IT company which offered Rs 8 lakh less than the offer from an international investment bank and Simran Khara who chose to forego a similar amount by choosing a consultancy firm in India as against an international offer from a financial services company.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Sunday, March 19, 2006
No Indian B-school on top
Coming close on the heels of the government reluctantly allowing Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to open branches abroad, a rather distressing but not unsurprising bit of news filtered through last week. According to a Financial Times survey, no Indian business school figures in the top 100 business schools in the world. One would have thought that the IIMs, established in the 1960s, would have forced their way into the elite group. After all, 45 years of being at the top in India should have created a global brand rubbing shoulders with the best.
Indeed, the timing of the survey is fortuitous since it comes at a time when supply of cross-border education and tuition fees charged by management institutes has been discussed passionately by both sides in this debate. One view has been that Indian business schools should be confined to addressing the domestic market before they venture abroad, while the tuition fees they charge should be capped at about one-third of what schools are on average charging at the moment.
Both steps are retrograde and fortunately neither of them is being pursued with any degree of seriousness. The IIMs have been allowed to go abroad and the Supreme Court has decreed that the fees should be decided by the individual school with the state government’s oversight.
Both these factors are among several that influence the quality of a business school and its international reputation. The others are quality of students, faculty, infrastructure and placements and the FT survey dutifully captures all of these. If the resultant index is interpreted as reflecting international competitiveness, then it can serve as a guide for strategic direction and policy initiatives.
That no Indian B-school is internationally competitive is a result of the lack of international and domestic competition. This may be a surprising statement given that 1,200 or more such schools exist in India. The market has settled itself into an equilibrium where there is not much “competition’ for students among the various segments. Competition is much more effective and severe among the students themselves. The status quo thus established is comfortable and as long as there is an endless supply of domestic students, the equilibrium is unlikely to be disturbed. This is similar to the protected market that was available to Indian automobile companies, for instance, in the 1980s, replete with long waiting lists and a conspicuous absence of innovative activity.
Allowing B-schools to establish branches abroad is a necessary but not sufficient condition to disturb the existing equilibrium. While such a move can no doubt act as a “window” of learning for the schools going abroad, it will not spur “innovation” in domestic management education. What is needed is lowering entry barriers for overseas business schools to establish branches in India (a la Singapore) as well as for private domestic players to enter the education market space. Niche players like ISB are unlikely to provide effective competition to the established schools. Foreign business schools will not pose a threat to domestic schools, given their high establishment costs. Ultimately, it seems that intense domestic competition and the fight for attaining leadership will provide the right incentives for a few Indian business schools to emerge as world class.
Indeed, the timing of the survey is fortuitous since it comes at a time when supply of cross-border education and tuition fees charged by management institutes has been discussed passionately by both sides in this debate. One view has been that Indian business schools should be confined to addressing the domestic market before they venture abroad, while the tuition fees they charge should be capped at about one-third of what schools are on average charging at the moment.
Both steps are retrograde and fortunately neither of them is being pursued with any degree of seriousness. The IIMs have been allowed to go abroad and the Supreme Court has decreed that the fees should be decided by the individual school with the state government’s oversight.
Both these factors are among several that influence the quality of a business school and its international reputation. The others are quality of students, faculty, infrastructure and placements and the FT survey dutifully captures all of these. If the resultant index is interpreted as reflecting international competitiveness, then it can serve as a guide for strategic direction and policy initiatives.
That no Indian B-school is internationally competitive is a result of the lack of international and domestic competition. This may be a surprising statement given that 1,200 or more such schools exist in India. The market has settled itself into an equilibrium where there is not much “competition’ for students among the various segments. Competition is much more effective and severe among the students themselves. The status quo thus established is comfortable and as long as there is an endless supply of domestic students, the equilibrium is unlikely to be disturbed. This is similar to the protected market that was available to Indian automobile companies, for instance, in the 1980s, replete with long waiting lists and a conspicuous absence of innovative activity.
Allowing B-schools to establish branches abroad is a necessary but not sufficient condition to disturb the existing equilibrium. While such a move can no doubt act as a “window” of learning for the schools going abroad, it will not spur “innovation” in domestic management education. What is needed is lowering entry barriers for overseas business schools to establish branches in India (a la Singapore) as well as for private domestic players to enter the education market space. Niche players like ISB are unlikely to provide effective competition to the established schools. Foreign business schools will not pose a threat to domestic schools, given their high establishment costs. Ultimately, it seems that intense domestic competition and the fight for attaining leadership will provide the right incentives for a few Indian business schools to emerge as world class.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
B-schools grads salaries on the rise
They may not be the first business school most MBA aspirants in India want to get into (let's face it, IIM-Ahmedabad is still what everyone aspires for, followed by IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta), but there is no overlooking the fact that these B-schools are among the best in the country.
Places like Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), IMT Ghaziabad and T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) have made their presence felt on the Indian management school scene and have, of late, started to register on the radar of companies like Colgate Palmolive and Nestle who earlier only went to the absolute top notch schools to recruit.
And the reason according to Varda Pendse, director, Cerebrus Consultants, an HR consultancy, is pretty clear too. "With IIM graduates preferring foreign companies, Indian companies are being forced to move to the next level of B-schools," she says.
But this does not mean that the companies are settling for anything but the best. The top students at these institutes are easily at par with the students at other IIMs, and also, these companies are given the first preference when interacting with the students at these institutes, so in the process end up recruiting the brightest students of the batch.
Most of these institutes have finished their final placements for 2006, and the numbers speak for themselves. The highest salary at TAPMI has gone up from Rs 6.75 lakh (Rs 675,000) last year to Rs 7.75 lakh (Rs 775,000) this year and Professor Raghunath, chairman, placement committee, TAPMI, says that one trend visible this year has been the increased recruiting by the IT and financial services sectors.
At IMT Ghaziabad too, it is a similar story. The highest domestic salary offered here was Rs 9.25 lakh (Rs 925,000) by Genpact, substantially higher than
Rs 7.52 lakh (Rs 752,000) which was the top offer last year, says Professor Nilanjan Chattopadhyay, chairman-placements, IMT Ghaziabad.
This is easily at par with the highest salary at Jamnalal Bajaj last year, which will have its round of placements only next month. At SIBM, the top international offer was $64,000, while the domestic one from JP Morgan was Rs 8.9 lakh (Rs 890,000). On most campuses, a fair number of companies had to return empty handed with placements being completed in between 5-8 hours for about 150 students.
Pendse points out: "While the salary for a particular profile would be the same irrespective of the institute, chances are that the differences in the compensation packages are a result of the difference in the functions."
The salary difference also depends upon whether the student has prior work experience or whether he is being taken at an entry level position. Prof Chattopadhyay says that this year has also seen a marked increase in the number of consultancy firms recruiting from non-IIMs.
"This is, however, primarily driven by the fact that they are not getting enough resources from IIMs alone, and therefore, it is more need driven than anything else." he explains.
Whatever the reasons, the students for one are not complaining about the increased opportunities (and heftier packages) coming their way.
more at www.rediff.com
Places like Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), IMT Ghaziabad and T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) have made their presence felt on the Indian management school scene and have, of late, started to register on the radar of companies like Colgate Palmolive and Nestle who earlier only went to the absolute top notch schools to recruit.
And the reason according to Varda Pendse, director, Cerebrus Consultants, an HR consultancy, is pretty clear too. "With IIM graduates preferring foreign companies, Indian companies are being forced to move to the next level of B-schools," she says.
But this does not mean that the companies are settling for anything but the best. The top students at these institutes are easily at par with the students at other IIMs, and also, these companies are given the first preference when interacting with the students at these institutes, so in the process end up recruiting the brightest students of the batch.
Most of these institutes have finished their final placements for 2006, and the numbers speak for themselves. The highest salary at TAPMI has gone up from Rs 6.75 lakh (Rs 675,000) last year to Rs 7.75 lakh (Rs 775,000) this year and Professor Raghunath, chairman, placement committee, TAPMI, says that one trend visible this year has been the increased recruiting by the IT and financial services sectors.
At IMT Ghaziabad too, it is a similar story. The highest domestic salary offered here was Rs 9.25 lakh (Rs 925,000) by Genpact, substantially higher than
Rs 7.52 lakh (Rs 752,000) which was the top offer last year, says Professor Nilanjan Chattopadhyay, chairman-placements, IMT Ghaziabad.
This is easily at par with the highest salary at Jamnalal Bajaj last year, which will have its round of placements only next month. At SIBM, the top international offer was $64,000, while the domestic one from JP Morgan was Rs 8.9 lakh (Rs 890,000). On most campuses, a fair number of companies had to return empty handed with placements being completed in between 5-8 hours for about 150 students.
Pendse points out: "While the salary for a particular profile would be the same irrespective of the institute, chances are that the differences in the compensation packages are a result of the difference in the functions."
The salary difference also depends upon whether the student has prior work experience or whether he is being taken at an entry level position. Prof Chattopadhyay says that this year has also seen a marked increase in the number of consultancy firms recruiting from non-IIMs.
"This is, however, primarily driven by the fact that they are not getting enough resources from IIMs alone, and therefore, it is more need driven than anything else." he explains.
Whatever the reasons, the students for one are not complaining about the increased opportunities (and heftier packages) coming their way.
more at www.rediff.com
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Why B-School grads prefer consulting
The economy’s booming, jobs are flowing and campuses are gearing up for a year that’s shaping up to be the icing on three years of bullish placements. Students this year are in the driver’s seat. Assured of multiple offers, they’re free to be adventurous with their career choices.
“The confidence that the market gives you is a driving factor in your adventurous spirit and could change your decisions. With so many companies recruiting, people tend to say let me wait for the right profile,” says Manish Bhagat, a member of the IIM Indore placement committee.
That’s possibly one of the factors that has pushed old favourites like FMCG, software and IT consulting down a rung in the ranking charts. The most favoured sectors on campus for the batch of ’06 are the all-weather consulting industry at number one, with foreign banks coming in second. Next up is FMCG, software /IT consulting and financial institutions.
After losing ground in the previous year, retailing is back in the reckoning in ’06 moving up three spots to number six. The top 10 industries of choice are rounded off with Indian banks, auto, media/entertainment and insurance. Telecom and consumer durables two sectors that were in the reckoning last year, have fallen out of the top 15 industries of choice for the class of ’06.
These are the results of the ACNielsen Campustrack B-school survey, which polled the class of ’06 on their perceptions about recruiting companies and the factors used to evaluate prospective employers. The survey was conducted among the top 21 B-schools in India.
“We have seen that the perceived ‘vibrancy’ of a given sector has a definite bearing on its attractiveness to the talent pool. While last year saw the telecom sector on the rise, the hectic activity in retail banking and retailing fuelled by an upswing in the economy and consumer spending has played its part this year,” says Prasenjit Das, associate director, client service, ACNielsen ORG-MARG.
Consulting in particular is on everyone’s list. Not only is the industry a hot favourite, but consultants McKinsey, The Boston Consulting Group and Accenture are the 1, 2 and 3 most preferred companies of the year.
“Now there is a lot more information on campus about different choices. There’s transparency and people are making more informed decisions,” says Vikram Bhalla, principal, BCG.
Mr Bhalla points to the constant flow of correspondence between students and the firm as a sign of greater student maturity. This means that student perception — shaped by the experiences of seniors and corporate interactions on campus — are playing a wider role in placement choices than ever before.
“I think BCG is clearly the best choice in consulting and over time it’ll get clearer and clearer,” he said, commenting of the firm’s consistent rise up the rankings from number 10 in ’03. BCG’s decision to recruit summer interns this year has also gone some way in boosting its image at B-schools.
Another important factor is growth perception. In direct contrast to Hindustan Lever’s fall from grace (the company fell from number 2 last year to five in ’06) is the rise of Accenture. The management services and technology consulting company has rocketed from number 8 on the class of ’05’s list to number 3 this year.
According to Accenture-India HR head Rahul Varma, the firm’s strong growth credentials have played a role. Over the past four years, Accenture has grown from a 200-strong company to employing over 15,000 people. The company has also diversified from consulting into IT delivery and BPO.
“We are hiring across a wide spectrum of roles. And given our track record of growth, most campuses have been bullish about receiving us,” he says.
Next on the list is foreign banks. And if investment banks and MNC banks are clubbed together this category fills a total of seven places on the top 15 list. HSBC takes the lead, followed by Citi Group (6), Goldman Sachs (8), American Express, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brother and ABN Amro.
“Banking and finance has emerged as one of the most attractive job sectors for management graduates this year, given the rapid growth rate in the industry and the range of jobs available to meet career growth aspirations,” said an HSBC spokesperson.
“The students view banking as a sector that can provide larger job responsibilities at an early stage and an opportunity to work overseas, which students clearly prefer at the start of their careers.”
Interestingly, students say there’s another reason why foreign banks are attractive. Many secretly view a retail or corporate profile with an MNC bank as the opportunity for back-door entry in i-banking.
“There’s a good chance that if you’re spotted they’ll move you laterally in the i-banking arm,” says one student.
That apart, students point to profiles, work ethic and salaries as the main draws with MNC banks. Indian banks, which are currently ranked way below their MNC counterparts at number seven, should become more competitive over the next three-four years, say students, as positive feedback from seniors is beginning to alter the perception about local banks.
This year, however, ICICI Bank joined Microsoft as the two companies that fell out of the Top 15 charts, making way for Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro
“The confidence that the market gives you is a driving factor in your adventurous spirit and could change your decisions. With so many companies recruiting, people tend to say let me wait for the right profile,” says Manish Bhagat, a member of the IIM Indore placement committee.
That’s possibly one of the factors that has pushed old favourites like FMCG, software and IT consulting down a rung in the ranking charts. The most favoured sectors on campus for the batch of ’06 are the all-weather consulting industry at number one, with foreign banks coming in second. Next up is FMCG, software /IT consulting and financial institutions.
After losing ground in the previous year, retailing is back in the reckoning in ’06 moving up three spots to number six. The top 10 industries of choice are rounded off with Indian banks, auto, media/entertainment and insurance. Telecom and consumer durables two sectors that were in the reckoning last year, have fallen out of the top 15 industries of choice for the class of ’06.
These are the results of the ACNielsen Campustrack B-school survey, which polled the class of ’06 on their perceptions about recruiting companies and the factors used to evaluate prospective employers. The survey was conducted among the top 21 B-schools in India.
“We have seen that the perceived ‘vibrancy’ of a given sector has a definite bearing on its attractiveness to the talent pool. While last year saw the telecom sector on the rise, the hectic activity in retail banking and retailing fuelled by an upswing in the economy and consumer spending has played its part this year,” says Prasenjit Das, associate director, client service, ACNielsen ORG-MARG.
Consulting in particular is on everyone’s list. Not only is the industry a hot favourite, but consultants McKinsey, The Boston Consulting Group and Accenture are the 1, 2 and 3 most preferred companies of the year.
“Now there is a lot more information on campus about different choices. There’s transparency and people are making more informed decisions,” says Vikram Bhalla, principal, BCG.
Mr Bhalla points to the constant flow of correspondence between students and the firm as a sign of greater student maturity. This means that student perception — shaped by the experiences of seniors and corporate interactions on campus — are playing a wider role in placement choices than ever before.
“I think BCG is clearly the best choice in consulting and over time it’ll get clearer and clearer,” he said, commenting of the firm’s consistent rise up the rankings from number 10 in ’03. BCG’s decision to recruit summer interns this year has also gone some way in boosting its image at B-schools.
Another important factor is growth perception. In direct contrast to Hindustan Lever’s fall from grace (the company fell from number 2 last year to five in ’06) is the rise of Accenture. The management services and technology consulting company has rocketed from number 8 on the class of ’05’s list to number 3 this year.
According to Accenture-India HR head Rahul Varma, the firm’s strong growth credentials have played a role. Over the past four years, Accenture has grown from a 200-strong company to employing over 15,000 people. The company has also diversified from consulting into IT delivery and BPO.
“We are hiring across a wide spectrum of roles. And given our track record of growth, most campuses have been bullish about receiving us,” he says.
Next on the list is foreign banks. And if investment banks and MNC banks are clubbed together this category fills a total of seven places on the top 15 list. HSBC takes the lead, followed by Citi Group (6), Goldman Sachs (8), American Express, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brother and ABN Amro.
“Banking and finance has emerged as one of the most attractive job sectors for management graduates this year, given the rapid growth rate in the industry and the range of jobs available to meet career growth aspirations,” said an HSBC spokesperson.
“The students view banking as a sector that can provide larger job responsibilities at an early stage and an opportunity to work overseas, which students clearly prefer at the start of their careers.”
Interestingly, students say there’s another reason why foreign banks are attractive. Many secretly view a retail or corporate profile with an MNC bank as the opportunity for back-door entry in i-banking.
“There’s a good chance that if you’re spotted they’ll move you laterally in the i-banking arm,” says one student.
That apart, students point to profiles, work ethic and salaries as the main draws with MNC banks. Indian banks, which are currently ranked way below their MNC counterparts at number seven, should become more competitive over the next three-four years, say students, as positive feedback from seniors is beginning to alter the perception about local banks.
This year, however, ICICI Bank joined Microsoft as the two companies that fell out of the Top 15 charts, making way for Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro
Thursday, December 01, 2005
How Much Is My Blog Worth?
My blog, ideasunlimited.blogspot.com/, is worth $564.54
My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?
Monday, November 21, 2005
B-school education is too broadbased
The biggest drawback of an MBA is that it is pan-industry in its outlook. A business education course does not factor in the different challenges presented by different industries.
Most MBA courses are too broadbased to effectively prepare their students for the intense competition in today’s business environment — each industry requires a different skill set, but the typical MBA programme does not equip you adequately to meet industry- or sector-specific demands.
Of course, you now hear of several companies that are designing their own management education programmes. As an effort to make the white collar workforce more relevant to the needs of a sector, it is commendable. But perhaps still more can be done to help bridge the gap between what is taught and what is required.
The other issue most B-schools overlook is working in a team. To be fair, all management institutes emphasise the importance of being a team player. But what they teach and how that learning actually manifests itself in corporate corridors are two different things.
In the “real world”, the roles of a leader and a team are not always cut and dried. Some times, the leader is at the forefront of the action; on other occasions, he may decide to set the tone and then sit back, while the team takes the lead.
B-schools instruct you in neither the existence of such scenarios nor how to deal with them. Other important issues of dealing with and working with teams — how to interact with and within a team, how to motivate your team members — are also inadequately addressed.
Also, management students are taught extensively about the importance of strategy. What they are not taught, however, is how to implement a strategy and make sure an idea goes the planned way. That’s important: after all, implementation accounts for about 80 per cent of job delivery. But, somewhere along the line, it gets short shrift.
Most MBA courses are too broadbased to effectively prepare their students for the intense competition in today’s business environment — each industry requires a different skill set, but the typical MBA programme does not equip you adequately to meet industry- or sector-specific demands.
Of course, you now hear of several companies that are designing their own management education programmes. As an effort to make the white collar workforce more relevant to the needs of a sector, it is commendable. But perhaps still more can be done to help bridge the gap between what is taught and what is required.
The other issue most B-schools overlook is working in a team. To be fair, all management institutes emphasise the importance of being a team player. But what they teach and how that learning actually manifests itself in corporate corridors are two different things.
In the “real world”, the roles of a leader and a team are not always cut and dried. Some times, the leader is at the forefront of the action; on other occasions, he may decide to set the tone and then sit back, while the team takes the lead.
B-schools instruct you in neither the existence of such scenarios nor how to deal with them. Other important issues of dealing with and working with teams — how to interact with and within a team, how to motivate your team members — are also inadequately addressed.
Also, management students are taught extensively about the importance of strategy. What they are not taught, however, is how to implement a strategy and make sure an idea goes the planned way. That’s important: after all, implementation accounts for about 80 per cent of job delivery. But, somewhere along the line, it gets short shrift.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Best Business Schools by forbes
Forbes best business school rankings are out . Forbes survey ranks schools based on return on investment--meaning compensation five years after graduation minus tuition and the forgone salary during school. The top part-time school, Stern's Langone Part-time M.B.A. Program, had a median five-year gain of $166,000, greatly helped by the absence of forgone salary. That sum beats the $134,000 gain of our top-ranked full-time program, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. In a combined ranking of part-time and full-time U.S. programs, Tuck and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School are the only full-time schools that would make the top five. (For the first time, Harvard Business School is not the top-ranked school.)
The Top Ten
Dartmouth
Pennsylvania
Chicago
Columbia
Yale
Stanford
Harvard
Virginia
Cornell
Northwestern
The Top Ten
Dartmouth
Pennsylvania
Chicago
Columbia
Yale
Stanford
Harvard
Virginia
Cornell
Northwestern
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Not Normal : how to cut the fuel cost
This is not a normal post for this blog . but the way gas prices have impacted our life i am posting this link which provides some eye opening tips for future and current MBA . How to cut the fuel cost
Friday, August 19, 2005
Good managers only from B-schools?
The debate on the relevance of business schools refuses to die down. In the past, various academics -- including Henry Mintzberg of McGill, Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford-GSB and Warren Bennis of University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business -- have trained their guns on B-schools and the value of MBAs. So far, Mintzberg has been the strongest critic. His grouse: "An MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways for the wrong reasons."
Three US-based professors have jumped into the fray. In a paper titled 'What's Really Wrong With US Business Schools?', Harry DeAngelo and Linda DeAngelo of Marshall School of Business, and Jerold L Zimmerman of Simon School of Business take a potshot at another B-school staple: Annual rankings.
The paper, posted on the Social Science Research Network's website on August 1, has already been downloaded more than 2,000 times, making it one of the most popular papers on the site. "We are managing B-schools in a myopic fashion analogous to corporate managers' fixation on quarterly EPS -- a danger that we as business professors, of course, warn our students to avoid in the business world. The myopia at B-schools is engendered by the pressure to move up in rankings published by the media,"Harry DeAngelo said.
The three professors said that instead of competing on the basis of the long-run value of the education they provide and the research they do, schools are fixated on "looking good"in the next media survey. "The pressure to score highly on measures that are poor proxies for true quality creates strong incentives to adopt dysfunctional policies. For example, it translates into curriculum changes that emphasise appearance over substance, less time spent on rigorous foundational training, research,"DeAngelo said.
The paper has evoked strong reactions in the academic community both in India and abroad. The most common grouse is regarding the methodology of these surveys. David Lampe, spokesperson for Harvard Business School, said: "Not only are the differences in the scores among many schools statistically insignificant, but the different formulae used to derive them -- a different one for each publication -- seem to have little to do with the true quality of the institutions."
Damned if they do and damned if they don't. "If schools submit to ranking, they are accused of pandering to the masses. If they don't, they are running away from comparison,"said Ajit Rangnekar, deputy dean, Indian School of Business (ISB). In the US, Harvard and Wharton stayed out of last year's BusinessWeek rankings. In India, ISB has decided not to participate in any rankings. The IIMs have also decided to stay out.
Harvard's Lampe said: "Regardless of their shortcomings, ranking surveys will not go away because of the continuing popularity of lists of all kinds."Clearly, it looks like this debate is not going to die out any time soon.
Three US-based professors have jumped into the fray. In a paper titled 'What's Really Wrong With US Business Schools?', Harry DeAngelo and Linda DeAngelo of Marshall School of Business, and Jerold L Zimmerman of Simon School of Business take a potshot at another B-school staple: Annual rankings.
The paper, posted on the Social Science Research Network's website on August 1, has already been downloaded more than 2,000 times, making it one of the most popular papers on the site. "We are managing B-schools in a myopic fashion analogous to corporate managers' fixation on quarterly EPS -- a danger that we as business professors, of course, warn our students to avoid in the business world. The myopia at B-schools is engendered by the pressure to move up in rankings published by the media,"Harry DeAngelo said.
The three professors said that instead of competing on the basis of the long-run value of the education they provide and the research they do, schools are fixated on "looking good"in the next media survey. "The pressure to score highly on measures that are poor proxies for true quality creates strong incentives to adopt dysfunctional policies. For example, it translates into curriculum changes that emphasise appearance over substance, less time spent on rigorous foundational training, research,"DeAngelo said.
The paper has evoked strong reactions in the academic community both in India and abroad. The most common grouse is regarding the methodology of these surveys. David Lampe, spokesperson for Harvard Business School, said: "Not only are the differences in the scores among many schools statistically insignificant, but the different formulae used to derive them -- a different one for each publication -- seem to have little to do with the true quality of the institutions."
Damned if they do and damned if they don't. "If schools submit to ranking, they are accused of pandering to the masses. If they don't, they are running away from comparison,"said Ajit Rangnekar, deputy dean, Indian School of Business (ISB). In the US, Harvard and Wharton stayed out of last year's BusinessWeek rankings. In India, ISB has decided not to participate in any rankings. The IIMs have also decided to stay out.
Harvard's Lampe said: "Regardless of their shortcomings, ranking surveys will not go away because of the continuing popularity of lists of all kinds."Clearly, it looks like this debate is not going to die out any time soon.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
B-schools wake up to the real world
If there's one thing that Donald Trump's hit reality TV show The Apprentice has taught us, it's that your MBA won't always bail you out in a real life business crisis. By all accounts, acquiring an MBA is a gruelling process.
But could it be that students are so busy discussing textbook problems, writing papers and taking exams, that they've forgotten how to handle the real world?
Business schools in the US obviously think so. They're redesigning their business courses to "get real" (in some instances actually using Donald's show in classrooms). And recently, they have started to move towards the arts, and in particular, design. Schools such as Stanford, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon have all introduced design courses into their business curricula to teach their students how to think creatively.
This trend is beginning to crawl into India. Although most B-schools still keep strictly to their business curricula, some are offering arts classes, or introducing a creative element -- beyond the classic "lateral thinking" (a la Edward de Bono) -- into the curriculum that allows students to apply what they learn in the classroom.
The Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, for instance, has a class called "Tracking Creative Boundaries", introduced to it by the India Foundation for the Arts. Artists teach students about the history of art and the lives of artists.
"A professor," explains the executive director of IFA, Anmol Vellani, "once said to me that management education is all wrong. It only teaches technical competence, whereas management is about other things as well -- soft skills, ethics and, above all, creativity."
The value is clear. "Artists are naturally suspicious of accepted idioms," says Vellani. "They're constantly reinventing themselves. Entrepreneurs need to be inventive too... they need to recognise real world constraints, have the imagination to adapt to them, and be creative."
Other schools, in their quest to lend vibrancy to an entrepreneurial culture, are also focusing more closely on 'creativity' in business.
For instance, the Faculty of Management Studies at Delhi University is facilitating an entrepreneurship competition, involving around 500 students from 20 B-schools and 20 undergraduate colleges, where students have to come up with a business plan.
The 'ROI'? Relevance, originality and impact -- before you get any return on investment. FMS students also have the option to take arts electives in separate schools at DU, but are so busy, says a student, that no one has taken a single one.
Gurgaon's Management Development Institute, meanwhile, has a course on theatre technique incorporated into the communications portion of the MBA program. Theatre is widely acknowledged as a laboratory of audience response, invaluable to any business person who must work out how to address and engage a market.
"Classes like this help students to put themselves in real world situations," says Gita Bajaj, an assistant professor of Business Communications at MDI-Gurgaon, "With exercises like public speaking and role playing, we put students on the spot and this forces them to adapt quickly and make practical decisions."
To be sure, Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats remain handy tools available to B-schools trying to make students break their mental moulds and think anew in varied ways. But the difference now is that actual works of art -- both 'high art' and popular -- are beginning to infiltrate the otherwise sheltered environs of B-school campuses.
But could it be that students are so busy discussing textbook problems, writing papers and taking exams, that they've forgotten how to handle the real world?
Business schools in the US obviously think so. They're redesigning their business courses to "get real" (in some instances actually using Donald's show in classrooms). And recently, they have started to move towards the arts, and in particular, design. Schools such as Stanford, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon have all introduced design courses into their business curricula to teach their students how to think creatively.
This trend is beginning to crawl into India. Although most B-schools still keep strictly to their business curricula, some are offering arts classes, or introducing a creative element -- beyond the classic "lateral thinking" (a la Edward de Bono) -- into the curriculum that allows students to apply what they learn in the classroom.
The Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, for instance, has a class called "Tracking Creative Boundaries", introduced to it by the India Foundation for the Arts. Artists teach students about the history of art and the lives of artists.
"A professor," explains the executive director of IFA, Anmol Vellani, "once said to me that management education is all wrong. It only teaches technical competence, whereas management is about other things as well -- soft skills, ethics and, above all, creativity."
The value is clear. "Artists are naturally suspicious of accepted idioms," says Vellani. "They're constantly reinventing themselves. Entrepreneurs need to be inventive too... they need to recognise real world constraints, have the imagination to adapt to them, and be creative."
Other schools, in their quest to lend vibrancy to an entrepreneurial culture, are also focusing more closely on 'creativity' in business.
For instance, the Faculty of Management Studies at Delhi University is facilitating an entrepreneurship competition, involving around 500 students from 20 B-schools and 20 undergraduate colleges, where students have to come up with a business plan.
The 'ROI'? Relevance, originality and impact -- before you get any return on investment. FMS students also have the option to take arts electives in separate schools at DU, but are so busy, says a student, that no one has taken a single one.
Gurgaon's Management Development Institute, meanwhile, has a course on theatre technique incorporated into the communications portion of the MBA program. Theatre is widely acknowledged as a laboratory of audience response, invaluable to any business person who must work out how to address and engage a market.
"Classes like this help students to put themselves in real world situations," says Gita Bajaj, an assistant professor of Business Communications at MDI-Gurgaon, "With exercises like public speaking and role playing, we put students on the spot and this forces them to adapt quickly and make practical decisions."
To be sure, Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats remain handy tools available to B-schools trying to make students break their mental moulds and think anew in varied ways. But the difference now is that actual works of art -- both 'high art' and popular -- are beginning to infiltrate the otherwise sheltered environs of B-school campuses.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Global Skill Report 2005
Brainbench has published global skill report which is available
here
The key findings are
IT competence is on the rise worldwide and represents
a significant economic factor for countries
of all sizes. While the ability to create a
knowledge-based economy is an engine for
economic development in emerging nations, it is
also a significant growth factor in the economy in
more established nations. No matter the location,
high levels of competence are a significant factor
in the ability to realize increased profits and
economic prosperity.
• The same basic knowledge, skills, and competencies
underlie jobs across the globe - meaning that
work is starting to take on a common language.
This will greatly facilitate the development of a
more global economy in which geographic
boundaries are not limiting the
manner in which business
is conducted.
This means
that more
and
more, a competitive economic advantage requires
a global mind-set and continues to justify the
removal of geographic barriers to conducting
business.
• Effective business and economic growth requires
organizations to make strategic choices regarding
the geographic location of critical business
components (i.e., programming, customer service).
These choices are based on a combination of
trade-offs, most prominent of which are the
evaluation of available skill and knowledge levels
in a geographic area vs. the cost of obtaining
access to those skills. Areas offering a combination
of high skill levels with low costs for access
to those skills will be more likely to lead to the
outsourcing of business functions to these areas.
• Education is becoming increasingly important
especially for emerging nations that are working
to develop new knowledge and skills-based
economies. In turn, a critical factor in stimulating
economic growth will be the development of
a skilled and competitive labor force.
• Taken together, the above conclusions place an
even greater premium on selecting employees
wisely. As the overall level of competence rises
across the globe, the labor pool will continue to
become more competitive. No matter what the
situation, selecting the best most qualified
individual for a specific job provides increasing
levels of return on investment. This provides a
strong justification for the continued growth of
an assessment industry which can provide measurement
of critical knowledge, skills, and abilities.
here
The key findings are
IT competence is on the rise worldwide and represents
a significant economic factor for countries
of all sizes. While the ability to create a
knowledge-based economy is an engine for
economic development in emerging nations, it is
also a significant growth factor in the economy in
more established nations. No matter the location,
high levels of competence are a significant factor
in the ability to realize increased profits and
economic prosperity.
• The same basic knowledge, skills, and competencies
underlie jobs across the globe - meaning that
work is starting to take on a common language.
This will greatly facilitate the development of a
more global economy in which geographic
boundaries are not limiting the
manner in which business
is conducted.
This means
that more
and
more, a competitive economic advantage requires
a global mind-set and continues to justify the
removal of geographic barriers to conducting
business.
• Effective business and economic growth requires
organizations to make strategic choices regarding
the geographic location of critical business
components (i.e., programming, customer service).
These choices are based on a combination of
trade-offs, most prominent of which are the
evaluation of available skill and knowledge levels
in a geographic area vs. the cost of obtaining
access to those skills. Areas offering a combination
of high skill levels with low costs for access
to those skills will be more likely to lead to the
outsourcing of business functions to these areas.
• Education is becoming increasingly important
especially for emerging nations that are working
to develop new knowledge and skills-based
economies. In turn, a critical factor in stimulating
economic growth will be the development of
a skilled and competitive labor force.
• Taken together, the above conclusions place an
even greater premium on selecting employees
wisely. As the overall level of competence rises
across the globe, the labor pool will continue to
become more competitive. No matter what the
situation, selecting the best most qualified
individual for a specific job provides increasing
levels of return on investment. This provides a
strong justification for the continued growth of
an assessment industry which can provide measurement
of critical knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
How relevant is your B-school course?
Your perspective on what they don't teach you at B-schools really depends on how experienced you were when you began your management education.
B-schools are designed to give academic inputs -- even the case studies discussed (which are mainly from the US) have little relevance to the Indian business environment.
One reason for this, of course, is that most B-school professors are those who didn't succeed as entrepreneurs, didn't get the opportunity to set up a business or didn't climb the corporate ladder too swiftly. Consequently, there is little infusion of practical insight on the problems you face as an entrepreneur or manager.
What are the problems you are not equipped to handle? First, managing the transition of a family-owned and managed business to one managed by professional entrepreneurs and funded by venture capital.
Second, if you want to conduct business ethically, how do you handle the bribery and corruption that is endemic in our country? How do you coach and encourage those who work with you to stay on the straight and narrow path when the done thing is to be corrupt?
Our company had the opportunity to sell our products to the state-run electricity boards, and increase our size manifold. We chose to stay small, but clean. The challenge lay in choosing like-minded employees who could manage the rigours of doing business in India without resorting to bribery.
Third, how do you balance intuition and over-analysing facts when taking decisions? This comes only from experience. Which is why when an experienced manager goes to B-school, he is better able to quickly apply the decision-making theory to real problems. That also explains why many of the better B-schools prefer experienced candidates.
B-schools are designed to give academic inputs -- even the case studies discussed (which are mainly from the US) have little relevance to the Indian business environment.
One reason for this, of course, is that most B-school professors are those who didn't succeed as entrepreneurs, didn't get the opportunity to set up a business or didn't climb the corporate ladder too swiftly. Consequently, there is little infusion of practical insight on the problems you face as an entrepreneur or manager.
What are the problems you are not equipped to handle? First, managing the transition of a family-owned and managed business to one managed by professional entrepreneurs and funded by venture capital.
Second, if you want to conduct business ethically, how do you handle the bribery and corruption that is endemic in our country? How do you coach and encourage those who work with you to stay on the straight and narrow path when the done thing is to be corrupt?
Our company had the opportunity to sell our products to the state-run electricity boards, and increase our size manifold. We chose to stay small, but clean. The challenge lay in choosing like-minded employees who could manage the rigours of doing business in India without resorting to bribery.
Third, how do you balance intuition and over-analysing facts when taking decisions? This comes only from experience. Which is why when an experienced manager goes to B-school, he is better able to quickly apply the decision-making theory to real problems. That also explains why many of the better B-schools prefer experienced candidates.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Friday, May 06, 2005
India targets US B-schools to promote growth story
Of late, India has started capturing the imagination of top business schools in the United States. Catch tomorrow's global leaders and hard sell them the India story today. That seems to be the slogan.
In a unique initiative, members of the Indian Diaspora based in the United States plan to project the India growth story in all its dimensions to students at the Chicago Graduate School of Business on May 7.
The inaugural conference -- which is being organised by the South Asia Business Group (SABG, a student-run group at the B-school) and being supported by India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) -- will specifically focus on:
The coming of age of the Indian economy and its capital markets;
The growth in venture capital;
Investment management
Healthcare sector;
Consumer retail;
Financial services; and
Infrastructure investments.
These topics will be explored through keynote speeches and panel discussions featuring some of the most prominent business and academic figures in these areas.
Speakers and panelists, handpicked from the Indian Diaspora, include Sam Pitroda, CEO WorldTel; Sumir Chadha, Founder, WestBridge Capital; and Ajai Chaudhary, senior scientist at Eli Lilly.
Apart from these, there will be other speakers from McKinsey & Co., Eli Lily, Whirlpool Corporation, Oppenheimer, Wal-Mart, McDonald's. A number of investment banks and venture capital funds will also be represented, as will Indian organisations like Wipro, which has a key presence in the US.
"There is a huge pent-up demand at the Chicago GSB to learn more about India, its new economy and its culture. A case in point: The SABG recently hosted a brief panel discussion for a business delegation from India led by Sunil Kant Munjal, President, Confederation of Indian Industry. We had originally planned on an MBA student audience of 110-120, but the actual attendance turned out to be more like 200, surpassing our expectations," says Hozef Arif, President, SABG.
Support to the conference is part of IBEF's ongoing strategy to increase its footprint across the global b-school arena and enhance India's brand equity, especially in key investor destinations such as the US.
The US is India's largest business partner with bilateral trade between the two countries exceeding $21 billion in 2004.
By supporting events such as this 'Investing in India' conference at Chicago GSB, IBEF wants to project India beyond the IT sector and the BPO industry. It seeks to project India's potential as a manufacturing hub, especially for design and knowledge industries. It would also like to highlight the unprecedented boom in healthcare and life-sciences sector, the growing consumerism, and the overall attractiveness of India as a growth and investment market.
"If we can create positive mindspace about India in the 20-30 age group, half our work is done. These are the people who will be leaders in their fields when India emerges as one of the world's top 3 economies over the next two decades,'' points out Ajay Khanna, Chief Executive Officer, India Brand Equity Foundation.
According to him, IBEF will support more such India-specific events being planned at other global B-schools.
Events like these play an important role in increasing curiosity levels on India.
For example, at the Harvard event in 2004 -- billed as the 'India Business Conference -- more than 700 people turned up. The event had over 40 speakers of Indian origin, representing top organisations in the US and India, including McKinsey, Pfizer, HSBC, Norwest Venture Partners, Microsoft and Morgan Stanley.
Over the last 2 years, leading business schools like Kellogg, Harvard, Stanford and Wharton have organised annual India trips to familarise their students with the world's fastest growing democracy. More than a dozen Indian companies now figure as case studies at these schools, and now the latest trend is for business schools to organise India specific conferences.
"There's a tremendous interest in understanding two things -- the emergence of the Indian economy on the global scene, and its important role in the decoupling of services from where work is done and where it is delivered," Patrick T Harker, dean of the Wharton School told the New York Times in 2004.
India is also gaining increasing US mindshare because of healthy business ties. Bilateral trade between the two countries crossed $ 21 billion in 2004, and US companies like GE, Coke and Oracle have some of their most lucrative worldwide businesses in India.
Then of course, there's the issue of growing credibility in the media. Newsweek in 2004 said India was the 'Best country to be an investor in.' Businessweek ran several covers over 2003 and 2004, and its interest in the country hasn't abated.
A Goldman Sachs report (Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050) states that among Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), India will grow the fastest over the next few decades. At its present rate of growth, the burgeoning economy of the country 'would be adding nearly one France every 3.5 years and one Australia every year.'
In 2004, a global survey of corporate investors ranked India as the second most attractive destination for foreign direct investment, after China, and ahead of the US.
In 2003, India was ranked sixth.
When India first started it's economic reforms process in 1991, it was a small blip on the US business scene. Fifteen years and its now part of the global B-school curriculum. The journey's paid off, and IBEF's biggest objective is to sustain this momentum.
In a unique initiative, members of the Indian Diaspora based in the United States plan to project the India growth story in all its dimensions to students at the Chicago Graduate School of Business on May 7.
The inaugural conference -- which is being organised by the South Asia Business Group (SABG, a student-run group at the B-school) and being supported by India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) -- will specifically focus on:
The coming of age of the Indian economy and its capital markets;
The growth in venture capital;
Investment management
Healthcare sector;
Consumer retail;
Financial services; and
Infrastructure investments.
These topics will be explored through keynote speeches and panel discussions featuring some of the most prominent business and academic figures in these areas.
Speakers and panelists, handpicked from the Indian Diaspora, include Sam Pitroda, CEO WorldTel; Sumir Chadha, Founder, WestBridge Capital; and Ajai Chaudhary, senior scientist at Eli Lilly.
Apart from these, there will be other speakers from McKinsey & Co., Eli Lily, Whirlpool Corporation, Oppenheimer, Wal-Mart, McDonald's. A number of investment banks and venture capital funds will also be represented, as will Indian organisations like Wipro, which has a key presence in the US.
"There is a huge pent-up demand at the Chicago GSB to learn more about India, its new economy and its culture. A case in point: The SABG recently hosted a brief panel discussion for a business delegation from India led by Sunil Kant Munjal, President, Confederation of Indian Industry. We had originally planned on an MBA student audience of 110-120, but the actual attendance turned out to be more like 200, surpassing our expectations," says Hozef Arif, President, SABG.
Support to the conference is part of IBEF's ongoing strategy to increase its footprint across the global b-school arena and enhance India's brand equity, especially in key investor destinations such as the US.
The US is India's largest business partner with bilateral trade between the two countries exceeding $21 billion in 2004.
By supporting events such as this 'Investing in India' conference at Chicago GSB, IBEF wants to project India beyond the IT sector and the BPO industry. It seeks to project India's potential as a manufacturing hub, especially for design and knowledge industries. It would also like to highlight the unprecedented boom in healthcare and life-sciences sector, the growing consumerism, and the overall attractiveness of India as a growth and investment market.
"If we can create positive mindspace about India in the 20-30 age group, half our work is done. These are the people who will be leaders in their fields when India emerges as one of the world's top 3 economies over the next two decades,'' points out Ajay Khanna, Chief Executive Officer, India Brand Equity Foundation.
According to him, IBEF will support more such India-specific events being planned at other global B-schools.
Events like these play an important role in increasing curiosity levels on India.
For example, at the Harvard event in 2004 -- billed as the 'India Business Conference -- more than 700 people turned up. The event had over 40 speakers of Indian origin, representing top organisations in the US and India, including McKinsey, Pfizer, HSBC, Norwest Venture Partners, Microsoft and Morgan Stanley.
Over the last 2 years, leading business schools like Kellogg, Harvard, Stanford and Wharton have organised annual India trips to familarise their students with the world's fastest growing democracy. More than a dozen Indian companies now figure as case studies at these schools, and now the latest trend is for business schools to organise India specific conferences.
"There's a tremendous interest in understanding two things -- the emergence of the Indian economy on the global scene, and its important role in the decoupling of services from where work is done and where it is delivered," Patrick T Harker, dean of the Wharton School told the New York Times in 2004.
India is also gaining increasing US mindshare because of healthy business ties. Bilateral trade between the two countries crossed $ 21 billion in 2004, and US companies like GE, Coke and Oracle have some of their most lucrative worldwide businesses in India.
Then of course, there's the issue of growing credibility in the media. Newsweek in 2004 said India was the 'Best country to be an investor in.' Businessweek ran several covers over 2003 and 2004, and its interest in the country hasn't abated.
A Goldman Sachs report (Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050) states that among Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), India will grow the fastest over the next few decades. At its present rate of growth, the burgeoning economy of the country 'would be adding nearly one France every 3.5 years and one Australia every year.'
In 2004, a global survey of corporate investors ranked India as the second most attractive destination for foreign direct investment, after China, and ahead of the US.
In 2003, India was ranked sixth.
When India first started it's economic reforms process in 1991, it was a small blip on the US business scene. Fifteen years and its now part of the global B-school curriculum. The journey's paid off, and IBEF's biggest objective is to sustain this momentum.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
B-School blues
The rise of the business school is one of the most potent symbols of the triumph of global capitalism. The US alone boasts more than 400 accredited business schools churning out close to 100,000 MBAs annually. Europe now has some 80 accredited schools of its own. The new frontier is Asia, where 30,000 students sit MBA admissions exams each year and western schools are scrambling to partner with institutions in China and India.
Given this, the sudden decline in US applications over the past two years is all the more striking. In part it reflects the globalisation of business education itself: foreign students no longer need to go to the US to get an MBA, while US students increasingly seek to add international exposure by studying overseas. Foreign demand for US MBAs has also been hit by tough and unfriendly immigration controls.
Given this, the sudden decline in US applications over the past two years is all the more striking. In part it reflects the globalisation of business education itself: foreign students no longer need to go to the US to get an MBA, while US students increasingly seek to add international exposure by studying overseas. Foreign demand for US MBAs has also been hit by tough and unfriendly immigration controls.
Friday, March 04, 2005
Got Into B-School? Hacker Offers Crystal Ball
A computer hacker helped applicants break into records at some of the most prestigious U.S. business schools to see if they were accepted weeks before official offers were sent out, officials said on Friday.
A person who applied to Harvard Business School posted instructions on how to check the application status at several business schools, including Stanford, Duke and Dartmouth, on Business Week's online technology forum this week.
Roughly 100 people who applied to Harvard followed the directions, but many did not learn their fate since decisions had not been entered into the computer yet. Harvard's next batch of acceptances will be sent out later this month.
"The school views this as electronic breaking and entering, and regards this as a very serious breach," Harvard Business School spokesman Jim Aisner said. The school has identified all people who tried to check their status, Aisner said. He did not say whether those applicants were accepted or rejected.
The schools all use ApplyYourself, a Fairfax, Virginia-based company that manages Web pages used by students to apply to roughly 300 universities. The schools also use the company to tell applicants if they got in.
ApplyYourself Chief Executive Len Metheny said the company made immediate modifications to its systems and applicants did not obtain information about anyone but themselves.
"The person who did this reverse engineered a way to access the decision page for his own record and then told others how to do it," Metheny said.
The Harvard Crimson, which first reported the story, said the hacker wrote: "I know everyone is getting more and more anxious to check (the) status of their apps to (Harvard Business School). So I looked around on their site and found a way." The notice has been removed from the Business Week site.
Officials at the schools and ApplyYourself would not say whether they plan to press charges.
A person who applied to Harvard Business School posted instructions on how to check the application status at several business schools, including Stanford, Duke and Dartmouth, on Business Week's online technology forum this week.
Roughly 100 people who applied to Harvard followed the directions, but many did not learn their fate since decisions had not been entered into the computer yet. Harvard's next batch of acceptances will be sent out later this month.
"The school views this as electronic breaking and entering, and regards this as a very serious breach," Harvard Business School spokesman Jim Aisner said. The school has identified all people who tried to check their status, Aisner said. He did not say whether those applicants were accepted or rejected.
The schools all use ApplyYourself, a Fairfax, Virginia-based company that manages Web pages used by students to apply to roughly 300 universities. The schools also use the company to tell applicants if they got in.
ApplyYourself Chief Executive Len Metheny said the company made immediate modifications to its systems and applicants did not obtain information about anyone but themselves.
"The person who did this reverse engineered a way to access the decision page for his own record and then told others how to do it," Metheny said.
The Harvard Crimson, which first reported the story, said the hacker wrote: "I know everyone is getting more and more anxious to check (the) status of their apps to (Harvard Business School). So I looked around on their site and found a way." The notice has been removed from the Business Week site.
Officials at the schools and ApplyYourself would not say whether they plan to press charges.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Retiring Workforce, Widening Skills Gap
Exodus of "critical talent" threaten U.S. companies
New York — February 16, 2005 — Impending Baby Boomer retirements, a widening skills gap driven by declining educational standards, and outdated and ineffective approaches to talent management are combining forces to produce a "perfect storm" that threatens the global business economy, according to new research conducted by the Human Capital practice of Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte Research, a part of Deloitte Services.
In a recent U.S. survey of human resources executives nationwide conducted by Deloitte Consulting, more than 70 percent of the 123 respondents say incoming workers with inadequate skills pose the greatest threat to business performance over the next three years, followed by Baby Boomer retirement (61 percent), and the inability to retain key talent (55 percent). These survey findings are underscored in Deloitte Research's report, "It's 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? Why Acquisition and Retention Strategies Don't Work."
"The overwhelming accumulation of data, including Deloitte Consulting's new research, points to an inescapable conclusion: the widening skills gap, particularly among the categories of workers who disproportionately drive companies' growth and performance, is a global phenomenon that will create unprecedented challenges for businesses," said Ainar Aijala, vice chairman of Deloitte Consulting and global service area leader of Deloitte Consulting's Human Capital practice. "The confluence of demographic and social trends — the full force of which will begin to be felt in as little as three years — will leave behind companies that do not begin to rethink and redesign their approach to managing human capital."
Draining of the Global Labor Pool
In only three years, the first wave of Baby Boomers will turn 62, the average retirement age in North America, Europe and Asia. According to the Deloitte Consulting survey, one-third of U.S. companies expect to lose 11 percent or more of their current workforce to retirements by 2008.
"While the 'greying' of the workforce will independently create large vacancies across industries, additional factors, such as low birth and immigration rates in Europe and the single-child policy in China, present further perils to companies worldwide," explained Aijala. "Companies will also continue to face inadequate skills among an increasingly diverse, virtual, global, and disengaged workforce."
Life sciences, energy and the public sector will be the hardest hit with manufacturing, consumer business and financial services industries close behind. For example, Canada, Australia and the United States could lose more than a third of their government employees by 2010. The National Association of Manufacturers revealed in a recent survey that more than 80 percent of U.S. manufacturers face a shortage of skilled machinists, craft workers and technicians. Further, the U.S. Department of Education predicts that 60 percent of new jobs in the 21st century will require skills possessed by only 20 percent of the current workforce.
The Critical Talent Factor
Among the many threats affecting the global workforce over the next few years, the exit of "critical talent" could be the most damaging. Deloitte Consulting defines "critical talent" as the individuals and groups who drive a disproportionate share of their company's business performance and generate greater-than-average value for customers and shareholders. These individuals are "critical" to their company's ability to meet strategic goals and objectives.
"When we talk about critical talent, we are not necessarily referring to the 'A players' or senior executives," explained Mike Fucci, principal and U.S. leader of Deloitte Consulting's Human Capital practice. "Critical talent represents those individuals who possess highly developed skills and deep knowledge of not just the work itself, but of how to make things happen within a company, such as the couriers within package delivery companies who have daily client contact and direct knowledge of the supply chain, or researchers and clinicians within drug companies."
Unfortunately, few organizations have talent management processes in place to address the impending workforce shifts that will negatively impact critical talent segments. In fact, only half of the organizations surveyed by Deloitte Consulting have identified a list of the critical skills they need for future growth. Even more alarming, more than a quarter of respondents say defining critical skills as a workforce tool is "unimportant."
"Employers need to focus quickly on understanding which skills will make or break their business, where those skilled individuals will come from, and how to keep these workers engaged and committed within the organization," Fucci cautioned. "Only those organizations that respond swiftly and plan effectively will find themselves on top of these new challenges."
Talent Management Shortcomings
Traditional approaches to talent management frequently focus on acquisition and retention. When the talent pool tightened in the 1990s, companies responded by offering rich compensation packages and "hot skills" bonuses. The end result, however, was often disappointing — recruiting costs soared while investments in training languished. In addition, such compensation packages were often matched by competitors, contributing to high attrition rates of talented personnel.
Despite the changing landscape, organizations still plan to increase their investment in traditional talent solutions for 2005. Approximately 60 percent of survey respondents plan to increase experienced employee recruitment, while 42 percent plan to increase campus recruitment. Additional investment will also be given to rewards packages for experienced employees (39 percent) and new recruits (30 percent).
"Acquisition and retention strategies remain important parts of talent management. Such strategies, however, attend to the 'end-points' of the process and only offer a quick fix to these new workforce challenges," said William Chafetz, national practice leader of Deloitte Consulting's Organization and People Performance Services. "To survive the changing labor landscape, organizations must employ more comprehensive talent management strategies that reflect an understanding of critical workforce segments and satisfy the conditions those employees need to succeed."
Getting to the Heart of Talent Management
According to Deloitte Research, talent-savvy organizations build strategies around what matters most to their critical talent — their personal growth or development, their need to be deployed in positions and assignments that engage their interests and curiosities, and their connection to others in ways that drive performance for the company as a whole.
Many of the companies Deloitte Consulting surveyed seem to understand the importance of development and training their employees, with more than two-thirds (70 percent) of respondents planning to increase investments for mentoring and coaching in 2005, e-learning (64 percent) and classroom training (49 percent).
"It is a great sign that most organizations are committed to strengthening the skills and knowledge of their workforce, but they need to do more," said Chafetz. "No single part of the talent management process can sustain an organization or generate superior business performance on its own. Organizations must adapt a new way of thinking and use critical talent as a competitive advantage and a long-term investment."
"Develop-Deploy-Connect"
Deloitte is using the survey results to promote its "Develop-Deploy-Connect" model for talent management strategies, which focuses on the development, deployment and connection of critical talent. Combined with supporting programs, organizations that build strategies to develop, deploy and connect their critical talent generate the workforce contributions for superior business performance, the consultancy said, and when this happens, attraction and retention largely take care of themselves.
"Companies can avoid sustaining a direct hit from the looming talent crisis, and in fact convert these challenges into an opportunity, by rethinking and reinventing their talent management processes into a well-designed talent strategy that truly utilizes critical workforce as a competitive advantage and, therefore, differentiates a company from its competitors," Deloitte said.
New York — February 16, 2005 — Impending Baby Boomer retirements, a widening skills gap driven by declining educational standards, and outdated and ineffective approaches to talent management are combining forces to produce a "perfect storm" that threatens the global business economy, according to new research conducted by the Human Capital practice of Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte Research, a part of Deloitte Services.
In a recent U.S. survey of human resources executives nationwide conducted by Deloitte Consulting, more than 70 percent of the 123 respondents say incoming workers with inadequate skills pose the greatest threat to business performance over the next three years, followed by Baby Boomer retirement (61 percent), and the inability to retain key talent (55 percent). These survey findings are underscored in Deloitte Research's report, "It's 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? Why Acquisition and Retention Strategies Don't Work."
"The overwhelming accumulation of data, including Deloitte Consulting's new research, points to an inescapable conclusion: the widening skills gap, particularly among the categories of workers who disproportionately drive companies' growth and performance, is a global phenomenon that will create unprecedented challenges for businesses," said Ainar Aijala, vice chairman of Deloitte Consulting and global service area leader of Deloitte Consulting's Human Capital practice. "The confluence of demographic and social trends — the full force of which will begin to be felt in as little as three years — will leave behind companies that do not begin to rethink and redesign their approach to managing human capital."
Draining of the Global Labor Pool
In only three years, the first wave of Baby Boomers will turn 62, the average retirement age in North America, Europe and Asia. According to the Deloitte Consulting survey, one-third of U.S. companies expect to lose 11 percent or more of their current workforce to retirements by 2008.
"While the 'greying' of the workforce will independently create large vacancies across industries, additional factors, such as low birth and immigration rates in Europe and the single-child policy in China, present further perils to companies worldwide," explained Aijala. "Companies will also continue to face inadequate skills among an increasingly diverse, virtual, global, and disengaged workforce."
Life sciences, energy and the public sector will be the hardest hit with manufacturing, consumer business and financial services industries close behind. For example, Canada, Australia and the United States could lose more than a third of their government employees by 2010. The National Association of Manufacturers revealed in a recent survey that more than 80 percent of U.S. manufacturers face a shortage of skilled machinists, craft workers and technicians. Further, the U.S. Department of Education predicts that 60 percent of new jobs in the 21st century will require skills possessed by only 20 percent of the current workforce.
The Critical Talent Factor
Among the many threats affecting the global workforce over the next few years, the exit of "critical talent" could be the most damaging. Deloitte Consulting defines "critical talent" as the individuals and groups who drive a disproportionate share of their company's business performance and generate greater-than-average value for customers and shareholders. These individuals are "critical" to their company's ability to meet strategic goals and objectives.
"When we talk about critical talent, we are not necessarily referring to the 'A players' or senior executives," explained Mike Fucci, principal and U.S. leader of Deloitte Consulting's Human Capital practice. "Critical talent represents those individuals who possess highly developed skills and deep knowledge of not just the work itself, but of how to make things happen within a company, such as the couriers within package delivery companies who have daily client contact and direct knowledge of the supply chain, or researchers and clinicians within drug companies."
Unfortunately, few organizations have talent management processes in place to address the impending workforce shifts that will negatively impact critical talent segments. In fact, only half of the organizations surveyed by Deloitte Consulting have identified a list of the critical skills they need for future growth. Even more alarming, more than a quarter of respondents say defining critical skills as a workforce tool is "unimportant."
"Employers need to focus quickly on understanding which skills will make or break their business, where those skilled individuals will come from, and how to keep these workers engaged and committed within the organization," Fucci cautioned. "Only those organizations that respond swiftly and plan effectively will find themselves on top of these new challenges."
Talent Management Shortcomings
Traditional approaches to talent management frequently focus on acquisition and retention. When the talent pool tightened in the 1990s, companies responded by offering rich compensation packages and "hot skills" bonuses. The end result, however, was often disappointing — recruiting costs soared while investments in training languished. In addition, such compensation packages were often matched by competitors, contributing to high attrition rates of talented personnel.
Despite the changing landscape, organizations still plan to increase their investment in traditional talent solutions for 2005. Approximately 60 percent of survey respondents plan to increase experienced employee recruitment, while 42 percent plan to increase campus recruitment. Additional investment will also be given to rewards packages for experienced employees (39 percent) and new recruits (30 percent).
"Acquisition and retention strategies remain important parts of talent management. Such strategies, however, attend to the 'end-points' of the process and only offer a quick fix to these new workforce challenges," said William Chafetz, national practice leader of Deloitte Consulting's Organization and People Performance Services. "To survive the changing labor landscape, organizations must employ more comprehensive talent management strategies that reflect an understanding of critical workforce segments and satisfy the conditions those employees need to succeed."
Getting to the Heart of Talent Management
According to Deloitte Research, talent-savvy organizations build strategies around what matters most to their critical talent — their personal growth or development, their need to be deployed in positions and assignments that engage their interests and curiosities, and their connection to others in ways that drive performance for the company as a whole.
Many of the companies Deloitte Consulting surveyed seem to understand the importance of development and training their employees, with more than two-thirds (70 percent) of respondents planning to increase investments for mentoring and coaching in 2005, e-learning (64 percent) and classroom training (49 percent).
"It is a great sign that most organizations are committed to strengthening the skills and knowledge of their workforce, but they need to do more," said Chafetz. "No single part of the talent management process can sustain an organization or generate superior business performance on its own. Organizations must adapt a new way of thinking and use critical talent as a competitive advantage and a long-term investment."
"Develop-Deploy-Connect"
Deloitte is using the survey results to promote its "Develop-Deploy-Connect" model for talent management strategies, which focuses on the development, deployment and connection of critical talent. Combined with supporting programs, organizations that build strategies to develop, deploy and connect their critical talent generate the workforce contributions for superior business performance, the consultancy said, and when this happens, attraction and retention largely take care of themselves.
"Companies can avoid sustaining a direct hit from the looming talent crisis, and in fact convert these challenges into an opportunity, by rethinking and reinventing their talent management processes into a well-designed talent strategy that truly utilizes critical workforce as a competitive advantage and, therefore, differentiates a company from its competitors," Deloitte said.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Three Indians on Forbes 'Midas List'
Three Indian Americans, including debutant Ram Shriram who put his money into Internet search engine Google, are among top 10 investors on Forbes magazine's latest annual 'Midas List' of 100 best venture capitalists.
Shriram, an early investor in Google Inc that went public last year, was ranked sixth, while renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalists Pramod Haque and Vinod Khosla were ranked eighth and ninth respectively.
A member of the Google board since September 1998 and a partner at venture fund Sherpalo, Shriram was a co-founder of Junglee and has served as vice president of Amazon.com. He was an early member of the Netscape executive team.
Shriram "likes to call himself a Sherpa - helps entrepreneurs climb the peaks of Mount Nasdaq. Looking for university research to exploit", Forbes said.
The California-based Khosla, who is a partner at the well-known Silicon Valley venture fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, had co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and counts among the richest people of Indian origin.
Among his recent activities, he has endowed $5 million to his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, and is starting a micro-credit programme for small units in India on the lines of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.
Khosla is "semi-retired now, which means he's only working 80 hours a week", said Forbes, adding that he now proposes to fund projects that have high socio-economic impact.
These include protein arrays for low-cost medicine and micro-loans in India, besides investing in Zettacore, a chip company and one of a few nano-technology outfits in which he has faith.
Haque is a managing partner with Norwest Venture Partners. "Last year's number one dealmaker had a quiet year. His specialty - no-name networking companies that get sold for billions," Forbes said.
His old hits included parking funds at Cerent and CoSine, while his current investments include Amberpoint and Veraz .
Shriram, an early investor in Google Inc that went public last year, was ranked sixth, while renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalists Pramod Haque and Vinod Khosla were ranked eighth and ninth respectively.
A member of the Google board since September 1998 and a partner at venture fund Sherpalo, Shriram was a co-founder of Junglee and has served as vice president of Amazon.com. He was an early member of the Netscape executive team.
Shriram "likes to call himself a Sherpa - helps entrepreneurs climb the peaks of Mount Nasdaq. Looking for university research to exploit", Forbes said.
The California-based Khosla, who is a partner at the well-known Silicon Valley venture fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, had co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and counts among the richest people of Indian origin.
Among his recent activities, he has endowed $5 million to his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, and is starting a micro-credit programme for small units in India on the lines of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.
Khosla is "semi-retired now, which means he's only working 80 hours a week", said Forbes, adding that he now proposes to fund projects that have high socio-economic impact.
These include protein arrays for low-cost medicine and micro-loans in India, besides investing in Zettacore, a chip company and one of a few nano-technology outfits in which he has faith.
Haque is a managing partner with Norwest Venture Partners. "Last year's number one dealmaker had a quiet year. His specialty - no-name networking companies that get sold for billions," Forbes said.
His old hits included parking funds at Cerent and CoSine, while his current investments include Amberpoint and Veraz .
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Reverse brain drain worries US academics
"I love the traffic," says Prof Eduardo Glandt enthusiastically. "I love the honking as well. It's a nice ‘hey I'm there' sort of honking. A blind man would be able to drive easily," he adds. The Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, in Mumbai for the third time, loves most things Indian especially its students.
And he wants more. Prof Glandt was in the country primarily to recruit students. "Ten per cent of our faculty is Indian, 10 to 15 per cent of our students are Indian and we want more," he says. Indians are the second-largest ethnic group on UPenn's campus after Canadians. China, though not there yet, is a force to be reckoned with.
Despite being a university in great demand (the latest across-the-board rankings list UPenn at number 4), it has been marketing itself aggressively for the last three years because, as Prof Glandt says, "in a knowledge economy, the battle for the top brains is getting brutal".
A fallout of this competition that will go down well with Indian students, is more aid for foreign students. "That's the power of competition. When one university did it, all the rest had to follow, because we couldn't afford to have the best brains going to them," he says candidly.
Prof Glandt is more than familiar with the concept of brain drain, having moved to America from Argentina 31 years ago. "I was accused of not giving enough back, of betraying the fatherland," he admits. "But Argentina had no jobs for me and I had to go. In India, while opportunities for work and study may not yet be on par with the US, it is getting there. And that worries us," says Prof Glandt.
Part of making the US more attractive to foreign students is working with Congress on improving the visa situation, he says. There are indications of reverse brain drain as well. "This is happening more in China, but we've had an Indian professor taking a sabbatical to teach at home recently. We're worried for the first time," he says.
And he wants more. Prof Glandt was in the country primarily to recruit students. "Ten per cent of our faculty is Indian, 10 to 15 per cent of our students are Indian and we want more," he says. Indians are the second-largest ethnic group on UPenn's campus after Canadians. China, though not there yet, is a force to be reckoned with.
Despite being a university in great demand (the latest across-the-board rankings list UPenn at number 4), it has been marketing itself aggressively for the last three years because, as Prof Glandt says, "in a knowledge economy, the battle for the top brains is getting brutal".
A fallout of this competition that will go down well with Indian students, is more aid for foreign students. "That's the power of competition. When one university did it, all the rest had to follow, because we couldn't afford to have the best brains going to them," he says candidly.
Prof Glandt is more than familiar with the concept of brain drain, having moved to America from Argentina 31 years ago. "I was accused of not giving enough back, of betraying the fatherland," he admits. "But Argentina had no jobs for me and I had to go. In India, while opportunities for work and study may not yet be on par with the US, it is getting there. And that worries us," says Prof Glandt.
Part of making the US more attractive to foreign students is working with Congress on improving the visa situation, he says. There are indications of reverse brain drain as well. "This is happening more in China, but we've had an Indian professor taking a sabbatical to teach at home recently. We're worried for the first time," he says.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
1 million IT jobs by 2005-end
India's information technology industry is estimated to cross Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) in 2004-05 and employ over 10 lakh (1 million) knowledge professionals, according to National Association for Software and Service Companies.
"The Indian IT industry would cross Rs 100,000 crore ($28.3 billion) in 2004-05, thanks to the growth in IT-enabled Services (ITeS) and IT Services and Software," Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said.
The ITeS segment is expected to record a 20 per cent growth, up from 18.2 per cent posted in the fiscal year '04, IT services and Software is estimated to post 58.8 per cent (down from 59.4 per cent) and hardware at 21.2 per cent (22.4 per cent in FY'04), he said.
IT services and ITeS contribute about 78 per cent to overall industry, he said, adding that the size also includes hardware sold in India by multi-national companies.
Karnik also said that IT and ITeS sectors would emerge as the major contributors to the country's GDP, providing over 4 per cent in 2004-05, up from 3.5 per cent recorded in 2003-04 and a meagre 1.2 per cent in 1997-98.
On the employment of IT professionals, he said it would cross 10 lakh in the fiscal year '04, with software exports sector recruiting around 3.45 lakh (2.70 lakh in fiscal year '04), software domestic sector employing 30,000 (28,000) and software in-house captive staff recruitment rising to 3.22 lakh (2.90 lakh).
ITeS sector would be the largest employment generator, staffing around 3.48 lakh in 2004-05, up from 2.54 lakh jobs provided a year-ago, he said.
The Indian IT industry includes hardware, peripherals, networking, training, domestic and export market for IT services and products and ITeS-BPO segments.
On the recent trends in the sector, Karnik said the industry would exceed its target of 30-32 per cent in exports to around 34-35 per cent in FY'05, and was likely to witness a domestic IT market upsurge.
The domestic IT market upsurge would be due to the localisation of software by Microsoft Corproation and Red Hat, he added.
An increase in mergers and acquisitions - like the merger between eBay and Bazee.com, IBM-Daksh, Patni-Cymbal and Flextronics-HSS - are also likely to take place, he said.
A return of venture capitalists, who had fled after the dot.com burst, an increase in the presence of MNCs, and the country emerging as an R&D hub are also on the anvil, he said.
Emergence of global sourcing, resulting in India increasingly becoming a market place is also in the offing, he added.
However, India needs to focus on building delivery capabilities in low cost geographies, operational excellence at the activity, function and business levels, consultative selling capabilities to complement existing relationships among others.
"Security is the main concern. However, the solace is that it is a concern across the world. India should also focus on improving infrastructure," Karnik said. Lack of proper infrastructure is plaguing the growth of IT industry in India, he said.
"The Indian IT industry would cross Rs 100,000 crore ($28.3 billion) in 2004-05, thanks to the growth in IT-enabled Services (ITeS) and IT Services and Software," Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said.
The ITeS segment is expected to record a 20 per cent growth, up from 18.2 per cent posted in the fiscal year '04, IT services and Software is estimated to post 58.8 per cent (down from 59.4 per cent) and hardware at 21.2 per cent (22.4 per cent in FY'04), he said.
IT services and ITeS contribute about 78 per cent to overall industry, he said, adding that the size also includes hardware sold in India by multi-national companies.
Karnik also said that IT and ITeS sectors would emerge as the major contributors to the country's GDP, providing over 4 per cent in 2004-05, up from 3.5 per cent recorded in 2003-04 and a meagre 1.2 per cent in 1997-98.
On the employment of IT professionals, he said it would cross 10 lakh in the fiscal year '04, with software exports sector recruiting around 3.45 lakh (2.70 lakh in fiscal year '04), software domestic sector employing 30,000 (28,000) and software in-house captive staff recruitment rising to 3.22 lakh (2.90 lakh).
ITeS sector would be the largest employment generator, staffing around 3.48 lakh in 2004-05, up from 2.54 lakh jobs provided a year-ago, he said.
The Indian IT industry includes hardware, peripherals, networking, training, domestic and export market for IT services and products and ITeS-BPO segments.
On the recent trends in the sector, Karnik said the industry would exceed its target of 30-32 per cent in exports to around 34-35 per cent in FY'05, and was likely to witness a domestic IT market upsurge.
The domestic IT market upsurge would be due to the localisation of software by Microsoft Corproation and Red Hat, he added.
An increase in mergers and acquisitions - like the merger between eBay and Bazee.com, IBM-Daksh, Patni-Cymbal and Flextronics-HSS - are also likely to take place, he said.
A return of venture capitalists, who had fled after the dot.com burst, an increase in the presence of MNCs, and the country emerging as an R&D hub are also on the anvil, he said.
Emergence of global sourcing, resulting in India increasingly becoming a market place is also in the offing, he added.
However, India needs to focus on building delivery capabilities in low cost geographies, operational excellence at the activity, function and business levels, consultative selling capabilities to complement existing relationships among others.
"Security is the main concern. However, the solace is that it is a concern across the world. India should also focus on improving infrastructure," Karnik said. Lack of proper infrastructure is plaguing the growth of IT industry in India, he said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)