Bulletin 2008 - 25 - 03

From the Editor’s Desk:

An age old professor professes vehemently. “If a politician is invited for a convocation ceremony and he asks for a change of date, it is stupid to go by his need.” Short term hype is no match for the quality reflected in the rigour of student and staff performance. While such activities have been trends in privately run institutes to overarch their quality, B-schools at the top are no exception. From proving their mettle in academics, they have extended it to a host of competitions nurturing management practices. Some take it a bit further. They organize concerts; shoot movies, parties, games and a host of other circuses. As these are intended to gain popularity for the institute, here comes an exception who does not want all that attention. They probably believe that they only need to study. Or probably thought they were the trendsetters anyway.

Every BIMite is proud of its clubs and committees. Such enthralling is the sense of ownership and dedication that club wars have been a norm in BIM history. They proudly claim, “BIM is the only institute in India where you get to practice what you learn. Everything except admissions and examinations are taken care of by students”. On hearing this statement, a student gets agitated. “There are institutes where you have students in the admission panels and they have people to take care of the clerical work,” he says.

Kith and kin all become disgruntled during club wars. You reciprocate by throwing anything from tantrums to events. Gossip becomes a natural off shoot. And it provides the juicy recipe for news. What if they had all become friends? There would be no fire! There would be no smoke! Gossip mongers sit and speculate. Here we are after one year of speculation. We saw the smoke. We found the fire. Time to taste soup…

Snap Shot of Activities of Kalaicom during the academic Year 2007-2008

BIM 24 entered BIM on 2nd July with lots of expectations and aspirations and BIM 23 came back to their den on 4th July after good summers. As usual KALAIKOM lost no time to crush the ice. This time the ice not only got crushed but also melted. As per the tradition, BIM 24 were given the chits with the nick names of their seniors and 12 hrs to find them out. The smart seniors ensured that this doesn’t go so smooth for the juniors. The poor juniors had to treat the seniors with chocolates and juices to get even a wildest clue. The night of 6th July was even more entertaining. This was an opportunity for BIM 23 for an official ra****g. The PGP-1 also took this in the true spirit & zeal and treated the seniors royally.

Once the MARWAR fever was over it was time to give the new aspiring managers a grand welcome. The notice board started flashing with KALAIKOM teasers. 24th July was chosen for the BIM 24 to run behind the Treasure. None of the KALAIKOMites slept the previous day to ensure the success of the great treasure hunt. ARCANE REVELATIONS (treasure hunt) started with a bang at 9 am. Eight teams were formed and were given 7 clues to find out in the campus. Each clue led them to the next clue. As usual BIM 23 made their job even more difficult. The teams were treated with Water balloons and showers. The game did not end with the 7 clues. The teams were next asked to give a one page write-up on the last clue. Once that was submitted they were asked to get the photograph of their last clue. After this they were again made to run to collect the photographs of all the clues they had. The evening was set for the talent hunt. The evening was well lit up in mess to find the prospective candidates for Mr. n Ms. BIM 24. All the teams of Treasure hunt were supposed to show their talent in wackiest performances in group. This was just to entertain the crowd. The real show took swing when the interested candidates rocked the show with their creative individual performances. During all this fun Kalaikom judges were quietly evaluating them seriously for next days extravaganza.

Trichy, 25th July: The day was all set to find out who would bag the crown of Mr. and Ms. BIM 24. All the shortlisted candidates were informed a couple of hours before to make their own performances. The FUSION started in a grand style. The most naughtiest people were chosen as judges for the show. All the candidates made superb performances. Then they were grouped into pairs and different rounds of selection were conducted. The judges made all the best efforts to pull their legs by their questions. BIM saw their new best personalities as Devbrat Daga emerged as Mr.BIM and Ms.Ramya as Ms.BIM. That night saw the best dance floor ever.

Kalaikom was the last committee to recruit fresh talent and hence made a good effort with presentations and posters to make interested and best candidates join their league. The screening process left no opportunity for the Kalaikom 23 to subject the prospective candidates to a rigorous selection process of two interviews. The very next day it handed over the responsibility to the new Kalaikom 24.

Trichy, 3rd August: The test of new Kalaikom started right from the thanks giving function. They made a decent attempt in the form of AAGHAAZ to give a nice party BIM23. Seniors received a nice personalized service during dinner. The show went on well with seniors being involved in games and splendid performances by juniors. The night ended with a dance floor.

Trichy, 3rd September: How can the trimister go without the BIM talkies? LIFE IN A METRO and CHENNAI 28 were ready to rock the night at East end gardens. Due to rain, the BIM talkies was conducted in Mess in style.

Trichy, 15th September: Ganapati Bappa Moraya – Ganesh Chathurthi was celebrated in BIM. It was well organized and got a huge response from both BIM 23 and 24. People sought the blessings of Ganapatii Bappa and the idol immersion happened on the 3rd day in a grand way.

Trichy, 20th October: Back from the vacations, the placement pressure started mounting up. To ease out the scene Kalaikom once again conducted BIM talkies. BHEJA FRY & SIVAJI were successful in entertaining and relieving the pressure off the crowd.

Almost everyone is placed before day-1. With much jubilation in the air, SANGAM was organized to receive BIM 21 n 22 on 15th Dec. The whole day was nostalgic with our alumni as they revisited their hangouts in and around Trichy city such as Rockfort, Thanjavur, and Srirangam. The firecrackers on SANGAM night were a treat to watch. It lit up the night as if there was no tomorrow. The dancing sensations MANI n PRAVEEN set the stage on fire. The dance floor with seniors brought back the memorable days for BIM 22 n 23.

December, final week: Exams are on. 2007 is coming to an end and BIMites know how to do things apart from studying. Countdowns started flashing in the mess and over ip messenger. The New year party was set in between exams. On the night of 31st December, students showed great enthusiasm in playing games such as Housie Housie, Tug of War, Breaking the Handi(Pot). The new year was welcomed by a fire crackers, cake, bonfire, and of course the dance floor.

Trichy 17th February: Back to the last trimester. Enjoyment seems to be the mantra for the remaining days. Kalaikom was ready with BIM talkies again. Students were treated with 3 movies. MONSTERS INC, KANDA NAAL MUDHAL, & CHAK DE INDIA made the night memorable.

Trichy, 9th March: With the Midterms getting over, Kalaikom organises FOXTROT for those who wanted to don their dancing shoes and set the stage on fire. The event was flooded with registrations. This time even those who shied away from the stage decide to shake their legs for one last time at BIM. And if this was not enough, there were on spot registrations which ended up winning prizes. Talent, fun, energy, spirit, entertainment, enthusiasm, all packed up in one stage. The night ended with the dance floor.

Snapshot of Activities by Bismarc during the Academic Year 2007-2008

When I heard the name of BIM for the first time, it was from my friend. It felt like it was part of some government university and was wondering what it would have to do with the glass paned corporate order of the day. The people on juxtaposition with the pristine contemporary professional would look archaic. Yet, if there was a reason to survive, it should have been a whole big world of knowledge that could over power all its weaknesses. Or an internal society that radiated creativity in all that it was involved in. I think I guessed it right. Beating the mundane and defining a new sense, with the radically strong and powerful strides in red did I see the logo of BISMARC in red, in Seraphim.

It was BISMARC 23’s final chance to demonstrate their capabilities and reinstate their ASB (Attention Seeking Behaviour) before their juniors. Long before the summers set in, they had started talking about MARWAR. Suggestions were taken from faculty and industry collaborations plannes. With none having worked out, they designed a plan to test their creativity on the move.

Come to BIM during MARWAR. As the mood sets in, our overworked friends become worked up. They complain. As they walk like zombies, there is still a long way to go before these useful days would come to an end. MARWAR 2007 was planned to be launched on 07/07/07 and hence christened MARWAR 7 7 07. To set in a positive mood and a creative bend, the theme ‘Know no Woe’ invited individuals to say goodbye to all their inhibitions and get ready for the blast.

The anthem and the video added to the effort in setting the spirit of MARWAR. Dhananjay of PGP II composed the music.

The reopening of the institute and admission enrollments had not happened on schedule. The event could hence not be started on the planned date. Bismarc decided to announce the event on the 7th to stand by their planned name 7 7 07 and the event was inaugurated on the 9th of July. The days in between were used to form teams. Presentations by guides, mostly videos were kept ready. And the evening on 9th, by providing their preferred rankings for guides (called Patrons and Matrons), the drama was kick started.

The first stage included formulating a product or a service, designing a logo, highlighting its unique features, christening it with a name and tagline. This was followed with massive poster hauls from each team, promoting their brand stronger and harder with the pressure from academics and Marwar mounting. Make believe government committees were instated which composed of BIM 23 students. All companies had to go and get their approval for their products and deadlines were given for this. Soaring heat, soaring tempers, disappointments, not completing tasks on schedule became common but the trick was to stick it out. And they did stick it out till the process of elimination. Out of the twelve teams that registered, six were eliminated and their members inducted into the other teams.

This was followed by a personal selling round where BIM 24 had to sell their products to BIM 23 and convince them to buy it. BIM 23 evaluated this round and some amount of fun was involved. The idea was to get the two batches talking. After this, the teams were asked to submit a business plan replete with figures and market analysis for their products. This was presented to a panel composed of our faculty, Prof Sundar, Prof David Jawahar and Prof Sriraman. Questions were asked to and were fielded by the groups.

To ease of the tension, a Flub night was organized where all video ads for the products were aired. These ads had been created by the respective groups. Also, LOGON, the logo game was conducted and chocolates were given to the correct guesses.

The final night of glory came with the teams getting to enact how they would promote the products of their competing teams. They were given five minutes to prepare and had to come on stage and perform. After all these rounds of evaluation, the teams that emerged winners were Oasis, Made Easy and Connexions.

Post MARWAR 7 7 07, the mad rush for new club and committee recruitments began with BISMARC recruiting some of the hardest workers and attention seekers on campus!!! Post handing over the charge to BISMARC 24, they have been consistent in hosting in continuing to host daily events such as BIZBUZZ, highlighting important business news in class during breaks, and LOGON, the logo guessing game. In September, they conducted a number of GYAN SABHAs in fields such as Marketing, Finance, Systems, Human Resources and Operations where PGP II students were invited to present their projects and their summer project experiences. The sessions were enriching and gave the first years a good idea about what to expect.

BISMARC 24 also introduced new events such as PROMOTTO, an event where ideas were invited to promote BIM as it enters its silver jubilee year. PROMOTTO was organized between the 21st to the 25th of January . The idea was to find ways in which BIM can be promoted on a short term and long term basis in the industry. The students were asked to write a promotional plan, complete with financials. These plans were reviewed and the best plans were shortlisted by a panel comprising of Prof. David Jawahar and Prof.Sundar. These plans were then presented to an audience and the teams fielded questions about the feasibility of promoting BIM.

Following PROMOTTO, BISMARC 24 launched ADDICTION, the advertising event, between the 13th and 17th of March, 2008, where students were asked to formulate video ads and posters a product category given to them. Teams of three students participated comprosing of a mix of both PGP I and PGP II. BISMARC 23, which was split into three panels having one product category each, comprised of the customers and the teams were make believe ad agencies. The teams were asked to question the panel and glean necessary information about how the customer would like their products to be promoted. Then the teams were asked to write a summary of their discussion with the panel. Following this, the teams were given 3 days to create posters and video ads for their products. One winner was chosen from each of the categories.

Now, as the year comes to a close BISMARC 23 bows out and BISMARC 24 is tingling with anticipation to welcome their juniors with MARWAR. Lets hope for the best.

Snapshot of Activities by Finclub during the Academic Year 2007-2008

Nidhi Shastra

This event was effectively titled as the “strategy drawn for treasure”. It was the first event conducted by Fin Club of BIM 24 after they took over the reigns from BIM 23. Nidhi Shastra was an event which involved use of financial skills of budding finance managers and entrepreneurs from both PGP 2 and PGP 1. The event was aimed at encouraging interaction as well participation between BIM 23 and BIM 24. Thus the teams were a mix of both batches. Previously, BIM 23 had conducted ‘Kshan’- an event designed to test the ability of students to react to situations and case studies within a short span of time, using their skills and resources on hand. Nidhi Shastra revolved around the same theme, but was entirely finance based in its case studies. The judges were Professor Sriraman and Professor Sivasankaran. The event received huge number of entries with over twenty participating teams of four members each. It was an enriching event, coupled with fun, innovation and creative solutions. It was a successful attempt to analyse and exhibit teamwork, financial and presentation skills.

Bulls and Bears

A quotation which reflects the play of the stocks in the stock market, Bulls N Bears is a FinClub initiative to introduce the students to the art of portfolio management and stock market trading. Students were asked to form teams with both batches and were asked to recommend stocks. Their performance would be evaluated on various quantitative as well as qualitative factors. This was done with online trading at moneycontrol.com. Thus students would be able to experience real time trading with real time data from the stock market. It encouraged many students to become real investors and also encouraged an active interest in others.

Finance Forums

Finance Forums was the brainchild of Finclub of BIM 23, which proved to be a huge success in the past. The finance forums is a platform for students to teach, discuss and learn, among themselves the course contents in the various finance courses, in addition to classroom content. Forums, like last year, were conducted for the topics like Accounting Standards, Risk and Return, Capital Budgeting etc. These forums brought out the teacher in many of the students, and also provided a healthy discussion point, where many new insights were discussed and used. These forums are now being planned for various other subjects, and also the scope being expanded to include new topics in the vast field of finance.

Finanz Utsav

Finanz Utsav was the first time event of its kind in the history of BIM. Conducted over a week of March 4-11, 2008, the festival of finance consisted of various events like Career Forums, Sessions on various happenings, Special Lectures, Quizzes, Equity Research Competition, and the legendary Yudh Vidya. The aim of Finanz Utsav is to introduce the students to various nuances of finance in a fun and competitive way. With the first years ready to embark on the journey of summer internships and the second year students, in the last lap of their course, this series of events provided an opportunity for the batches to interact and share knowledge gained.

The Utsav kicked off with a bang with a series of Brown Bag Sessions - discussion forums on issues like the Budget, Economic Growth Vs Inflation and where is the Indian Stock Market going ? This was also followed up with special lectures by Professor Athreya on the Budget, Professor G Srinivasan on equity research, Professor Ravichandran on Forex and Professor Prasanna Bhat on Financial Services. Career forums were conducted with students from PGP 2, placed in various profiles sharing their experience and knowledge on how to prepare and what to expect at placements.

Buffet’s Pick - the equity research competition was a first time effort and invited students to apply their skills to value firms and show their knowledge of the much talked about stock market, where they were asked to recommend various stocks, with a report on it, which would include fundamental analysis and other parameters. With the number of placements in this area seeing a rising interest, this would be an opportunity for the interested students to try their mettle at this area. With many databases available with a wealth of information for the students, Eureka-the DB quiz was conducted with the intent of encouraging students to use the available information for their advantage. The DB quiz spanned databases like Prowess, IAS, Business Beacon and Crisinfac.

Yudh Vidya, the management strategy game, has been conducted every year by Fin Club to introduce the students to the various nuances of strategies of a business. Students formed teams of four, with PGP 2 and PGP1, and applied their knowledge to make split second decisions on various issues like pricing, promotion, R&D and profit margin. Their inputs in every quarter determined their final performance. A two day elimination game was also spiced up with business quizzes. Yudh Vidya enabled students to make real time decisions and see their effects on the performance of their firm, which would prepare them for the decisions they would have to take in their chosen careers, and their implications. This event was also widely appreciated.

Updates from Sportscom:

As the motto goes……….. “PASSION NEVER DIES”
SportsCom consistently created exuberant platform for the enthusiastic managers to explore their passion – Sports. Managing between time & task, and without hindering regular classes, SportsCom had successfully conducted tournaments scheduling it all during nights.

With brilliant glowing flood lights and the podium filled with excited audience taking a break to watch their favorite teams and players fill the ground with team temperament and sportsmanship, and with t’-shirt printed, polling booth for voting on best players of each tournament, mike announcements/ running commentaries, cheering squads, Referees & umpires, rules & regulations, and with everything in place one can definitely say it was a SPORTS MELA each trimester.

Being effective event managers SportsCom’s 4 P’s were
Prize for winning, Place for playing, People for cheering, Players for entertaining!!!

The following table contains information on various sports events that were conducted by SPORTSCOM 24 during the academic year 2007 - 08:

TRIEMSTER
BOYS
GIRLS
TROPHY
GAME
WINNERS (by order)
TROPHY
GAME
WINNERS (by order)


I
Aug 2007 (20th -28th )


FREE KICK’07 8


Football Tournament


Blitzkreig (PGP 2)
Predators (PGP 1)
Galeej united (PGP 2)



FREE THROW’07


Throw ball Event


Thookipodu (Pgp 2)
Addra Sakka (Pgp 1)


II
Oct 2007
(18th – 27th)

SMASHES ’07 9

Volley ball Tournament

43 United (PGP 2)
Crusaders (PGP 2)
Wild Wingz (PGP 1)



------------

III
Jan 2008
(22nd – 31st )

SUNDARA
RAGHAVAN CRICKET TROPHY’08

Cricket
Tournament

Pokkri (PGP 2)
RDX (PGP 2)
Yorkers (PGP 1)

SUNDARA
RAGHAVAN CRICKET TROPHY’08

Cricket
Match

Halla Bol (PGP 2)
Chak De (PGP 1)

Highlight -“SUNDARARAGHAVAN CRICKET TROPHY’08” is named after a SportsCom member of batch 23 who had unfortunately expired on 9th Feb, 2007 during cricket tournament. Hence to honor the former SportsCom member and his endeavors, batch 24 SportsCom had kick started this rolling trophy after his name for this flagship event of SportsCom.

ACADEMIC YEAR 07’ – 08’
FIGURES

Total no. of participants

406 (incld PGP 1 & 2)
Total no. of winners
(certificates given)
Boys – 120/ Girls - 52
Total no. of trophies
Boys -6 /Girls - 2
Total prize money
Rs 35,000/-








(Consolidated figures with respect to awards / students turnover for the events during the academic year 2007-08)

BIM Trichy, Runners up in “Trichy ET in Campus Quiz”

The ‘ET In Campus’ quiz, which kicked off with a nail-biting finale in the Chennai edition, had a similar close call in Trichy. After the tough fight that saw a few tie breakers, Sastra University students walked away with the winner’s trophy and the team from BIM (Sumit Dharmsi and Arti Kalyanaraman, Batch 23) was the runners up.

The quiz held at the national college, Trichy, was presented by Cognizant, a leading software service provider. Six teams made it to the finals from over 200 applicants of the Trichy quiz.

The finalists included sastra university, BIM, Cauveri College for Women, NIT Trichy, Thyagaraja college of Engineering and Madurai Kamaraj University. The rule was to take only one team per college.

Cognizant VP GVN Appa Rao was the chief guest and gave away the prizes. The sponsors for the quiz were Cognizant, Reliance Mobile, Sri Krishna Sweets, Sabols and Pathfinder.

Crescita 2007

While information on the great Indian growth story is abundant, questions about its sustainability and challenges constantly haunt our minds. In an effort to unravel some of these questions BIM Trichy had organized a two day seminar in association with ET Empower on ‘India Rising- Emerging Issues in India Inc’ in Chennai on the 3rd and 4th of November, 2007.

‘Crescita’, the annual conference of the BIM Trichy, saw speakers from various sectors share their perspectives on issues such as currency appreciation, inclusive growth, energy requirements, supply chain establishment, financial inclusion, effective communication with target audience and talent retention. “The theme is important for youngsters who will be part of powerful sectors and companies tomorrow. They need to be aware of bottlenecks such as inadequate infrastructure and social exclusion that might affect growth”, said Prof M Sankaran, director-BIM at the inauguration of the conference.

Mr. BL Ghasolia, executive director-chief, corporate finance, ONGC, who inaugurated the two-day seminar, outlined the energy requirements to fuel India’s burgeoning growth. He also advocated the need to tap alternative sources of energy which now becomes an emergent challenge to a growing Indian economy.

The 200+ management students who attended the seminar also tuned in to issues pertaining to specific sectors such as the retail and communication. B Venkataramana, VP-human resources, Reliance Retail spoke on how Human Resources had moved beyond payroll management and data entry to drawing the image and culture of an organization. “Since the traditional HR can be automated or outsourced, the focus is increasingly moving to designing retention strategies”, said Mr. Venkataramana. This was especially important in the retail sector where there are too many jobs chasing few people, he said.

Mr. Alvin Saldanha, national creative director, Shobiz Integrated Marketing Communications, acquainted the aspiring media planners in the audience with innovative means to capture consumer mind-share. “Increasingly, press and TV advertising are playing a support function in driving consumer traffic to the net. Consumers today are not available in the same media and spot as before”, said Mr. Saldanha. Organisations now are leveraging through blogs, social networking sites and podcasts to attract and retain consumers. Innovation is the norm of the day if the company seeks to stand out and catch as many eyeballs as possible.

On Day 1 of Crescita ‘08, the quizzing club of BIM organized BIM Quest, a corporate quiz event. The event was sponsored by Club Mahindra. The Event was orchestrated by Mr. Lloyd Saldanha of Grey Caps. The event had 2 stages, first one was a preliminary stage, open to all teams and the top 6 teams went on to play the finals. More than 100 teams from various corporate entities around the country participated in the opening round of BIMQuest. Top six teams comprising of Bhilai Steel, TCS, GE Money, Irevna, Cambridge Solutions and Sun Microsystems made it to the finals of BIMQuest. The finals had four rounds where the business acumen of the participants was judged to the core by the quiz master. Te audience was kept wired to the quiz throughout by Mr. Saldanha with loads of audience questions and witty comments. The team from Sun Microsystems emerged as the winners and won a cash prize of Rs 25000. The team from Cambridge Solutions came second and got a cash prize of Rs 15000. TCS team came third and got a cash prize of Rs 10000. All the winning teams got holiday packages from Club Mahindra worth Rs 15000 each.


Day 2 of Crescita 2007 had started with Mr T. R Ramachandran, Country Head, Cards Division of Citibank Group, an alumnus of BIM, talking about various economic and financial trends related to the banking industry and its impact on India Rising.

Mr. Moorthi Chockkanathan, Senior VP, Head Delivery, Hexaware Technologies sharing his views about the role of the IT industry in India Rising and what more needs to be done in that direction to sustain the growth rate.

Ms Punitha Arumugam, Head of Madison Communications, took over the stage next and shared her views on how the Media industry, in particular the impact of media agencies in India Rising. She also spoke about the dearth of talent in this sector due to pay scale being incomparable with the BPO industry.

The afternoon session saw Mr Hariharan, Associate Director P & G India, share his views about the economic growth in general and how to sustain it but the emphasis was on the FMCG industry. He spoke about the growth of FMCG industry in India and how the changing demographics are affecting it now and how they will affect the growth rate of the industry in the future. He also shared few points on CSR initiatives of various companies that have a huge role to play in India Rising.

During both days of Crescita 2007, Government representatives in the form of Mr. R. Christodas Gandhi I.A.S (Secretary to the Govt of Tamil Nadu, Social Reforms) and Mr. Ashok Vardhan Shetty I.A.S (Secretary to the Govt of Tamil Nadu, Rural development and Panchayati Raj) applauded the efforts of India Inc for the rising growth rate but spoke about the huge gap in the increasing divide between the rich and poor. They had a common view on the industry going in for inclusive growth that benefits all sections of the society and also would help in sustaining the economic growth over a longer period of time.

All sessions were interactive with students and other guests given ample opportunity to raise doubts and queries for clarifications. The speakers were made to defend their arguments by an eager audience which showed considerable enthusiasm and a spirit for learning through questioning.

The event came an end with the valedictory function being presided over by Mrs. Pamela Ramalingam, Director, ISoft Technologies. Mrs. Ramalingam, an alumnus of the 1st batch on BIM, shared her view on the theme of the event and highlighted a few points that as budding managers and futures students need to keep in mind to ensure India keeps rising.

Further details can be found on www.crescita.in


Enigma 2008
PRCom together with BIMQuest conducted Enigma, an online quiz, attracting more than 1000 registrations from all over the globe. It saw active participation from all the top B-Schools from the country. The event was conducted in four stages viz general business, sports, movies and stock market. The event was concluded with a mega quiz which saw several corporate participants. More updates are available on the BIM website.