Post on 08-Apr-2018
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8/6/2019 DeKaf IIMK Newsletter#1
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IIMK Newsletter 2
Inside this issueArticlesArticles
3| Equity Risk Premium in India
5| Managing and Fostering Corporate Innovation
7| Winning Streek
10| Social Networks and the New Media Paradigm
12| Distributive Manufacturing
14| The New Age Business Focus - The B2E concept
16| Private Equity - Is the picture really as rosy?
18| Strategy Paradox - Commitment vs. Flexibility
Interest GroupsInterest Groups4| Financially Yours (FY)
7| Konsult
9| mPower
9| AbaKus
13| Omega
19| HRiday
Buzz@KBuzz@K20| Upcoming programs
21| Committee news
22| Events
From the Eds DeskFor over 11 years
now, the Indian Institute of
Management Kozhikode has
been shaping the best minds
in the country to become
some of the finest managers
in the world. The transforma-
tion is in the experience and
while we wouldn't even dream
of attempting to fit that into 24
pages of a newsletter, a small
whiff of that experience is
what we have attempted to
capture in DeKaf , published
for the very first time.
DeKaf features arti-
cles from the think tanks of
each of the interest groups, a
brief on the various activities
of committees during the term,
campus buzz at IIM-K and
much more.
We would like to ac-
knowledge the contributions of
all the interest groups and
committees of IIM-K. We
would also like to thank Prof.
Sanjay Jharkaria and the De-
sign Committee for their valu-
able inputs.
Please send in any
feedback or suggestions that
you think may help us improve
DeKaf to editboard@iimk.ac.in
Happy Reading!!
IIM-K Editorial Board Team
Front Row (L-R): Angad Keith, Kumar Vivek, Shilpa Lanka
Back Row (L-R): Soheib Ali, Burhan Hussain, Hrishikesh Kelkar
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risk premium for India.
There are several
other serious problems whileusing the historical approach
to risk premium estimation in
the Indian context. Though
the BSE Sensex does go
back till 1979, the index did
not undergo significant revi-
sion till 1996, implying that
by the mid nineties the index
was not representative of the
Indian stock market. Also,
Interest rates in India were
administered till the early
nineties. Varma (2002) esti-
mates the repression of in-
terest rates in India at 3%
pre-deregulation. This distor-
tion has to be taken into ac-
count while choosing the risk
-free rate with respect to
which the risk premium will
be calculated.
Varma and Barua
(2006) overcome these prob-
lems by constructing an al-
ternative index comprising of
the most liquid stocks for the
period 1981-96 and estimat-
ing risk free rates separately
for the pre-reform and post-
reform periods. They con-
clude that the equity risk pre-
mium in India, based on geo-metric mean of annual re-
turns is about 8.75% with no
3 IIMK Newsletter
The equity risk premium is
the aggregate return earned
in the stock market in excessof that earned by default-free
securities. It is a vital compo-
nent in the Capital asset pric-
ing model which states that
the excess return earned by
a stock over the risk free rate
is equal to the equity risk pre-
mium times the riskiness of
the stock as estimated by its
beta. Accurate estimation of
equity risk premium is impor-
tant as it has implications on
asset allocation decisions in
portfolio management and
capital budgeting decisions in
corporate finance.
Estimating the premium
using historical data
The most prevalent method
used to estimate equity riskpremium is by observing the
historical risk premium
earned by the stock market
over long periods of time.
This approach has its limita-
tions especially in emerging
markets where the historical
data is often limited and too
noisy to yield a reliable esti-
mate. Though capital markets
in India have a history of 130
years, the economy has un-
dergone many structural
changes over the period. In-
dia has moved onto a higher
growth path since 1980 ow-
ing to key structural changes
in the economy around that
time (Rodrick and Subrama-
niam, 2004). Hence, we have
to confine ourselves to about25 years of stock market data
while estimating the equity
significant difference be-
tween the pre-reform and
post-reform period.
A Modified Historical Risk
Premium
Because of the problems
associated with the use of
historical data in emerging
economies, Damodaran pre-
fers an alternative mode of
estimation which employs a
base equity premium and
country risk premium.Equity Risk Premium = Base
Premium for a mature Equity
market + Country Premium
Generally the US
risk premium is used as the
base premium for a mature
equity market. The country
risk measure is a function of
the sovereign rating and
volatility of the countrys eq-uity market relative to the
bond market. This approach
estimates Indias equity risk
premium at 9.23%
A Premium for bearing
Risk?
It is evident that the rates of
return on stocks in India
have been significantly
higher than the rates ofreturn on risk free assets.
Equity Risk Premium in India Shrikanth K
Time Pe-
riod
Geometric Mean
Risk free rate Market return Risk Premium
Pre mid 91 12.02% 20.98% 8.96%
Post mid 91 9.47% 18.05% 8.58%
Entire Pe-
riod
10.53% 19.27% 8.74%
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IIMK Newsletter 4
interest income inter-alia.
Views on the ex-ante eq-
uity premium
Can the ex-post historical
estimates of equity risk pre-
mium be considered as fair
estimates of ex-ante equity
premium for the future, say
the next 25 years? There are
good reasons to believe that
expectations of a risk pre-
mium in excess of 8% in fu-
ture are well-founded. As
equity ownership which has
percolated to about 1% of
households, goes up mani-
fold in the coming decades,
we can expect returns on
equity to go up considerably.
Also, as the quantum of for-
eign institutional investment
in Indian markets goes up,
we can expect the Beta of
Indian markets vis--vis
global market indices to in-
crease, resulting in higher
expected equity returns.
Therefore, notwithstanding
the fact that market indices
are currently at all time
highs, expectations of a an
8% risk premium are veryrealistic.
But are stocks so much risk-
ier than bills to merit a pre-
mium as high as 8%?
The charts clearly
indicate that the difference in
risk between risk free instru-
ments and stocks is not as
high as suggested by the ob-
served equity risk premium.
Mehra (2006), estimates that
the excess risk of stocks with
respect to bills does not merit
a risk premium higher than
0.16%, even at very high lev-
els of risk aversion. This
value is an order of magni-
tude lower than the actual
risk premium in the markets.
To account for the observed
discrepancy, we must reex-
amine the assumptions used
in estimating risk-adjusted
returns. While calculating the
theoretical risk premium, we
assumed that the marginal
investor holds the market
portfolio and ignored taxes
and other regulatory con-
straints. By relaxing these
assumptions the excess pre-
mium over the theoretical
premium can be attributed to
diversification costs, different
tax rates on dividend and
Source: The equity risk premium in India, Rajnish Mehra (2006)
Financially Yours (FY),
The finance interest group
of IIMK is one of the most
popular and active interest
groups on campus. Thegroup meets every week to
discuss the recent happen-
ings in the world of business
and finance.
IBOK
Incepted last year, FY runs
the Investment Bank of Koz-
hikode (IBOK). It has 102
students in analyst roles and
45 students in associateroles working in teams
tracking 22 different sectors.
Research teams churn out
reports analyzing the growth
prospects of different indus-
try sectors and the factors
that influence the perform-
ance of various companies.
The sectors tracked include
Pharma, Telecom, Media,Oil and Gas, Banking, Fi-
nancial Services and Insur-
ance, Retail, Transportation,
Power, Metals, Forex and
commodity markets and a
few major sectors in the for-
eign markets as well.
FY Weekly Sessions:
Panel discussion on the
budget 2007-08Introduction to financialmarkets
Financial Derivatives,Time Value of Moneyand its implications
Sessions on importanttopics such as securiti-zation, credit defaultswaps, intangible valua-tion
Preparatory session forthe summer placements
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IIMK Newsletter 6
ners that bring resources
may share costs of develop-
ment but can create depend-
encies.
Defining the Scope ofInnovation
Defining the scope of its in-
novation activities (known as
the strategic envelope),
ensures that a firms innova-
tion efforts are not wasted on
projects that are highly un-
certain or outside the firms
domain of interest. Strategic
enveloping defines the rangeof acceptable products and
creates firm specific view of
innovation that defines how a
firm can learn from innova-
tion experience even if the
project fails. It also gives a
direction to firms innovation
efforts which helps to sepa-
rate seeds from weeds and
build internal capabilities.
Managing the pace of
Innovation
The project time-line of an
incremental innovation is
short term (six months to two
years) whereas a more radi-
cal innovation is typically
long term (10 years or more).
Radical innovations often
begin with a long period ofexploration , whereas, an
incremental innovation, for
the purpose of exploiting a
window of opportunity, may
use a milestone approach
that is more stringently
driven by goals and dead-
lines. Not all innovation lendsitself to speedy development.
Collaboration with Innova-
tion Partners
Partners can be from:
Other personnel within
the department
Personnel from other
department within the firm
Personnel outside the
firm.
Non-business sources like
research universities and the
government can also contrib-
ute to being innovation part-
ners. Strategic partnering
requires firms to identify their
strengths and weaknesses
and make choices about
which capabilities to leverage
and which capabilities need
further development. In order
to choose the right innova-
tion partner, firms need to
ask a basic question: what
competencies they are look-
ing for and what the partner
will contribute.
Conclusion
Innovation requires a com-
pany-wide commitment be-
cause the results of innova-
tion affect every part of the
organization. To effectively
implement innovation, an
entrepreneurial spirit and skill
set are essential. However,
in order to be successful,
innovation process has to
stay focused on its ultimate
purpose i.e. to introduce new
products and/or deploy new
innovation difficult include
uncertainty about outcomes
and numerous choices in-
volved in innovation proc-
esses. These choices can
present companies with fol-lowing dilemmas while pursu-
ing innovation:
Seeds versus Weeds: Out
of abundant innovative ideas
that a company has, which
ones are likely to be success-
ful i.e. to separate seeds from
weeds.
Experience versus Initia-
tive: Who would lead an in-novation project A senior
manager with experience
who is risk averse or a middle
-level manager who has more
enthusiasm but lacks experi-
ence
Internal versus External
Staffing: People within the
organization may have
greater social capital but itmight inhibit them from think-
ing outside the box whereas
external staffing requires time
& resources for recruiting and
training.
Building capabilities ver-
sus Collaborating: Building
capabilities on your own
would require time and
money but would guaranteeyour independence. How-
ever, collaborating with part-
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7 IIMK Newsletter
Introduction
Tum apni lambi umar ke
liye sign kar doJeete
raho. This is a dialogue from
the recent ICICI Prudential
ad which showcases a
housewife asking her hus-
band to sign on the insur-
ance papers.
In a recent HSBC adver-
tisement a housewife is
shown managing her own
book shop successfully.
A female in a Deutsche
Bank advertisement, says
Someday, I would like to
start a new venture.
In a recent Knorrs soup
advertisement, the house-
wife is successfully able to
cook delicious food, using
Knorrs soups.
Since when have Indianhousewives started taking
financial matters in their own
hands? Wasnt this the so
called mens domain? All
these advertisements show
the increased stature of the
Indian housewife. What has
changed?
Indian housewives: Past
These are some of the
images that come to mind
when one thinks of an Indianhousewife.
This is the stereotypical
image of a housewife.
There has always been a
strong demarcation be-
tween the responsibilities of
the husband and the wife.
There were various reasons
for this:
Joint family structure:
When a girl is married in a
joint family, being the bahu
of the house leaves no time
for her to think beyond. The
Indian culture, which still
doesnt allow a woman to
speak in front of the elder
males of the family, disal-
lowed the females of the
house to voice their opinion
in front of the whole family.
Education: The lack of
education was a reason for
the skewed decision power,
as uneducated women did
not know the ropes well
enough to talk confidently to
their husbands about their
ideas and were left to
household chores. This lack
of confidence went a long
way in deciding the
womans domain. She was
not involved in any big pur-
chase decision, neither in
any of the major decisions
like childrens careers, fi-
nancial matters etc.
Winning Streek Deepika Chhajed
Konsult
The consulting IG of IIMK has
always spearheaded the
cause of consulting activities
on campus. The various ac-
tivities this term include:
Knowledge Bank: A search-
able database of consulting
focused interview preparation
material was setup on theintranet providing students
access to a wealth of informa-
tion on the industry, job- pro-
files, recruitment methodolo-
gies & preparatory material
Case Interviews: Taking a
leaf out of the Live Case-
Interview Workshop held by
McKinsey & Co, Konsult
learnt quickly and set upteams of students for practic-
ing Cases. Live Case Inter-
view simulations were also
held
Industry interaction: Indus-
try captains from leading
Consu l t ing f i rms l i ke
McKinsey & Co, Boston Con-
sulting Group, KPMG and
Deloitte Consulting visited thecampus and addressed stu-
dents on a myriad of issues,
providing them practitioners
perspectives and in turn,
gaining exposure to bright
ideas of the next generation
of leaders.
CV Building workshop: A
workshop on How to build a
top Consulting CV, in asso-ciation with a global leader in
consulting, was organized.
processes that build com-
petitive advantages and
make the company profit-
able.
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IIMK Newsletter 8
outlook of Indian women.
Nuclear family: Nuclear
family is the cement and re-
inforcement. In a nuclear
family the decision makers
are reduced to two. Also, it
increases the pressure on
the husband to perform and
work harder as he is the only
bread winner of the family.
This in turn makes him very
busy and conceding, making
him rather grateful when his
wife is able to manage the
house.
Influence of western culture
and media: It projects the
horizon which they havent
reached, but can.
Mental-make up: They are
seeking a perfect balance
between work and home,
social life and family life.
Power tussle: The power
has always been more on
the mans side. But the
newly educated and empow-ered women now want the
power shifted towards them
by making the more impor-
tant decisions instead of the
low level jobs like regular
household chores.
Jealousy: This was an un-
expected reason which came
up during one of the inter-
views conducted. A financepost graduate recently mar-
ried in a joint family said If
she can do it, why cant I?
Higher confidence levels
and ambition: There is a new
found widespread need for
productivity. All the females
interviewed said that they
wanted to invest their time
doing something which
would make them feel satis-
fied and content at the end of
the day.
Extent of change: It has
been observed mainly in the
women belonging to SEC A
and B. This could be be-
cause the reasons cited for
the change apply only to
these segments of society.
Edcation, modern ideas, me-
dia, technology etc. still
havent reached towns and
villages.
Another factor noticed was
that this empowerment has
still not reached all sections
of the society.
Marketing and advertising
changes
Shift in decision power:
House managers, Chief pur-
chasing officers and family
financial officers
The man makes the
decision for any large pur-
chase whereas the woman is
given a budget to manage
the house days are gone.
This was the traditional
model on which the market
Mental make-up and aspi-
rations: After a lifetime of
household chores, many
women showed little or no
concern for things outside
their domestic circle. The pre-
scribed path for them was
considered a given and they
were comfortable walking
along it.
Lack of a strong Media
Changes over the years
The Indian women, especially
in cities, have undergone a
sea of change over the lastfew years in terms of attitude,
interest, activities and ambi-
tion. The major reasons are:
Indian landscape: At the
macro level, the Indian soci-
ety is experiencing a gender
role-reversal process. Frag-
mentation of family bonding,
fast paced life, long busy
working hours, increased
pressure to perform and
stress, especially in the met-ros, are the building blocks of
change. The new generation
is more educated, exposed to
western culture and open.
The outlook of the society has
undergone a tremendous
change as they have ac-
cepted bahus in their new
roles.
Education: Education is seenas the biggest enabler in the
360 degree change in the
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9 IIMK Newsletter
mPower
mPower,the Marketing Inter-
est Group at IIMK is driven
by the singular goal of creat-
ing and stimulating market-ing interest on campus.
It holds weekly ses-
sions attended in over-
whelming numbers by the
student community at IIMK.
These sessions work to-
wards ,
Unraveling the latestdevelopments in the
world of marketing.Endeavoring to encour-age interaction amongstlike-minded enthusiasts.
Sharing summer intern-s h i p e x p e r i e n c e samongst peers, juniors.
mPower kicked off
the year by introducing the
new batch to the fascinating
world of marketing, this was
brought about by a CasePresentation focused on the
marketing talismans, 4Ps
and STP
This was followed up
by a session on 'Mischief
Marketing, which was re-
ceived with great enthusiasm
for its take on unconven-
tional methods of marketing,
their successes and the pos-sible pitfalls.
Sessions on Rural
and Retromarketing pro-
vided insights into the hatke
side of marketing
T h e r e i s
much more in the offing for
the academic year, as we
gear up to Marketing. Every-
thing
ing companies used to base
their promotions till date.
From viewing women as im-
plementers of decisions
made by their husbands and
mothers-in-law, advertisers
have now moved to women
who proclaim, "The home is
my territory, I am the boss
here."
Some things never change:
Stereotypical images are still
juxtaposed, giving a very
'mixed' message.
Newly-weds are stillshown worried about the
wicked pimple which will af-
fect their marriage, Ponds
Miracle coming to their help.
The Cinderella fantasy is still
used to lure women. And
then the image of a super
woman still persists.
Future outlook and oppor-
tunitiesIn response to the
question, if in the future,
there is an advertisement
showcasing a housewife
managing the financials of
the house, would you like it?
almost all of the interviewees
replied affirmatively.
Keeping all this in
mind, it would seem sensiblefor brand managers to target
these new generation em-
powered housewives and
come up with Integrated Mar-
keting Communication strate-
gies, which target their new
found needs of productivity
and the desire to prove them-
selves in front of their hus-
bands, family and society at
large.
AbaKus
AbaKus, the Systems Inter-
est Group at IIMK was in-
volved in numerous activities
during last term. Some of themajor activities are,
HCL Case Study Chal-
lenge (July) : The first
event for the batch of
2009, the HCL Case
Study Challenge based
on implementing a pro-
ject for telecom multina-
tional had an 21 teams
participating.
Business Networking
via the Web (Aug) A
session showcasing sev-
eral tools on the Internet
to grow, cultivate and
maintain a network of
contacts, one of the
most valuable yet under-
used assets in an MBA
professional's armory
Thinking in Word 2007
and Excel 2007 (Aug)
In path-breaking series
of sessions, Sanjog Jolly
and Prasanna Bora took
audience through the
philosophies and best
practices of using Word
and Excel 2007 as pro-
fessionals.
Summers Experience
Session (Oct)- A series
of talks by PGP10 par-
ticipants who have
worked in technology
firms. Talks covered
roles, projects, organiza-
tion-specific details and
expected career paths.
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The surge in popularity of
what is popularly known as
social media has put thepower of mass communica-
tion into the hands of the indi-
vidual. Old media, both print
and television, have only just
begun to wake up to this
threat to their hegemony.
This article examines this
phenomenon in some detail
as well as the threat to tradi-
tional media empires before
projecting into the future
what old media should and
should not do to continue to
survive and prosper in the
new ecosystem. The inten-
tion is not so much as to seek
depth as to draw the readers
attention to the evolution of
this new media economy.
What is social media ?
The past dizzying decade
witnessed the obsolescence
of the phone and the simulta-
neous rise of email and in-
stant messaging as the Inter-
net spread its tentacles into
every region of almost every
nation in the world. However,
in the past couple of years
even email has taken a back
seat to a new generation of
communication media, whichresemble a noisy market-
place rather than the hushed,
IIMK Newsletter 10
private conversations of old.
Almost everyone
would have seen social me-dia in action blogs, wikis,
chat forums, social commu-
nities such as the white-hot
Facebook, social bookmark-
ing ala del.icio.us, virtual
worlds of the Second Life
kind, marketplaces pio-
neered by eBay, and col-
laborative tools like Googles
Online Office Suite. All these
are characterized by the no-
tion that each participant
adds value to the product
the more people use it, the
better it gets unlike any
media in the past. Most im-
portantly, the individual can
communicate with an audi-
ence potentially as vast as
the entire Internet.
Why is old media threat-
ened ?
Old media, the traditional
media houses, have long
been able to control the mes-
sage, because they also
owned the channel. This
gave them terrifying power
over peoples opinions and
therefore actions.
New media, unfortu-
nately, disrupts every single
stage of the media supply
chain from production to
programming to publishing to
distribution. It seizes control
of every stage and thrusts it
into the hands of the individ-
ual. The familiar linear one-to
-many model of traditional
media stretches, twists and
under relentless pressure
from the cacophony of a mil-
lion voices, morphs into an
almost chaotic many-to-
many network.
As tools like blogs
turn every opinionated mind
with a keyboard and an inter-
net connection into a publish-
ing house, entry barriers are
being razed to the ground.
For old media the implica-
tions are that public attention
will be drawn to sources over
whom they have no control
and that strikes at the heart
of their revenue stream.
What should old media
do ?
The new media ecosystemthrows open entirely new
business models and yet,
retains some. Old media
needs to realize that control
of content is no longer possi-
ble (or even necessary), that
value lies in ownership of the
platform for production and
publishing of this content.
The most high-profile exam-
ples are News Corps pur-
chase of the networking web-
site, MySpace, in 2005, and
Googles acquisition of You-
Tube in 2006.
Advertising still re-
mains the chief source of
revenue for new media, but
in a more evolved form
highly targeted ads displayed
by tracking individuals be-
havior on the web.
Social Networks and the New Media Paradigm Rahul Gaitonde
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11 IIMK Newsletter
ture of the medium, encour-
aging developers to write
extensions and freeing ac-
cess to users. Perhaps blas-
phemous for traditional me-
dia houses, but this is theonly religion new media
knows.
What should old media not
do ?
Old media cannot
look at new media as an ad-
ditional channel of communi-
cation. It needs to recognize
that new media, far from
complementing traditional
communication, is often in
direct confrontation with it. A
typical knee-jerk reaction is
containment creating so-
called walled gardens, to
control both production and
viewership of content, as
most mobile providers in the
US have done. This is simply
transplanting old business
models into a new economy
and it rarely works. Switching
costs are far lower than in
the old world.
What does the future
hold ?
If current trends con-tinue, total personalization of
every form of existing media
For advertisers, it
means a better conversion
rate and higher return on in-
vestment; for the platform
owner, it means higher vol-
umes and (in spite of lower
margins) larger revenues. An
example is YouTubes recent
move to overlay ads on its
hosted videos.
In its foray into the
Brave New World, old media
needs to understand this de-
coupling of the operational
model and revenue model. In
the old online economy,
money was spent on the pro-
duction of content, and
money was made through its
sale. With new media, con-
tent is free. Money needs to
be made indirectly, though
ads or by charging for more
rights to the platform (the Ya-
hoo!-owned photo sharing
website Flickr charging for
additional hosting space and
bandwidth, for instance), or
otherwise.
Finally, in a complete
turnaround of the old produc-
tion model, companies need
to encourage greater external
involvement in their medium -
by opening up the architec-
seems likely text (news,
opinions, documents, email,
Instant Messaging, book-
marks etc.), video (custom
channels and playlists) and
audio (from chat transcriptsto music); maps and location
-specific information, com-
merce (purchase, auction)
and an almost infinite num-
ber of ways to merge media
(a book recommendation by
a friend via email, a video of
an interview with the author,
several reviews and a map of
bookstores with the best
deals for that book).
Debates on network
neutrality will resurface,
gather more steam as ISPs
and carriers gain more clout.
Is a video service, for in-
stance, allowed to strike a
deal with an ISP for preferen-
tial treatment of traffic origi-
nating from its website? Will
old media be allowed to own
both the message and the
channel?
It is early days yet;
for most of the worlds con-
sumers, new media is a blip
on their attention horizon.
Yet, the sheer potential size
of the market means that old
media empires cannot afford
to ignore it for most of that
market will be at the expense
of their existing streams of
revenue. We are at the cusp
of a historic shift in the bal-
ance of power in global me-
dia. The winner, to para-
phrase Darwins incredibly
enduring tenet, will not be
the largest or the strongest,
but the most adaptable.
8/6/2019 DeKaf IIMK Newsletter#1
12/24
IIMK Newsletter 12
store the kits that are made
in the main manufacturing
unit. The size of the ware-
house terminal depends
upon the projected demand
on the particular region.
AssemblyPlant: This facility
is used to assemble the kits
for the final product as per
the demand of the custom-
ers. It is a sub-manufacturing
system, wherein the last
stage of manufacturing is
carried out. This concept of
bringing the last stage near
the customers site is the
distinguishing feature of dis-
tributed manufacturing.
Sales Office: This is the
products interface with thecustomers. Vendors keep
only a few cars/products at
the sales office. The actual
demand data is processed
and only then is the final de-
livery made to the sales of-
fice.
Distributed manufacturing
seeks a proactive role of the
vendors, making them part-ners in the manufacturing
process. Hence it also in-
volves an investment from
the vendors, which far ex-
ceeds that involved in tradi-
tional manufacturing.
Cost distribution
The concept of distrib-
uted manufacturing is visual-
ized by Tata Motors in India.Hence the cost distribution is
analyzed from Tata Motors
viewpoint and an empirical
structure is sought.
Empirically, in distributed
manufacturing the cost is
shared by all the partners inthe supply chain.
How it works
Distinct from the concept of
mass manufacturing at a sin-
gle location, distributivemanufacturing aims to drive
the concept of mass entre-
preneurship. Here, the main
manufacturer builds the kits
of the vehicle at the main
manufacturing facility; these
kits are transported to differ-
ent vendor locations which
require assembling facilities.
Thus as soon as the cus-
tomer places an order with
the vendor, a kit is assem-
bled at the warehouse. Thismodel resembles the furni-
ture business model, where
small packages of home fur-
nishings can be assembled at
home with little help from the
main manufacturer.
Requirement from vendors
The vendors in the distribu-
tive manufacturing system
need to maintain 3 facilities
Warehouse: This is used to
Distributive Manufacturing Salil Sreen, Deepak Chaudhary
8/6/2019 DeKaf IIMK Newsletter#1
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13 IIMK Newsletter
in the project, the timely
availability of the compo-
nents to the main manufac-
turing sites is a challenge.
Distribution of kits to the
vendors: This logistics of
distribution has been out-
sourced. The logistics pro-
vider has to make invest-
ments in buying adequate
number of trucks to transport
a million kits a year to differ-
ent locations in the country.
Estimating the demand of
each region: Demand from
each region of the country
has to be estimated to mini-
mize the costs of transporta-
tion
Information flow from ven-
dors: Vendors being near
the customer sites can pro-
vide the most valuable infor-
mation about the demand
trends and the quality as-
pects of the car.
Intra-vendor transship-
ment of kits: This issue has
to be addressed about the
intra-vendor transshipment
of kits if the demand in a par-
ticular region peaks.
Quality issues: These need
to be addressed at the ven-
dor sites. Vendors, who are
new to the manufacturing
process have to be trained
over the process require-
ments and the quality as-
pects required thereof. This
may require certain control
structures to be put in place
wherein the parent company
can enforce the desired qual-
ity from the vendors.
Conclusion
Distributive Manufacturing is
The share of the suppliers
and logistics provider in-
creases drastically to almost
one-third of the investment
made by the main manufac-
turer. Distributed manufactur-
ing is a volume game and
seeks profitability from the
base of the pyramid. For this
to be successful, long term
investments and tie ups with
the partners are essential.
This is achieved by making
the suppliers and vendors
key stakeholders in the very
concept.
Vendors become
remote entrepreneurs, man-
aging their customers and
channelizing the manufactur-
ing themselves. The concept
of distributed manufacturing
takes jobs to all such sub
assemblies located near the
client sites.
Supply Chain Challenges
The concept of a low cost
car/product is successful
through low margins per car/
product and high volumes
sold. These high volumes
pose unique challenges to
the supply chain managers.
Some of the challenges in the
supply chain of the distrib-
uted manufacturing that TataMotors will likely face are
Forecasting of the actual
demand: Tata Motors has
estimated a sales of one mil-
lion cars every year. Errors
and deviations in this forecast
can lead to the whole venture
becoming unprofitable.
Supply of components:
With more than hundred
component suppliers locked
Omega
Omega, the Operations In-
terest Group at IIMK, is re-
sponsible for conducting
weekly sessions related to
Operations. Sessions con-
ducted so far are,
Career opportunities in
Operations with particu-
lar focus on the consult-ing domain
Basics of Supply Chain
Management concepts
such as Bullwhip Effect
etc
Summer Internship ex-
perience sharing by the
second year batch who
interned in operations
area
a further refinement of the
mass manufacturing concept
with the same standardized
product being made at multi-
ple locations near the clients
site. Whereas in mass manu-facturing the product/car is
manufactured at a particular
site and then transported to
different vendors, distributive
manufacturing seeks to
make kits of the product/car
at a central location and
these kits are transported to
the vendors. This requires
estimation of demand at dif-
ferent regions, a characteris-
tic of the car industry and
adequate training of vendors
to assemble the product at
their sites. Quality issues are
to be resolved again through
some controls over the final
product made by the ven-
dors.
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IIMK Newsletter 14
portal is not to be mistaken
with the organizations intra-
net. They might look similar
on the face value but
whereas an intranet focuses
on the whole organization,
B2E focuses on a single indi-
vidual. The B2E portal will
provide an individual all infor-
mation that he would need
as part of that organization
or all information that the
intranet was providing him.
But along with that, it would
also include any personal
information that the em-
ployee might seek like stockinformation or even games.
B2E is like a company intra-
net customized for every em-
ployee. The intention is to
increase not only efficiency,
but also employee satisfac-
tion and a sense of belong-
ingness to the organization.
A B2E portal has three dis-
tinguishing characteristics
Customization to suit theneeds of individual em-
ployees
A single point of entry
Components defined byboth the employer andthe organization
Corporations maydevelop their own portals or
they may rely on the services
of any of the large and grow-
ing number of B2E portal
developers. For instance, HP
consulting provides a five
step design to implement a
B2E portal. They follow a
process in phases where
they start from requirements
specifications and a business
case development, followed
by design and construction of
the portal and finally they
deploy it. Their last phase
consists of providing support
and operational help for the
portal.
The B2E portal has
various advantages to both
the employer and the em-
ployee.
Businesses in the past have
either focused on the con-
sumer or other businesses.
The former was called B2C,
the latter, B2B. The concept
of B2E began to emerge
when organizations started to
realize that their people were
their biggest strength. Simply
put, it is Business-to-
Employee, an approach in
which the focus of business
is the employee. This ap-
proach gained importancebecause of a decrease in the
talent pool across industries
especially knowledge based.
The employers recognized
the importance of attracting
and retaining talent in a
highly competitive market
with a skewed supply and
demand of talent. Organiza-
tions today employ varioustactics to attract this talent,
such as aggressive recruit-
ing, offering plenty of bene-
fits, education opportunities,
flexible working hours, bo-
nuses and employee empow-
erment strategies. All these
activities together constitute
B2E.
More specifically, theterm B2E is frequently used
to refer to the B2E portal
(sometimes called the peo-
ples portal), which is a cus-
tomized home page or desk-
top for everyone within an
organization. B2E portals or e
-HR systems are becoming
the de-facto standard in order
to streamline and optimize
the human resource functions
of the organizations. The B2E
The New Age Business Focus - The B2E concept Japneet Sachdeva
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15 IIMK Newsletter
ductivity by providing key
stakeholders a single Web-
enabled interface for con-
ducting business, no matter
where they reside. The portal
combines in one place leg-acy data sources and proce-
dures with other data and
services from the organiza-
tions Intranet and the Inter-
net, thus empowering the
employees, customers, and
partners with the self-service
access to the information
needed to significantly im-
prove process efficiency
while lowering operational
costs.
B2E also builds a
better relationship between
the organization and the em-
ployees. It is quite unlikely
that an employee will only
work while in office. There is
a lot more than just surfing
the internet that is done
while in the office. Rather
than putting a stop on it, a
B2E portal addresses all the
needs of the employees. So
an employee who is thinking
about home when he is at
work has answers right there
in the office.
There are certain
challenges in designing and
implementing an effective
B2E portal. Firstly, it should
have considered the needs
of the employees. There isnt
any point in designing a web
application that the employ-
ees dont find much use of.
Secondly, generating the
interest of the employees to
visit the portal is also a chal-
lenge. Sufficient publicity is
required to encourage the
employees to try it for the
first time. A very well made
portal would obviously be an
asset, so that the employees
like it and visit frequently on
their own. Room for changesin the portal as time passes
must be kept in mind. With
changing times, the needs of
the employees are likely to
change and the portal
should be ready to address
them. One thing to be kept in
mind is that employees may
feel they are not a part of the
portal and that it has been
designed by the manage-
ment and IT and merely
transferred to them. To offset
this, it must be ensured that
the designing of the portal
must be made a participative
process. In the need assess-
ment stage, the employees
opinions must be sought and
they must be made to feel
like they are a part of the
process.
With time, there is a
rise in the B2E web portals.
There are several organiza-
tions who have already im-
plemented it. A large number
of consultants are already
providing B2E solutions to
organizations. With IT and
people as buzzwords, B2E or
people portals are sure to
grow in the near future too.
It acts as a new
means of integrating and
consolidating business infor-
mation and making it avail-
able to employees, custom-
ers and business partners.
Ease of availability of infor-
mation to employees, cus-
tomers and other stake-
holders results in enhanced
trust between them and in-
creased loyalty towards the
organization. It also enables
the organization to move to-
wards technology based so-
lutions. An internet enabledorganization has undoubtedly
faster and more efficient
processes. Portal technology
enables corporations to
transform business proc-
esses, eliminating redundan-
cies and making them more
efficient and less costly. This
dramatically increases pro-
8/6/2019 DeKaf IIMK Newsletter#1
16/24
The last decade and a half
has seen India reap the
benefits of its policy of liber-
alization and a progressive
opening up of the economy.
With the economy growing at
8-9% , India saw Foreign Di-
rect Investment (FDI) touch-
ing a record high of an esti-
mated US$ 16 billion in 2006-
07.
One of the prominent
sources of foreign investment
into India is the private equity
investments. The initial flow
of foreign private equity was
focused on Indias IT and
outsourcing industry but now
significant investments are
being made in manufacturing,
financial services, real estate,
telecom, media, engineering
and construction. PE activityhas increased not only in
terms of number of deals, but
also in terms of the average
deal size.
Factors leading to the PE
boom
Some of the significant fac-
tors contributing to the boom
are summarized in the table.
Advantages of PE
Professional manage-
ment :The participation of
private equity in a company
results in an improvement in
the quality of management
owing to an automatic dis-
tancing of management from
promoters and traditional
ownership.
Transparency: Private eq-
uity requires companies to
IIMK Newsletter 16
reveal a lot of information in
order to enable a PE fund to
conduct its due diligence.
Financial discipline: A
management with PE partici-
pation is believed to bring
cash discipline into the func-
tioning of an organization
and helps in making the
company more robust and
thus enhances value to the
stakeholders.
International resources:
Companies which obtain PE
participation can also lever-
age the resources of the par-
ent fund in terms of access
to resources, distribution net-
works, managerial and tech-
nical skills etc.
Speedier fund-raising: Of-
ten, promoters wait for the
right time to tap the IPO mar-
ket and in this wait projects
have to be kept on hold,
sometimes for years to-
gether. The option now is to
involve a PE fund and get a
fair (negotiated) valuation
and also shorten the gesta-
tion period. The issuancetime is also shortened com-
pared to the IPO route.
It has been seen that
PE and VC backed compa-
nies grow faster when com-
pared to the non-PE backed
peers and even more than
the benchmark indices like
the NSE Nifty. Sales of listed
PE backed companies grewat 22.9% as compared to
10% for non-PE backed
Private EquityIs the picture really as rosy? Shayonima Ghosh
Shreyan Sarkar
FACTORS SYMPTOMS
High Economic
Growth
Annual growth rates of 8-9%
Mature Finan-
cial Markets
Liquid and transparent secondary
market resulting creating an envi-
ronment for large number of exits
through IPOs
Domestic corporate turning into
strategic buyers
Commodity markets developing at
an increasing pace
Large and
Growing Do-
mestic Markets
Spurt in consumerism triggered by
a young demographic profile
Sustained government expenditure
driving consumption in certain
verticals
Culture of En-
trepreneurship
Large number of local entrepre-
neurs seeking national scale
Established Law
and Regulation
High level of regulation and
maintenance of transparency by
SEBI, the Finance Ministry and the
RBI
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17 IIMK Newsletter
firms make offers at the up-
per end of their limit to avoid
a full-blown auction, further
raising prices. It is reported
that there were multiple bids
for 29% of the private equitybuyouts in 2006 as com-
pared to just 4% in 2005. In
the first six weeks of 2007
this figure has risen sharply,
with 70% of announced pri-
vate equity buyouts having
multiple bids.
The structure of PE
funds, demands that PE fund
managers need to generate
around 30% returns on an
annual basis to justify the
high management fees they
charge. Industry observers
reckon that PE funds charge
around 1-1.5% of the asset
size as management fee andan extra 20% on investment
gains. A study showed that
on deducting huge manage-
ment fees, PE fund returns
are actually lower than that
of the benchmark S&P 500
index, raising concerns
about the extent to which
these funds will go to meet
these targets. PE funds maysee companies going under
when the companies are
faced with asset stripping,
high interest debt and its
payout in their quest for such
high returns.
Another issue is the
lack of clarity in the currentregulatory structure to pro-
vide comprehensive guide-
lines to deal with an evolving
private equity driven sce-
nario. This event has accen-
tuated the need for the regu-
lators to come up with more
detailed guidelines to ad-
dress private equity related
transactions.
Historically, it has
been seen that the deal sizes
and valuations rise towards
the end of the bull-run cycle.
There is a fear that PE funds,
both globally and in India
may just be approaching that
stage. The real test is when
the PE companies try and
take these companies public
again or try and sell for cash-
ing out. But if all companies
try and sell out or take com-
panies to the public market,
the downward pressure may
kill the market.
listed firms. PE backed firms
also added more jobs to the
economy and even the
wages at listed PE financed
firms grew at around 32% as
compared to 6% for non-PE-backed firms.
Au Contraire!
The recent splurge in PE
deals has raised certain con-
cerns about the implications
of the unchecked growth of
PE in India. The RBI has ex-
pressed concern over the
impact of higher leveraging
by PEs on long term sustain-
ability.
A major concern is
the disproportionate rise in
the valuations of PE deals.
Conservatively, a deal at
EBITDA of 5-6.5 is consid-
ered modest with anything
above 7 considered high.
This is indicative of a broad
payback period of 5-6 years
through operating profits.
However, the race for acqui-
sitions has seen this number
comfortably exceed 7. In
other words, PE companies
have increased the number
of years to achieve payback
from current operations. Thus
with valuation parameters
climbing, the need to gener-ate profits, that too in a
shorter time frame, in-
creases. This may also lead
to PE funds taking drastic
actions to increase profitabil-
ity.
The increase in
valuations is also, in part, due
to selling companies taking
advantage of a competitivescenario and encouraging
multiple bids. The buyout
8/6/2019 DeKaf IIMK Newsletter#1
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IIMK Newsletter 18
Perhaps leaders
could borrow a few tricks
from their friends in high fi-
nance and apply the conceptof a financial portfolio to a
strategic portfolio. What it
would entail would be a bou-
quet of strategies with uncor-
related returns, thereby re-
ducing the overall risk. But it
is very likely that investors
would view this very nega-
tively. Questions would be
asked about the indecisive
nature of the visionless
leader who is just not sure
about what to commit and
where to commit it to. He
might also be taught a few
basic lessons in finance thatinvestors can manage the
risk better than the company
itself and therefore they
should be allowed to man-
age it by probably investing
in a competitor who might be
following a diagonally oppo-
site strategy and hence re-
ducing their own overall risk!
Until now, the dis-cussion pertained to the ex-
ternal environment, but com-
mitment to a vision also
plays with the minds of the
employees. While the leader
may be having sleeplessnights about the strategic
options he sees and appre-
hensions about those he
does not, his employees
need to have a strong com-
mitment to the product or
service they are working on,
believing it to be THEfuture.
This looks strikingly
similar to another financial
market running within a com-
pany, where the leader be-
comes the investor who can
and should manage risk bet-
ter than the companies in the
market viz. the various busi-
ness units within the com-
pany. This is what Michael
Raynor, the distinguished
research fellow with Deloitte
Consulting LLP calls the
Separation of Management
of uncertainty and the Man-
agement of Commitment
whereby the leader manages
uncertainty by strategichedging while the managerial
Most people, pre-
dominantly students of strat-
egy who are exposed to or-
ganizational success and
failure stories galore, wonder
why failures were always a
result of bad strategy and
successes a result of good
strategy. The author attempts
to clarify this in the context of
a term known as post-facto
rationalization.
What does un-
matched strategic success
the aim of running a virtual
monopoly - require? It is a
virtual monopoly which surely
means that its position is
hard to replicate. Reaching
this position requires relent-
less pursuit, a bold vision,
conviction from the leader-
ship and of course, un-
matched commitment. Applehas exhibited this well with
the iPod. An elegant high-
performing product built
around the proprietary archi-
tecture of software-hardware
integration, effective strategy
at its best. Or is it? But then,
wasnt the Macintosh based
on a similar model - proprie-
tary hardware-software inte-gration? Both of these were
hard to replicate, although
people did not want to repli-
cate the latter.
The author wants to
emphasize that high return
strategies involve high risk as
well. The road less travelled
may lead to glory as well as
ruin. The only trouble is thatthe probabilities of the two
cant be computed as easily.
Strategy ParadoxCommitment vs. Flexibility Vaibhav Bhardwaj
8/6/2019 DeKaf IIMK Newsletter#1
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19 IIMK Newsletter
maintain strategic flexibility.
This might include breaking
a strategy into much smaller
pieces and trying to incorpo-
rate the financial aspects of
systematic and unsystematicrisk. For instance, the Word
and Excel programs written
for Apple had a company-
risk involved there were
concerns that Apples OS
might not be popular enough
to generate a sustainable
stream of revenue for the
programs Microsoft would be
writing for the platform.
There was an industry-
specific risk involved which
could be related to potential
market not developing for the
programs themselves. By
breaking these risk compo-
nents Microsoft was able to
reduce the marginal costs of
starting afresh and develop-
ing these programs for an
OS that did later catch thefancies of the market the
Windows platform.
All said and done,
the business world still
awaits some tool which can
help predict the future with
necessary precision, better
than its competitors and fast
enough for it to be still called
a strategy and not a tactic.Till then one grapples with
the paradox of going for
glory while risking complete
annihilation and becoming a
case for bad strategies
whereas all he did wrong
was to make a strong com-
mitment to a seemingly cor-
rect strategy.
cadre ensures commitment to
the tasks assigned to them.
A suitable example to
describe this would be the
Microsoft of the early 1980s
pursuing highly uncorrelated
strategies while maintaining
divisional commitment within
the workforce. Although MS-
DOS was its staple product, it
was collaborating with IBM
on the OS/2 GUI even as its
very own Windows operating
system was being developed.
It was also exploring a ver-
sion of UNIX aimed at pene-trating commercial markets
besides writing Word and
Excel programs for the Apple
OS. When pursuing these
types of strategies, it must be
kept in mind that some of the
ventures would necessarily
have to be abandoned before
they materialized and these
are aimed at hedging the riskrather than giving assured
returns. So, while in those
early days projects like the
Word and Excel programs for
Apple OS fell flat on their
face, their complementarities
with the Windows OS be-
came the very material that
built the Microsoft success
story, leading to decades of
industry dominance and the
elusive virtual monopoly all
organizations dream of.
D iscoun t ing the
benefits of hindsight which
makes one feel that Bill
Gates was an astute leader
with an impeccable sense of
judgment, an unbiased analy-
sis of the situation would re-
veal that, to a great extent,
he had forgone a strategic
commitment to be able to
HRiday
HRiday, the HR Interest
Group at IIMK uses every
opportunity to interact with
industry experts and acade-
mia. Here are some of the
major activities conducted
during previous term,
A panel discussion with
industry experts like Mr.
Kashinath
Ramachandran, an ex
VP-HR at Ramco sys-
tems. The central ideas
behind the discussion
were tackling attrition,
role of HR in organiza-
tions and ways to moti-
vate and satisfy em-
ployee needs.
Dr. D P Sinha, former
group head, HR at
Zuari group facilitated
the next session on
balanced scorecards
and their uses. The
session provided in-
sights in view of deter-
mining the success of
CEOs and organiza-
tions.
Mr. Vishnu Mohan of
NTPC shared his ideas
and views on the prob-
lem of attrition andbringing it down to envi-
able levels. He empha-
sized the importance of
HR in boosting em-
ployee satisfaction.
Student driven ses-
sions on email eti-
quettes, delivering ef-
fective presentations,
selecting the right per-son for a job and recent
trends in HR.
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IIMK Newsletter 20
FDP programs:
FDP on Advances inManufacturing Planning
& Control (Oct. 08 - 13,2007)
Workshop on Green-stone Digital LibrarySoftware (Nov. 26- Dec.01, 2007)
FDP on Advances inMarketing (Dec. 03-08,2007)
Executive Education Pro-
grams
IIMK conducts Executive
Education Programs to help
practicing executives through
the Interactive Distance
Learning (IDL) mode. The
Executive Management Edu-
cation Program (eMEP) is
the first of its kind to be of-
fered under IDL Platform in
the Asia Pacific region.
Two new programs
under IDL Platform have
been announced to start
from the 2007-08 session.
They are:
Executive EducationProgram in Finance(eEPF)
Executive EducationProgrammed in Strategic
Management (eEPSM)
Upcoming Seminars and
Workshops
Conference on Marketing to
Rural Consumers Under-
standing and tapping the
rural market potential-(03,
04, 05 April 2008)
The conference explores the
emergence of rural markets
and attempts to find innova-
tive approaches to under-
stand and tap the potential of
these markets. The confer-
ence offers an opportunity forexchange of research and
practical insights related to
marketing to rural consumers
and disseminate the knowl-
edge generated.
International Conference on
Statistics and its Applications
in Management-(01, 02, 03
May 2008)
The aim of the conference is
to provide a forum for the
presentation of recent devel-
opments in statistical meth-
odology and its novel appli-
cations in management.
Centre of Excellence (CEx)
The centre of excellence is
being incubated by IIMK withthe support from the SC/ST
department of the Govt. of
Kerala. CEx undertakes a
wide range of activities which
leads to increased equity and
excellence in higher educa-
tion and enables the under-
privileged to study in premier
institutions providing them
better access to economicexcellence and infrastruc-
ture.
The Centre carries
out a wide range of programs
including Certificate Course
for Professional Develop-
ment (CCPD), Management
Development Program
(MDP) and other research
projects.
Upcoming Programs
Management Development
Programs (MDP)MDP programs at IIMK are
primarily aimed at building
capability and competence
among individual managers
that could in turn lead to
greater organizational effi-
ciency and effectiveness.
The varieties of programs
encompass all management
fields catering to the require-ments of corporate sector
and government.
MDP programs:
Effective Sales Mgmt forBFIS Professionals (Oct.04-06, 2007)
Effective IT sales Man-agement (Oct. 11-13,2007)
Marketing ResearchMethods (Oct 15-17,2007)
Marketing of EducationalServices (Oct. 29-31,2007)
Competitive Marketing(Nov. 05-07, 2007)
Effective Sales Manage-ment for Insurance Sec-tor (Nov. 12-14, 2007)
Services OperationsStrategy (Nov. 29-Dec.01, 2007)
Business Intelligence(December 03-05, 2007)
Spread Sheet Modelingfor Business Decisions(Dec. 06-08, 2007)
Faculty Development Pro-
grams (FDP)
IIMK conducts custom de-
signed FDPs for the benefitsof faculty from other aca-
demic institutions.
BUZZ @ K An in-depth coverage of all the recent events and programs at IIMK
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21 IIMK Newsletter
great enthusiasm from stu-
dents of both batches.
True to its tradition, the
Backwaters committee is
also responsible for organiz-
ing all celebrations on Kam-
pus including Janamashtami,
Diwali, Holi, Navratrietc.
Entrepreneurship Cell
The eCell at IIM Kozhikode
has been fairly active this
year, after a long hiatus.
There have been two events
conducted till date, with 3
more in the immediate pipe-line.
The eCell kicked off
the year by organizing a
seminar by an IIMK alumnus,
Mr. Nagesh Banchhor - foun-
der director of ProC Educa-
tion. He spoke about the
challenges involved in start-
ing a new venture and vari-
ous steps to make sure thatone remained focused on
ones goals.
This was followed by
a workshop on Preparing a
Business Plan by another
alumnus, Mr. Mohit Malik of
Anoova Consulting. Mr.Malik
gave students insights on
different elements of making
a proper business plan. He
was accompanied by Mr.
Rishi Das of Careernet Con-
sulting, who, among other
things, also spoke about the
people issues involved in a
growing company.
The eCell is hosting
an internal Business plan
competition for the students
of IIMK which would be
judged by distinguished in-
dustrial leaders. eCell has
also organized a formal non-
credit course on entrepre-
neurship for second year
students. The course was
taken by Prof. Sunil Handa
Professor of Entrepreneur-
ship, IIM Ahmedabad.
SPIC MACAY
SPIC MACAY aims at intro-
ducing traditional Indian cul-
ture to the youth of this
country with a hope that the
beauty, grace and wisdom
embodied in it will become
an integral part of their lives.
The SPIC MACAY
Sub chapter at IIM Kozhi-
kode has been an active
member of this wonderful
initiative and has played host
to a number of events. Some
of the eminent artists who
have left an indelible impres-
sion among the students in
the past include Padmab-
hushan Smt. N Rajam, Sri
Kadri Gopalnath, Smt.
Aswini Bhide Deshpande,
Shri Shashank, Dr. L Subra-
maniam, Smt. Sujatha
Mishra etc.
The targets set for
this year include continuing
the recently launched news-
letter TW2, organizing cele-
brations during festivals with
the help of the Backwaters
committee. These would
include Ganesh Chaturthi,
Navratri and Diwali. The
SPIC MACAY Sub Chapter
at IIMK also plans to hold
four concerts for this aca-
demic year in addition to two
programs from artists within
the IIMK community.
Alumni Committee
The Alumni Committee man-
ages the widespread alumni
network of the Indian Institute
of Management, Kozhikode.
This past summer witnessed
Sangam07, the annual
alumni-freshers meet, which
was held across the six cities
of Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta,
Chennai, Bangalore and Hy-
derabad. With the best loca-
tions and a great turnout from
the alumni, Sangam'07 ex-ceeded all expectations.
January would bring in Nostal-
gia'08, the annual alumni
meet, held on the campus in
Kozhikode. This meet would
truly be nostalgic, with the
alumni coming back to cam-
pus, meeting the faculty and
getting a taste of Kerala
again. Clubbing it with Back-waters would increase student
-alumni interaction, as well as
allow the alumni to relive the
moments from the cultural
festival of IIMK.
Backwaters Committee
Apart from Backwaters, the
committee also conducted two
other major events on campus
to kick-start the year, namelyRoobaroo an induction
programme held for the jun-
iors at the start of the aca-
demic year and Konnect
the inter-hostel cultural com-
petition. Roobaroo 2007,
organized around the theme
Greek Mythology was an
immediate success and a
great start to the year. Thiswas soon followed by
Konnect which garnered
Committee News
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IIMK Newsletter 22
Media Cell
The Media cell takes care of
media coverage of on-
campus events and simulta-
neous brand building efforts
of the institute. Driving on its
legacy, the group continued
fostering relationships and
interfacing with both the print
and the online media. Gener-
ating media publicity for
seminars, festivals, place-
ments and other campus
events along with getting
articles published by the stu-
dent community has been
the primary objective of the
committee.
As a new initiative
this year, Media cell kick-
started 'The K Files' which
shall henceforth act as an
IIMK life blog (http://the-k-
files.blogspot.com). The blog
intends to serve the brand
building for the institute
along with keeping a memo-
rable track record of the vari-
ous PGP batches.
Social Services Group
(SSG)
The SSG aims at strengthen-
ing networks and linkages
between and among stu-
dents, the community, so-
cially responsible corporates,
NGOs and other formal and
informal institutions that can
influence the impact of de-
velopment initiatives. It
strives to provide local self
help groups and other grass-
roots community initiatives
with critical financial, organ-
izational and managerial as-
sistance.
Some of the activities al-
ready underway this year
include:
Education kits for de-
serving and needy stu-dents
Working with NGOs for
community development
project
A few initiatives planned for
this year are:
Internal education drive
for IIMK community
members (securi ty,
housekeeping staff)
Blood donation camp
Partnering corporates in
their CSR activities
The SSG annual fund
raising event - the SSG
Fete
Apart from this, SSG also
launched a meal a month
initiative within the campus,
wherein students voluntarily
donated an equivalent of a
days meal worth towards
society.
Mess Committee
The mess committee has
been one of the most dy-
namic and innovative com-
mittees on campus. Simpleinitiatives like ensuring the
night canteen is operational
throughout the night and re-
ducing the waiting time for
meals have made it
amongst the most appreci-
ated committees at IIMK.
The committee also
plans to hold a dining eti-
quettes workshop for stu-dents.
Sports Committee
The sports committee has
been striving towards ensur-
ing state-of-the-art sports
infrastructure at IIMK and
organizing numerous sports
events within the campus and
competitions amongst differ-
ent campuses.
This academic year
started with Face Off, an
inter-batch sports tournament
where the incoming batch
was Baptized with Fire. As
of now, the score-line reads 4
-2 with the senior batch hav-
ing won Table Tennis (men &
women), Chess and Bridge,
while the juniors made their
presence felt with victories in
football and carrom. Other
events including basketball,
volleyball, throw-ball and
badminton are on the cards.
Face-off would be
followed by Vae Victus, the
inter-hostel sports meet
where all hostels vie for the
coveted general champion-
ship. Vae Victus would pave
way for the War of the
Worlds, the IIM Kozhikode-
NIT Calicut sports meet
which is being held for the
first time this year to provide
a healthy interaction between
the two campuses.
The pinnacle of all
sports activities at IIM Kozhi-
kode is Sangram - The IIMK
IIMB sports meet. In its short
history, Sangram has
achieved iconic status.
Scheduled to be held at IIM B
this year, Sangram promises
to be a humdinger.
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23 IIMK Newsletter
IIMKLIVE : The Students
Portal of IIMK
The Students Council has
launched a new website:http://iimklive.com, the Stu-
dents Portal of IIMK which
will be entirely maintained by
the student community itself.
Based on latest
OpenSource Web 2.0 based
technology, the site is ex-
tremely dynamic and sup-
ports collaborative content
writing.
The aim of the site is
to showcase the vibrant stu-
dent life at IIMK popularly
known as Gods Own Cam-
pusand the academic excel-
lence of IIMK as reflected in
its student community.
IIMKLIVE is a fea-
ture rich website which inte-
grates a content manage-
ment system with a blog, a
forum and a photo gallery.
Also integrated with the site
is Google Apps EducationEdition Service which allows
registered users to utilize the
power and functionality of
Google Apps to collaborate
as an online community and
network with the alumni.
The mission of
IIMKLIVE is to become the
most popular B-School stu-
dent website in the country.
Concert by Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
The evening of 23rd October saw a full house at the
auditorium as members of the faculty, staff and students
thronged to listen to a Mohan Veena recital by Padmashree
Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, organized by SPICMACAY, IIMKozhikode.
Creator of this unique instrument and winner of theGrammy award, Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt held the audience
spellbound with his rendering of the raag Purvi, followed by a
mesmerizing piece from his Grammy award winning album,
'A Meeting by the River. He was joined by Pundit Ram
Kumar Mishra, renowned for his mastery of the Tabla and a
scion of the Benaras Gharana.
AIMS 2007
The technology conclave of IIMK, every year AIMS
identifies a topic that is of immediate interest to the Technol-
ogy industry and proceeds to dissect it over two days of in-
tense discussion. Its fifth edition this year, AIMS 2007 is shift-
ing its focus to an Industry wide Technology Summit and the
theme this year is "The New Frontiers of Technology: Con-
sumer Internet, Wireless and Mobile".
A panel discussion, the highlight of the first day, will
focus on "A Nation Online - How the Internet is changing our
Everyday Lives". In addition to attracting participants from
over 40 B-schools and Tech colleges, AIMS broadens itsscope by inviting top 10 IT companies as well.
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24 IIMK Newsletter
Bharat Ek Khoj - Horizons 2007
Horizons, the Annual Management Conclave of IIMK was held from the 5th to 7th of October
2007. The overarching theme for this year was Bharat Ek Khoj with sub themes of
Rediscovering Rural India, Unleashing India Inc. and Unlocking the Human Potential.
Inaugurated by Dr. AJayathilak, the District Collector of
Kozhikode, the conclave saw a host
of eminent speakers from corporate
India grace the occasion. Mr. Pa-
resh Chaudhry, Head of Corporate
Communications, HUL; Mr. P K Ke-
savan, Director - Ministry of Pancha-
yati Raj; Mr. Harish Bijoor, CEO of
Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. and Mr.
Sunil Chainani, Director of FabIndiaOverseas Pvt. Ltd. all spoke in great
depth on the topic of Rural India and its untapped potential.
Mr. Abheek Singhi, Partner and Director of BCG, emphasized the key drivers of Indias
growth while the CEO of Maricos Consumer Products, Mr. Saugata Gupta gave a talk on how
to become winning managers.
The conclave ended with an HR Summit in which eminent HR Managers like Mr. Nara-
yanan Nair, VP-HR of Mphasis EDS and Mr. Sheen Sunny Akkara, Director of Resource Man-
agement of Deloitte Consulting participated. In addition to this, a B-Plan Guidance workshop
was also held in which Mr. Gururaj Potnis, CEO of Manthan Services gave key pointers to bud-
ding entrepreneurs.
A Prelude to Backwaters 2008
Backwaters the annual management-cum-cultural festival of IIMKis back and this time its
bigger than ever! If BW 07 will be remembered for launching White Knight and for the pulsating
performance by Euphoria then BW 08 promises to surpass all the milestones it has reached
before.
Six weeks of online events, three
days of intense competition and
three nights of unrelenting fun.The best brains across B-schools
will spend sleepless nights out-
thinking the competition to be pro-
claimed the White Knight in our
flagship event. Its raining events
in BW 08 with challenging compe-
titions across verticals -from HR to
strategy, marketing to operations
and finance to systems. Simula-
tion games, case studies, paperpresentations, B-plans: you name it, well have it!