Innholdsfortegnelse for 22 October 2017 i Business Today

If you were to go only by the placement records of the top 10 odd business schools in the country, you would never think that economic growth has been slowing down for over a year now. The best B-schools – the top 50 or so – manage to place their students at good salaries year after year, whether the economy is booming or in a depressed state. Go lower down the list and the economic conditions start showing a far greater impact on the placement records. In good years, no one has a placement problem. In years when the economy is not doing great, securing 100 per cent campus placements – and at decent salaries – becomes a big slog, barring few exceptions. However, placement records alone do not define…

04 ALL ABOUT GAS WHAT: India Gas Infrastructure Conference 2017 WHEN: October 4, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Indian natural gas sector has been facing major challenges in recent years in terms sluggish growth in domestic production, challenges of under-utilisation of regasification and transmission pipeline infrastructure and global oil and gas market dynamics. The FICCI conference would bring together all the stakeholders to evolve a pragmatic roadmap for gas sector development. 06 PROMOTING HIGHER EDUCATION WHAT: 2nd Edition of CII Higher Education Conclave WHEN: October 6, Visakhapatnam WHAT TO LOOK FOR: This conclave provides an opportunity to share concepts, approaches and best practices that can be adapted or adopted by institutions. It will also create an opportunity for dialogue among education leaders for sharing their vision, strategy, innovations, challenges and concerns.…

K alyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive of Flipkart, recently said, “Profitability is not the highest priority today.” He was not the first bossman of a large e-commerce company to say so. Neither will he be the last. But what the CEO of Flipkart and other top e-commerce honchos say, goes down to the trenches and is picked up as gospel by the smaller e-commerce entrepreneurs. Recently, one of us got talking to a small e-commerce entrepreneur who started an aggregator website and application some time ago. Swiggy is a great example of an aggregator. It allows restaurants to list on its website and application. People can log in and order food from these listed restaurants, and that food is home-delivered. Another great example is redBus, which allows individuals to book bus journeys…

Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked. Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i) Minimum three batches passed out; ii) Offering full-time postgraduate programme in management. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place; this may result in rounding offerrors while adding the parameter-wise score Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have…

Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked. Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i) Minimum three batches passed out; ii) Offering full-time postgraduate programme in management. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place; this may result in rounding offerrors while adding the parameter-wise score Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have…

Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked. Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i) Minimum three batches passed out; ii) Offering full-time postgraduate programme in management. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place; this may result in rounding offerrors while adding the parameter-wise score…

While the all-screen iPhone X with FaceID is eagerly awaited, we got our hands on the iPhone 8 (4.7-inch display) and 8 Plus (5.5-inch display). Here’s our first impression: The designs of the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 are not very different from the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 7, respectively. The only difference being that the iPhone 8 series is made of glass – durable glass with a 50 per cent deeper strengthening layer. Apple has used aerospace-grade 7000 Series aluminum for the side bands. The glass rear supports wireless charging using the Qi standard and can be wirelessly charged using Belkin and Mophie accessories as well. The innards have received significant updates. The new iPhones come preinstalled with iOS 11 out of the box. While setting up,…

How often have ~u wondered why planning a fun thing like a vacation becomes so stressful? Especially 1f you're travelling in a group, micro planning 70ur trip to ensure twery little detail like food, drinks, entertainment and nightlife which is 1ust right for ..,.rybody, talats all the fun out of the holiday for the ones who are planning it. Add to that a lithe budgeting, too in foreign exchange that must be done and you've got the perfect reason to ask for a new, more evotv.d holiday where W8rylhing is taken mre of. Perhaps, thll:'s lie very reason why all-inclusive holidays exist, and no one dot$ it better than the experts llemselves. Renowned for lleir ~ &11-incklsiva holidays, ffench hospltalily chain Cub M6dillrnMI (betllr known as Ckl b Medl offws…

Most Powerful Women: Value for Money This refers to your special issue on the Most Powerful Women in Business (October 8). All the 30 winners in business category and 23 winners in the impact category deserve to be included in your list by virtue of 3Ps – Performance, Perseverance, and Pragmatism. Their achievements are case studies to motivate the younger generation which needs to learn about being an achiever and what qualities make one really powerful. Hope the present generation takes a lesson from these powerful women and makes an honest attempt in the highly competitive times of today. Your cover story goes to show that Indian women are no more mere show-pieces to adorn the drawing rooms of their homes. Over the last decade or so, they have carved…

21 Govt’s spending spree 22 The new tax tangle If it was not for some of our investors looking for an exit, we might have not listed our company,” says Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO, Matrimony.com. The company, whose initial public offering, or IPO, in September mopped up nearly ₹500 crore at ₹985 per share, got only ₹130 crore, as the rest went to exiting investors. The stock was subscribed 4.5 times but, since its listing, has had a tepid run, ending the first listing day at ₹901.20. As of September 26, it was down to ₹801.90, 18.5 per cent below its issue price. But Janakiraman is not worried. “The listing has given us liquidity and visibility, apart from allowing earlier investors an exit,” he says. “We raised only ₹130 crore as…

The government says the move is necessary to ensure a continuous flow of tax revenues to meet budgetary allocations At a time when compliance issues under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) are proving to be a nightmare, the government has dropped another bomb by asking corporate and professional taxpayers to voluntarily report estimates of current year’s income, tax payment and advance tax liability. The move, which is likely to increase the compliance burden of taxpayers yet again, shows the government’s aggressive stance towards any tax evasion or deferment of tax payment. However, it could prove to be another blow to businesses, already hit by the government’s over-the-top quest for the eradication of black money and tax evasion. In a draft notification, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has “proposed…

K aran (name changed), a student of the 2017 batch of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), had a pre-placement offer from an FMCG major after doing summer internship with the company. However, he applied to four more companies – most of them in the consulting space – during the final placements in February. “I wanted to explore options in both FMCG and consulting ,” he says. He eventually opted for the initial offer, convinced that consulting wasn’t his cup of tea. The freedom to choose and explore job opportunities, says Karan, differentiates IIMA from other B-schools. Many management schools don't allow students to appear for job interviews on the campus after accepting an offer by a recruiter. This becomes quite restrictive for students if a preferred recruiter comes for…

Entrepreneurship can be taught. Professor Satyajit Majumdar at Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management and Labour Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has good reasons to believe this. "If you look at entrepreneurs as problem solvers, you need to guide them towards problem solving." The way this is done has undergone a big change over time, he says. "Five years ago, I would have focussed on building a robust business plan. Today, it would be more about having a robust product, understanding the market, engagement with customers and customer value creation. Being relevant to the market is more important than return on investment. Today, having an idea is not enough. What that idea will do is more important." His flagship course is 'Venture Planning' where, he says, he…

E ducation is the basic right of every human being. In the bygone eras, there was never a question of charging for education. I’ll be the first to admit, however, that today the modus operandi of delivering education has changed and a cost does need to be attached to it if only for the purpose of breaking even. The downside is that this automatically deprives segments of the population the chance to learn in a formal set-up/manner. Today, “Education” is a pre-eminent “Industry” and a gigantic one at that, currently valued at $100 billion. This is expected to nearly double to $180 billion by 2020 (according to a 2016 report by Technopak). Higher education contributes 15 per cent of the market size while text-book, elearning and allied services contribute 28 per…

Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked. Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i) Minimum three batches passed out; ii) Offering full-time postgraduate programme in management. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place; this may result in rounding offerrors while adding the parameter-wise score Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have…

Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., who did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked. Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i) Minimum three batches passed out; ii) Offering full-time postgraduate programme in management. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place; this may result in rounding offerrors while adding the parameter-wise score Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., who did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have…

Sell: The Art, the Science, the Witchcraft By Subroto Bagchi; 256 pages; ₹499; Hachette With his vast knowledge on salesmanship, insights and anecdotes, the author creates an essential guide to becoming a successful seller – whether of a product, a service, an idea, an organisation or one’s personal skills – and acquiring the power to influence. The High- Potential Leader By Ram Charan; 240 pages; ₹599; Wiley Given how the criteria for leaders has markedly changed in the modern business climate, the book highlights the critical role relationship building, communication style, engagement and ability to motivate and bring out the best performance in others play in becoming an impactful leader. Between the Buyer and the Seller By Karthik Shashidhar; 279 pages; Takshashila Institution From medieval bazaars to modern marketplaces, the…

An award winning engineer, an acclaimed author and now a thought leader, Chade- Meng Tan has worn several hats over the years. In a chat over email with Hemant Gupta, Meng spoke about his experiments with mindfulness mediation and efforts to spread world peace (Meng is the co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize nominated organisation “One Billion Acts of Peace”). Edited excerpts of the interview What made you look at the connect between mindfulness and the business environment? I feel that if even a seriously flawed person like me can benefit so profoundly from mindfulness, I know others can too, and I want to help everybody in the world become peaceful, happy and compassionate. I wanted to start with the workplace, because that is where adults spend most of their…

₹90,669 crore GST collections in August, less than what the government was expecting. The July collections were ₹94,063 crore. Only 55 per cent assessees paid tax for August, compared to 64 per cent for July. QUOTE “The prime minister claims that he has seen poverty from close quarters. His finance minister is working overtime to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters” Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in an editorial in a national daily PRIVATE FIRMS MAY GET UP TO 60% IN PSU FIELDS India plans to offer private companies up to 60 per cent stake in oil and gas fields owned by government companies that are already under production, according to a Reuters report. The government has taken the decision after failing to draw…

To even out the expected revenue loss, India would require commercial and industrial units to consume at least 55,000 mn additional units in the next 14 months, an unlikely scenario Over the next 14 months, the government wants to illuminate every home in India – that’s a staggering 4,05,11,995 households. The move, however, might just end up plunging into darkness power distribution companies, or Discoms, already struggling to implement fiscal reforms under the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY). The ambitious Saubhagya (Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Ghar Yojana), which Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on September 25, is politically sound, but for distribution companies, sheer logistics make it virtually impossible to finish the task in the given time-frame. There are several reasons for this. Nearly 95 per cent of these homes…

The new EAC will have to wait for the Prime Minister to refer questions to it Our last and current Prime Minister could not be more different: the only identifier they share is a beard. Manmohan Singh was highly educated; but for a friendship he made with I.G. Patel while he was a student in Cambridge, he might have ended up as a lifelong professor. Despite so much education – perhaps because of it – he sought advice from experts throughout his political career. Narendra Modi, on the other hand, knows his mind. He recognises that running the government requires administrative experience and connections. He selects a few bureaucrats, and trusts their judgement. For the rest, he has the self-confidence to rely on his own counsel. No wonder he has…

A number of industrialists are afraid of starting projects as they do not know what the government thinking will be. The government is worried about the economy. In the past week, different ministries have seen a flurry of meetings to brainstorm how they can add some zip to the economy. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, which had not been constituted after the NDA government came to power, has been revived with Bibek Debroy heading it. The Chief Economic Advisor to the finance ministry, Arvind Subramanian, has been given a one-year extension. It was richly deserved because he had been flagging the slowing economy for quite some time, something the government probably did not pay much heed to. The fact that the economy is in a bad shape is…

T o appreciate the new Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bill, 2017, it is necessary to note the considerable distance it has travelled from past paradigms of command and control that defined the relationship between the IIMs and their ‘owners’. It is yet to get through Rajya Sabha (Lok Sabha has already passed it), but there is no harm in hoping for the best. What’s more, this Bill is the best we have seen so far. The relation between the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the IIMs has always been fraught with tension, skirmishes, acrimony and distrust. It has cut across the party lines and generations of HRD ministers. Over the years, the MHRD has, in principle, given powers to the IIM boards to supervise the institutions and then…

T here are only about 20-odd international students in the top ten B-Schools in India. Not surprisingly, Indian B-Schools are pulling out all stops to secure global recognition for their brands. And that comes in the form of acquiring global accreditation. "Accreditations help you look at your performance in the international per spective. We get to know what is needed,” says Prof Chandra P. Shrimali, Acting Director, MDI, Gurugram T. A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal, has the AACSB accreditation. Its Director, Madhu Veeraraghavan, says global diversity is an essential part of management studies In the universe of business management, accreditations from only three organisations really count – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Association of MBAs (AMBA), and the European Foundation for Management Development Quality Improvement System…

Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked. Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i) Minimum three batches passed out; ii) Offering full-time postgraduate programme in management. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place; this may result in rounding offerrors while adding the parameter-wise score Ranking is based on objective data only. Only those B-schools which submitted their objective data have been ranked. Institutes like IIM-L, IIM-B, ISB Hyderabad, etc., which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have…

After the Note 7 battery fiasco, Samsung’s time under the sun has come. The Korean giant has hit a home run with the Note 8. Unlike other smartphones in the Note series that sport a 5.5-5.7 inch display, the Note 8 boasts a 6.3 inch ‘infinity’ display. Its slightly longish design makes it comfortable to hold. On its 2,960x1,440 pixel display resolution, the text appears crisp and colours look good. One can activate the split-screen multitasking feature from the settings option and with the new app pair feature, create combos that launch two apps in multi-window mode with a single touch. The home button has been replaced with an on-screen control button and the fingerprint scanner has been moved to the rear, next to the camera. The placement is inconvenient…

Q. Are you for or against open networks and net neutrality? I’m a huge believer that the benefits of the network should be for all. I also believe that if companies build a network and can’t make profits, they will pull them out. So you’ve got to do both. A certain amount of capacity ought to be for the general good, as also for premium pricing. The last thing I want is talking to a doctor about a problem in my heart and the line dropping or the interface not working well when trying to do a business conference because a kid a row from me is playing a complex computer game. You’ve got to be able to pay for this. The end goal should be broadband for all, but…