|
| B-schools believe sponsors will back festive mood this year |
| Pradipta Mukherjee / Kolkata Sep 01, 2009, 00:41 IST |
|
Encouraged by the improving business sentiment, India’s premier management schools are hopeful of a higher budget and sponsorship amount for their annual festivals which are held between October and March.
Last year, sponsorships and the overall budget for fests at B-schools had dropped by 20-40 per cent as corporates had cut back on spending. This year, however, the spirits are high.
IIM-Kozhikode (IIM-K), for instance, expects its budget to be Rs 60 lakh in 2010 for ‘Backwaters’, its annual festival — up from Rs 30-40 lakh last year. IIM-Lucknow’s ‘Manfest’, too, expects its budget to cross the Rs 100 lakh in 2010 and Rs 20 lakh for prize money. Manfest 2008 had a budget of Rs 81 lakh with over Rs 13 lakh set aside for prizes. For ‘Index’, another IIM-Lucknow fest, the total prize money in 2008 more than halved to Rs 1.1 lakh due to the impact of the recession.
IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) and IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B) have just started approaching sponsors for their fests next year. Both the institutes pointed out that sponsors are more forthcoming this year and the B-schools expect a rise in overall budget compared to 2008-2009.
At IIM-Calcutta (IIMC), Intaglio is the international b-school meet held in the second week of January every year. “The sponsorship money did go down during 2009 January, but we coped with the downturn by reaching out to more companies and starting our sponsorship work earlier. However, the main reason why the fest was successful is because many of the processes that are outsourced by other colleges were done by the students themselves. By bringing down costs heavily, we still managed to produce a bigger fest with a much smaller budget. For 2010, we are already working at full pace,” says Shobhit Bhatnagar, Coordinator, Intaglio 2009-10.
For Intaglio last, the budget was around Rs 50 lakh. Sponsors included Aditya Birla Group, Tatas, Reliance Industries, and some of the top marketing and finance firms.
At B-schools, the size of the business fest is determined by the size of the prize money, and IIM-C’s Intaglio is claimed to be the largest B-school meet in India with the highest prize money set at a total of Rs 12 lakh in 2009 January. Another IIM-C fest, Carpe Diem, held in February every year, had a budget of Rs 20 lakh in 2008. Major sponsors included Axe, Lux, Close up, Pepsi, Nestle, Hero Honda, Radio Mirchi, Telegraph, Vodafone, says Paras Rawal, coordinator, Carpe Diem 2009-10.
IIM-Kozhikode (IIM-K), on the other hand, organises its annual festival, ‘Backwaters, in the month of January every year. The event has traditionally been one of the biggest prize givers across premier B-schools.
“We plan to get back on the growth curve and escalate the event budget to about Rs 60 lakh for Backwaters 2010. There was a drop in budget, from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 30 lakh between the last two academic years. The sponsorship money also dropped in nearly the same ratio. However the number of events was kept the same. Participation saw a slight increase in 2008-09 as compared to 2007-08, however we expect to take it to a much significant level in the coming year by increasing the number of events as well as the prize money for each of the events,” says Tess Zacharias, media representative of IIM-K.
IIM-Lucknow (IIM-L), on its parts, hosts Manfest — the annual international business conclave, and Index — IIM-L’s marketing research festival. “We are aiming at increasing the participating colleges to over 500 this time around. These include all the premier management institutes from across the country and a few selected engineering colleges,” says Nitin Jacob, media relations convenor at IIM-L. Sponsors at Manfest 2008 included Cognizant, Capgemeni, Reliance Industries, Dell, Reliance Money, Evalueserve and Channel V to name a few.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Read Business news in |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Content Guide
