Few IIM-A students go for entrepreneurship this year

The entrepreneurial bug does not appear to have bitten students at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) this year. So far, not even one student is believed to have opted out of the final placements process to start his own venture.

Students typically announce their opting out of the placements at the very beginning of the process in order to work on their entrepreneurial ventures. Seven students, for instance, had opted out of the placements to start their own ventures in 2009 and 10 students in 2008.

“This time, all students are participating in the placements process. We haven’t come across anyone who has opted out of the process to start own venture. As usual, we had given the students the freedom to choose not to participate in the process,” said a source on campus.

Around 318 students are believed to be going through the cohort-based placement process this year. The new cohort-based placement process for the second year post-graduate programme (PGP) students, which kicked off on February 13, 2010, comprises companies that offer similar roles, profiles, salaries, locations, etc, to be grouped into individual cohorts. Moreover, several cohorts comprise a cluster, each of which are being held on weekends.

The institute has seen an increase in the number of offers from companies this year. A student from the institute has reportedly been offered a record Rs 1.44 crore package from Deutsche Bank. ICICI Bank emerged as the biggest recruiter during the third cluster at IIM-A, offering over 10 jobs to the students, while regular recruiters like Icra, KPMG, Essar Group and Philips offered jobs to IIM-A students in finance, consulting, sales and marketing fields.

The process is expected to continue for a few more weeks.