Just a week after she appeared for her third semester exam in a middle-rung business school in Kolkata, a former colleague&rsquo;s daughter received a job offer from a large consultancy, and an interview for a second is on the way. Just six months ago, she was taking about an uncertain future because about half of the 80-strong previous batch had firm job offers through the institute&rsquo;s placement cell.

Shyamal Majumdar: Fix a speed limit on hiring

Business Standard

More and more IT firms look at arresting attrition by providing on the job education option to staff.

BPOs no more a stopgap option

Good old brands are finding their way into the portfolios of some of the top FMCG companies in the country.

In demand: Iconic consumer brands

Leading brands are doing it all &mdash; innovative products, pricing and campaigns &mdash; for a bigger bite of the market.

Mosquito repellents take the village road

    Toyota Etios, Tata Swach, KFC Krushers, Pepsi Kurkure and McDonald&rsquo;s Aloo Tiki burger are products that reflect a new concept in business management. Name it.

Answers to last week&#39s quiz (#180)

It&rsquo;s a little past nine in the evening, and I&rsquo;m home after a long day at the office. This is my favourite time of the day. I&rsquo;m unloading and unwinding. I have my feet up on the coffee table, and I&rsquo;m flipping channels without really paying attention.

What's on tonight?

Mahindra &amp; Mahindra has turned around Punjab Tractors to make it the third-largest tractor manufacturer in the country.

Collaborative competition

Stay Raw&rsquo; is MTV India&rsquo;s new message to the youth, and the brand&rsquo;s new strapline as well. The channel recently launched a campaign to revamp its image which included all the bells and whistles. The most obvious is the change in the channel graphics, which includes a fresh 3D logo.

MTV retunes

The Delhi airport has a brand new terminal, billed as one of the largest anywhere in the world. Close to the airport no less than 13 properties, hotels and community centres, are under construction. One of them is the JW Marriott by Asian Hotels (West). The 525-room hotel is slated to start operations in 2012 and will cost Rs 700 crore.

Room for all

Madhya Pradesh Tourism is back with another earthy and rustic television commercial. Rolled out earlier this month, it&rsquo;s called MP ajab hai, sabse gajab hai (MP is unique, it&rsquo;s full of surprises) and is the third in a series of campaigns created in a similar tone. The first in 2006 was the hugely-popular bioscope commercial, titled Hindustan ka dil dekho (see the heart of India) which showcased the key attractions of the state through a bioscope. The second in 2009 conveyed the variety that the state offers through different expressions of the eyes of a traveller. The latest one uses the traditional art of hand shadowgraphy to tell what&rsquo;s unique about many of the destinations. All the three campaigns have been conceptualised and created by Ogilvy India.

MP revealed, through shadows

After news (Times Now, ET Now) and entertainment (Zoom), Times Television Network is set to enter the movie space with Movies Now. This will be an English movie channel broadcast only in the high-definition (HD) format, which the company hopes will provide the necessary differentiation in the market. The channel will be available across analogue, digital cable and DTH platforms throughout India.

Time for movies

Surgery in an out-patient setting has become a global trend and is expanding throughout the world. By 2020, 75 per cent of all surgical operations will be carried out in ambulatory surgery centres/units.

KIT: Walk-in, walk-out surgery centres

THE ART OF CHOOSING
Author: Sheena Iyengar
Publisher: Little, Brown
Price: Rs 499
ISBN: 9781408702949.
THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE
Authors: Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner 
Publisher: Wiley 
Price: Rs 379
ISBN: 9788126506491.
REACH FOR THE SKIES
Author: Richard Branson 
Publisher: Random House 
Price: Rs 599
ISBN: 9780753519868.
THE NEW AGE OF INNOVATION
Authors: C K Prahalad
Publisher: Tata McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 750
ISBN: 9780070248618.
MAKERS OF MODERN INDIA
Author: Ramachandra Guha
Publisher: Viking
Price: Rs 799
ISBN: 9780670083855.
DECISION POINTS
Author: George W Bush 
Publisher: Virgin Books
Price: Rs 999
ISBN: 9780753539668.
MANAGERS WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Author: TV Rao 
Publisher: Random House India
Price: Rs 299
ISBN: 9788184001372.
THE BIG SHORT
Author: Michael Lewis 
Publisher: Penguin Price: Rs 599
ISBN: 9781846142574.
CONNECT THE DOTS
Author: Rashmi Bansal 
Publisher: Eklavya Education Foundation
Price: Rs 150
ISBN:

The top 10 business bestsellers

&nbsp;

    What term was coined by the UK post office after it commissioned a study to look into the anxieties suffered by mobile phone users?&nbsp;;
    &nbsp;
    Link the terms weight, lift, drag and thrust to a Yorkshireman and what do you get?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    What is common to Dawn, Passion and Achiever and another set of brands, namely, Stunner, Dazzler and Shine?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    Which company invented the world&rsquo;s first erasable ball point pen and by what name was

The Strategist Quiz (#181)

&ldquo;The average was better than the standard,&rdquo; says Prahlad Kakkar, outspoken ad filmmaker of Mumbai-based Genesis Films and who is best remembered for his work on Pepsi. A keen observer of advertising, Kakkar sums up the fare dished out this year in no uncertain terms.

Of Youtube, shadows and remixes

Indian School of Business here has launched a module on media and entertainment for the PGP students. The course aims at helping students learn more about the media and entertainment industry. It will also explain the role of MBA in the media industry and its various verticals.

Media and entertainment elective at ISB

The Indian Management Best Business Schools Survey draws its reputation and credibility from the methodology adopted for arriving at the ratings.

How we did it

The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) is the oldest institute in the IIM system and completes 50 years in November 2011. In these 50 years, while the institute has become a model of educational excellence, it continues to face challenges in research quality. In the news recently over the uproar from faculty against the recommendations of the Bhargava Committee Report, debates on funding and management at IIMs have taken centre stage again. In an interview with Swati Garg, director of IIM-C, Shekhar Chaudhury shares the curricula changes, challenges and possible solutions.

Q&A: Shekhar Chaudhury, Director, IIM Calcutta

The entertainment and media arena is slowly but certainly becoming segmented. These are definitely not the times of one size fits all. Bollywood, for example, is witnessing the rising phenomenon of multiplex movies, cinema made for the multiplex audiences who are urban and relatively more discerning than the average masses. Movies such as Bheja Fry, Life in a Metro, Page 3, Corporate, and Traffic Signal &mdash; each made with a budget of anywhere from Rs 6 to Rs 40 million, fairly modest by Bollywood standards &mdash; have managed to recoup up to four times their cost at the box office. The economics of multiplex movies have started to make sense because finally there is an audience willing to shell out Rs 150-200 to watch a film with a slightly different take. The fact that multiplex theatres have a smaller capacity per screen to fill has also helped justify the equation.

From broadcast to narrowcast

An MBA is often seen as a ticket to a better quality of life &mdash; both work and personal.

An MBA makes it look better

Raymond Apparel is slimming down in a bid to grow its business.

Page 568 - News