Continuing their association with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the institute's alumni picked up students for the ongoing summer placements through their companies. The alumni's firms that returned to the campus included Edelweiss Capital and Feedback Ventures.

IIM-A alumni's firms flock to campus to recruit for summer

Business Standard

After being edged out by sectors like marketing and consulting during the summer placements at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) in 2008, finance companies overcame the slowdown blues to once again emerge as the hot favourite among the 2009-11 batch of post graduate programme (PGP) this year.

Finance jobs back in vogue at IIM-A

Frito-lay&rsquo;s latest campaign comes in the backdrop of a volume war.

Lay's goes in for new flavour: Co-creation

From teaser ads to the Big B visiting schools &ndash; the producers are pulling out all stops on marketing.

Paa: The mother of film promotions

I get asked a lot of times what are you doing to get future ready? My answer is always the same, I&rsquo;m trying to look ahead. It&rsquo;s the hardest thing I&rsquo;ve ever had to do, because we humans are not programmed to do that. We are schooled to learn from the past. Our predictions are often based on what we see when we look back and examining the patterns that lead us to where we are. The age we are in doesn&rsquo;t work that way any more. In these times evolution is just as likely to be created by discontinuous change as it is by steady progression.

Where's tomorrow?

The summer placement process, which gives first-year post-graduate students an opportunity to spend nearly two months during summer 2010 with companies that make them offers, has given the Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) much cause to cheer.

Summer placements at IIMs leave winter behind

The plan of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to conduct a common interview in just one city for aspirants is unlikely to start from the 2010 academic session as was planned earlier. Most IIMs are juggling with issues that are hampering the process which is aimed at easing admissions for students and saving costs too.

Common interview plan of IIMs may get delayed

This depends on the difficulty level of the paper and relative performance of others. Generally attempting around 60 per cent of the questions with around 80 per cent accuracy is good enough to get multiple IIM calls.

Common Admission Test 2009

The Bharti Group, promoted by the Mittal family, had searched high and low for a foreign partner when it wanted to start its cash &amp; carry (organised or modern wholesale) business. The expertise just did not exist in the country. The only way to begin was with help from a large foreign player. And most of them were indeed interested in India, the last virgin territory.

Inside Bharti Walmart

Ask an entrepreneur, if he had stuck to his original business plan and done well. The answer most likely will be &ldquo;No&rdquo;. Most well-known companies &mdash; say, Google, Starbucks, PayPal or even Pantaloon in India &mdash; have done well only after making radical changes to their original business plans.

Discover your Plan B

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Asia Pacific Director Colin Kelly compares his company&rsquo;s recently launched the Ghost to a sports jacket and the Phantom to a Tuxedo. The Ghost, a smaller car, sticks to the Phantom&rsquo;s 2:1 roof-to-wheel height ratio. What is more, it has the same centre opening door configuration as its predecessor. It also has the same hand-crafted interiors and grill. But where the family of Phantom costs between Rs 3.9 crore and Rs 4.1 crore, the 16-inch smaller Ghost&rsquo;s on road price is significantly lesser at Rs 2.5 crore. That&rsquo;s nearly a third less than the Phantom. &ldquo;We wanted something less formal and pretentious and more everyday,&rdquo; says Kelly. Indeed, they&rsquo;re both jackets, clearly addressing two very different niches.

Who'll ride the Ghost?

    Which company or brand publishes a bi-annual magazine titled Innovation? This company is looked upon as one of the most innovative in its business.

Answers to last week's quiz (#121)

Pepsi still has superstars from cricket and filmdom on its rolls, but it is no more banking on them alone to make its voice heard in Youngistaan &mdash; the world of its target audience. It is going all the way to reach its young audience in their preferred haunts, be it in cyberspace or real life. Its &lsquo;MyCan, MyWay&rsquo; campaign was kick-started by a commercial featuring Indian cricketers and a group of boys, reminiscent of today&rsquo;s teens with attitude, in Kerala. Since then it has spread out through non-mass media such as the Internet and radio, asking the youth &lsquo;What&rsquo;s Your Way&rsquo;. The whackiest answer to a dicey dilemma would earn the user a whole lot of goodies from Pepsi.

PepsiCo India: Youngistaan in cyberspace

Kolkata-based Emami, the Rs 2,200-crore fast moving consumer goods major, is on the lookout for local homeopathy companies, even sick units will do. Emami had acquired Kolkata-based M Bhattacharyya &amp; Co, one of the country&rsquo;s earliest homeopathy companies, three years ago.

Emami: Betting on homeopathy

&nbsp;

    Whose product launches have had the code names Cupcake, Donut and &Eacute;clair?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    Name the oldest legal journal published in India?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    In which country is Tata Motors launching its Indica electric car before rolling it out in India in 2010?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    What is the name given to a corporate structure in which a number of organisations link together, usually by taking small stakes in each other to have close business

The Strategist Quiz (#122)

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BILLION DOLLAR LESSONS
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THE PARTNERSHIP: THE MAKING OF GOLDMAN
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Publisher: Allen Lane
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HOW TOYOTA BECAME #1
Author: David Magee
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 499
ISBN: 9781591842293.
THE RURAL MARKETING BOOK
Authors: Pradeep

The top 10 business bestsellers

The handicraft industry the world over is estimated at $100 billion. India contributes around 1 per cent to it.

KIT: The Indian handicraft industry

In slightly over a year since the inception of the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management (RGIIM) in July 2008, nearly half the 13-strong faculty have left following differences with the institute's Director Ashoke Dutta.

IIM-Shillong loses half its faculty over differences with director

As a part of its endeavour to prepare future corporate managers with a human face, Xavier Institute of Management-Bhubaneswar (XIMB) is providing opportunity to its students to bond with the rural folks.

XIM-B kicks off rural exposure programme

The first phase of summer placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L), which began in the last week of October, saw a 25 per cent increase in the number of offers as compared to last year.

IIM-L sees 25 per cent rise in summer job offers

The server of State Bank of India (SBI) crashed last year when two million candidates applied for 20,000 clerical posts. The written examination had to be conducted over four shifts as the bank just could not find enough venues where the tests could be held.

Page 684 - News