ICICI Bank&rsquo;s market cap, growing at breakneck speed until last year, hit a speed breaker on October 10, 2008, when its share plunged 20 per cent in a single day. The fall, which the bank executives attributed to &ldquo;malicious rumour-mongering&rdquo; in their complaint to the police two days later, has become a precursor to a series of image makeovers for the bank in the last few months.

Soft makeover for ICICI

Business Standard

The amiable M G Parameswaran aka Ambi, CEO of Draft FCB Ulka, is one of a kind in the crazy world of advertising. A chemical engineer, he&rsquo;s an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, who later studied management at IIM-Kolkata. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award &mdash; 2009 from IIT-Chennai for &ldquo;professional accomplishments, outstanding leadership qualities and contribution to the advertising industry&rdquo;. The author of three books on branding and advertising told Sapna Agarwal that a slowdown is the best time to launch new products and create excitement.

'This is the best time to launch new products'

While educational institutes across the country may be reeling under pressure due to lack of faculty members, some have already begun taking initiatives to tackle the issue. Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Design (NID), for instance, has planned to set up a faculty development centre soon to cater to the growing demand for design faculty members.

NID, IIM-Lucknow to train faculty

Even as Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) gears up to welcome the new batch on board, the communications management school is getting ready to bid adieu to its director of eight years. According to sources in the institute, Atul Tandon, director, MICA, is set to quit by the end of June this year. &ldquo;It is true that Atul Tandon will discontinue being the director of the institute by June end this year. The process of looking for the new director is on and the governing council at the institute has hired a consultancy from Mumbai for the same in a hushed manner,&rdquo; a source on campus confirmed.

MICA's director's term to end in June

Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM) at IIT-Kharagpur was established in 1993, and was the first management school to be set up within the IIT system. It was initiated by a distinguished alumnus and a Life Time Fellow of the Institute, Vinod Gupta, whose endowment was matched by support from the Government of India. In an interview with Pradipta Mukherjee, the institute&rsquo;s dean, S Srinivasan, says its focus for the current academic year would be research.

&#39;We will increase the number of sponsored research students&#39;

Delhi-based Foreign Trade Development Centre (FTDC) has tied up with the Sikkim Manipal University (SMU) to offer the university&rsquo;s students an MBA in International Business and a Certificate course in Export-Import Trade.

FTDC ties up with Sikkim Manipal varsity

# Kolkata: Institute of Computer Accountants to announce its expansion plans. Venue: Oberoi Grand.

Book launch and e-security

If you are looking for clothes for extreme cold weather conditions and don&rsquo;t know where to go, you could visit the National Geographic Channel (NGC) merchandise store in Singapore (or London). Customers can even test the suit in a special room at the store where the temperature can be adjusted to minus 50 degrees centigrade. The store also stocks other NGC merchandise such as stationery, calendars and bed-sheets with trademark NGC images.

Television brands turn tangible

Casual dining chain Pizza Hut is planning to extend its &lsquo;Enhanced Dine-in&rsquo; brand transformation concept to almost a third of its 147 stores across India by next month.

&#39;Enhanced Dine-in&#39; concept helps Pizza Hut push sales

    This Unilever detergent was developed for Brazilian customers who wanted a low-cost and effective product. Its name, coincidentally, means &ldquo;excellent&rdquo; or &ldquo;the best&rdquo; in Urdu.

The Strategist Quiz (#100)

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Author: Gary R Heerkens
Publisher: Tata McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 250
ISBN: 0070534578
FINANCE FOR NON-FINANCIAL MANAGER
Author: Gene Siciliano
Publisher: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing
Price: Rs 195
ISBN: 0070581185
SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
Authors: Donald J Bowersox and David J Closs
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 1,098
ISBN: 0071254145
INVESTMENTS
Author: Mark Hirschey
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 1,521
ISBN: 0071286381
PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
Author: James W Smither
Publisher: John Wiley &amp; Sons
Price: Rs 3,726
ISBN: 0787909459
THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY
Author: John Maynard Keynes
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Price: Rs 275
ISBN: 8126906588
CREDIT RISK MANAGEMENT
Author: S K Bagchi
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Price: Rs 350
ISBN: 817992257X
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF STOCK TRENDS
Author: Robert D Edwards
Publisher: Scholastic India
Price: Rs 595
ISBN: 9788170946632
STRATEGIC HUMAN

The top 10 business bestsellers

Retail opportunity is slated to rise by about $160 billion (Rs 758,160 crore) in India in five years.

KIT: Retail opportunity in India

Six years after running down the low-cost model, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines are betting on it to keep running.

Survival instinct

Gautam Thapar was called by his uncle, Lalit Mohan Thapar, in 1996 to try and resurrect Ballarpur Industries Ltd. It was the country&rsquo;s largest producer of paper but in serious financial trouble. Profits had plummeted to Rs 3 crore and the possibility of a default to lenders loomed large. Thanks to easy money, the company had got in to all kinds of businesses and now didn&rsquo;t know what to do. In the family separation that followed, Thapar also got control of Crompton Greaves as well as Greaves Cotton.

Respond to change

Holidays click

Chennai has just got its own news and entertainment channel, courtesy a 50:50 joint venture between NDTV Ltd and The Hindu. After the launch of MetroNation, this is NDTV&rsquo;s second attempt at launching a city-specific channel and NDTV Hindu Managing Director &amp; CEO Rajiv Lulla is convinced marketers will bite. He believes that an advertiser has the advantage of creating a national campaign and tailoring it to the needs of different cities.

NDTV Hindu: Local fare for Chennai

The consumer electronics market is strongly driven by technology. Companies vie with each other to introduce new technologies in the market. Thus, Samsung has opened a new category of flat-panel televisions that use LED (light emitting diode) technology. These televisions use LEDs as the primary light source rather than the traditional cold cathode fluorescent lamps, which allow higher contrast ratios and slim depths for better design.

Samsung: Advantage LED?

Maruti Suzuki has launched the Ritz to consolidate its share in the fast-growing market for compact cars. This segment accounts for almost 70 per cent of the car market and Maruti Suzuki already has a 58 per cent share with brands like the Swift.

Maruti Suzuki: Ritz vs Swift

    Edible cutlery is sold under this brand name. Owned by an Indian company, it is the first to make it out of sorghum.

Answers to last week's quiz (#099)

Given the opportunity, the company will spend around Rs 500 crore, says a source.

Godrej eyes more global acquisitions

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Advertising Club Bombay are hoping that the scale of Adfest 2009 is comparable with last year&rsquo;s event, despite the slowing economy and a 16.6 per cent dip in registrations.

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