Monthly Archives: February 2023

Need of the Century- Vocal for Local, Local to Global

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What was the first thing you always wanted during childhood and sought parents to let you play for a whole day?

Yes! You are right. It’s the ‘Toys’ and ‘Games’, your one and only means of entertainment.

Again, do you remember any toy shops which you usually went to? Every day they were your final destination where you want to go at any cost.

Moreover, how could you forget the importance of the Annual Fair? Although there were multiple shops locally. But every year, you eagerly waited to visit the local fair.

Do you remember the massive crowd at the fair? They enjoyed rides, balloons, equipment, clothes, and food stalls. Here you find toys in abundance, along with lots of entertainment. Whenever you hear about an upcoming fair, it makes you full of energy and excitement.

Also, with time, we learned about different fairs, such as the Art fair, Festival fair, Science fair, Health fair, Cultural fair, Trade, and Tourism fair. These are different types of fairs, but what happens if they are all combined in a single place?

Suppose I visualize this situation as a student of Business School. Then in this state, the local market may indulge in business activities to fulfill the concept of demand and supply. Eventually, this leads to the circular flow of money to the economy.

Indian government knows it very well and consistently supports these activities along with their plans and policies to strengthen India’s economy.

Now we are moving to the next phase, where I like to brief you about my recent visit to India International Trade Fair-2022.

It was an official visit conducted by India’s reputed “ICFAI Business School-Gurgaon”. As a student of IBS Gurgaon, I got this once-in-a-while opportunity to visit the “India International Trade Fair-2022” and to represent my B-School. It was a mesmerizing visit full of happiness and excitement.

It allowed us to witness global diversity in one place. It provided me with a platform to connect with well-recognized brands famous for their handmade artifacts, spices, agricultural products, and other antique elements worldwide. 

Moreover, before moving towards my personal experience and learning outcomes from this visit, I quickly introduce you to the India International Trade Fair-2022 and the reason behind it.

India International Trade Fair (IITF) is one of the world’s biggest and most opulent trade fairs, where lakhs of people visit yearly. This event provides a platform for manufacturers, traders, exporters, and importers to showcase a exclusive range of goods and services, including automobiles, textiles, households, food, pharmaceuticals, telecommunication, and engineering goods.

It was the 41st edition based on the theme “Vocal for Local, Local to Global” organized by India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) from November 14 to November 27 at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.

The India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO), is a premier trade promotion enterprise of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. Its mission is to promote, facilitate, encourage and coordinate various activities and programs to enhance India’s share of exports.

Since 1980, this Trade Fair has become a significant global event for business and economy. Every year, it attracts huge amount of visitors and investors.

Till here, you understand the importance and relevance of this trade fair from an economic point of view.

After this, let’s move to my personal experience and learning outcomes from this Trade Fair.

In this formal visit, my job is to interact with multiple personalities and gain as much knowledge as possible.

After I entered the premises, I noticed 12 overseas participants, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Iran, Nepal, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, and the UK. Therefore I decided to start with International stalls.

Fortunately, I interacted with a person named Mohammad Husain from Belarus. He diligently showcased his stall, consisting of homemade anti-craft. Also, he explained how his great-grandparents indulged in this field and carried this art with them and how his generation works to fulfill the modern demand with innovation and smart work.

Moreover, I met Mr. Mert Yavuz, from Turkey. He had a stall of Turkish Mosaic Lamps, full of deep and rich design providence, creating a warm and romantic atmosphere. He briefed me about the cultural history of these lamps and the growing demand globally.

After that, I moved toward the state’s region, where I met Mr. Tushar Yaduvanshi. He is an entrepreneur who owns a food processing startup. He clearly explained the challenges of the pandemic and how they managed to sustain their startup during hard times, whether it is the factor of production, the concept of supply and demand, the logistics, government policies, etc.

Afterward, I interacted with Mr. Himanshu Tripathi, an employee of a Robotics Company in Uttar Pradesh. He showcased the new 3-D Printing Technology and its practical implications, such as Organ cloning, 3-D prototype of any model, any useful accessory, etc.

Moreover, they have a Robotic Arm known for its precision in any feasible task.

Then I moved towards the next hall, where several ministries set up different stalls. Here the Ministry of AYUSH has highlighted their theme of “AYUSH for Global Health” along with several initiatives in Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy.

Similarly, every ministry came up with its historical achievements and innovative plans. But I was more attracted to the Ministry of Indian Railways. The ministry’s representatives took us for a walkaround of their stall. They showcased the start of the Railway and its evolution. Meanwhile, they also showcased the Highest Rail Bridge of the Chenab River and the Longest Bogibeel Rail Bridge. Also, the Indian Railway has started working on High-Speed Transportability through Dedicated Freight Corridors and an increased network of Rail Lines.

Overall, it was an informative, educational visit that greatly impacted my thinking perspective. This International Tade Fair gave me global exposure through stalls and brand representatives. I was overwhelmed to witness the unusual antiques and to meet the person behind them.

Due to this formal visit, I could interact with the senior officials of different Indian industries like JSW Steel, Relaxo Footwear, Steel Authority of India Limited, National Jute Board, etc.

These visits helped students to familiarize themselves with the corporate world and company culture. Also, how companies differentiate themself from others and how they run their business to sustain in this competitive world with the practical implementation of the Business Fundamentals.

Himanshu Gurjar

22BSP0623

Innovation and Leadership – Vital skills within the 21st Century

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Have you gone through a situation where your gadgets or any service stopped working during an emergency, and you tried to regain access?

If yes, then it shows your dependency on Technology and Digitization.

Did you ever try to figure out how we become dependent on them?

Let’s try to understand the process of human dependency.

Firstly, refer to the late 1990s, when the transitional phase was going on globally. At that time, different sectors of the economy, whether primary or secondary, or tertiary, witnessed massive growth and development.

Now, after deep downing the process, researchers have found a cause i.e. Digitization. And the reason behind Digitization was ‘Innovation’.

So indirectly, Innovation was leading the whole world simultaneously.

We are already familiar with the term Innovation. Since our existence, we have seen a tough time. Eventually, we worked harder and harder to make our time easy. But the significant elements that led us throughout the journey were Innovation and Leadership.

It has proven already that adopting the concept of Innovation in your work, skills, daily routine, etc., leads you to ease your life and achieve success.

Similarly, in the business sector, if you want to capture the market share and be a market leader, then Innovation is one of the ways to succeed. Many business firms implement/adopt the change in sync with the environmental change. Also, Innovation helps the business to address the real problem of the masses and to find an adequate solution through their products and services.

How did I come to know about all these phenomenal concepts?

Fortunately, as a student of ICFAI Business School Gurgaon, one of the faculty members discussed a live case study of a market-leading firm ‘TATA Motors’. The reason behind taking this case study was the transformational changes within TATA Motors, like Innovation, Technological Advancement, Structural Changes etc.

The case study also enumerated the positive change in the market share of TATA Motors before and after adopting these fundamental changes, which shows how TATA Motors is leading the market from the front.

IBS Gurgaon focuses on effective and efficient knowledge. This institute follows a structural pedagogy with the Case-Based Methodology, a way of nurturing future managers through situational thinking behavior over the two-year course.

There were a few critical points discussed during the class as follows:

  • History:
    • TATA Motors emerged in the mid-1940s, founded by Mr. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, who led it to become India’s largest automobile company. Its presence within the commercial automobile space is more profound than its private automobile business. Also, TATA is the second largest bus manufacturer in the world and among the top five truck producers in the automotive market. In 2004, it expanded its global outreach by listing its business on the New York Stock Exchange.
  • Theory of Innovation: Different theories explain how evolution processes take place in any organization, how ideas spread amongst the employees, and how TATA Motors adopted Innovation through human interactions and interpersonal networks, including techies, visionaries, pragmatists, conservatives, and skeptics.
  • Also, the five-stage high-involvement framework includes natural involvement, structured creativity, deployment of strategic goals, proactive/empowered brains, and high Innovation.
  • Overall, the significant sources of Innovation are brainstorming, heuristics and mapping.
  • Internal Factors:
    • Leadership:
      • Tata Motor designed its leadership style to regulate its global operations based on five functional units finance, engineering, strategy, human resource, and communications. Most of the firm’s leaders are dynamic and agile individuals who can work for different departments and are always open to listening to new ideas.
  • The optimal performance during a tough time has proven the flexibility of TATA’s leaders.
  • Organization Structure:
    • TATA Motor has a flat organizational structure that includes a group of vibrant and energetic young professionals to drive the concept of Innovation. Rather than rely on technology, TATA Motor relies on its people more than any other factors of production. They also develop the TATA Engineering Centre, which has 3,000 professionals to figure out new products and technologies to bring the revolution.
  • Culture:
    • Cultural factors play an essential role in Innovation, including vertical relationships, communications structures, the supply of tools and resources, and accounting practices. You can predict TATA’s culture based on collectivism, enabling the easy information flow between the top and middle-level management.
  • External Factors:
    • Strategy:
      • You are already aware of the growing global competition in the automotive industry. Therefore, TATA has redesigned its corporate strategy to implement Innovation in its operational processes. They’re going to differentiate themselves from their industry rivals. Also, the Innovation factor implies in other subsidiaries, including Jaguar Land Rover and TATA Technologies.
  • Currently, there are around 60 innovative projects of TATA Motors, which may lead to an increase of more than $1.1 billion in annual revenues. Also, it’ll impact the lives of more than 35 million people globally within five years or less.
  • Moreover, TATA spent about $2.6 billion on research and development, showing its innovative culture and corporate strategy, which led to the formulation of the vision of Mr. Raman Tata, former Chairman, who wants to develop the Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF).
  • Market Forces:
    • A key attribute of Tata’s innovation plan is the usage of multiple strategies after considering the uniqueness of different market segments. The business strategies adopted in Sri Lanka differ from those adopted in Bangladesh, and the plan for Vietnam differs from those of the United Kingdom.
  • For Indian Market, they adopted the strategies of the Indian Domestic Market by promoting the assembly of profitable cars and leaving out the unsuccessful ones. This strategy achieves the core idea behind the company’s creative approach, i.e. ‘One size does not fit for all’.

Overall, you have seen that TATA Motors has a broader view of Innovation because its managers believe that concepts are not new. We can apply radical ideas in several other areas within the company. For example, the corporate used the participative leadership style and a flat structure to support the company’s concept of Innovation, which is people-oriented instead being process-oriented.

Therefore, the Innovation and leadership strategies of TATA Motors helped them to nurture their creative leaders globally. Also, these are the skills required to succeed in the future.

Himanshu Gurjar

22BSP0623

Notable Alumni – Abhay Anand

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ICFAI alumnus, Abhay Anand is an Investment Banking professional with expertise in fundraising (PE, VC & Structured funding) and international mergers and acquisitions (M&A). He has advised companies across industries such as Healthcare & Lifesciences, Consumers, IT & Ecommerce, Infrastructure & Cleantech, Financial Services & Industrials.

He has been involved in deal closures of a cumulative value of more than $ 1.25 Bn so far. Abhay is currently working as a Partner at Grant Thornton for the last 8 years.

Abhay Anand ( Batch –  2001 ) 
Designation – Partner, Investment Banking 
Company – Grant Thornton Bharat LLP

He is looking after the fundraising and M&A practice in the firm for the western region which he helped set up way back in 2014. Prior to this, he worked as a Director in Cipher Capital, one of the oldest boutique investment banks focused on PE and M&A for about 13 years. He is a regular at several industry platforms like VC Circle for conducting periodic M&A and PE workshops. Abhay completed his PGDBA at ICFAI from the batch 1999 – 2001.

Notable Alumni-V R Mahadevan

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V R Mahadevan is the Finance & IT Director for Saint Gobain Abrasives Asia Pacific. Having been with the Saint Gobain group for 22 years, he has multi-faceted global experience with expertise in Business management, Finance & Strategy, Global Sourcing and business development. He has developed a global perspective by working in Paris for about 6 years; and presently as the CFO in Bangkok of a large business in a diverse & interesting emerging market – Asia Pacific. He has a consistent track record of high performance and building professional & cross-cultural teams in India, Europe and Asia Pacific.

V R Mahadevan ( Batch –  1997  )
Designation –  CFO & Director
Company – Saint Gobain Abrasives Asia Pacific

Prior to the APAC stint, he has successfully managed an overall P & L responsibility in India. He has hands on experience in implementing World Class manufacturing (WCM) initiatives to improve operational metrics, and significantly transform factories through Industry 4.0

He is exposed and sensitized to business practices in different businesses (manufacturing, distribution) in different parts of the world. He has assisted newly acquired companies to improve their processes and achieve good corporate governance; in his present role he is working on a few acquisitions for transformational growth in Asia Pacific.

An Engineering graduate and an ICWA, he was part of the first batch of CFA-PGDBA program with IBS Mumbai in 1995.

Notable Alumni – Chandan Goswami

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An ICFAI Business School, Mumbai of the 2002 batch, Chandan Goswami is the Chief Strategy and Business Officer of PRESPL, a bio-energy leader which has equity investors such as Shell, Mitsui, SBI Neev and responsibility on its board. He has also co-founded CBEII, a leading bio-energy industry body apart from being on the board of a NBFC and other group companies. He has been a career finance professional after his PGDBA in Finance from the 2002 batch and has worked in Corporate and Investment Banking of several banks including BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, HDFC Bank, etc. managing complex transactions including acquisition finance, asset finance, etc.

Chandan Goswami (Batch –  2002)
Designation – Chief Strategy and Business Officer Company – PRESPL

over 15 years. He later transitioned into corporate finance with the Shapoorji Pallonji group where he headed Treasury and corporate finance for Sterling and Wilson group of companies also during the IPO of Sterling & Wilson Solar. He has tried his stint with entrepreneurship as well before joining the core team of PRESPL which has grown exponentially in this sunrise sector. At PRESPL, Chandan leads business development and also the strategy function which involves leading the company’s foray into newer applications of biomass-bioenergy but also bringing process efficiency in its current operations. His background of finance also makes him involved in taking care of the finance function of the company including equity and debt rounds thereby having a role to play in the overall management of the company and delivering value to its shareholders.

Notable Alumni-Amit Mankekar

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Amit Mankekar is the Founder and Director of Consulting Planet Inc., in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. A dynamic entrepreneur, in his current position as CEO of Consulting Planet Inc., he manages programs for clients across countries like Canada, India, Costa Rica, the Philippines, and Chile.

Amit Mankekar has a total of 25 years’ experience across 5 different organisations, 3 continents, and several verticals like Automobiles, Financial Services, Oil & Gas, Mining, and Information Technology.

Amit Mankekar ( Batch – 2001 )
Designation – CEO Founder & Director
Company – Consulting Planet Inc

In his previous role, he served as Practice Area Leader for ServiceNow in IBM Canada and Delivery Executive in IBM Canada. During his tenure there, he was awarded the Best of IBM award.
Amit Mankekar is a Gold Medallist of IBS Mumbai-Batch of 2001.He is fluent in several languages like English, French, Spanish, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu, Konkani, and also Sanskrit.

Notable Alumni- Kavan Mukhtyar

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Partner – Management consulting, & amp; National Automotive sector leader PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India. Over the last 25 years+ Kavan has advised clients in the Automotive sector on aspects of strategy & operations excellence. As a Partner in PwC Management consulting he has led engagements across strategy development, cost optimisation, operations excellence and digital transformation. He has also helped clients with challenges related to organisation structure, leadership, technology roadmap development.

Kavan Mukhtyar ( Batch – 1997 )
Designation – Partner
Company – PWC

His recent work has been in the area of electric mobility. Kavan has been actively involved in working with various Automotive industry associations and the Government of India to provide inputs for the development of enabling Automotive policy environment in the country.

Kavan speaks extensively at Automotive industry events, roundtables and actively contribute articles on the trends in the Indian Automotive industry. He was part of the first batch of graduates from ICFAI Business school based in Mumbai and joined Frost & Sullivan in 1997. Over the next 19 years he played various roles within the organisation leading up to being a Senior Partner and Leader at Frost & Sullivan Asia-pacific leadership team. Kavan had the opportunity to live and work across the Asia Pacific region with significant stints in Malaysia, Singapore and SE Asia. Kavan joined PwC India in 2015. Over the last 7 years he has led the firm in establishing PwC as a leading advisory services firm in the Automotive sector. He enjoys working on highly complex transformation engagements serving clients across the Automotive OEM, and component industry in India. Prior to joining IBS, he obtained an Engineering degree from University of Bombay. To enhance his knowledge in field of supply chain he studied to be a ‘Certified Supply Chain Professional’ from APICS USA. The CFA-MBA from ICFAI Business school helped Kavan gain strong understanding of business fundamentals. It also gave him the opportunity to learn and network with other students to imbibe a ‘can do’ attitude and an entrepreneurial spirit. The resilience built at IBS has been one of the bedrocks of his professional success over the years

Placement Scenario at IBS- Gurgaon (Class of 2023)  

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Campus placements can be probably the most exciting and great experience at B- Schools. Placements are the gateway to enter dream company with dream profiles. This is the time that decides how students will move forward in their career. Will the students get a good profile? Will the dream company be part of the MBA campus placement drive? Are they ready to face corporate world? These are the questions which revolves around B- schools and students also do ask these questions to themselves.

For class of 2023, IBS started campus placements from October 2022 and before opening doors for corporates, we prepared students towards campus placement processes. Students cleared certifications in Credit management, Valuation and consulting, Banking, Digital marketing, Taxation, Sales and marketing, Power Bi, SQL etc. 

At IBS we follow a system where different sectors are invited for campus placement. Sectors like Consulting, Financial Services, IT/ITES, Banking, Retail, E-commerce, Media etc. are part of campus placement process. Every year we witness Increase in CTC with quality profiles and more number of Blue chip, MNC companies from diverse sectors hiring bulk candidates based on previous student’s past performances. Top sectors in Placement 2023 were Consulting, IT/Analytics, E-Commerce, Finance etc. Top roles offered include in the areas of Consulting, Finance, Analytics, Research, Product Management, Logistics, Supply Chain etc.

30-35% of our students were absorbed in consulting followed by IT/ITES. At IBS Gurgaon for class of 2023, we had more than 200 companies for 460 students with average CTC of 7.6 LPA. Some of the companies who hired are KPMG, PWC, Bain & Co, Cognizant, Deloitte, Gartner, CITI, HCL, Blackrock, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, VE Commercials, Evalue-serve, EY India, RSPL, Moody’s, Radio City, O2 Power, Go-MMT, Aditya Birla, Sony India, OPPO, Tata Capital, Bajaj Housing etc.

We work hard towards preparing students for campus placements and because of that we place close to 98% student’s year on year.

Notable Alumni- Shaveta Kapoor

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Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception. One of our alum also proved to the world that she is incredibly capable of achieving heights in her life. Nothing makes us prouder than being able to share her success story.

Mrs. Shaveta joined dunnhumby as a graduate analyst in 2009 after completing her MBA from ICFAI Gurgaon. She is a seasoned data science professional with rich experience in leveraging data-driven insights and data science at scale to drive transformation and deliver Business impact across multiple clients globally over years.

Shaveta Kapoor
IBS Gurgaon (2007-09)
Global Applied data science Head of Media Products dunnhumby

She is one of the fastest grown data science leaders and a business transformation champion within Dunnhumby. She has a proven track record of setting up and scaling data science solutions and teams across developed and emerging markets.

She leads the Media Analytics hub of 140+ data scientists within dunnhumby which is responsible for continuously delivering media science to our clients along with developing new solutions, embedded with the latest data, analytics, and AI in order to drive innovation for our clients globally. She is passionate about solving complex business problems at the intersection of data, technology, and people leveraging a growth mindset and multi-disciplinary teams. Shaveta has the rare skill of being able to lead transformation whilst keeping a team inspired and shows great determination to improve herself, her team, and the business.

A Kidney transplant survivor herself, a working mom of a 10-year-old, and a parental blogger, Shaveta has a wealth of knowledge that she shares with family, friends, and colleagues to ensure they achieve success. Leading by example, Shaveta takes tough challenges unflinchingly and is an inspiration to all those around her. Shaveta is a firm supporter of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) and co-leads the D&I bold goal for dunnhumby India. Shaveta has been leading one of the much-anticipated initiatives – dunnhumby’s “Back to her future” women returners program. She has been actively involved across various diversity forums to raise awareness within dunnhumby. She has been recognized in the industry over time for her contribution – Winner of Women in AI Leadership at Rising 2022, Finalist for Women Tech Leader of 2021 by Techgig. Member of Achievers Club at dunnhumby 2022.

Notable Alumni- Neha Kulwal

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Since 1984, our MBA alumni have been making an impact on Business and society and it gives us immense pleasure to share their success story.

The managing director of APAC, Ms. Neha Kulwal, attended IBS Gurgaon from 2008 to 2010. She started her work as an assistant manager at “Compare Infobase” after earning her MBA, where she tried her hand at digital marketing and delved into the realm of SEO. In order to advance, she joined Optimise Media Group. Within a short time, she was able to advance to the position of associate director. She served as Admitad’s Country Manager starting in 2015 and was most recently elevated to the position of Managing Director for the APAC area.

Neha Kulwal ICFAI Business School (2008-10)
Managing Director APAC and India Admitad

She is an active member of the Affiliate Committee of IAMAI where they take some key decisions regarding the industry’s uplift and also has been a regular speaker at various platforms like Global Mobile App Summit and Awards, India affiliate summit, Ad tech, India affiliate conference & New York affiliate summit. BW Marketing honoured Neha Kulwal with the prestigious award of “40 under 40” leaders. Not just that, she has been recognized as the “Superwoman 2022” by Social Samosa, CMO Asia with ‘the 50 Most Influential Digital Marketing Leaders’ award, and the 4th World Women Leadership Congress felicitated her with the ‘Outstanding Women Entrepreneurship Award’ in 2017. Also, she has received the ‘Professional & Business Services Industry Award’ from the prestigious Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards 2017 India.