Tiger wins oustanding award from FAO

Tiger wins oustanding award from FAO

He is an IIT-B & IIM-Ahmedabad alumni so we a can feel proud. Friends keep sending similar success stories of our Alumni and we will publish here. Am starting with Tiger since know him better than most other recipients and feel free to share more stories

FAO Today Magazine Announces Recipients of 2007 Global Executive Awards

    ROSELAND, N.J., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- FAO Today, the number one
thought leadership publication covering the $39 billion finance and
administrative outsourcing industry, today announced the recipients of the
FAO Today Magazine 2007 Global Executive Awards. A total of six awards,
recognizing the outstanding accomplishments of four executives and two
organizations were announced at the FAO Today ONE Conference for Finance
and Procurement Globalization on November 15, 2007 at the Marriott
Evergreen Conference Resort in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

  The 2007 FAO Today Magazine Global Executive Award recipients are:

  CFO or Global Practitioner of the Year:

  James W. Martin, former head of Shared Services, International Paper
(retired from International Paper and now with Capgemini), was recognized
for establishing a landmark program for the outsourcing of Accounts Payable
and General Ledger to Capgemini.

  Global Executive of the Year:

  Kevin Campbell, Group CEO BPO Services, Accenture was recognized for
his leadership and vision in establishing both multi-tower and middle
market programs that continue to lead the industry in innovation.

  Provider of the Year:

  Infosys BPO, specifically Ritesh Idnani, vice president and head of
Global Sales, for that organization's unprecedented growth and impressive
client wins in creative deal structures that continue to redefine the BPO
space.

  Relationship of the Year:

  Outsource Partners International and Trinity Industries for developing
a full partnership and to Trinity for open sharing of success that has
further resulted in learning opportunities for many other companies while
helping to spur adoption of FAO.

  FAO Today also awarded two special achievement awards for executives
who have performed outstanding work that merited a distinct accolade.

  Market Maker Award:

  Eric Selvadurai, CEO, BPO Services, WNS Global for being part of the
team that led the first successful initial public offering of stock in the
FAO industry. Doing so established the legitimacy of the pure play Finance
and Accounting BPO firms and paved the way for the growth of the industry.

  Special Recognition Award:

  V.N. "Tiger" Tyagarajaran, executive vice president, Global Sales and
Marketing, Genpact for providing leadership and vision and being part of a
team that has propelled Genpact to the fastest growth curve, the most
successful company launch and the largest initial public offering of stock
in FAO history.

  Elliot H. Clark, chairman and CEO of Outsourcing Today, publishers of
FAO Today and HRO Today magazines, commented, "FAO Today Magazine assembled
an independent selection committee comprised of industry participants who
carefully reviewed dozens of companies and hundreds of executives." Clark
continued, "This first-annual event brought together the Finance and
Procurement Industry's best and brightest for outstanding performance in
both captive and outsourced environments and we're delighted to recognize
their efforts."

  Also announced at the 2007 event was the formation of a North American
Finance Forum, a member-driven association. The next meeting of the
association, which will include the highly rated Futurist panel of industry
experts, will be held in New York at the Union League Club on June 3, 2008.
At that time, the results of finance and accounting BPO benchmarking survey
data will be released.

  More information about the forum and the FAO Today conference can be
accessed at http://www.faotoday.com

SOURCE FAO Today

Dr. Devi Singh pledges more support to the IIM Alumni in Europe

Addressing an audience of 200 business delegates at the second annual full day IIM Global Management summit in London on October 4, 2007, Dr. Devi Singh, Director of Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, lauded the efforts of their Europe alumni from all six IIMs and pledged greater support for future events.

The IIM Global Management Summit - The Changing Face of Business - was held at New Connaught Rooms by the Europe Chapter of Alumni Association of the six Indian Institutes of Management. The Summit was attended by over 200 delegates from the business, political and academic worlds.

Opening the summit earlier, Mehmood Khan, chairman of IIM Alumni Association Europe, said the event was an opportunity to stimulate business discussion and global networking, and to promote the global brand of the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), India’s world class b-schools from where around 100 MBA graduates are being directly recruited into the City of London every year.

The Summit heard from 35 keynote speakers and industry specialists, and held panel discussions in several areas. Harpal Randhawa, Founder of Sabre Capital worldwide pointed that global companies from emerging markets are successful due to their superior execution and new industry models rather than cheap labour, giving examples of companies ranging from Posco in Korea and Yue Yuen in Taiwan to Embraer in Brazil and Tenaris in Argentina. He surprised the audience by asserting that the next global cement giant is in the making in Nigeria, a place which the world assumes is still too risky for business.

The conference spanned business areas of current interest. Underscoring the business challenges of climate change, Mark Purdy, Policy & Corporate Affairs, Accenture, presented some key findings of his forthcoming research report. The research interviewed management at 500 companies of various sizes across six countries, and identified that although over 45% of them see it as a major issue for business, fewer than 20% have made it their strategic priority.

Professor David Begg, Principal Imperial College, London however pointed out that action on climate change is not straightforward because it requires not only a compromise between poor and rich nations, but also between current and future generations. As future generations will be richer and will have better technology to deal with these problems, he said, so we should not be making poor people poorer today just to make the rich richer tomorrow.

Several other speakers focused on key innovations and growth areas. Amjid Ali, Head of HSBC Amanah UK, explained the global potential and policies behind Islamic Banking. Martin Kochman, Head of Europe BPO at Cognizant gave examples of clinical trial, equity research and fund accounting as future areas of smaller-scale higher-value processes that will be outsourced.

Mark Berrisford-Smith, Senior Economist at HSBC Bank plc had some positive news to give saying that while the US economy will see a slowdown in 2008, yet a full blown recession was unlikely. While Bob Gogel, Group CEO of Liberata, challenged the audience to balance corporate social responsibility with shareholder value maximization; Joel Perlman of Copal Partners, an equity research KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) company, had some surprising news when he said it is cheaper to have Western senior management expats in India than senior local recruits because of the insatiable demand for talent in the rapidly growing Indian market.

Talking about “Distributed Innovation”, Prof. Gerry George, Head of Rajiv Gandhi Centure at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, emphasized the special relationship with IIMs. Giving examples of the Guggenheim museum, Heathrow Terminal 5, and City Hall design process, he emphasized that global partnerships are likely to drive value innovation in the future. Clifford De Souza, Partner at Emerging Markets Group, identified systemic factors at the root of the ongoing US sub-prime crisis predicting further financial innovations will emerge for better risk transfer.

The highlight of the summit was the arrival of Ieuan Wyn Jones, Deputy First Minister for Wales and Minister for Economy & Transport. He, along with his team from International Business Wales, announced that a trade mission from his country would be visiting India in November 2007. Wyn Jones said this was an ideal way for business in Wales to find new partners and customers and develop cultural links between the two countries. He said Wales was a small but a smart country with a “Will Do” attitude that offered potential partners, good infrastructure, good workforce, stable economy and low interest rates – adding he hoped to see more Bollywood films being shot in his country.

Other key speakers included A. S. Lakshminarayanan, Country Head of Tata Consultancy Services, UK & Ireland; Nish Kotecha of Sphere Partners and President TiE UK; Uday Dandvate, CEO SonicRim, Ltd; and Pradeep Banerji, CTO of the Sword group.

The IIM Alumni Association Europe announced they will hold more business and cultural events in London in 2008 to further build their network and promote the IIM brand.

IIM Calcutta Alumnus enters Guiness Book of World Records

Malli Mastan Babu, IIM Calcutta (2004-06), founder of the IIM Calcutta Adventure club and conqueror of the Everest has set the World Record for being the fastest person to climb the 7 HIGHEST mountain summits on earth.

He has conquered Everest (29,028 ft), Vinson Massif (16,023 ft, Antarctica), Mt Aconcagua (22,834 ft, South America), Kilimanjaro (19,340 feet, Africa), Mount Kosciuszko (7,310 ft, Australia), Mount Denali (20,320 ft, North America) and Mount Elbrus (18,150 feet, Europe).

The Adventure club at IIM Calcutta has regular treks to the Himalayan ranges through summer and autumn and is one of the defining features of IIM Calcutta's unique MBA experience.

Read about it here and here.

B-school students cut their teeth on stocks

The money managers of tomorrow are undergoing baptism by fire. Across the country, B-school students are now managing funds put down by classmates and alumni to learn the tricks of real-time investing.

Be it the Investment Bank of Kozhikode at IIM-K or Arth (inspired by theArthshastra) at the National Institute of Industrial Engineering or Unnati at Management Development Institute, Gurgaon or Credence Capital at IIM-Lucknow, students are assuming the responsibility of managing kitties amounting to a few lakhs amidst the volatility in the capital and money markets.

For the students, the practical experience of handling a fund includes maintaining databases and drawing up charts on stock movements. "Monthly sector wise reports are also published," said Jaspreet Singh of IIM-K who monitors the cement sector for IBOK. This institute has six students each in the 22 teams they have formed to study various sectors.

Similarly, in Lucknow, students update analysis on Indian and global markets as also details of the fund portfolio on the website daily. While the first year students in most B-schools are analysts, the final-year batch comprises of the associates who mentor and monitor the fund.

"IIM-L is also in the process of getting their fund registered so that alumni can be roped in," said Sridhar Reddy, second year student at the Lucknow campus. Regardless of how little or large the total investment is, the experience of forming teams to analyse sectors and discussing investment options clearly leaves students richer in experience.

"We sit up till about two in the morning tracking stock movement. Besides, we speak to our alumni and our faculty for guidance. But in the last year, our fund has had returns to the tune of 30%-35% on the sensex stocks and about 60% on the mid cap stocks," Balaji added.

Read more over here.

Success Story: IIMs move up in top-100 list

Sharing this older Success Story but thought will be of interest to those who missed it

Success Story: IIMs move up in top-100 list

Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN
Times of India, Ahmedabad [2006-10-06]

London: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are down seven places from last year in global rankings of the world’s 100 best universities but the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have leapfrogged rivals to climb 24 notches, new research shows.
This is the second year in a row that the IITs have slid further down the global league tables of university excellence, which features traditional Ivy Leaguer Harvard at number one; Cambridge and Oxford in second and third place respectively, MIT and Yale in joint fourth position and Stanford at number five.
The newest Times Higher Education Supplement ranked India’s prized family of technical universities at number 57 of the top 100. But educational experts said this was nothing for India to crow about because the IITs had actually fallen behind other universities, notably Chinese ones and had lost their enviable ranking of 50 on last year’s list. The IITs were ranked number 41 in 2004.
But sources said the gradual slide of the IITs on the global university excellence league tables appeared to be running in tandem with the rise of the IIMs. The new survey places the IIMs at 68, which is 24 notches higher than last year. The IIMs’ new positioning is considered a giant leap considering they were not considered one of the world’s top 200 universities at all in 2004.
The mixed results for India’s premier educational institutions includes Jawaharlal Nehru University’s sudden breakthrough into the big league of the world’s 200 best universities. JNUMIT’s spectacular two-notch fall from grace to number four and France’s Ecole Polytechnique’s ignominious exit altogether from the top-10 list.
Prof Prakash Apte, director of IIM, Bangalore, attributed the sudden jump of IIMs by 24 notches to global visibility. “In the last five years, global placements of IIM students has gone up significantly and their programmes too have spread across the globe. If you visit Deutsche Bank, 75 per cent of employees are Indians. These rankings definitely do not reflect upon the academic standards of the IIMs and IITs. Had IITs got a global presence, they would have ranked better.” is ranked 183 this year, up nine places from 2005. It was not considered a top-200 institution at all in 2004. But educationists said the decline and fall of the IITs is much less doleful than

International efforts of IIMs by Arindam

Arindam's e-interview with Suman of India Abroad on International efforts of IIMs . Some excerpts ...

IIM Bangalore has already set up a campus (not just a program) in Singapore and has plans to do more such campuses globally. IIMA has a hugely successful PGP-X (1 year MBA) running its 3rd batch. Every year, IIMA professors visit US to interview the candidates who meet GMAT threshold and select approx 30. Note that all these students have an opportunity to enroll in any US school, but chooses IIMs because of the quality of education (and a competitive cost of education as well). Most of these students come back to US to work.

One small add re: IIT / IIM comparison - most of the IIT grads come here to do Masters and naturally, gets better integrated in the American mainstream via the US school alumni / social network. In comparison, most IIM grads (like me, Adri, Atul, Priya etc) strive in the American business world, entirely on the strength of their Indian qualifications and have managed to do very well. It's no small feat to achieve, especially in a corporate world (more pronounced in Wall Street) where alumni loyalty plays a huge roll in career progression. Having said that, IITs and IIMs are possibly the best brand ambassadors of the new, resurgent India, and that's what IIMUSA stands for.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you need anything else. If you are interested to interview any speaker, or any of the IIMA professor who will be here on Oct 5 for 2008 PGP-X program selection, please let us know and we can help setting that up quickly.

Q&A by Suman of India Abroad with IIMUSA Media Team

Suman asked and IIMUSA media team answered. Below are some excerpts

1) Yes, IIMs are yet to enter mainstream American consciousness. Reasons are a) historically (70s/80s) the crowd of Indian undergrads who went to IIMs were the ones who wanted to stay in INdia and engage in industry there (classic example are the Jerry Rao, Mphasis and KV Kamath ICICI types)...the ones who wanted to come abroad and had that as part of career plans generally went to Master's degrees here, often in the scienctific background. So there were a fewer number of IIM folks here. But this situation has been changing from the 90s onwards.

a) The western world/America is ready to recognize India as an engineering powerhouse...and this is true of any developing country. But it is more reluctant to accept any other country as a "thought leader"...this channels down all the way to the business of management education...there is an implicit assumption that if you are a great manager, you must have studied in the US. In this context, you may find it interesting to note though CK PRahlad (IIM Ahmedabad alumnus and actually formerly professor at the campus there which is what i want to point out) has been voted the third greatest strategic thinker of last century by BWeek (can you just confirm the source etc, as in quick Google will do) and now other IIM people have come to the forefront of Fortune 500 companies (Indra Nooyi, Dinny Devitre, Ranjana Clark etc)....this is very interesting, as rarely, if at all, does ANY foreign school achieve this...they produce corporate honchos in their own countries like France, germany etc but not in the US consistently.

b) Most important reason: IIM alumni are just very confident of their individual capabilities and many do well here on the basis of that, as opposed to having to leverage the school name. This results in minimal effort to try and spread the school name.

Having said all this, the IIMs are arguably the only foreign institutions that Wall Street and Main Street America recruit from directly for US operations year after year..these are the "exclusive and privileged pockets of recognition" the IIMs already enjoy. The recent article in Bloomberg magazine on labor shortage in Indian mentions as an aside that on the other side of things, the starting salaries at IIM Ahmedabad this year were as high as $300K (and at least the other old IIMs which are Bangalore and Calcutta would be similar, I don't have exact numbers from the article). The more important, big picture here that i am trying to point out is that these ranges put the IIM schools in top tier alongside the very best US b schools though our outgoing graduates, as Monish Kumar of BCG, pointed out are often much younger!

2) regarding "currency conversion", yes it is easier for all of us to use our corporate identity and new US univ identity once we get through that. It is local and known more mainstream. But this is changing...a lot of the "biggies" liek Ajay Banga at Citigroup, Dinny Devitre at Altria do put their IIM idenity upfront, as that is their sole and cherished identity.

The IIMs are currently like an exclusive unique brand, like a super wine fine being imported into the US by wealthy US corporates and top tier US univs to their PHD programs...the idea is to move into a broader recognition, more accessible, albeit less exclusive territory.

3) Some of it is answered above. The IIMs are smaller than IITs as they very well should be...any Master's level program and b-school should be more exclusive than an undergrad in its admissions. And IIMs are famous for their super selective admissions.
I personally find the comparisons of IITs and IIMs meaningless. They are both fabulous institutions, but one is a business school and one an engineering school. I mean, who here compares MIT to Harvard Business School..?

BUT the IITians who are also IIM-ites are beginning to realize that in the business world (which they obviously wanted to enter and hence went to an IIM), people value your business degree more than your undergrad technical one, and they should try to leverage the IIM brand...i have many IIT friends and there is more and more a recognition of this.

You may want to mention that the IIMs themselves are trying to gain visibility more abroad, though the Government does not always make it easy...Arindam can fill in more, but IIM Bangalore is setting up a Singapore campus, and IIM Ahmedabad has a hugely successful PGPX program where 25% are foreigners. IIM C recently has an American studying there now (reverse) around which i am attaching a link below. This will help the IIMs as the foreigners coming back to their home countries will talk about the IIMs. This has already been working with the hugely successful exchange programs for the last few years between the IIMs and foreign schools such as NYU, Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago etc.

http://www.economist.com/business/globalexecutive/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9786811

The Economist intelligence unit always ranks the IIMs as the world's toughest business schools to get into!