The Campus Placement Process

Scene 1: The setting, early 1980s. Rakesh has done his father proud. He has made it to the coveted government engineering college. He is the first engineer from his locality. Well-wishers have made a beeline to his home. They have garlanded him and the sweets are being distributed to one and all. The boy, who was better known by his nickname “Raju”, has a new name now; “engineer sahib”. There is glint in his eyes. This glint symbolizes excitement. He knows that the road ahead is not easy. He will have to fight it out for the few available government jobs when he passes out after four years. But he is least worried rather he is excited about joining the engineering college. He has heard great things about it. It’s a temple of learning to him. He is keen to learn under the guidance of a few well known professors as well as eager to quench his thirst of knowledge at the institute’s library and laboratory, two things he sorely missed at the district schools and colleges.

Out Of Home but not Out Of Sight

Don’t worry I am not going to share stalking techniques through this post. Rather through this blog, I will try to break the monotony of topics based on finance and social issues. I will try to share my learnings from one of the projects I did with an FMCG major. It came under the ambit of Sales and Distribution.

Some if not all of us must have noticed that right from the time we wake up and till we finally go to bed, consumer products especially FMCG ones touch us on various occasions be it while bathing, eating, shaving etc. But the plethora of options available to you at the nearby retail stores would have given you a fair indication that there is a lot of competition in this sector. So firms are looking at different ways through which they can reach out to their customers at different places and at different times. This is where the concept of OOH or “Out of Home” comes to play. The appeal of this topic lies in its innovativeness as it adds a “service” dimension to what used to be a purely “sales” product.

The Need for Indian Case Studies

After a hiatus of almost three weeks due to the academic projects, exams and the launch of The Money Manager-the pan-IIM finance magazine, Saketvaani is back with you to ignite the discussion. This time the focus would be “the case for Indian case studies”. Though all of us may not be familiar with case studies but you can use words like journals, research papers etc. interchangeably for cases. First let me tell you the reason behind choosing this topic.

I have finished almost 70% of my MBA education in an Indian B-school and most if not all the cases that I have come across are prepared by foreign B-school (read Harvard Business School: HBS). Should it really be a cause of concern as haven’t we been brought up mainly on books by foreign author? So why complain now, that too in a B-school clamouring for global recognition?

Bonds and Bonding

Have you ever tried to find out what similarities do the financial instruments have with our day-to-day activities? Some might be wondering for the logic behind this question whereas some might say that it’s too obvious as the instruments are meant to take care of our day-to-day financial needs depending upon our incomes and risk taking capabilities. Let me put a more specific question; what are the similarities between Fixed Income instruments and relationships in real life? Before you start guessing let me simplify the task by defining the two terms. By fixed income instruments, I mean those financial instruments that help you earn low but fixed returns on your investments thereby reducing your risk. The most well known example is bond. On the other hand by relationships, I mean those existing between a boy and a girl or a man and a woman. I am counting out those arising out of family ties, friendships or those existing between same sexes. In better words let’s limit ourselves to those relations that might culminate into marriages.