One of the most significant trends sweeping the Indian management education domain is the significant importance being attached to prior work-experience of MBA candidates.

Overwhelming percentage of students at IIMs and other top-schools are candidates with some prior work experience.

In the fresh data shared by IIM-L with MBAUniverse.com, a whopping 89% of candidates admitted to the Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) have some prior work experience. Significantly, just a year ago, only 50% of the batch admitted to PGP 2007-2009 were candidates with work-experience.

Informs IIM-L, “The total number of experienced students in 2007-2009 batch were 122 (50.41%) which has increased to 274 (89.25%) for 2008-2010 batch. This is an increase of around 49% in the total number of experienced students.”

As per the IIM-L batch-profile of PGP 2008-10, of the 307 students, there are only 30 female students. Last year the number stood at 14 female students. There are 24 NRI students as well. As much as 93% of the batch at IIM-L is made of students with engineering degree.

IIM-L has also admitted 5 students who have some physical disability, thereby become a more inclusive institution.

Sources : mbauniverse.com

The world renowned Cranfield School of Management in the UK will present a scholarship to any member of the three leading IFAC accountancy bodies in Sri Lanka, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the Institute of Chartered Accountants Sri Lanka (ICASL) or the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants Sri Lanka Branch (CIMA). Full Time MBA Programme Director Sean Rickard who informed Sri Lanka of the scholarship said, “We hope the scholarship attracts candidates who will benefit from this initiative and that, with the help of the accounting bodies in Sri Lanka, it will raise Cranfield’s profile. We are extremely grateful for the support of the institutes in this. We will be reviewing the success of the programme after two years.”

ACCA Sri Lanka’s Immediate Past President, Dilshan Rodrigo, himself an alumni of the Cranfield School of Management extends his best wishes to all candidates and says, “I hope most sincerely that this initiative will signal the birth of a new generation of professional skilled managers who will add value to the corporate boardrooms of Sri Lanka.” Stating that this is truly a world class MBA ranked consistently as one of the top MBAs in Europe, he adds, “This one year full time programme is ideally suited for members in middle and senior management positions with ambitious career goals.” Rodrigo, who has continued to maintain ties with Cranfield, further reinforced the relationship once he became President of ACCA Sri Lanka, sourcing resource speakers for the ACCA National Conferences in the last two years. “Two people who played significant roles in mooting this scholarship from the Cranfield end are the former Director of the MBA Programme Professor Leo Murray who was the Keynote Speaker at our conference in 2006 and has a soft spot for Sri Lankans and Sri Sriskanthan, a Sri Lankan faculty member on the MBA programme.”

Cranfield has produced a distinguished honour roll of MBA alumni from Sri Lanka over the last two decades including Managing Director of Hatton National Bank Rajendra Theagarajah, Senior Vice President of WNS Arul Sivagananathan and Group Financial Controller of Stretchline Hasantha de Silva. Members of ICASL, ACCA and CIMA must apply directly to Cranfield School of Management, for which instructions are available on the Cranfield website ww.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/mba/, marking the application ‘Sri Lanka Scholarship’.

More : dailymirror.lk

In business, it’s the early bird that rakes in the moolah. Taking cue from the age-old proverb, two MBA students have turned entrepreneurs even before graduating.

H.R. Sampreet and Saurav Dhiman, second-year students of the Vinod Gupta School of Management at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, have launched their own company, Enfount Business Solutions. Their maiden venture is Bulkdeals.co.in, a Bangalore-based online retail window specialising in institutional and organisational buying of laptops, desktops and other electronic items.

“Across campuses, students form groups to buy computers so retailers give them a discount,” said Sampreet. “But this happens locally and in an unorganised manner,” he explained.

The duo saw a business opportunity in this campus trend and created an online platform that is a one-stop-shop for bulk deals of laptops and desktops of all brands.

“Here, students can register and get great deals directly from the brands,” Sampreet said. “We estimate this to be a Rs 200-400 crore market. The brands, too, were looking for a single window to reach out to the student community. We had the business model and wanted to hit the market early, so we started even before graduating,” he added.

The company is partnering with almost all top brands such as Dell, LG, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo and HCL.

The website had over 1,000 visitors in the first three days of its launch and already has more than 300 members and over 20 registered colleges, including all the IITs.

When asked how they plan to balance studies with running a business, Saurav said: “It is all about time management. Our business requires just two or three hours a day, which we can easily put in.”

More : telegraphindia.com

B-school trends come and go, but one that seems to have legs is the creation of specialized MBA programs, particularly by second-tier schools. The schools find them useful for attracting students and cementing their brand identities at a time when competition among schools for the best students is intense. In recent years, they’ve becoming increasingly common (BusinessWeek.com, 7/19/07) even at high-profile schools. Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, and the Wharton School now offer specialized MBAs, majors, or dual degree programs in areas like real estate, sports management, biosciences, electronic commerce, and health care.

But is a specialized program always a good choice for an MBA student?

Not necessarily. While established programs have placement records on par with those of their general MBAs, many newer programs have not yet established the kind of recruiting relationships that guarantee students high-paying jobs at graduation. And graduates always run the risk of getting hamstrung by their specialties later in their careers, when an industry downturn forces them to look outside their specialties for opportunities.
Chart Your Own Path

Some who have gone through the specialized programs say they are best for those with a firm idea of their future goals, and who are keen to chart their own path. “I knew what I wanted to do,” said Carrie Stern Rathod, who received her MBA from Wisconsin’s Brand ‐ Product Management Center in 2005 and now works for Procter & Gamble (PG), which recruits regularly from the program. “There’s a range of people for whom this program is ideal. If you have an entrepreneurial bent but are not sure you’re ready to take the leap yet, the program might be right.” But, she added, “I think it would be tough if you wanted to go into consulting or something like that.”

For students who aren’t comfortable breaking away from the pack or seeking out professional contacts in unconventional ways, a specialized MBA might not be the best choice. This is especially true at less well-known schools, where big companies often don’t recruit. Students in these programs agree that making industry connections can require a lot of initiative from the student. “If you have a very specific company in mind, you might need to be a trailblazer in making relationships with those companies,” says Rathod.

More : businessweek.com

Once again students from the School of Business & Economics MBA programme will be taking up the challenge of competing in the 2008 Cranfield Regatta, an international sailing event which is designed to allow MBA students and alumni from all over Europe to meet their counterparts from other business schools. The regatta will take place around Port Solent and Cowes on the last weekend in July and Exeter’s eight-strong crew are working hard in the hope of a high placing for the University. The crew is made up of part-time and full-time MBA students and alumni who have a broad range of sailing skills and experience but are dedicated to doing their best for Exeter. This year’s crew consists of current students Nadia Nikolova, Simon Baird, Nagyb Shah, Stuart Harris, Richard Dawson and alumni Jonny Malcolm, Mark Roberts and Wade Tipton. The race will consist of four head to head races with the various business school teams taking part. The team has is being sponsored by Vospers South West Motor Dealership, Jam Creative, The Birmingham Assay Office and House of Marbles.

More : atom.ex.ac.uk

The Mortgage Banker’s Association (MBA) announced earlier this week that Jonathan L. Kemper, current President and CEO, will be stepping down on December 31, 2008. According to the same MBA statement, during Kempner’s seven years with the MBA, the association doubled its revenues and operating reserve fund.

“This has been an extremely intellectually stimulating and rewarding period in my professional life,” said Kempner. “Navigating the highs and lows of the real estate cycles, with a first rate leadership and wonderful membership, afforded me a rare opportunity to contribute to one of the most important industries in our society. I am very proud for the extraordinary staff I have helped assemble at MBA, as my colleagues’ dedication, intelligence, and expertise make a true difference in the overall quality of life for many Americans. MBA’s mission, I am convinced, will be enhanced with new leadership, and on a personal level I very much look forward to a new position of leadership myself after nearly eight wonderful years at MBA.”

Kieran P. Quinn, MBA Chairman of the Board of Directors had this to say of Kempner, “Jonathan has been an exceptional leader for MBA. He has led a major transformation in our operations, and put in place a first rate staff that is widely acknowledged to be one of the most effective in the Washington association world. He has poured his heart and soul into MBA with the highest degree of professionalism, integrity, and devotion to our members, and always with a personal warmth and sense of humor. The entire MBA family will miss him.”

Quinn also announced that John A. Courson, former MBA Chairman, will become their COO effective August 1, and will assume the position of President of MBA, effective January 1, 2009.

Quinn said that, “John Courson brings tremendous industry knowledge, business savvy, and political skills to MBA. John has worked tirelessly on behalf of our industry for more than 40 years. He has been an advocate ensuring safe and affordable housing for all Americans and for simplifying the mortgage process. We are lucky to have John join MBA and steer our association to represent the real estate finance industry as we continue to build America’s communities.”

Courson, who currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the California Housing Finance Agency, served as Chairman of MBA in 2003 and as a member of MBA’s Board of Directors, the Residential Board of Governors (RESBOG) and the Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance Board of Governors (COMBOG).]

More : dsnews.com

A survey of 759 graduating MBAs from 11 top U.S. business schools revealed that a company’s corporate social responsibility performance is a major factor when they select whom to work for, reports BusinessGreen.

The graduates expect to make an annual salary of $103,650 from their first employer, but 97 percent said they would be willing to sacrifice up to $15,000 to work for a company with an exemplary environmental performance, ethical business conduct and good employee and stakeholder relations.

The survey was conducted by David Montgomery of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and Catherine Ramus of the University of California Santa Barbara. They used an anonymous online survey to limit bias in the survey.

Source : itbusinessedge.com

A report has suggested that it is likely that British students considering taking MBA courses in the UK will find it increasingly hard to find loans to cover the cost of their post-graduate studies.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the appeal of MBA courses in the US had recently been increasing among British students, thanks to the weak dollar.

However, the paper has now learnt that the credit crunch has dramatically reduced the number of student loans available for those considering such post-graduate courses.

It pointed to research carried out by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators that showed that 50 lenders have suspended their post-graduate student loan deals.

“The cost of loan repayment is particularly high for students from outside the US who apply for loans from US institutions,” the paper explained.

“This is because credit references are not required and also the lenders find it harder to track down students on graduation if they return to their home countries.”

As a result, a British student looking for a post-graduate student loan in the US can expect to have to pay interest of around seven per cent.

With US MBA courses typically costing around $150,000 (£75,000) to complete, the rising price of loans could put many British students off, even though they know they will be able to secure high-paying jobs after graduation.

Source : gaapweb.com

Suryadatta Institution, Pune offers MBA courses to graduates, and professionals. Fresh graduates can pursue MBA through Suryadatta admission test (SAT).

Suryadatta Institute of Business Management and Technology (SIBMT) offers two years full time PGDM in Retail + FMCG, Telecom + IT and Services + IT Enabled Services.

Suryadatta Institute Of Management and Mass Communication (SIMMC), offers two years full time PGDM in Marketing + International Business (IB), Human Resource + International Business (IB), Finance + Marketing, Marketing + Information Technology (IT), International Business + Information Technology (IT).

Suryadatta Education Foundation’s Suryadatta institutes are offering management education since 2000. The contemporary education backed by industry training and overall development is the key factor of Suryadatta students who are trained in simulated environment and fine-tuned in accordance to the requirements of present corporate world, says a press note.

More : navhindtimes.com

AS A PhD student at Oxford University, Cleo Choong spent most of her waking hours at the lab, researching ways to help heal damaged bones with biodegradable material.

When she returned to Singapore, the bioengineering graduate wanted to market her work, but didn’t know where to start.

‘I was lacking skills in areas like finance and management,’ said Dr Choong, 29.

So, she enrolled in the executive MBA programme at at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in July 2007.

Dr Choong represents a new breed of student that the university’s Nanyang Business School is trying to attract.

Spring Singapore chairman Philip Yeo, who helms the school’s advisory board, said that many fresh graduates in science and engineering had a strong technical grounding.

However, they lacked equally important skills in other areas, such as training, managing and retaining staff, for example.

‘We want future technical people to become CEOs of start-ups,’ he said, calling MBA training a necessity, not a luxury.

More : straitstimes.com