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

Five post-graduate programme (PGP) students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have set up a Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) club to help students get hands-on experience by involving PE/VC players from India and abroad. Unlike finance clubs run by most B-schools in the country, this club exclusively focuses on PE and VC funding.

The lack of opportunities and experience in the PE and VC space led five students to set up the club called ‘Leverage’. With around 50 students interested in being members, the club will be a forum for students interested in all aspects of private equity and venture capital.

“We came up with an initial skeletal structure of the PE club by looking at institutes like Harvard and others from the Ivy League. But the end product has been entirely our idea of how a PE club should be. Although we prefer to call it an interest group for the time being, we plan to run a full-fledged club with more activities soon,” says Anirudh Singh, a member of the club.

“PE as an industry has boomed in India and we plan to invite speakers to the campus, hold conclaves, workshops and other events to provide a platform for the students and corporates to interact. Also, we are looking forward to hold intra-institute events, where the students can write an investment proposal and a panel of faculty members can judge them.

We have no restrictions when it comes to corporates as we would be involving both top- and middle-level players to encourage more and more activities in the field of PE and VC,” says Gagandeep Singh, another member of the club.

As part of formalising the club, the students are holding the first intra-institute event called the ‘Zen of Investing’, where the club plans to invite alumni working in the area of private equity, besides involving the faculty and students for the activity.

The club also has plans to tie-up with Post-Graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX) students to getter a better perspective of private equity. “The PGPX students would be able to share their experiences about private equity and with their support, we plan to involve ourselves with the corporates in a deeper way through various activities, including projects and case workshops,” adds Anirudh Singh.

The club is in talks with a few corporates, who have shown interest in sponsoring the club.

“We are considering more options for funding besides the institute and the corporates we are in talks with. Currently, we are in the stage of gauging the responses from the people about the club,” says Anirudh Singh, before adding, “Although we have started out PE and VC, we may consider branching out to other areas like micro finance later.”

More : business-standard.com

The relative efficacy of a global marketing strategy vis-à-vis a tailored marketing strategy remains one of the hotly debated issues of international marketing. As is the case in any debate, polarizing arguments for (or against) each abound. Proponents of a global strategy point to the increasing homogenization of customer tastes and preferences and suggest that significant economies of scale can be attained by standardized products marketing world wide (Levitt 1983). Critics, on the other hand, dismiss the potential of a global strategy and underscore economic, environmental and other cultural differences among nations as impediments to its implementation. They argue that reflect adaptation strategy to market-country differences will generate improved response (Kotler 1986).

Often overlooked in this fierce debate is a middle ground approach that takes into account not only differences or similarities among both markets but. As Quelch and Hoff (1986) point out, the real issue is not whether to standardize but rather how to tailor the global marketing strategy. Indeed, reliance on a global strategy can result in missing out on important target markets and positioning inappropriate. Likewise customizing marketing strategy to individual countries implies loss of potential economies of scale as well as exploitation opportunities for product ideas on a scale against (White Lock and Chung 1989).

The writings of recent genre suggest that comprehensive and tailored strategies are not necessarily mutually exclusive and that they can be used in tandem to reap the maximum benefits. In this vein, Jain (1989) and Kale and Sudharshan (1987) offers interactivity Market segmentation approach to world markets and point to the feasibility of identifying homogeneous segments which transcend national boundaries. Once identified these so-called strategic segments equivalent (Kale and Sudharshan 1987) can be reached via global marketing strategies aimed at different cross-national segments (Verhagen, Dahringer and Cundiff 1989). The idea of reconciling the different viewpoints of global marketing strategies and tailored intuitively appealing and is certainly represents a significant forward link in the design of multinational marketing strategies. However, the empirical support to middle ground viability of this approach is evidence to scanty and its Effect comes mainly in the form of anecdotes (Ohmae 1985, White Lock, 1987).

The study reported here is intended to partially fill in this void. Specifically, consumers in six countries including the United States, Mexico, The Netherlands, Turkey, Thai and Saudi Arabia were studied for InterBase Market segmentation on the basis of two criteria, perceived risk and brand loyalty (Kreutzer 1988). Consumers were questioned about their degree of perceived risk and loyalty for two brand products, bath soap and toothpaste. These products were chosen since they are widely available in different brands and are purchased on a frequent basis by the consumers in these countries. It was maintained that the consumers in these countries are not sufficiently similar regarding the effects of risk perception on brand loyalty, the underlying rationale for a single global marketing strategy at least within the context of products here would disappear under consideration. On the contrary, such a circumstance would render the middle ground approach feasible.

The need to set up a national-level statutory body for censoring advertisements has been stressed by the speakers at a seminar on `Misleading advertisements’ here recently.

They said constitution of a national level body had become necessary in the absence of a legal body vested with exclusive powers to deal with unfair advertisements.

Pointing out that countries like Britain had floated an exclusive statutory body like the `Advertising Standards Authority’ for effective censorship of advertisements, they wanted a similar unit to be constituted in India.

S. Pushpavanam, secretary, Consumer Protection Council, Tamil Nadu, which sponsored the seminar, said advertisements should furnish basic information like quality of the product, its price and performance. He said the Centre should evolve a code for checking any attempt to exploit the consumers.

S. Sundar, Head, Department of Management Studies, Shrimati Indira Gandhi College for Women, said advertisements should contain all relevant information, particularly when a dealer or firm offers special concessions in the form of rebates. Vague terms like `till the stock lasts’ or `conditions apply’ should be avoided and instead the quantum of stock available and the details about terms and conditions should be specifically spelt out.

Ganga Vidhya, a representative from the Advertising Standards Council of India, Mumbai, said the council initiated action based on genuine complaints against unfair advertisements.

The Director, Mudra Communications, Millind Jhadav, spoke on various advertisement techniques followed by ad agencies.

A resolution was adopted urging the Central government to form a legal body to censor advertisements.

A new forum called `Ad-watch’ comprising all those present as members and three co-ordinators, including Ganga Vidhya, was floated on the occasion. The public could contact `Ad-watch’ in connection with any advertisement-related complaints and clarifications.

The forum would contact its members through E-mail and initiate action against unfair advertisements, according to Mr. Pushpavanam.

Wipro Technologies, the Global IT services division of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT), has become the first company outside the United States to be conferred the prestigious award for Software Process Achievement (SPA) by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society. The SPA award was presented to Wipro Technologies on May 7th in an International Conference on Software Engineering held at Portland, Oregon USA. The award is given for achieving a high software process capability and establishing a basis for moving to a very broad improvement program that concerns people and product, rather than just process and issues. Adding another feather to its cap, Wipro is the first Indian company ever to be nominated for this award.

The Computer Society’s Award for Software Process Achievement is given for improvement in an organization’s software process. “Process discipline is the most critical success element of offshore outsourcing,” said Dean Davison, Vice President of Meta Group. To be considered for this award, the improvement must be sustained, measured and significant. Wipro Technologies underwent a thorough evaluation process amongst nominations from different organizations across the globe. The evaluation process included initial short listing of nominees as finalists and then site visit by the evaluation committee.

The IEEE Evaluation committee consisted of Quality Guru’s like Watts Humphrey of Software Engineering Institute (SEI) USA; William Riddle, Solution Architect at TeraQuest Metrics Inc; Prof. Victor Basili, Founder & Member of International Software Engineering Research Network and Prof. Manny Lehman, of Imperial College, an authority on software engineering. The committee visited Wipro Technologies software development center at Bangalore and evaluated Wipro’s Processes and Practices following nomination of Wipro Technologies for the Award.

Complimenting Wipro on the award, the IEEE Evaluation committee said, “Wipro’s well-defined and implemented software process improvement program was appreciated and the breadth & depth of the organisation’s capability achievement and improvement program were lauded as the best that the committee had found since inception of the award nine years ago.”

“We are very excited and receiving this prestigious award is a great honour,” said Sambuddha Deb, Chief Quality Officer, Wipro Technologies. “This recognition from the IEEE Computer Society is yet another feather in Wipro’s cap and validates our vision of making quality a culture within and validates the significant strides we have taken in our quest for quality,” he added.

The committee also recognised that Wipro achieved Capability Maturity Model Level V (An international standard for quality) throughout its 10,000 plus person, international workforce unlike most other organizations reviewed who had achieved this level of capability within only part of their organization. In addition, Maturity Level V for both the P-CMM and CMMI capability maturity models were achieved very quickly, the breadth and speed of which were unprecedented.

With this award Wipro joins a select group of organizations like the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Directorate of Aircraft Management, Test Software and Industrial Automation Branches, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center.

You can use your rural economies all false, for the purposes of the hinterland specializing in strategies to win the hearts and wallets of consumers village. The recent study by the marketing team and Research (MART), New Delhi and Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, offers an overview of unconventional techniques, we are on the path of increasing dissemination of consumer goods durable inside of India.

In addition to the use of Melas, mandis, haats and vans to decimate more information and awareness of the study identifies the mills agricultural, rural, tournaments, storage services and the creation of local mark as a vehicle ambassadorial effective communication.

The study, conducted in six districts of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, said that agriculture Mills (sugar mills) are a good way for the future orientation of farmers during the high season. More than 200 tractors to visit a mill each day during this period, and farmers have long queues to offload their crops from the tractor and the accounts are settled.

Apart from the farmer in a cash-rich mentality, he has enough time and spare the details of the product hear and watch live demonstrations.

The study cites the example of a Hero Honda met regularly stands in agriculture mills targeted farmers. It also stands apart from factories and electricity, maps, where the product and profile of farmers / workers. According to the dealer, the creation of such a team it costs about Rs 1000 and it is able to target 1000 with a strong potential consumers.

The study also recommends the use of the Ambassador of the local brand, is the proper word on the technical product. Also, each village with over 2000 people, has a mechanic and electrician, repair services for electronic products in the sector and a positive image of the brand. The study recommends that companies maintain a good relationship with these local ambassadors of painting / Branding its business, and with it the free tools / gifts from time to time. “Your word has a much more for the village people,” says the study.

Another draught horse in the entertainment industry from hunger is the scenario rural / tournaments played between villages at regular intervals. For example, in Punjab, kabbadi tournaments, sometimes even NRIs on a large scale, drawing thousands of people and can be used efficiently, the awareness of the brand communication. The study recommends that companies not only in exhibitions in such places and sponsor of the event, but also the use of their products as prizes.

Promote the establishment of the distributors of free service for stocking their products would also build a reputation. “Given that most people in villages to consult their friends and relatives before buying a product, keeping customers happy and satisfied, would result in recommendations for more product and thus more number of business, “notes the study. He stressed that only a good Warm-Up advertising by loudspeaker 2-3 days before the creation of service camp, so that people in substantial numbers.

The study notes that these non-conventional methods, crucial for the penetration of RS 5,000-crore rural market of consumer durables, such as studies have shown that the scope of mass media in these areas is evil. A reader Ship National Survey (NRS), the study showed that the press reaches only 23 percent of consumers in rural areas, only 26 percent of film and television only 36 percent, to the need to arrive at new avenues

Synovate has made senior hires for its Delhi and Mumbai offices. Jaisy Desai will head up qualitative research for the Western Indian market, and Meeta Luthra, Deepak Dasila and Sumit Arora join at AD and Senior Project Director levels.

Desai has over 15 years of experience and joins from qual boutique Ormax. She worked earlier for TNS, IMRB and ACNielsen ORG MARG on projects including ad testing, usage and attitude studies, concept and product testing, customer need analysis and trend analysis. She holds an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Management Institute, Mumbai.

Luthra joins Synovate Loyalty as Associate Director, from IMRB International where she spent much of her career in the customer satisfaction division. She worked earlier at Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Co.

Deepak Dasila joins the Mumbai office and Sumit Arora the Delhi office, both as Senior Project Directors. Dasila also joins from IMRB International, and was previously General Manager-Client Services with the International Institute of Research, Sydney. He holds an MBA from Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Institute, Aurangabad. Arora leaves JD Power & Associates, Singapore and will work primarily in Synovate Motoresearch. His MBA in Marketing comes from IISW & BM, Calcutta University.

The Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K) has concluded an agreement with Sun Microsystems for setting up an advanced laboratory information system (AISL), taking charge of his education Grid (EduGrid).

Sun Microsystems provides servers and software for the implementation of EduGrid. A Sun Advanced Computing Laboratory must also be established in the IIITM-K support to higher education and research activities. It contains very configuration of Sun servers, software and content quality for the sake of advanced subjects, students, professionals KR Srivathsan, Director, IIITM-K.

EduGrid The project was designed with the objective development of an education Grid infrastructure in institutions of higher education throughout the state, promoting the design and development of quality courses in various disciplines and development of standards in higher education by providing institutional Course high quality product and services on the network.

Prof. Srivathsan told Business Line here that Sun Microsystems has special relations with key universities worldwide. A large quantity of advanced software applications in engineering and science is, above all, Sun or Linux platforms. Academic Institutions use a heterogeneous computing environment and therefore Sun strict compliance with open standards, is an asset. “In addition, they provide significant discounts for academic institutions for equipment and almost all its software free for academic use. They also take charge of Linux. Our ultimate goal is a Sun Center of Excellence in IIITM-K. Thus, approximately 30 such centers throughout the world. It will spur us on the implementation of the advanced knowledge society, campus initiatives for the future, “he added.

The National Institute for Technology Kochi and Kozhikode University for Science and Technology are among those already included, as resource centres EduGrid. “We will soon, they are content for equipping laboratories and launches Web-based, of course, the content management systems for development and teacher training. IIITM-K EduGrid acts as a centre of operations and is also a resource centre, “says Professor Srivathsan.

The infrastructure of these centres is now completed the first phase. “She is the host of the EduGrid backbone network nodes, is a high-end server EduGrid all serve to ensure that all students and teachers in the institutions of the host. They are also a content server for the development of systems, including content development tools software. ”

The Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, cooperation with the EduGrid a project on the informal level. They are part of the national programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), whose objective is the development of teaching materials for 100 courses. These are more content as “wholesale”. Grid is the formation of such content to pack “Retail” distribution for other equally good content from institutions abroad, give lessons, teachers and help the presentation of content properly adapted to local plans for teaching higher education institutions in their normal course.

On ERNET discussions with India for setting up the network backbone of the grid, “said Professor Srivathsan last was probably the work begins in the next two months for the creation of the backbone. “We must bear in mind that the Union Ministry of Human Resources provides grants for All India Technical Education Council approved by the academic institutions and the library of the Commission Grant’s Indian National Digital Library in science and technology (INDEST) digital library ERNET only by initiatives “. Previously, IIITM-K-library became the first external member of the State in the INDEST consortium, the Ministry of the Union.