The batch of 2020-22 is looking forward to their internships amid all the uncertainties around. Hopefully, this little helping hand from my experience and learnings of my internship with ICICI Bank Ltd. will help you plan your internship better, especially if you are looking to secure a PPO:
1. Understand your deliverables: Be clear with the deliverables and expectations of your project. It is better to know your focus areas in the deliverables.
2. Schedule to finish your SIP deliverables in 6 weeks: If you are on two months SIP, keep the last two weeks for any unforeseen issues, prepare your presentation, practice it and present it to your mentor before your final presentation.
3. Listen to as many employees as possible: You might be new to an industry and organization. It is tough without the experience of people inside to comprehensively complete your deliverables. Hence, listen to as many associated departments and employees as to widen your understanding.
4. Let your guide keep track: Most of the time, your mentors might also be busy with their routine work. You must update your day-to-day work to them. You can share a tracker sheet where you can update your work regularly. Also, it is good practice to share your weekly reports and presentation.
5. Maintain your relations: While you connect to many employees in the organization, your approach, behavior, and people management are widely noticed and sometimes regarded above your work. Hence, maintain good relations with people around, especially with your guide and manager.
6. Keep your references handy: During your story creation, back your thought process with your research reference. It adds credibility to your ideas, highlights your understanding, and shows your work.
7. Focus on Story Line: During your final presentation, focus on your story and inferences along with relevant data. Try not to pack your presentation slides with data. Also, mention your challenges and learnings from your internship towards the end of your presentation.
With these tips, I wish good luck with your SIP to the whole of the bright minds of batch 20-22. Hope to see you all on the other side with a PPO.
About the Author:
Vineeth Rao Sudhati is a student of MBA, batch of 2019 -21 from IIM Kashipur with majors in Operations and Marketing. He is a part of various student bodies like the Alumni Relations Committee and Prep Cell. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
Being a civil engineer who pursued an MBA in Operations Management, followed by enrollment as an FPM student in the Operations Management area, I had always classified myself as a person who was more (or only) inclined towards quantitative research. I always recognized and was fascinated by the power of numbers.
Then, in January 2018, We, a group of 15 research students, entered the qualitative research methods class. Some of us were excited about the qualitative aspect of research, and some were absolutely disinterested; I am ashamed to admit that I, then, belonged to the second category. I later realized that I had been keeping a blind eye towards the ‘dark’ aspect of numbers. I, in no way, wish to belittle the quantitative – orientation of research, but qualitative research is beautiful in its own way. The qualitative research articles, if well written, provide a vivid image of the phenomenon that leads the audience to discover deep meanings of human experiences.
I now understand that a good researcher should learn about both paradigms. The qualitative and quantitative approaches have distinct and complementary strengths. Both come with a different set of challenges and require different skills to overcome those challenges. For example, as a qualitative researcher, I can always adopt a grounded perspective where I do not need to identify the dependent and independent, nor do I necessarily need to propose hypotheses. My primary responsibility as a qualitative researcher is to capture individuals’ hidden meanings and explore the phenomena’ possibilities, but it is easier said than done. The experience is like deep-sea diving; we know we are looking for something, but we do not actually know what we are looking for.
During this journey, I came to realize the beauty and power of text. Sometimes I can feel the ‘dryness’ associated with the numbers in quantitative articles because numbers in no way explain the human feelings that should have been captured. I now recognize and appreciate the mental and emotional strength of qualitative researchers because I believe that risks and concerns are more significant in qualitative research, mainly because of the researcher’s level of involvement with the research process and the participants.
If I am asked to clarify my stand regarding which type of researcher I would classify myself, I will find myself in a great dilemma. I would instead argue that one should appreciate the different values which are drawn out of the two different paradigms. A researcher who has familiarized himself with both the frameworks may develop a more profound intellectual capability. Reflecting on my learnings over the past years, I can conclude that I have developed more patience, and my inclination towards sheer objectivity has reduced. I have indeed developed slight but noticeable acceptance towards subjectivity and abstraction. I have grown to realize that there will always be things that can never be measured or analyzed quantitatively.
Today, almost three years later, my qualitative exposure surely helps me reflect on the quantitative work better. About the author:
Taab Ahmad Samad is currently a Ph.D. Student (Operations Management) from IIM Kashipur. He is currently working in the field of crowdsourced logistics. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
Corporate competitions had always been a key area of focus in my MBA journey as they gave me a platform to take my classroom knowledge to the real world. Having worked in a fortune 500 organization I was always fascinated with the use of technology to elevate the human experience and hence E-Commerce was a domain of my interest. When Flipkart launched its flagship B-School competition Wired I pounced on the opportunity to apply my acquired management knowledge backed up with my technical skills to solve challenges faced by a giant like Flipkart. Since I was preparing for this competition for a long time (and well yes, the chance of scoring a PPO made it more lucrative), I was closely following the developments in the E-Commerce supply chain industry regularly. After understanding that how crucial E-Commerce had become to an average Indian in the times of COVID-induced lockdown, I wanted to dive deep into the sector and develop models on how E-Commerce can penetrate in a challenging country like ours.
The case competition required us to develop a model using which Flipkart could cater to the Tier 2 Indian customers with their day-to-day purchase needs. Understanding the importance of this problem statement in the context of Flipkart’s business situation and the national lockdown scenario, our team’s objective was to design an easy to implement supply chain model that could be easily replicated across the country within a time frame of 1 year. After clearing a series of rounds our team had the absolute delight to reach the national semifinals of this coveted competition. The very fact that this competition provided me with a platform to present my solutions and ideas to the top leadership of a dynamic organization like Flipkart tremendously added to my learning curve.
Having missed a chance to be a part of the National Finals, I was overwhelmed when I was called up for an interview with Flipkart in the form of a pre-placement interview (PPI). Well as Flipkart rightly claims “Ab har wish hogi poori” they certainly fulfilled my wish by providing me a chance to kick start my career with an organization like theirs. The interview process which had three rounds (a general aptitude test followed by 2 rounds of interviews) gave me enough opportunities to understand how I as an individual could contribute to Flipkart (technically and behaviorally). The interviewers were very keen on understanding what skill sets I bring to the table and what do I look for in terms of growth and opportunity. After those three rounds of virtual interactions, I finally got to experience that most sought-after day of MBA life when finally Flipkart offered me THE job!
The entire experience of participating in corporate competitions, learning bit by bit in each of them is a continuous journey. A journey that I believe is different for every individual. I cannot be thankful enough to be a part of an institute like IIM Kashipur where the entire atmosphere focuses on making you ready for real-world challenges. With competitions taking the center stage of academic focus it was my institute that played the pivotal role in grabbing my dream job opportunity.
About the author : Pranav Bhardwaj is currently pursuing MBA from IIM Kashipur, with majors in Analytics and Marketing. He is a part of various student bodies like the The Consulting & Strategy Club, TEDx IIM Kashipur and Prep Cell. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
A career in MBA Finance is one of the lucrative and sought-after opportunities in the business world. But the irony in India is that when we go back into a student’s education journey, commerce subject which deals with all the basic nuances of finance & accounting is still not preferred as the desired subject as compared with science stream.
We often tend to confuse Finance with just accounting and calculations. But, the application of real finance is not just about numbers and calculations. It’s much more beyond that. It requires you to have:
Strong calculative abilities of Commerce
Analytical thinking process of Science
And behavioral understanding of Humanities
This third aspect of finance which is been ignored for decades but recently is becoming one of the hot topics for researchers. Due to the complexity and irrationality of human behaviour, it becomes difficult to take this factor into consideration for organized analysis. But this factor builds up the basis of most of the previous innovations in finance. Behavioural finance is like salvation to mathematical finance just like Friction is to Newton’s forces. For example, the birth of one of the major financial instruments in history is Insurance which is a result of irrational human behaviour explained by Kahneman and Tversky in terms of Prospect Theory.
When the fear of loss and uncertainties prevail, insurances emerged as a strong instrument for risk management. Thus, encouraging people to take risks and invest, leading to an increase in the liquidity of markets. It clearly explains human behaviour in cases of profits and losses.
Prospect Theory of Finances
The Prospect Theory graph clearly depicts that when we lose Rs. 100, our pain would be much more in comparison to the happiness in gaining Rs. 100. Thus, the magnitude of happiness and pain doesn’t vary linearly with the amount of money.
On the basis of this human behaviour, insurance policies proved to be very successful in monetizing the irrationality of human behaviour. There are various other such phenomena in human behaviour like social contagion, cognitive dissonance, anchoring, overconfidence, etc. which answer the events like the randomness of the stock market, people’s decisions and other such cases of the finance world.
Out of the 74% literacy rate in India, only 24% have finance literacy which is one of the major factors responsible for the economy of any nation. When people lack the ability to manage their own personal finances, how can we expect a nation to have a strong economy? Many people are still unaware of the power of compounding, time value of money, credit opportunities, etc. to make use of it for their improvement of financial status. Thus, it becomes very necessary for financial managers, strategists, and policymakers to discover innovative ways to bridge this gap. It is high time that we move away from the narrow approaches of finance and introduce new frameworks in the correlation between accounting and behavioural finance which will include markets, people and their behaviour.
There lies a lot of opportunities in the domain of financial risk management using behavioural finance. Though the implication of this concept has various challenges due to randomness and complexity yet it can be accomplished when the researchers and corporate leaders will work together in the right direction. We are heading towards a more complex world where simple answers are not suitable anymore. We will have to develop an ecosystem to sustain and grow in future.
One can refer to works of researchers like Professor Robert Shiller, Daniel Crosby, Kahneman and Tversky, etc for more understanding on the subject and topic of behavioural finance. This is a potential field waiting to get explored to its core. A lot of new developments can be seen in this direction in the upcoming time.
The Finance Club is one of the pioneer academic clubs initiated towards enhancing knowledge in the field of finance through innovative activities such as events, hands-on workshops, knowledge sharing sessions, and guest lectures from industry experts.
The club organizes innovative events throughout the year to enhance the knowledge of finance among the student community in various concepts such as trading, risk management, and investment strategies. BullsEye, a virtual simulation game that was conducted online recently saw overwhelming participation where students had an experience closer to real-time trading. Accrual Madness, Trade Wiz, Aestimatus, Open Outcry, The Simulation Challenge, High Stakes were some of the events conducted over the past year where students from various top business schools actively participated and gained exposure to various financial concepts such as risk management, portfolio management, fund allocation, etc.
TFC believes in practical application of financial knowledge and hence, Pragati, IIM Kashipur’s student-run investment fund was set up during October 2019 to foster investment knowledge among the student community. The fund was set up with the objective to provide investors with an opportunity for long-term capital appreciation by investing in a diversified portfolio comprising large and MidCap Securities. Students and alumni of the institution have actively participated in the fund by investing through multiple fund-raising windows and gained knowledge of its working. The fund is managed by the members of the club under the guidance of Prof. Dilip Kumar and has consistently outperformed its benchmark index Nifty 50 since its launch. Members of the club are actively involved in carrying out market research, portfolio tracking, and publishing monthly factsheets on the fund’s performance. The setup of the fund helped in real-time tracking of the securities market for the club members and other student’s investors during the challenging times of the pandemic which helped in formulating and analyzing various investment strategies to effectively monitor the risk volatility and performance of the portfolio.
The club published articles and newsletters regularly on current financial events through Vit Pratiti and The Financial Gazette. The club has started to post a new series of articles and content related to the working of various financial instruments and analysis of individual companies and conglomerates on social media in order to collaborate and share knowledge with the external community
Recently, the Club has partnered with StockGro, a mobile application for virtual trading and investing where students from leading b-schools get real-time experience in trading and portfolio management. Over 200+ students actively registered and participated in daily contests which helped them to stay updated with the current trends in the stock markets
The Finance Club conducts a number of knowledge-sharing sessions throughout the academic year. A variety of topics such as personal finance, investment, and trading strategies are discussed over a series of sessions which enhances the knowledge of working of stock markets and trading. Special sessions were also held on the discussion on Annual Budget 2019 and its special features which saw participation from more than 100 students.
The club hosted Coalescence – The Finance Summit in association with the academic forum to bridge the industry-university gap. Rakesh Singhania, CFO of Wells Fargo Bank, India, participated as a keynote speaker and shared his experience on how industries navigated adversity in the new era of the post-pandemic. The lecture was attended by over 100 student participants who had an opportunity to interact and gain insights on challenges faced by the financial markets. The club also hosted Money Matters, a guest lecture session in the presence of Prof. Dilip Kumar on discussing various investment-related topics concerning Pragati. The club also aided the students in preparing for competitive examinations by participating in FLIP National Challenge and CFA Research Challenge.
In this way, the club ensures that students get the essence of finance as a domain of management. It helps the students to learn about the scope in this domain and select the best course of action for their future choices. In nutshell, The Finance club fosters a culture for finance within the realms of IIM Kashipur.
The moment we hear IIM Kashipur we relish the scenic beauty of the majestic Himalayas lining up this exalted building of bricks. IIM in the North(as it’s fondly called) is bestowed not only with the stunning beauty of nature but also ensures wholesome experience to academic rigor. So, we have come up with 10 best highlights which makes IIM Kashipur the nostalgic addition to students’ memory lane.
This program is specially devised to provide a comprehensive learning platform for the students to make them industry prepared, to suffice the increasing demand for complex data analysis, and thereby helping organizations make better decisions. This aims to make students understand the necessary principles of different forms of analytics to facilitate decision-making in practical business settings. Moreover, this program enables students to acquire and use advanced analytical as well as managerial skills to evaluate uncertain and dynamic business environments and to make effective decisions.
Gender Diversity:
IIM Kashipur has achieved more than a 3X increase in female candidates in the AY 2020 -21 compared to the previous year. Moreover, IIM Kashipur encourages the enrollment of female candidates through points assigned in the diversity metric as a part of its academic policy and it also continued with its initiative of sanctioning 15 supernumerary seats for female students.
The institute comprises of 41 faculties from various domains of specialization with rich experience and showcasing higher research potential. Moreover, IIM Kashipur believes in imparting application-based knowledge to the student fraternity, and as a step to achieve the same, the institute has about 34 visiting faculties from other IIMs and top B schools. The curriculum of IIM Kashipur is structured in a way to instill practical knowledge to the student community through projects and assignments. In addition to this, regular classes are shaped with interactive discussion-based teaching and learning activities through simulations to deliver the inexplicable things in a more fathomable way.
Competitions:
As we know MBA is not a degree that can be acquired through books, IIM Kashipur promotes the participation of students in various corporate and B school competitions. This academic year, students have bagged 100+ achievements to the institute in competitions organised by fortune 500 companies like Xiaomi, One plus and ET, Tata group, Google, Flipkart, L’Oreal, Reliance, Edelweiss Tokio, etc., Students have also bagged prizes from IIMs, IITs and top B schools.
Foundation for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development (FIED) is the incubation center of Indian Institute of Management Kashipur, which is an initiative to cultivate and improve India’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. With the assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Department of Science and Technology, the Government of Uttarakhand, and other supporting partners, FIED is set to incubate India’s most promising start-ups in the areas of tourism and hospitality, agriculture, art and craft, and education. FIED concentrates on the major focus areas which include art and craft, agriculture, technology, tourism, Ayurveda, and education. These areas focus on preserving our rich heritage, spreading the knowledge about science and technology, working towards the betterment of agriculture, enhancing the knowledge level of inquisitive minds, and fostering the inner wanderlust within people. Moreover, FIED has successfully incubated 150+ ventures, has engaged 500+ entrepreneurs, raised more than 50 crore rupees of funding, and has established a network of 100+ investors setting a stage for the budding entrepreneurs to learn and establish their dreams.
IIM Kashipur has, over the years, developed strong ties with multiple universities and institutes from all around the world. IIM Kashipur students have the chance to visit top MBA institutes in France, Denmark, Greece, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, UK, Thailand, and many more. In the year 2019-20, 11 students from IIM Kashipur visited 5 different institutes in different countries as part of the Student Exchange Program which lasted for about 3 months.
𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁-𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 (𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗣):
IIM Kashipur also offered its students the opportunity to visit some of these institutes as part of the Short-Term Exchange Program (STEP) which lasted for around 15 days in the academic year 2019-20. A total of 24 students took part in the STEP Program to visit ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece.
The program included 2 weeks of workshops, lectures, and immersion programs wherein the students get an opportunity to explore in and out of Europe giving them significant geographic and cultural exposure.
IIM Kashipur is a completely student-driven campus right from placements to day to day functioning of the campus. Being a part of the student bodies and event-specific teams, students mold themselves in various spheres of qualities which include time management, team building and management, situation handling, and maintaining cordial relations with the administration.
There are 𝟵 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗲𝘀, responsible for the overall day-to-day functionality of the college concerning academics, alumni, corporates, cultural events, media, international Institutes relationship, and general well-being of students.
There are 𝟳 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯𝘀, representing a specific domain and conducting activities for both internal and external audiences.
There are 𝟱 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀, which work in cooperation with external entities to help other student bodies, and vice versa.
There are 𝟭𝟮 𝗡𝗼𝗻-𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯𝘀, functioning internally and representing the interests of students.
There are 𝟰 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀, comprising entirely of 2nd-year students, which are responsible for organizing flagship events for the institution like Agnitraya, Uttishtha and TEDx.
𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗜𝗠 𝗞𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘂𝗿:
𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁
This year IIM Kashipur conducted guest lectures in various domains like Finance, Marketing, Operations, and HR by inviting industry leaders from organizations like Bain Capital, Henkel Adhesives Technology, Myntra, Jabong, MRF, Karvy Group, Capgemini to name a few. The focus is also on providing live projects to the students of IIM Kashipur that gives them hands-on experience to get the required industry sensitization before actually going out in the corporate world. This year the college has floated numerous projects for students from leading companies like Swiggy, PUMA, Crisil, Dish TV, Ashok Leyland, Reliance Industries, Scale Labs, Faber Infinite to name a few.
Creating an engaged, supportive alumni network is crucial to an institution’s success. With mushrooming educational institutions around the world, one way for an institute to stand out from the domestic and international competition is by promoting its brand. And an institute’s alumni are its best bet. They act as flag bearers of the institute in the outside world and ensure the current batches are made aware of ongoing trends. IIM Kashipur believes in continuous engagement with its strong alumni network via biannual city meets, annual reunion at the institute, regular webinars, and guest lectures.
𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗜𝗜𝗠 𝗞𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘂𝗿:
The new campus of IIM Kashipur is spread over an area of 200 acres, visually very striking and functionally very effective. The campus is equipped with modern technologies in classrooms to provide the best management education.
Gymnasium, Library, Amphitheatre, and Mini-Amphitheatre are the other facilities present on campus to ensure the holistic development of students.
IIM Kashipur hosts a variety of events across the year to foster all-round development and extend the values of our institute. Coalescence is our annual corporate summit, Uttishtha is an annual entrepreneurial event, TEDx IIM Kashipur, Agnitraya, is our annual flagship cultural, sports and management festival, Convocation, and many others.
In short, ‘Life is amazing, here, at IIM Kashipur.’
OnYourMark (OYM), the Marketing Club of IIM Kashipur, was established on 16th January 2014 by the students to promote and nurture the knowledge of marketing in the IIM Kashipur community. The raison d’être for OYM is to create an amenable ethos towards marketing. OYM strives to create enthusiasm among the students for the domain of marketing and guide them to explore their careers in this field. As it has rightly been said in the business world, “Marketing is not anyone’s job… It’s everyone’s job!”. The club seeks to make the student community well-versed with the recent happenings in the field of marketing to aid their industry knowledge and recruitment preparation.
OYM oversees several initiatives to achieve the club’s:
Vision: To improve the marketing acumen of IIM Kashipur & build a culture of Marketing studies.
Mission: Organizing student-centric events to involve maximum participation and benefits for all.
With the growing use of the online medium, the club adapted to new modes of learning and incorporated new initiatives to emanate marketing knowledge through channels like social media and video conferencing. The following are some key activities undertaken by the club to foster accentuated learning:
Forevision Workshops: OYM facilitated Marketing Workshops from Forevision in Digital Marketing and Advanced FMCG sales techniques training which had successful participation of 100+ students. These help them gain practical exposure to the current trends and tools through real-life case studies, exercises, and live demos which are increasingly used in businesses nowadays and enable them to think out of the box, just like a marketer is supposed to.
CutPaste Article series: Carefully curated articles are handpicked by OYM and extracts illustrating the concepts are shared with the batch in an email blast to familiarize and update them with the latest, modern terminologies in a short period. This allows them to quickly grasp these concepts and also gives them an option to read the full article provided to enhance their understanding.
Open house discussions: Discussions on current events as well as concepts that students learn in classrooms are further deliberated to gain deeper insights into the subject matter.
Guidance in case-studies: Conducting in-depth discussions on the cases in the curriculum to better equip the students with the principles used in a light-hearted environment. This gives the students confidence to contribute in class and further their knowledge.
Encouraging a culture of corporate competitions: Corporate competitions give students a chance to apply curriculum learnings and search for viable solutions to real-world business problems. OYM identifies marketing based opportunities from a plethora of competitions and encourages student participation.
Marketing Weekly – OYM collaborated with Marketing Weekly to help the students navigate the overwhelming sea of marketing content. A breakdown of marketing concepts as well as the latest news are illustrated in these weekly articles keeps everybody up to date with the current industry trends and expectations.
Social Media Campaigns: From concepts, trends, and everything marketing, campaigns are run on OYM social media handles to create an enthusiasm for marketing. These posts provide interesting reads with a visual aid to engage the reader.
OYM also conducts events year-round to engage students with practical exposure to marketing concepts so that they learn the application of the same.
Guerrilla MarFair: A Guerrilla marketing event enabling participants to create displays and advertise any brand. The event boasts average participation of 125+ students every year.
Markaholic: The flagship case study competition of OYM is an event conducted during Agnitraya. It received the highest registration of 1079+ in the previous year with participants coming from many top B-schools like IIM Lucknow, IIM K, IIFT, etc.
Online Week of Social Media Marketing: Participants create a video Advertisement based on the theme selected and strive to go viral on social media. This tests and hones the participant’s social media strategy and technique which is a quickly growing and required marketing skill.
MarQuiz: An intra-college marketing quiz competition aimed at inculcating a competitive spirit and encouraging teamwork. It focuses on expanding the students’ knowledge in the domain.
The club also conducts entertaining events to further pique the interest of students in the field of marketing by incorporating elements like brand-knowledge, wit, and the ability to pitch your ideas such as:
Ambush Marketing: The participants use their creativity to implement the tactic of Ambush marketing to ambush their rival teams during the Kashipur Premier League.
Pitch Please: A test of persuasion and zeal is presented as a challenge to the participant in this event. They need to pitch a product, an idea, or a sellable item, and winners are crowned based on the votes they receive from the audience.
DumbCharADs: A fun-filled brand guessing game that tests students on their brand awareness as well as acting acumen.
In this way, the club presents a spectrum of potential possibilities in the field of marketing for a student to pursue. It keeps a buzz around marketing domain and fuels the enthusiasm of the students at its best.
Analytics is a booming field right now and there is a heavy demand for analytics professionals. An MBA in Business Analytics will give you an overall understanding of how the analytics industry works as well as what role you would be required to perform. You may want to tap into this challenging and demanding field if you have an analytical mindset or an interest in statistics. The multidisciplinary MBA in Business Analytics covers technical, corporate, management, leadership, and communication training as well as business-analytical qualifications.
The MBA (Analytics) program at IIM Kashipur is a two-year full-time residential program which aims to prepare managers and future leaders who will shape the increasingly technology-oriented and data-driven world. It focuses on grooming its students to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes for leadership profiles so that they can seamlessly navigate the ever-changing business landscape. The primary objective of the institute is to nurture the students through a balanced mix of academics, industry exposure and co-curricular activities. Here is an overview of why and what all parameters one must consider before giving a thought of pursuing MBA in Analytics.
What to Learn?
An MBA trains business leader, including managers, and your primary area of education in business and management. Your MBA program, including “hard” and “soft” business skills, gives you a strong understanding of business fundamentals. This is taught in a fixed sequence of necessary courses or “core courses.” Some of the classes you may encounter as part of your MBA core include:
· Accounting
· Finance
· Marketing
· Ethics
· Operations
· Macroeconomics
· International Business
· Microeconomics
· Human Resources
· Leadership
Your concentration on business analytics will delve into specific business analytics and data expertise and also teach you to understand business issues via a data-driven lens. The most advanced business analysis tools, case studies, and projects, including real-world data, allow you to practice practically. Some of the classes you may see offered as part of a business analytics MBA concentration include:
· Spreadsheet Modelling
· Accounting Analytics
· Marketing Analytics
· Financial Analytics
· Business Statistics
· Applied Regression
· Principles of Management Science
· Data Mining
· Forecasting and Modelling
· Business Computing
Data science vs Business Analytics are separate disciplines, which are quite often used interchangeably. A layman may not be so concerned with this interchangeability, but professionals have to use the words appropriately, since they have a broad and immediate effect on the company.
Is Business Analytics and Data Science the same?
A Business Analyst’s job includes researching and extracting useful information to clarify business performance (present and future) from data sources. The correct plan to develop the organization is often decided by a Business Analyst. Whereas, Data scientists gather, analyze, and interpret broad data sets and use their analytical, mathematical, and programming skills to decipher valuable insights for solving difficult business problems. The three major factors that differentiate business analysts from data scientists are overall responsibilities, skill sets, and user interaction.
Overall responsibilities: The functional requirements that inform IT system design is provided by business analysts. On the other hand data scientists derive significance from the data generated and processed by such systems. Data scientists may also simplify the activities of the company analyst and be able to provide some of the market insights. Taking monetary benefits into consideration business analysts are slightly paid more than data analysts.
Skill Sets: Business analysts need data science expertise as well as skills related to communication, critical thinking, negotiation, and management. Whereas, data analysts need similar skills with a more in-depth emphasis on technological data manipulation.
User interaction: Business analysts also have more direct contact with system users, clients, system developers, and others as project facilitators and managers than data analysts do. That’s because market analysts will also interview individuals and learn more about how to enhance technology to help business processes. During the course of a single project, they work collaboratively with others. While data analysts can initially collaborate to define important data sets with internal subject matter experts, the majority of their work is performed independently.
Considering business analytics and data science domain, the former attracts the target base more owing to its business coherence and state of the art application-related job role. Apart from these there are few more benefits of pursuing business analytics which are as follows:
More informed decision making: Business analytics can be a valuable resource when approaching a substantial strategic decision. For example, when the company needs to analyze its product line update, business analytics can be applied to determine whether the updated product has resulted in faster service, more precise recommendations for resolution, and higher scores of customer satisfaction are achieved.
Improved operational efficiency: Analytics, beyond financial benefits, can be used to fine-tune company processes. Business analytics can be used to forecast business operations and assist the company by more effectively timing maintenance, enabling it not only to save operating costs, but also to ensure that it maintains assets at optimum levels of performance.
Is Business analytics a good career option?
As digitization has become a buzz in recent times with technology and data being utilized from local grocery shops to well-sophisticated malls, the demand for business analysts also has increased significantly. Moreover, as per the statistics, for every hour, terabytes of data are generated by 6 billion connected devices. With this increasing demand, there is an insufficient supply of professionals.
From the above-mentioned courses offered by MBA institutes, one can get the knowledge of the following skills: Python, SQL databases, and R, Survey/query software, Business intelligence, and reporting software, Data visualization, Database design, Problem-solving skills, Effective Communication, Creative Thinking and Industry Knowledge. These help them to be the best fit for diversified job roles, which include data analyst, supply chain analyst, big data analyst, business analyst, marketing analyst, finance analyst, HR analyst, etc. The increasing demand for MBAs with analytical skills has made Business Analytics a relatively new and popular specialization in the management domain.
What is a Business Analytics MBA Job Market?
There is a shortfall of 1.5 million analysts, according to a report by the McKinsey World Institute. With an MBA in Business Analytics, you are eligible for a large range of careers, including popular C-suite jobs. This is because MBA graduates are qualified to hold leadership positions in a number of business environments. In all types of businesses, health industry marketing, supply chain management, data-driven decision-making is increasingly in demand. Based on their domain knowledge, skills and work experience, companies typically offer these job roles to candidates. The high demand for professionals with an MBA in Business Analytics is generated by MNCs, retail and manufacturing companies, IT companies, e-commerce companies, consultancies, telecommunications companies and business analytics and intelligence companies. MBAs are hired not only by MNCs but even by startups. As an MBA is primarily a business degree in Business Analytics, you will not be looking at data science work. You’ll be eligible for data-driven positioning instead. You will also have the advantage of competing with a background in analytics for more general positions in business management.
To conclude, the MBA in Business Analytics is an upcoming field of expertise in all sectors of the industry that is gaining increasing traction. The specialization demonstrates a positive and promising outlook, and you can go ahead and begin your MBA journey in Business Analytics for those of you who have long been skeptical about choosing this career path!
Human Resources is one of the most sought-after domains for students who enrol every year to pursue an MBA. HRhythm-The HR club of IIM Kashipur comprises aspiring HR professionals, focused on providing HR-related content and making students abreast of the current industry practices. Hence, they leave no stones unturned to make the students aware of the opportunities and competition present in the domain in terms of B-school and corporate competitions.
HRhythm conducts a plethora of activities to cater to the interest in the Human Resources domain. The club has adapted to changes in the learning behaviour. It continues to implement them to efficiently impart knowledge and develop the interest of people in the field of Human Resources.
HRhythm conducts events encompassing various HR themes to accomplish the objective of amassing the HR enthusiasts nationwide by providing them with a platform for showcasing their HR skills. Apart from discovering and honouring the country’s talents, these events also provide a conducive environment to sharpen the ‘HR skills’. Some of the famous events by the club include –
Scribble Dribble is a Pan India article writing competition which encourages the bright minds of Indian B-Schools to draft an innovative article pertaining to the domain of Human Resources. It is conducted every year with an additional attribute that makes the event more stimulating than before. Both undergraduate and MBA students, across the country participate in huge numbers with great enthusiasm to demonstrate their writing skills and HR acumen. This year, a quiz-round was added to the existing competition structure, before the article-writing round to test the basic understanding of the HR concepts in a participant.
This is the annual flagship Case Study Competition hosted by the club. The participants are given a set of real-world scenarios that reflect the current problems faced in the corporate world, specifically in the HR domain. The motive is to let the participants take a peek into the state of affairs in most organizations and to make them savour the essence of solving simulated real-life corporate problems.
In HResilience, the participants wear the hat of Labour Union Leaders and Employee Relation Manager, to showcase their bargaining expertise, problem-solving skills, and empathy for solving the persisting employee problems via reaching an amicable solution at the end. This event is also conducted to provide students with the industry conflicts that emerge in real case scenarios and apply HR concepts to come up with the optimum solution.
4. Negotiator
This event encourages students to display or showcase their negotiation skills when confronted with a real-life business case. ‘Negotiator’ allows participants to be in the shoes of the CHRO and provides them with a platform to present their solution for the problems prevailing in the organization. It challenges their critical thinking, decision-making ability, analytical skills, and emotional intelligence to come up with the best possible solution in the given scenario.
The club utilizes its social media handles as a platform to impart knowledge about the HR world, with an additional essence to the content to make them cater to an average individual with even little to no interest in Human Resources. The club has consistently posted articles, and other relevant content on social media handles to promote students’ interests and keep them updated with the relevant information. Following is a walk-through of the HRhythm’s efforts:
A regular series of content uploads in the form of infotainment. Articles based on an amalgamation of HR concepts with mainstream Pop-Culture to generate interest in the student community.
To complement classroom learning with corporate implementation, HRhythm is currently working towards organizing a series of interviews with industry experts. A summary of the same would be shared with the students in the form of a write-up or video. Inputs from industry experts will help students in gaining insights into the real-life HR world.
These efforts have not only increased the club’s social media presence but most importantly, it has been able to spark the desire inside many people towards the HR domain and it continues to do so.
Also, the team invites leaders from the corporate world to share their understanding of the domain and talk about the experiences that shaped their career as a young HR aspirant. They believe students should always perceive the reality and not illusions, which reflects in the engagement activities carried out by the club. Knowledge sharing sessions by Executive Members have been conducted to make students aware of recent happenings in the field of Human Resource Management, which will help them in acing selection processes for HR roles.
HRhythm also undertakes the responsibility of representing IIM Kashipur in the Human Resources domain and this involves maintaining relations with HR Clubs of other premier B-Schools across the country. This, in turn helps the students at IIM Kashipur to seamlessly participate in HR events of these institutes and thus creating synergy. Such relations would provide mutual benefits as students can participate, learn and win competitions. With this, the club has been able to establish the flag of IIM Kashipur in the sphere of human resources.
Econs – the Economics Club of IIM Kashipur is one of the seven academic clubs of IIM Kashipur. Econs bears the responsibility of increasing awareness, generating inquisitiveness, and fostering passion among the students and faculty in the field of economics.
The economics club was founded in the year 2019 as an interest-based club to impart knowledge, invoke discussions and conversations pertaining to economics, and highlight its importance and linkages to different business domains. Late American scholar Warren Bennis said that “Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing”. Keeping up with this notion, the club has found it extremely pertinent for aspiring managers to be aware of “Economics” affecting their daily lives and make them better prepared to tackle business situations efficiently. Since its inception, Econs has gradually attained the status of a core academic club and has carried out a plethora of activities in this direction.
In the first year of its functioning, the club conducted ‘Arthashastra’, the flagship event of Econs, during Agnitraya 2019, which saw participation by around 450 teams from various B-schools across India. In this competition, different teams designed a feasible economic policy of their choice that resonated with India’s ultimate goal of achieving a five trillion-dollar economy. Along with that, Econs also conducted an ‘Infographics Making Competition’ covering topics like the future of banking, green Economy, and the effects of immigration on the Indian Economy. Econs also conducted the ‘Union Budget Prediction Competition’ wherein the participants had to guess highlights of the Union Budget and the participant with the closest prediction took away the prices. The event was welcomed with utmost enthusiasm.
Theclub makes the students aware of the domain by posting short articles bi-weekly through its social media handles on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. For the academic year 2019-20, the posts have covered topics like RBI monetary policy highlights, US elections impact on the Economy, and Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 to name a few. Along with the weekly posts, social media handles also feature monthly newsletters. The club shared this academic year’s first newsletter for the month of October 2020. The comprehensive issue featured the fragile state of the NBFC sector in India along with articles on comparing the Chinese Economy with the Indian Economy and giving a brief about the economic aspect of “Stubble Burning”. With an objective to inculcate the interest in reading in the field of economics, the newsletter also featured a review of a famous book ” Of Counsel-The Challenges of the Modi-Jaitley Economy” written by our former Chief Economic Adviser, Government of India, Mr Arvind Subramanian. Along with these, the newsletter had lighter sections like “Jargons” and “Current Affairs” too.
The club provides a platform for all the people to discuss, debate, and design on the current economic developments and government or regulatory policies and announcements. Throughout the year members of the club also conduct knowledge sharing sessions through case studies, quizzes, and games to instil and fuel a growing interest among students to understand and analyze their theoretical concepts towards practical applications.
On the corporate front, the club extensively interacts with experts and industrial stalwarts in the field of business and economics to share insights regarding the latest happenings through a seminar or a lecture. Econs became the first academic club in IIM Kashipur to conduct a guest lecture in Conscientia 2020 leadership talk series. The eminent speaker of the guest lecture was Mr Dhiraj Nayyar, the Chief Economist of Vedanta Group and a former member of NITI Ayog, who delivered an insightful session on the relevance of economics for the managers.
Through its numerous strides in continuously highlighting different aspects of economics, Econs has achieved a distinct recognition in keeping up with its mission and being a forerunner for the same. The aim is to increase awareness about Economics among students. Our mission is to inculcate interest among the students of IIM Kashipur in economics and help them understand how economics is interlinked with various fields. We work to bring together all the economics and business enthusiasts inside and outside the campus together to discuss and debate the major economic events of the world to foster new ideas for the future.
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