From Volga to Ganga: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR on Solo Travel

Many of the top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR have designed their academic curriculum to offer a window beyond classroom learning. Some of the top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR have gone an extra mile by incorporating lifestyle management modules as non-credit courses and organizing cams, workshops and events for aspiring managers to soak up knowledge form unconventional sources. While the discipline based teaching methodology continues to be the norm and hence classroom teaching based on lecture sessions is the finest way to learn technical and analytical skills, it has been observed that classroom teaching leaves a gap between knowledge and attitude building. In most cases, as practicing managers realize the market is a cruel place. It rewards the efficient and punishes the inefficient. Under such circumstances even the most knowledgeable students may fail to do justice to their merit owing to lack of attitude and character.

Finding the Missing Link between Skills and Attitude

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the first and the best MBA College in Greater Noida, we have designed an academic curriculum that gives ample breathing space to students to build attitude, character and hone their temperament to sustain at the highest level in the corporate sector.  In recent years we have also worked closely with students of the faculty of business administration to find out ways to close the gap between skills and attitude, potential and performance and groom them for boiler room situations that they are to face in their careers for the rest of their lives. One of the most enjoyable ways of learning lifestyle management and building character in aspiring managers is to push them to hit the road solo!

Adventures of a Solo Traveler & Aspiring Manager

There are tons of similarities between the aspirations of a solo traveler and a fresh management graduate. The mindset and the temperament that is required to face a situation that is characterized by unknown people, places and physical evidences bridges the gap between solo travelling and business. As such most solo travelers travel for fun while expatriate managers are men on mission and hardly have any time for recreation. At Ishan Institute, we assert that the best way to learn handling a mission is to think of it as adventure. Adventure enables aspiring managers to be driven by a need for achievement and the rush of the adrenaline. Adventure automatically reinforces the concept of market based meritocracy that rewards the efficient and penalized the inefficient. When business academicians at Ishan Institute talk to students on motivation, many students in the first year assert that their level of motivation depends on how much they love the end result that they shall gain from completing a task. We rectify this anomaly telling them it is not the result that matters. Result goals create negative work pressure and fear in the mind. We urge them to focus on the performance goal not the result goal. This applies to both solo travel based adventure and business. Performance goal setting sets the tone for the rush of adrenaline. More over love for a result that we wish to gain is looked at from a soft corner and aspiring managers may be dubiously compelled to believe that in order to win all that they need to do is just hit the road or as sportsmen say appear on the field. This mindset is a recipe for disaster. Students need to realize that loving a goal means how much they are willing to sweat and bleed for it. How much are they willing to sacrifice for it? When you hit the road alone and know that a reckless move undertaken in gay abandon may backfire and it usually does, they learn the virtues of being alert, optimizing their resources like food, clothes, money and time. When there is something at stake for a traveler he not only paddles his bicycle fast but after a fall or two, learns to paddle smart.

Marketing is the Biggest Solo Adventure

Imagine a boy from the interior of the North East making headway for a place like Ladakh. Ladakh in itself is not going to be the sole teacher. The journey from the North East of India through the eastern plains, the Gangetic north and up the Himalayas shall teach him a lot more. Each journey is a mission for every traveler. Issues like the unknown geographical terrain, unknown language, unknown food, unknown people and the mist on the screen are challenges that force him to make the best possible use of every resource at his disposal. Fraudulent travel agents, thugs at tourist spots, mischievous retailers on the pavements, a hostile crowd of local people soaked in cultural orthodoxy; delays in bus, air and rail services, the unusually long waits at the travelers’ lounge and many such annoying experiences are bound to happen. Each such bitter experience enables learning and makes the traveler more alert and keeps him on his toes. By the time the traveler reaches home after completing the journey he has a laptop filled with pictures, a smart phone filled with messages of family and friends, taste buds that have experienced something new, eyes that are ready for surprise and shock value, a mind that is all the more alert and a skin that is much thicker and lots of stories to tell.

The top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR base their teaching methodology on real life experiences that men carry in their minds for the rest of their lives, long after the memories of B-school books have faded away. Ishan Institute of Management & Technology is the first MBA College in Greater Noida.

The End of Poverty: Insights from One of the Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

Top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR are fortunate and so are the students who get an opportunity to build careers in one of the best job markets in Asia. God be with them. Yet it is a very badly kept secret that India on one hand is an emerging economy and on the other is a third world nation. At the heart of this two edged sword that dangles over India and many other emerging economies across Asia and Africa is poverty. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the first MBA college in Greater Noida the academicians of the faculty of business administration have made every possible endeavour to collect data, analyze it and bring insights on the challenge of poverty and what business schools can do to eradicate it if not obliterate it completely.

Why Learn About Poverty in Business Schools?

This year when Leo won the Oscar for The Revenant, there were audiences across the world who gave him an ovation. The acceptance speech said it all. The state of existence of indigenous people, climate change and poverty are related. It is subversive if not paradoxical to assert that a country with less than 8% of the world’s population engages in more than 70% of the global consumption and generated more than 30% of the global pollution and then preaches dictums of climate change to emerging economies. First, there is a strong argument for the people living in the rest of the world (third world) to comprehend their strength and contribution to the global economy. Second, estimates of various self financed and independent research institutes show that in the exchange of monetary value between the north and the south, the south exceeds the north by more than 4 times. There is no way that the south is dependent or should be dependent on the north. It is the north that is dependent on the south. Third, the country that has been the lynch pin of trickle-down economics, market fundamentalism, free trade, foreign direct investments and nuclear demilitarization has hailed the collapse of alternative economic systems in arch rival nations. The truth is that with-in the periphery of the free market model that is worshipped by business schools in the Anglo-American tradition, 16,000 children die every day owing to hunger and hunger related diseases. An estimate by Philippe Diaz, the critically acclaimed economic rights activist and film maker asserts that if the United Stated were to slash its military budget by 4%, it shall be possible to arrange for liquid capital worth U.S.$250,000,000 and shall be to eliminate more than 50% of absolute poverty in a single financial year. 

These insights are more than enough for aspiring managers at top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR to understand that managing in the global economy mandates the end of poverty for the sake of market consumerism, investor returns and economic growth to sustain. At Ishan Institute, we have attacked the issue of poverty academically and intellectually from different directions with different perspectives. Some of the most important insights and perspectives on poverty that we have incorporated into our academic curriculum so far are as follows:

The Bottom of the Pyramid Market by Prof.C.K.Prahalad

There is a viable business opportunity for blue chip corporations that want to do business in emerging economies. It is very much possible to create both high volume and high margin based business models in emerging economies. For global corporations to do business in emerging economies they must look to solve problems of the local communities through cost efficient and effective innovations in product and process development. Low cost housing for the low income groups, financial inclusion through innovation in online and mobile banking, credit unions, self help groups, microfinance institutions, low cost healthcare models like that Narayana Hridayalaya, low cost higher education and many more such examples exist to point to the possibilities. Late Prof. Prahalad has put forward the design of such business models brilliantly in the book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Transparency, Equity and Accountability in Corporate Governance by N.R.Narayana Murthy

Most emerging economies that are grinding poverty have the unenviable past of being erstwhile colonies for more than 600 years in many cases. The experience that they have been through has been harrowing enough for them to have complete disbelief in corporate capitalism. While it is not necessary for corporate capitalism to breach and infringe upon the economic and political sovereignty of nations, the reality is too unfortunate and tragic to be ignored by these nations that are under conditions of abject poverty. Bolivia for example was the home to the lion’s share of silver the world had. Venezuela was and continues to have abundance of crude oil. Ghana, Kenya, Sudan, Angola and Sub-Saharan Africa were probably the richest in terms of natural resource presence over the last 6 centuries and yet the expropriation of wealth and the drain of economic surplus resemble an economic carnage of Himalayan proportions. For this trust deficit to be reduced, for people’s confidence to be won and for support from governments on policy initiatives like FDI, licensing, single window clearance of business projects and liquidity, blue chip corporations must display complete transparency, equity and accountability.

Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen

Development as freedom by Amartya Sen is more than a book. Recent development in the field of development economics and search for alternate hypotheses on economic development in addition to GDP, GNP and National Income are direct outcomes of the acceptance of development as freedom concept given by Prof. Sen and has wide implications for business schools and MBA colleges in Greater Noida. At Ishan Institute we have incorporated a few of the themes and extended tracks of human development index, gross national happiness and now the optimism index for corporations to look beyond the financial metrics of doing business. His works have also found support from Joseph Stiglitz and the UNDP.

Business need not be any less aggressive in form and content for it to maximize profit and achieve the bottom line and yet there is the pressing need for academicians, students, business leaders and blue chip corporations associated with top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR to appreciate that when more than 70% of the world population lives on less than U.S. $ 1 a day, there is a scope and necessity for doing well by doing good to end poverty. Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, is the first graduate business school of Greater Noida and the top MBA college in Greatet Noida as on date.

Top Management Thinkers Picked by Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

Top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR in addition to following a rigorous academic curriculum also empower and enable students to follow research works of top management thinkers across the world and India. It makes enormous good sense to assert that globalization and global exposure are mixed bags of opportunities and challenges. If the trickle down economic development is accepted as evidence then it makes further sense to assert that globalization offers more opportunities than challenges. Yet at the heart of the fire that stokes the debate on globalization is why and how economies and markets barbeque themselves in their attempts to radically integrate themselves with the global economy. As such at Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the advice that we offer to aspiring managers is to follow the works of Joseph Stiglitz, of Columbia business school. Prof. Joseph Stiglitz on many of his books asserts that making globalization work calls for managing in a global economy and adapting best practices across the world to suit local economy and market requirements.  Moving ahead we take a look at the following thinkers bearing the factors of time, space and scale in adapting their thoughts in the global economy.

Peter Drucker: Management Challenges for the 21^st Century

Peter Drucker is known in B-school classrooms for many a theory. Yet the fact that stands apart is that management while having existed for more than three hundred years now has changed drastically in the 21^st century. Drucker ideated and reflected on how management challenges in the 21^st century are going to be very different from those that the world has already faced. There is a growing realization among business leaders and academics that the 21^st century has ushered in post modernism. Modernism was about capitalists. Post modern era is about knowledge workers. At Ishan, one of the best PGDM colleges in Delhi we refer to his books for general management papers.

C.K.Prahalad: Bottom of the Pyramid Market

The late C.K.Prahalad continues to be a string voice from the Third World in the field of business management. Of course there are those seminal works on core competence and VRIO framework, but for emerging economies like India nothing can be of greater significance than the theory and practice of bottom of the pyramid markets. The bottom of the pyramid markets assumes significance for multiple reasons, the biggest of them being the failure of corporate capitalism in ending poverty in the third world. Many years after the demise of Prof. Prahalad, his works continue to be effective in corporate boardrooms and offices today. At Ishan, the glory of Prof.C.K.Prahalad lives through the reference to his works in papers of strategic management, rural management, business environment and general management.

Sir Henry Ford

Sitting in a corporate board room today in the 21^st century, when you look back at the events that shaped modern corporate organizations, it is hard to ignore the contributions of Sir Henry Ford. In business a contribution is an achievement and vice versa. Best practices initiated by Sir Henry Ford in the pre war years in the United States were largely responsible for the expansion and growth of not just Ford Motors but of the entire generation of automobile industry that existed n the United Stated and Europe. Best practices of assembly line production system, bulk production for economies of scale, excess inventory holding of spares and tools, the black colour coding of the iconic Model-T and shop floor approach are still very much in use in large scale industries.

Pankaj Ghemawat: Why the World is not as flat as it appears?

The last twenty years have seen a flurry of Indian Americans striking it rich in business schools in United States. Many of them have gone on to serve various American boards and government institutions. Prof. Ghemawat of the IESE School, Barcelona stands out with his intellect and conviction to challenge the myth of a flat world. His works on the CAGE framework are substantial and perhaps a better substitute for the PEST analysis that has been going on in business schools and MBA colleges since pre-historic ages. Central to the idea of the CAGE framework is the existence of cultural factors in assessing business climate of an economy. In fact at Ishan, we believe that the CAGE is a better tool for assessing the business climate of most emerging economies except China. Competitive politics and a pro-market stature are common to most mainstream political parties in emerging economies. Culture is a sharper differentiator in these economies than politics.

Kaoru Ishikawa: Fishbone in the Board Room

Of the many miracles of economic growth that have taken the world by surprise, Japan remains the most under stated example. Perhaps most people expected Japan to come back strong in the aftermath of the Second World War and hence were not too surprises with the quality revolution. Before there was analytical, predictive and causal modelling using Bayesian networks and before big data had disrupted the way business decisions are linked to cause effect relationships, the fishbone diagram was probably the best exponent of the cause effect relationship in improving quality. In emerging economies like India and in countries of sub-Saharan Africa, quality remains a challenge and Ishikawa’s theories remain a source of guiding light.

The top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR expose students to a world of best practices that is handpicked from different countries and verticals. At Ishan Institute of management & Technology, one of the top PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR we reinvent the academic curriculum and teaching methodology regularly to incorporate the best practices. While the above list is definitely not exhaustive but serves as a sample of the references that we wish to use in learning.

Best Business Movies Picked by One of the Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

The top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR use a unique teaching methodology combined with an academic curriculum that is updated regularly and enables aspiring mangers to engage in river rafting. This involves learning to be exhaustive and exclusive. This exclusivity stems from absorbing business knowledge from all possible sources like a sponge not just from books only. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR we tread a path that mixes cautious discipline with sparks of unorthodox innovation that gives the curriculum a much needed elbow room. Business movies are not just about entertainment. Business movies are sources of information on how people react and respond to situations and how these responses differ over business geographies. In this piece we put together a list of business movies which we have screened to students pursuing MBA and PGDM for different papers and yes the outcomes have been very positive. Take a look.

Swades

There are people who may raise an eyebrow or two and ask the rationale behind including this movie in a list of business movies here. The answer is simple. Across papers of total quality management, strategic management and also rural management, we have felt the utmost necessity to enable a rendezvous between students who hail from India with the true face of Bharat. It has been more than a decade that this Shahrukh Khan starrer directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar made it to the Oscars and then got eliminated. The underlying themes make for a fabulous study of tracks and themes like Gandhian innovation, jugaad innovation, bottom of the pyramid market, digital divide, gender diversity, reverse innovation and rural governance. In fact it has something for business environment as well. Probably the enterprises that have the best rural market penetration are the Post & Telegraph Department and utilities like electricity boards. Even today FMCG companies have a lot to learn from these institutions. Yet again the context pits Gandhian economics against the modernization and scientifically advanced Nehruvian thoughts. The end result probably is that the protagonist brings Nehru’s India to Gandhi’s Bharat.

Boiler Room

Set in the big bad world of financial brokers who take full advantage of greed this is a movie for finance students as also for marketing people. The power of influence that is evident in the movie is a strong weapon for business development. The weird ways of the financial market are hard to get for the common man and by the time realization sinks in, it is already too late. The same goes for the protagonist of the movie who discovers that he is in a soup even after achieving so much working for his enterprise with all his skill and intelligence. The movie has some great takeaways for marketing students with regard to closing business deals, mounting pressure on clients to squeeze out every penny in their pockets and sell dreams even in the face of reality checks that may be knocking at the door step. Finance students may not be able to get into the technical aspects of their trade watching this movie but as most finance people realize in the middle stages of their careers, success is more about attitude than skill.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Despite Michael Fasbender getting an Oscar nomination this year for Steve Jobs, we would rather include this one on the list of movies that enable learning. The Pirate of Silicon Valley has many great lessons to teach. The best thing about the movie is that it is set in the campus life of United States and shows the typical David versus Goliath competition that sprung with Steve acknowledging IBM as “big brother.” There are string lessons to be learnt on entrepreneurship and moon lighting which assume so much importance in an age when many Indian youth have goals of setting up junkyard start up firms, right from their student days. The Bill Gates manual of management is also on full display. The innovation of Steve Wozniak, the guile of Steve Jobs and the persuasion of Bill Gates are probably character building lessons for boys who want to make it big on their own.

Inside Job

In the aftermath of the sub-prime crisis of 2008, investment banks, financial brokers, credit rating agencies and even the Fed came into spotlight. This movie covers literally all the aspects of the chain of characters who were involved in the sub- prime crisis. It is a documentary that features the interviews of many top economists, business leaders, bankers, financial brokers and members of global policy institutions like the IMF. The entire movie is a collection of primary data collected through the direct interview method. It is a must watch movie for aspiring finance professionals. The concepts on securities market, reverse mortgage, amortization and liberalization of the banking regime are lessons worth learning indeed and the way these topics have been dealt with is supremely lucid and easy to understand.

Pinball

Not many would associate Brad Pit with a business movie. Pinball is a movie based on true events that occurred with a famous baseball franchise in the United States. The script of the movie revolves around the upheavals and sudden flight of top talent that the team goes through resulting in a downward sojourn. This movie has at its core the usage of data analytics in sports management and an inventory based approach to human resource management in teams and organizations. It is very interesting to note that several years after the movie was released Andy flower the then coach of the England cricket team used analytics to lead them into an overwhelming victory against Australia in the Ashes series. The following year though Australia made a strong statement by staging a comeback and taking the Ashes. In the end while data analytics is being used in sports management and also in so many other disciplines and functions of business like customer relationship management, production and operations, it remains to be seen if data can be a perfect substitute for the human element in management.

Top Literature Reads From One of the Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

At Ishan Institute of Management & technology, one of the top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR, we the academicians harness the power of literature to enable learning in students. While orthodox business management professionals may question the validity of adding literature to the already heavy academic curriculum of MBA and PGDM courses we believe it makes sense. In fact it makes enormous great sense to assert that literature and its reading makes for great business acumen in young minds. The global market is a fusion of different communities, cultures, cuisines, cults and currencies. As long as there are barriers in understanding the fine elements of lifestyles and values of these different communities, business enterprises and expatriate managers will always find the going tough. Here is our take on the best literature reads for aspiring managers with the key takeaways of the titles.

An Enemy of the People

An Enemy of the People, is a play written by the Norwegian litterateur Henrik Ibsen. We have followed this book for the papers of business communication and business ethics and corporate governance. The takeaways of this play include foundations of business communication and corporate governance. Students of top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR, many of whom belong to tier 2 and tier 3 cities and thus have a scope for improvement in verbal ability and reading and comprehension can look forward to learning many new words and their usages from this play. More over the plot of the play is based on a conflict of values that people go through as a country evolves from a nation into a market. The mental strength that is required to fight lust and greed is a key takeaway of this book. The background of the play is set in modern continental Europe and gives an insight into the historical foundations of Scandinavian nations like Norway and Sweden. It is also pretty handy to organize role plays on corporate governance for final semester students studying finance as specialization. In India, the play was adapted on the silver screen by Satyajit Ray in 1989 and the film was India’s official entry into the Festival de Cannes for a special screening.

September on Jessore Road

September on Jessore Road is a poem written by the famous American poet and anti-militarist Allen Ginsberg. Written in the context of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the poem vividly describes the scenes of thousands of refugees who had lined up on Jessore Road in their attempts to flee from the horrors of war. It was a mass exodus that was described by the poet Ginsberg and even today is counted as one of the best works on war, mass migration and refugee crisis. In the current context, it assumes importance in the backdrop of what continental Europe is going through and why the front runner of the U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump makes sense to millions of his American followers. The Syria crisis that has taken Africa by a storm and is threatening to spill over into Europe and its immediate impact on nations and the international community are just reflections of the Bangladesh War adjusted for time, space and scale.

A Christmas Carroll  

One of the all time great classics written by Charles Dickens, it is a must read for students of MBA colleges in India. The key take away again is the foundation of business ethics and the sense of where to draw the line between professional ambitions and personal ties? Undoubtedly one of the best works by one of the best story tellers of the modern era, this book is an excellent read for marketing students who want to learn the science of convincing. Top business schools enable students to learn the power of influence. The power of influence relies on science, substance, story, speed and sharing. Of all these elements, it is story telling that is the most difficult to cultivate as most marketers will realize.

The Audacity of Hope

Many people rate this as the best autobiography by any political leader of or generation. The Audacity of Hope brings in the best of the outgoing U.S. President Barrack Obama. The book springs both audacity and hope and is a big confidence booster for small town boys and girls our generation who want to make it big in the corporate world. This is a once in a life time autobiography that truly instils confidence in young minds and asserts that people born to humble backgrounds can make it big. The anecdotal evidences that the U.S. President presents are clearly inspirational for aspiring managers who come from remote corners of India and want to see themselves working for blue chip corporations at the top level or strike it rich with start up enterprises of their own. We recommend this book for personality development programs and self development of MBA students.

The Home and the World

The Home and the World is a novel written by Tagore and is perhaps the most apt reference on the travails of globalization. The influx of Western thoughts and the nationalist movement to gain freedom from British rule are central themes in this novel. In the twenty first century with the British having ling gone from India, the book reflects on the tensions that thrive beneath the surface. It is a great read for human resources people and aspiring HR managers. More over it is a good read for understanding the conflicts of cultures that globalization brings into emerging economies like India. Being caught between the professionalism and polish of the work place and the values at home and in family life, takes a toll on minds. This book is a must read for people who want to understand globalization at the micro economic level.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the first graduate business school of Greater Noida and one of the top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR we refer to these literature classics in our lecture sessions and also for grooming students as a part of our global exposure.

How Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR Can Enable a Digital India?

Top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR can make a visible difference to the creation of a Digital India While it is always fanciful to pay lip service and bask in the reflected glory of government initiatives, it is always better to leverage youth power to take the boat right in the centre of the storm and not be just limited to being a storm in a tea cup. Ishan Institute of Management & Technology is one of those top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR, where academicians and staff are collaborating to make things happen on the front of Digital India.

Delhi management institutes have the obvious advantage of location and can harness that advantage to enable not just empower the digital revolution. While business schools are a different breed of species and should not run like tech schools yet, one needs to understand that technology is a non linear tool to align strategy with execution and can augment performance like nothing else. To this extent, top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR can engineer a blue print for higher academia corporate interface with both blue chip companies and start up firms to bolster the development of mobile applications. There are a number of problems in business and society that can be resolved only through fast tracking the dissemination of information. Mobile app development for business and society can take place well within the ecosystem of business schools and within the constraints of academic curriculum, teaching methodology and placement pressures. In fact mobile app development can enable students of top PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR to become technological entrepreneurs even before they have their marks sheets in their hands.

We have said this before that the process of start up entrepreneurship should follow three simple steps of problem identification, development of an extrinsic solution and then creation of a monetization model to internalize the solution in the form of a product or service. This can well be the path for mobile app development in business schools.

Mobile Apps for Local Problems in Business and Society

Mobile apps for local problems in business and society need to be based on targeting an audience who may be facing a challenge. As such mobile apps may be developed to solve challenges of search, community building, communication, knowledge sharing, real time information search and enrolment. Mobile apps development for solving these types of challenges can be used to streamline agriculture, higher and school education, rural community development, self help groups, credit unions or micro finance institutions. As such farmers can benefit from apps that provide real time information on prices of food crops and cash crops, weather forecasts with emphasis on expected rainfall, soil testing and pesticide information, etc. Students in school and higher education can benefit from institute search, admission, correspondence on financial aid and scholarships, exam and class time table, form filling, attendance and performance data, etc.

How can Students and Academicians Collaborate?

Academicians can enable students to take up mobile app development by conceiving projects for summer internship and final semester. Academicians can offer a full fledge synopsis of the project, including the particulars of business and social challenges that are aimed to be resolved through the mobile apps development project. Top MBA colleges can look for part or complete sponsorship of the project from blue chips and start up companies with conditions of sharing of intellectual property rights. Business and tech fests can be leverage to promote interaction between students who aim to work on such projects and venture capitalists and angel investors. Once the unit costs of app development are worked out, students can get going on learning the fundamentals of app development from online resources, alumni and mentors from academia. On the successful development of the mobile app, the academic and student community can then come together to engage with local communities who are targeted through the mobile app by organizing on campus events or online webinars. By the time the project culminates the students can think of monetizing their apps and register their start up firms with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Why Take All the Pains for Mobile App Development?

Mobile app development in India is an unsung glory. India is the largest producer of mobile apps in the world. India has a large segment of educated but unemployed youth who are at times willing to work for peanuts. Being an emerging economy we have opportunities and being a third world country we have challenges. We can enable our unorganized retail to compete head on with blue chip corporations, reduce farmer suicides, improve healthcare and enable artisans earn better for handicrafts. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we academicians believe that it is possible to create win-win situations where income generation coincides with social welfare. As Edmund Burke had once said:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Top Business Reads Picked by the Top PGDM College in Delhi

The best business reads list is always hard to frame. At the top PGDM College in Delhi, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the faculty team has prepared a list of business reads ahead of the competitive admission season to crack group discussion and personal interviews. While preparing this list we have also given due weights to the utility of these books for enhancing business acumen in addition to serving up as good pieces of literature on business and management. Here is the list of the top business reads and the key takeaways from these books.

My Years with General Motors

My years with General Motors, is written by the former CEO of General Motors, Alfred.P.Sloan. Sloan in his active years at the company was responsible for its tremendous growth and transformation from being a U.S. based automobile manufacturer to being a global company with footprints in the markets of Western Europe and Asia later on. His take on the big picture of the company as a whole, the working of the different departments of a company like parts of a well oiled machine and finally the vision of being a customer centric company rather than being a technology based one are the key takeaways. We refer to this book in the first semester during our lectures and believe it is one of the best references on papers like organizational behaviour or advance management concepts.

Better India Better World

Better India Better World, is a compilation of lectures delivered by the former CEO of Infosys, N.R.Narayana Murthy. Regarded as one of the doyens of corporate governance and business ethics, this book bases itself on the growth of the company during the early days. The business model is well explained. The famous Global Delivery Model conceptualized and implemented by Murthy and fellow founders like Nilekani, Shibulal, Gopalakirshnan and Pai is an eye opener for aspiring business leaders and managers even today. The PSPD model for risk mitigation and the virtues of business forecasting for sustainability are also key takeaways. At Ishan we recommend this book for papers like business environment, corporate strategy and corporate governance. Murthy’s intellectual class stands out like nobody else.

Thinking Strategically

Written by Indian American economist Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff from Princeton and Yale universities, this is a book that combines game theory with strategic management. We strongly recommend this book to STEM (science, technology, engineering& mathematics) students for the papers of strategic management and operations research. More than mere academics it shows how choice theory can be affected by the availability and absence of reaction function based outcomes in competitive situations. In our business lives we very often come across situations where we have to compete against a rival with two specific options such as attack/defend, lead/follow, innovate/imitate, etc. This is a great read for dealing with situations.

How Stella Saved the Farm?

How Stella Saved the Farm is an adaptation of the classic Animal Farm written by George Orwell. Penned by Chris Trimble and C.Vijaygovindrajan of Tuck School of Business, we recommend this book to students of humanities background. It is perhaps the ultimate fun way to learn people management, leadership, motivation, innovation and core competence from comic characters like Stella. Written in lucid language and simplified for young minds this is a book that shows that intellectual greatness in business management is about simplicity. The book is great for doing role plays and the best part is that each chapter ends with some questions for self study that can be of great help for interviews.

The Country of First Boys

The Country of First Boys written by India’s only Nobel winning economist Amartya Sen may not be deemed as a business book at all. It may also not be deemed to be a book on economics. The mistake is not in the definition of the book but in the notions that business school graduates and managers develop about economic development. Most business leaders in Europe and U.S believe that economic development is about liberalizing the economic system of trade and non trade barriers, financial and banking sector reforms and industrialization. The Asian model of economic development as applied in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand or even Hong Kong has the quality improvement of people at its centre. As the name of the book suggests economic growth in India does not reflect in gender diversity and thus conspicuously overlook women in economic development. It is a must read for group discussions on issues of growth, gender diversity, poverty, regional imbalances and welfare state.

Some of the best MBA colleges in Delhi NCR do well in academics and placement because of the education software that goes into administering marketable skill formation in students. Ishan is a top PGDM college in Delhi and the first graduate business school in Greater Noida.

Why is Ecommerce on the Up in Management Colleges in NCR?

As we approach the end of yet another financial year, we track the developments of industry preference in management colleges in NCR. The last two years have seen a real upsurge in the leaning of the student community towards the ecommerce vertical. The sporadic rise in demand for summer internships and placement drive has also been the story at Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the best PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR. While there are theories that have been doing the rounds trying to explain the rise of ecommerce as an industry vertical with demand side analysis which is essentially the consumer’s perspective, there is a different side that explains the job seekers’ perspective. The placement cell has observed the developments and changes from close quarters. Here are some of the insights that explain the preferences for ecommerce companies among the student community.

A Successful Wedlock of Management & Technology

In India it is common to think of engineering as a career option for the academically meritorious and management as the career option meant for the street smart. Recent technological developments have impacted Indians where it affects the most. There have been long lasting changes in the values and lifestyles of Indians and in general towards technology as an enabler of business not just for academics. While it may be fashionable to suggest that Indian families and peers need to be more democratic in evaluating the merit of students on the basis of the subjects that they choose but there is a growing realization that STEM is the future. STEM refers to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. More over there is this sense prevailing that even if a student does not take interest in STEM, STEM will not stop taking interest in us. There is no way out escaping STEM.

Capitalism without Capital

An overwhelming proportion of the student population still believes in and swears by public sector jobs that are bureaucratic. To be fair enough, it has only been 25 years that we have chosen to tread on the path of economic reforms and free market economics on our free will. The three hundred plus years of brush with capitalism was imposed on us, not an act of free will and hence explains the aversion that many Indian families had or even have with capitalism, i.e. private business enterprise. Ecommerce has shown that it is possible for many of us Indians to become capitalists even without capital. The summer internships projects, guest lectures, assignments, case studies and success stories of alumni at best MBA colleges in NCR only usher in the realization that one need not be born with a silver spoon or be a relation of Baron Rothschild to be a techno-capitalist.

Modernism is Passé. Ebien Venido Post Modernism

When Peter Drucker had written Post Capitalist Society he had asserted that while modernism was based on the free mobilization of capital, post modernism shall be about free mobilization of knowledge. By knowledge in business we refer to a set of information and skills to process information to create a string monetization model. As such ecommerce is more about the knowledge worker who stays behind locked doors and works untiringly on his laptop to develop codes and programs, create and design mobile apps, digital wallets and enablers of transactions on the web. This requires knowledge. An Indian loves and want to live the life of a knowledge worker.

Monkish Work Ethics and Systems Approach to Management

How many Indians love to deal with tough times? How many Indians love to deal with tough people? Unfortunately not too many! Technology has taught us that it is possible to create, administer and maintain a system that works better than people. Being soft hearted and soft tongued Indian students prefer to manage systems rather than manage people.  This allows them to dodge their way out of situations that would require them to deal with tough people and thus tough situations. Ecommerce enterprises work on the systems approach to management. This is a blessing in disguise for Indian students of the current generation.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the placement season is well on its course and as on today more than 45% of the students have opted for final placements in ecommerce companies. 8% of the students have worked on self financed projects on social media marketing in ecommerce companies, in addition to the mandatory summer internships. More than 50% students have opted for summer internships in ecommerce companies. More than 15% of the alumni are working in managerial positions with market leaders like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Shopclues.  The tide in best management colleges in NCR is no doubt in favour of ecommerce.

How Can MBA Colleges in Delhi Contribute to the Start Up India Campaign?

MBA colleges in Delhi have grown with the growth of Delhi NCR as one of the most forward looking and progressive economic clusters in India and Asia. The recently announced Start Up India policy of the union government has been making the right noises about creating an ecosystem and a culture towards the blossoming of start up firms. After 25 years of economic reforms and a quantum leap in the GDP, India now looks forward to the next generation of economic reforms. This is where start -up firms have a big role to play. If the last 25 years of economic reforms were about dilution of economic barriers and legislations to create softer economic borders, the next 25 years are probably about taking the benefits of the free market economy to the doorstep of every household. This shall require a trickle down policy from the side of the government so that economies of networking percolate down to the last tier of the economic pyramid.

In this context it is exciting for academicians at Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, to look for extended opportunities for the student community in MBA colleges in Delhi to contribute to this movement.

Focus on Gandhian Innovation

The CEO of NPCL, Shri R.C.Aggarwal in a guest lecture delivered at Ishan had said that when he looked to learn to operate with minimum possible resources he drew inspiration from the household chores of the poorest man in his organization. This statement is very akin to the talisman of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the few great original thinkers that India has produced. Management colleges in Delhi need to focus on Gandhian innovation with a renewed vigour. In an emerging economy like ours that is best described in the language of late Prof.C.K.Prahalad as a bottom of the pyramid market, low cost innovations that are affordable, accessible and available should be the mantra for success and is the mantra for success. Some of the best products in recent times that have been termed disruptive innovations have done so. Tata Nano despite all the failures of market development stands out in terms of product development. HUL Pureit is yet another example of a green innovation that is low cost and has worked wonders in streamlining hygiene standards without using any source of non-renewable energy. Managers and technocrats who can innovate for the bottom of the pyramid markets shall be the true Gandhians of tomorrow.

Integrate Business Research with Entrepreneurial Goals

At Ishan we stress on aspiring business graduates to integrate business research with entrepreneurial goals. This results in students developing business acumen for the service of society. Capitalism and the free market economy are about making choices. Free market economics is about making the correct choices that can achieve economic, technical and social parameters of Pareto optimality. We enable and empower students to take up business research projects on titles that conceive India as not just a market but also a nation. Lord Meghnad Desai, (professor emeritus at London School of Economics) in his seminal work Development and Nationhood explains that small business and start-up business can open the floodgates to sustainable income generation while improving the quality of lives.

Offer Solutions to Challenges at the Local Level

Students in MBA colleges must for a moment weed out the obscurantist myths associated with the Harvard school of thinking in business. India as an emerging economy is distraught with unique challenges. For start- up firms to excel they must explore the challenges that India faces at the level of the local community. Once these challenges are identified, intrinsic solutions can be explored by means of product and process innovation. The final stage is to make the solution extrinsic by means of a business model that is streamlined for time, space and scale.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top MBA colleges in Delhi, constantly inspire students to dare to think beyond the horizons of a run of the mill career. 

We, the People of Best MBA Colleges Stand by Smart Farming

If the best brains in best MBA colleges are busy solving problems of those who actually do not have any problem, they do not deserve to be called the best. The great American economist Thorstein Veblen had once referred to the leisure class. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the best MBA colleges in Delhi, we take pride in using business academic to solve or at least resolve to solve the issues of that impact people, planet and profits. Problems of the leisure class may be made to wait for a while.

India has for ages now been a predominantly agrarian economy. The agricultural sector is the backbone of the economy and is plagued with the weight of many issues that ail the community of farmers, agricultural crop production, food inflation levels and the quality of livestock. The last two years in particular have not been too sympathetic towards the agricultural sector and the rise in the number of farmer suicides substantiate that things are not that rosy. The data offered by Food & Agriculture Organization assert that by the year 2050, more than 9.6 billion people shall inhabit the planet and food production shall have to be increased by 70% by 2050 to sustain this population. An emerging discipline that combines technology and management in order to streamline agricultural operations is precision agriculture or smart farming.

What is Smart Farming?

In top MBA colleges we refer to the phenomenon of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). The concept of VUCA is as much applicable to agriculture as it is to corporate strategy and board rooms. It is in the context of VUCA that smart farming evolves. Smart farming is the streamlining of agricultural operations, planning and scheduling by means of integration of big data, predictive analytics and IoT (internet of things). It is an attempt to use software and information technology enabled services to reduce VUCA in agriculture and thus create a responsive supply chain.

The vagaries of nature, cyclical excess production and price fluctuations can be reduced if not completely obliterated using the concept of smart farming. The use of IoT coupled with GPS and Big data can lead to better measurement of metrics of parameters like rainfall, temperature, humidity, snowfall, frost, pest control and irrigation requirements. It is possible to create smart farms by implanting sensors in the crop fields to collect, analyze and then interpret data on major threats. These sensors work through GPS to centralize data from various sources on the field and process the information to produce insights based on predictive modelling. Thus it shall be possible to control animal activity leading to destruction of crops at night, pest growth and under or over-irrigation. In fact the use of big data can lead to the adoption of a risk management strategy in planning and scheduling of agricultural operations by having forecasts on rainfall, humidity, snowfall and frost for the next financial quarter. This data that is collected on the fields can then be relayed to smart watches and wearable wrist gears of farmers to initiate preventive action that is proactive and save farmers of the financial losses. Intelligent farms that can communicate information to farmers can in this way reduce the occurrence of crop failures and mitigate the operating risks associated with farming.

Smart Animal Farming

A subset of the practice of smart farming is smart animal husbandry and smart animal framing. By using sensors that measure physiological metrics like body temperature, tissues resistivity, pulse and others it is possible to take better care of the health of the livestock that is used for agriculture and livestock activities like production of milk. Bovine cattle can thus be cared for and used with sensitivity for better productivity on the farm and off it.

The biggest merit is that this data can be easily channelized from the farms and animal husbandry warehouses across different individuals positioned at different levels in the supply chain through smart watches, affordable Android mobile apps and be used to make a visible impact on how decision making is undertake in Bharat. Smart farming and smart animal husbandry creates a decision support system (DSS) for farmers to predict, sustain, profit and de-risk agricultural operations.

Literature Review on Smart Farming

There are some case studies and literature available on such initiatives that have been undertaken in different countries across the world. Recently the government in Malaysia has announced a national level IoT plan with an ambitious goal to increase farm productivity by 20% in the next five years. The project is expected to generate US$ 320 million of GDP for the Malaysian economy. The European Union has sponsored several projects on the topic during the Seventh Framework Program during Horizon 2020. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the best MBA colleges in Delhi NCR we recommend a pilot study that may be conducted in India by offering research grants to start –up firms mushrooming from tech schools and business schools under the Digital India campaign. It is time that we Indians stop leaving our agriculture at the mercy of nature.

Business Lessons to Cross the Boundary: Part 5

This is the last piece in the series of blogs on sports management coming from Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the best MBA colleges in Delhi NCR. It is too demanding to cover all aspects of sports management in blogs and yet learning business lessons from cricket can pave the way for some serious academic research on sports in business management. In this piece the academic team tries to offer a concluding comment on the facets of business challenges that are touched upon by cricket. We also look for possible solutions from cricket.

Champion managers and players, champion teams and corporate enterprises believe in winning and have scant respect for the theory of the second best. This mindset in its extremes can lead to exactly the worst thing-losing. Not talking of losing and driving failure under the carpet leads to the typical sub-continent mindset where cricketers and managers who fail are treated as social outcastes. At airports, coffee shops, hotels and at events cricketers who have been dropped are referred to as discards and the term can inflict a lot of damage to the morale of the concerned person. Managers who are terminated on account of failures also go through this. At the heart of the biggest challenge for business and sport is to deal with the burden of winning and the fear of failure.

The Burden of Winning

When market leaders have a cake walk and get accustomed to winning in the market with no or little effort, they stick to the formula that has got them there in that position in the first place. This gets reflected in little or no product and process innovation, carrying on with daddy’s brands even if they are not fetching any returns, sticking to a set team that has got too used to thinking and working in a stereotyped way. With little or no effort to paddle the cycle, the cycle carries itself forward on momentum. Momentum is always short lived. Great teams and corporations have failed because of the burden of winning.

Going into competitive sport like cricket and also in business with the preconceived notion that we just need to show up on the field with no preparation and walk down any competition is a recipe for disaster. May great corporations do want to change anything of the winning formula because they may not know the exact element of the winning formula that is leading them to victory. Hence there is this temptation to not tinker around with a set team, set product portfolio, set templates for product development, set protocol for communication, set procedures, set thumb rules for decision making, etc. The burden of winning brings with itself an inertia that weighs down on the appetite to innovate, inspire and change. There is a risk in changing when companies and teams do not know what needs to be changed. The lesson is that every victory needs as much analysis as does a defeat. When the revenue streams are flowing, then is the time to analyze. When the going gets tough it is time to act, not sit back and analyze.

Fear of Failure

The fear of failure is not a mindset that comes with failure itself. It is an imaginary situation that looms large in hindsight that forces teams and players to look backwards when they should be only looking forward. A common example of this in cricket is when a batsman attempts to but ultimately does not want to play a ball bowled in the corridor of uncertainty. With the batsman in two minds whether to leave the ball or play it, he goes with the middle path of nudging at the ball. As the ball kisses the thick edge of the bat, it flies into the hands of the fields standing in the slip cordon. In many such cases of being “edged out”, a post mortem analysis of the video reveals that the batsman has looked back immediately after he has edged the ball and even before the catch has been taken.

When a batsman is much concerned about slip fielders standing behind him, he focuses on what lies behind him, not on what is ahead of him. The head leans towards the off stump and being the heaviest part of the body, drags the back, shoulders and feet away from the line of delivery and thus an edge is produced. When managers are concerned about what is going on behind their back and how colleagues and competitors may be plotting his downfall behind them, the downfall inevitably happens as a self fulfilling prophecy. 

In 1999, during a test match between India and Pakistan, Sachin Tendulkar had played a gem of an innings with great back pain to take his team to a winning position. With very few runs to be knocked off, Sachin after a long innings got out. Pakistan went on to win the match. When asked later about how India had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the captain of Pakistan Wasim Akram had said that he knew that if Sachin had got out with even 3 runs to win, India would lose the match in the dressing room itself! Point to be noted your honour!

Learning While Losing

In post match conferences it is common for captains to refer to every victory as an achievement and every defeat as a lesson or a journey on the learning curve.  Every defeat brings a loss of face and thus leaves the captain at a loss of words. Hence the reference to a defeat being a part of the learning curve in most cases is a lip service paid to the concept of learning while losing.

Corporations and teams that learn from losses are those that stay safe. A conservative risk appetite that is based on rationale must consider the value of learning while losing. The climate that prevails in the dressing room, the mentoring from senior players and the feedback of the coach matter a lot in bring a player or a team back from the brink of a loss. The dressing room climate has to add value and create confidence in the team and its players. Many great teams loss matches in the dressing room itself.

Business and cricket are both great levellers. Each victory is a milestone and a new high. Each defeat teaches humility and humbles the greatest teams and individuals. Top PGDM colleges in Delhi teach a lot of case studies and corporate sector and cricket are never short of exemplary achievers who have touched greatness. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR, we would like to serve a unique footnote to this concluding piece.

Of all the animals that rule in the jungle the lion and the tiger are revered by many. Yet both tigers and lions despite being one man armies of their territories are on the verge of being extinct. The go alone approach does not work in the jungle, corporate sector or in cricket. Wolves are probably the most professionally groomed animals because they can hunt alone but choose to hunt in packs: “TEAM: together everybody achieves more”. As the British author Rudyard Kipling had once said:

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

Business Lessons to Cross the Boundary: Part 4

As we hit the road running with the enthusiasm of the ICC World T20, we continue to search for business lessons from the cricket field. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR the academic team always searches for unorthodox solutions to business issues. Over the last twenty two years of existence, there has been a great sense of realization about how important it is to create a vibrant and dynamic climate inside the classroom for young and aspiring business graduates. At the heart of creating a climate conducive to performance in the classroom, work place or the dressing room is the way organizations deal with people. Inventories can be managed but people have to be led. People and not brick and mortar make enterprises.

Constructed Teams are Ideal Teams

There is a lot of debate that goes into the merit of team selection and the way both cricket teams and business enterprises go about the business of selecting people. Many critics tend to go with the conventional wisdom that selection should be based on performance. The word performance has both the present and past dimensions. While it is true that no selection should ideally be based on reputation that has been built on past performances, it is true that past performances should not be completely ignored as well. Present performance is substituted for by the word “form” in contemporary cricket parlance. As the Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar remarks in Sunny Days: ‘Form is temporary Class is permanent.” A consistent performance trend needs to be identified depending upon the immediate goals and objectives of the team. Horses for courses are horses that win races. It may sound simple but carries a lot of weight.

In 1983, when India won the World Cup for the first time, a large chunk of the players came from 4 cities. In 2011, when India won the World Cup for the second time, the players came from no less than 9 cities. Constructed teams are built around differences in skills that individual players bring to the table. Differences bring the complementary factor into the team. Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were successful as an opening pair in ODI cricket because of the differences in their techniques, style, shot selection and temperament, not because they were similar. The United States football team under their coach Jurgen Kleinsmann has roped in players from different ethnic origins and nationalities, given them American citizenship and performed above average in FIFA World Cups.

Separate the Roles of the Player and the Leader

A leader is the decision maker and a resource allocator whose job is to match skills of players with situations in a game and optimize the use for the best results. A player’s role is defined in terms of what the team expects from him. An opening batsman is expected to give a flying start to the team in ODI cricket. A first down batsman is expected to play the role of the sheet anchor, shield the middle order and set the stage for lower middle order batsmen to slog in the end. The roles of the captain and the player must be differentiated.

Imran Khan had the role of being the strike bowler in the middle stages of his career. In his last essay in the 1992 World Cup his role was that of a captain who could win the World Cup. When two roles are given to the same individual, the yardsticks of performance measurement overlap. This should be avoided at all costs. Recall how Australia used to come hard at Sourav Ganguly, when he was the captain. The on field barbs, verbal volleys and in certain cases expletives that were thrown at him had the objective of creating tremendous psychological pressure on him, disturb his performance as a player and then demoralize him as a captain. If the bat of the captain does not do the talking, he is left with little or no moral authority to demand performance from his fellow team mates. While it may sound odd, results prove that it makes sense to continue with a captain even if he fails as a player as long as he is producing results for the team.

Communication and Not Instruction is the Key to Man Management

When a rookie Irfan Pathan was bowling to the Aussies in tests and got whacked by the strong Australian batsmen, he started questioning his abilities. It could have been disastrous for a man who had just walked into the team. However Sourav Ganguly, the then captain used to make it a point to reach out to Irfan Pathan, have a chat with him, and ask him for the exact kind of field placements he wanted and reassure that the alignment of strategy and execution would bring results. And it did!

A young Inzamam Ul Haq had told his captain his unwillingness to take the field owing to a continuous run of poor form during the 1992 World cup ahead of the semi-final. Imran’s reply was that he had not brought Inzaman from Multan to Auckland just to warm the benches. Imran said that he believed that Inzamam was the best player of fast bowling in the world. The result was a fabulous match winning knock in the semi final that pushed New Zealand out of that World Cup. The leader’s job is to communicate not to instruct.

Trust Deficit is More Dangerous than Fiscal Deficit

At the highest level of business and sport, the pressure to perform has, is and will always be there. It should be there. Numbers matter but more than that the tuning between the leader and his men! In times of recession, slack performance of the team and downslides, it is obvious that the leader has his neck on the line. What the leader does then determines whether the leader wants to save the team or simply his neck. No player enjoys performing under a captain who squarely puts the blame on his boys behind closed four walls of an office. The job of the leader is to take the flake on his own and yet come out smiling only to reassure his boys that the job can be done.

In 1992, the then manager of the Pakistan team Intikhab Alam asked the skipper Imran about booking return tickets for the team on the back of disastrous performances in the league stage. Imran asked Alam not to book tickets but to focus on the matches that were lined up ahead. The result: even after almost 25years of that victory, when Imran calls up his boys like Wasim Akram, the response is to sit straight and answer: “Yes, Skipper!”