ISB dean elected to the Board of GMAC

This is the press note released in repect of ISB dean being elected to the Board of GMAC and published in Business Standard, and PagalGuy.com on August 01, 2007.

M Rammohan Rao, Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB), has been elected to the board of directors of the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC), effective July 1, 2007. Dean Rao’s election is particularly significant because he is the first Indian Business School Dean to be named to this prestigious body.

Speaking about his new role, Dean Rao said, “This is an excellent opportunity to bring global management practices to India. The ISB was one of the first B-schools in India to use GMAT® scores an admission criterion. It has helped us a great deal in establishing international standards of quality and in selecting bright students for the Post Graduate Programme in Management.”

"The Graduate Management Admission Council® is honoured to have Dean Rammohan Rao join its board,” said David A. Wilson, president and chief executive officer of GMAC®.. “He is an outstanding scholar who is now leading one of the most respected schools of business in the world. He will bring wisdom and perspective to the deliberations of the board." Dean Rao has been elected for a period of three years. As a board member, he will play an important role in making the GMAT® exam more accessible to people who wish to pursue a graduate management degree.

The ISB is also a member of the Council’s group of governing schools. Membership in this group is by invitation only, and the ISB is the only school to represent India. GMAC is the provider of the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®), used worldwide to assess applicants to graduate management education programs. The GMAT® exam is a highly reliable predictor of an applicant's ability to succeed academically in graduate business studies.In addition to its value as a predictor of an applicant's success in business school, the GMAT® exam is also a powerful tool for comparing applicants.

As an objective and consistent indicator, the GMAT score offers one of the most effective ways of contrasting one applicant with another, no matter how different their backgrounds may be. The GMAT examination, launched in 1954, is a standardized test designed to measure verbal, mathematical, and analytical writing skills. It is given throughout the year in nearly 100 countries around the world. Over the more than 50 years of its use, the GMAT® exam has been repeatedly studied, tested, and modified to ensure that it continues to help predict academic performance.

IBM announces collaborative SSME intiative with ISB and other schools in India

IBM, at the first India Service Science, Mangement and Engineering (SSME) - 2007 conference held in Banglore announced collaborative SSME curriculum initiatives with leading business and tech schools in India.

The company had signed a memorandum of understanding, earlier this year with Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. While signing the MoU, Professor Rammohan Rao, Dean, ISB said, "A strong industry academia partnership is extremely important for us to provide management education that is relevant and current. I am sure that IBM and the ISB together can conduct cutting edge research that will be immediately applicable in India, and also successfully replicated elsewhere in the world. The ISB is proud to be associated with IBM for pioneering this research in India."

"The aim of this agreement is to support ISB to open the SSME Program which includes high-end research, development of case studies and curriculum for the Executive Education and the Post Graduate Program in Management with the help of IBM so that the discipline of service science can be developed and lead to nurturing specialized human resources," said Dr. Daniel M Dias, Director, IBM India Research Laboratory.

Professor Viswanadham, Executive Director, Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies (GLAMS) at the ISB said, "With 30 % of our economy dependent on it, the service sector plays a very important role in the Indian economy. The Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies will explore innovative possibilities to streamline, transform and automate processes and develop human resources to deliver services more efficiently. The study will focus on service chains connected with ITES, Retail, Textiles, Logistics, Supply Chain Finance, Human Resource Management, Business Services and others."

IBM is working closely with IIM, Banglore, IITs, and Indian Institute of Science, Banglore to advance SSME research in the region. Dr. C. Mohan, IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist, IBM India, said, "The new academic initiative is designed to prepare graduate students for careers in the evolving multi-disciplinary field of services management. In the 1950s, IBM made a similar effort to help establish computer science as a new academic discipline."

S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai (SPJIMR) has partnered with IBM to study IT deployment services management model. The study results will help SPJIMR and IBM to develop a courseware in services design.

Nirma Institute of Management (NIM), Ahmedabad, has teamed with IBM to study managed deployment of eGovernance services. The study result is expected to provide guidance in managing the IT-based system deployment of eGovernment projects particularly in the area of citizen services and to contribute in developing a courseware on the eGovernance services.

The new programs draw on research and teaching in the fields of computer science, computer engineering, business strategy and management sciences to help students develop the skills required in a technology-based, services-led economy.

IBM said many leading universities across the world have begun exploring and investing in the field of service science, also called service sciences, management and engineering (SSME), to develop exactly these cross-disciplinary skills. University of California, Berkeley, Arizona State University and North Carolina State University are among a handful of universities in the United States that have established programs in service science. Universities in Europe and Asia are also creating programs in this area.

The goal of the SSME discipline is to drive productivity, quality and sustainability of services, while making the learning rates and innovation rates more predictable across the service sector, especially in complex organization to organization services including business to business, nation to nation and government to population.This new academic discipline brings together ongoing work in fields of computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social, cognitive and legal sciences, to develop skills required in a services-led economy. The global SSME research community is aggressively laying the groundwork for this challenging new research area.

Complete Source Articles:-

• IBM Announces Collaborative SSME Curriculum Intiatives in India - itnewsonline - 24-06-2007
• IBM and ISB Launch Major Services Initiative in India - ZDnetindia.com - 07-02-2007

The ISB's contract with Wharton extended

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has announced the renewal of its association with the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, India for five more years. The initial success of this association between Wharton and ISB prompted its renewal as well as the launch of an ISB-Wharton Joint Research Initiative that will encourage joint research between Wharton and ISB faculty, including curriculum development.

ISB Dean M. Rammohan Rao stated, "ISB has benefited a great deal from its association with Wharton especially in designing our curriculum and in getting the active support of leading faculty members. I look forward to their continued participation and guidance and hope that together we will be able to develop a substantial body of research materials pertaining to Asian businesses."

As part of this renewed relationship, Wharton faculty will continue to have opportunities to teach in the post graduate ISB program and executive education courses; contribute to the curriculum development, assist ISB in the development of course reading and case materials to be used in the post graduate curriculum; and help initiate a faculty development program for ISB faculty. ISB will endeavor to serve as an active platform for supporting increased exposure in Asian business issues for Wharton; assist Wharton in the development of course materials relevant to the region; and sponsor collaborative research between ISB faculty and Wharton.

Complete Article:- Wharton School's association with ISB renewed

ISB keen on self sufficiency in teaching faculty

The Indian School of Business (ISB), the five-year-old premier B-school founded and supported by leading lights of the Indian corporate world and global companies and relying mostly on visiting faculty from all over the world, has as its ultimate objective increasing its resident faculty to two-thirds or even three-fourths, according to M. Rammohan Rao, Dean.

The present structure of predominance of visiting faculty offers scope for building the reputation of the ISB, in which Wharton School, Kellogg School of Management and London Business School are leading associates. It also helps Indian students and faculty to familiarise themselves with the global business and academic environment at a time when India is in a stage of transition to a globalising economy, Prof Rao said.

Interacting with a group of invited journalists from different parts of the country at its sprawling 260-acre campus here on Friday, Prof. Rao said once the school was firmly established on the world map, it would raise its cadre of resident faculty from about 20 at present to about 45, constituting the majority of the faculty. He said that in the task of attracting world class talent, the ISB faced the task of competing with business schools in Singapore which had greater financial resources and certain tax advantages.

Ajit Rangnekar, Deputy Dean, ISB, said that in addition to the four Centres of Excellence that the ISB had already started, namely, those dealing with entrepreneurship development, analytical finance, capital market and microfinance, global logistics and manufacturing strategies, it proposed to open two centres devoted to strategic marketing and leadership training and management. From a student strength of 126 in its first batch of MBA, the strength of the outgoing batch was 418 and the students also represented ever greater diversity in terms of industry sectors in which they had worked. The share of women students was also increasing. Emphasis on research and combination of world class quality with relevance to the Asian and Indian contexts were important features the school's programmes and syllabus, Dr Rangnekar said. Apart from its one-year residential flagship PG programme in management, it offered general as also customised executive programmes for corporates and a post-doctoral fellowship programme.

According to V. Chandrasekar, Executive Director of the ISB's Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, the centre is working with the Department of Science and Technology of the Union government and the Andhra Pradesh government under two different programmes for developing business models for technological innovation and engineering design, respectively. It is also helping projects to find venture capital support with the involvement of U.S.-based TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

Courtesy : The Hindu

ISB - Placement Summary - 2007

Summary of the placements at ISB in 2007

For the first time since the last five years, the ISB has attracted companies from Australia and Italy. Leading companies based in Germany, Switzerland, Middle East, USA, UK, Singapore etc are visiting the campus. This year, a company recruited two groups of students as core management teams to run stand alone businesses. These groups of 4/5 students will responsible for setting up the project from Ground Zero and leading it to become a success.

In a press release to The Hindu, Dr. Rammohan Rao said: "Now on a sharp growth curve, the Indian economy provides opportunities for our students to grow with it. Taking a balanced view and opting for strong roles irrespective of compensation is a mark of maturity. I am glad to see that the youth of India are demonstrating confidence in their abilities and in our economy," he said. Among the `non-traditional' sectors increased are several international and domestic companies and of particular interest are micro-finance companies, NGOs, real estate, retail, infrastructure like steel, cement, oil and natural gas. Companies looking to make offers for senior management roles include Holcim Ltd (a leading Global player in cement industry), Tischman Speyer (a leading real estate and consulting agency), Italcementi S.p.A (fifth-largest cement producer in the world), Arcelor Mittal (Largest steel producer in the world) and Santos (A major Australian oil and gas exploration and production company with presence in Australia, USA, Papua New Guinea and Egypt).

HIGHLIGHTS

Class Size 416
Average Age 27 Years
Average Work Experience 5 Years
Total number of participating students 414
Total number of companies that participated 202
Total number of offers 581

Highest International salary USD 2,69,000
Average International salary USD 135,000
Highest Indian salary INR 43,91,000
Average Indian salary INR 15,03,000
Highest International salary for a woman student USD 161, 000
Highest domestic salary for a woman INR 2, 700, 000

A word of caution:- When ISB computes the average domestic and international salaries, it takes into account all offers that have been made to the students independent of whether they have been accepted or not. For example, a student gets three offers - two domestic offers of INR 2 million and INR 3 million per annum and one international offer of USD 150,000 per annum and he accepts only the domestic offer of INR 3 million per annum, then ISB takes into account all the three offers for computing averages and not the one that has been accepted by the student. Please be careful while understanding the averages as these averages refer to the offers made rather than to the offers accepted. The above figures are based on the Cost to the Comapny (CTC) which may include monetary benefits that could be realised only after a lapse of time like two to three years. It also includes the signing bonus, which may not recur subsequently.

ISB's road to rural areas and small towns

Here is a good news for applicants from rural areas and small towns who cannot afford their education in ISB. The often-termed `elite school of business' is planning to make its presence felt among the rural and small town populace. The effort will come from the alumni of the ISB, which is considering a scholarship targeting this sector.

Arjun Shankar, Chief Executive Officer, Ramky Global Solutions Private Limited and president of the alumni association, told The Hindu : "There is a lot of talent that needs to be tapped in rural areas. And this sector for some reasons is shying away from the ISB community."

The alumni seem to be conscious of the fact that students from the rural sector vie to get through other top-notch Indian institutes like IIT, but not ISB. There is a lack of awareness about the institute among the rural students and we need to bridge this gap. People from underprivileged backgrounds passing out from IIT do well in life. They can do the same here too and we need to create an environment where they can at least apply.


However, the alumni and the business school still needs to figure out the quantum of scholarship, identify the segment and performance parameters for all the proposals. The proposals will be subject to the school management's discretion.

Complete Article : ISB to make its presence felt among rural, small town populace - The Hindu