'Play the game by the rules'

J J Irani, director, Tata Sons said ethics, communication and long-term planning are crucial for every successful business. "Play the games of business according the rules even if your competitor does not," he said while stressing on the importance of ethics in business.

Irani was the chief guest at the seventh convocation of the Nirma Institute of Management in Ahmedabad on Saturday evening. As many as 106 full time and 29 part time students were conferred with diplomas at the function.

On the significance of long term planning, Irani said all short term planning must be with focus on long-term goals. "Think and plan for the long term. Shot term strategies should be building blocks towards the long-term picture," he said.

He added that the team is far more important than a collection of individuals. "All of you must be team players and each must aspire to become the captain of the team," he said.

Karsanbhai Patel, president of Nirma University, said, within a span of eight years, Nirma University has been able to establish itself as a centre of excellence in management education, research and training.

"The institution is rated as one of the top 25 B-schools in the country and amongst the top ten B-schools established after 1990," Patel said. He contributed the success of the institute to diversity and quality of programmes, thrust on industry relevance and a dedicated faculty.

Nirma Institute of Management began offering full fledged MBA programmes from the 2003-05 session. This was after the Gujarat government conferred 'university' status to the educational institute.

Patel said it was heartening that there were about 7000 aspirants from all over the country interested in joining the management programme, while there were just 106 seats for full-time students.

Stating that the alumni of the institute had reached senior positions in corporates, Karsanbhai Patel expressed confidence that the graduating batch will also return as recruiters in the next few years.

Engineers comprised 48 per cent of the graduating batch of students from NIM, while the rest were from commerce, economics and arts backgrounds. About 30 per cent of the graduating students had work experience before they joined the institute.

For the post graduate diploma in management (full time), Saurabh Ganguly received the award for overall performance while Pathik Shah received the best student award for the post graduate diploma in management (evening).

Aditi Mehra received the first rank in the scholastic awards category for the full time course, followed by Anshul Jain and Atul Shikla. The toppers in different specialisations were Aditi Mehra (Marketing), Kamlesh Chauhan (Finance), Nayana Ghosh (HR Management) and Shraddha Balal (IT).