Campus Dairy

Ho-hum soundbytes are not what you'd expect at an IT seminar organised at IIM-Kozhikode, the director of which, Krishna Kumar, seems to have adopted brainstorms as a strategic device to elevate its reputation. And ho-hum it wasn't.

The theme: "Crossing the Chasm". Rediff founder Ajit Balakrishnan called for patience with the great big e-shift, reminding everyone how long the industrial revolution took (a century).

Wipro's chief marketing officer, Jessie Paul, spoke of brand success in terms of "sustainable differentiation" in a presentation that put 0s and 1s in synergy, so to speak, to the sound of a santoor. There was talk of "intrapreneurship" and niche-by-niche scaleability too.

ISB HYDERABAD: Diesel Double

"We need to understand the domestic consumer better," said V. Sumantran, former Executive Director, Passenger Cars Business Unit & ERC, Tata Motors.

This, as he found from his experience with Indica, is the way to "manufacturing competitiveness""" as he made clear at an ISB seminar on this issue.

Thus did he direct attention from "manufacturing" (mostly internal issues) to "competitiveness" (market issues), but only after much hand-wringing had occured on supply chain inefficiencies and India's creaky infrastructure.

Diesel talk, meanwhile, was equally relevant to ISB's executive programme on the business of fashion brands, conducted by Salman Khokhar of the Centre for Professional Studies, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), New York.

IMI DELHI: Village Justified

The Qutab Institutional Area campus of Delhi's International Management Institute (IMI) recently played host to 48 executive students of Georgetown Business School accompanied by Stanley Nollen and Reena Aggarwal, both professors at the B-school.

Global issues of business education were discussed, as also aspects of the Harvard Business School case on ITC's e-choupal initiative in rural management. "The e-choupal initiative to empower rural poor recently faced resistance from powerful vested interests in cultural India," said C. S.

Venkata Ratnam, Director, IMI, "But the pressure groups did not succeed as the farmers took out a procession defending the contribution made by ITC and how it has made a significant difference in their lives." The visitors listened , rapt.

MDI GURGAON: Case In Point

In yet another link-up with the government for specialized management education, Gurgaon's Management Development Institute (MDI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of India's Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, to start a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Policy Management.

Assuredly, other B-schools are unlikely to follow suit, though "grievance management" makes for an intriguing subject "" if boredom could somehow be blown off.

Having once used the Aamir Khan film Lagaan as a case in team dynamics, B-schools might be tempted to use The Rising as a case in the Malcolm Gladwell-coined concept of the "Tipping Point".