B-schools woo multinationals

Come July, professor Nilanjan Chatopadhyay "� placement chairman at the Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad "� will start living life out of his suitcase, literally.

From July 2007 through January 2008, he will be travelling to Singapore and Hong Kong to make presentations to the MNCs based there and invite them to IMT's campus for placements next year.

With scheduled visits to 15 companies in Singapore and eight in Hong Kong, IMT has set aside a fund of Rs 6 lakh for promotional activities like these.

In fact, to beat the growing competition among B-schools to get the maximum number of MNCs on their campuses, a host of management institutions in the country have now thought of 'a networking strategy' and reach out to MNCs if they do not come to their campuses for placements.

At IIM Kozhikode, a student along with the placement chairman has been conducting such trips and the institute now plans to strategise the same. This year, the institute got 12 new companies on the campus during placements.

Says a final year student of IIM-K: "Last academic year, the placement chairman and I went on a Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore trip to carry out promotional activity. This academic year, the institute plans visit MNCs based in Singapore, Hong Kong and the US."

Xavier Institute of Management (XIM), Bhubaneshwar, too has initiated this process of networking. The institute's director and placement officer visited 100 companies last year in India, Singapore and Dubai. The institute plans to visit around 150 companies this year.

It shells out around Rs 6 lakh on such promotional activities and this year the budget might increase with the institute planning to approach companies in the UK and US.

Besides visiting these companies, these institutes rely well on the alumni network which does a good job of promoting them.

"With the alumni's placed all over the world, our students spread the good word and a lot of companies come to our campuses for recruitment. Of all the alumni, even if 10 per cent visits our campus for recruitment, it is enough," says Chatopadhyay. IMT plans to target companies in the Middle East too.

Before planning such promotional visits, the institutes get a database from their alumni associations on which are the companies who are visiting Indian b-school campuses from that country.

They then approach the CEO and HR heads of these companies, make a presentation to them about the institute, its global academic associations, placements and performance over the years. Later, they invite them to the campus for placements.

Special brochures are designed for this activity. In most of the cases, the b-school only pays for the travel. The alumni take care of hospitality.

Other promotional activity for these institutes is through the student exchange programmes. When there students go abroad they take pamphlets of the institute along and distribute it among the foreign students and companies they intern with, telling them about their institute.

No wonder that the number of foreign companies visiting these campuses have risen during placements this year.