Campus Diary

DSE DELHI
Invisible Insights

Invisibles, not weighed down by the industrial phenomenon of diminishing returns to scale, can keep expanding output while also ascending the value curve""limited, in theory, only by the consumer's abilty and willingness to pay for them. So should invisibles be marketed differently from regular products?

That was the issue under discussion at a services marketing conference organised by students of international business at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE).

B Narayanswamy of Indica Research held a lively interactive session on the marketing of intangibles. Mohit Bhatia of DSP Merrill Lynch spoke of the potential in mutual funds, which can do better reaching out.

ISB HYDERABAD
Reach Afar For Knowledge

Hyderabad's Indian School of Business (ISB) has done it. Initiated a student exchange programme, that is, with a Chinese B-school, the 2002-begun Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), Beijing.

Given how West-transfixed Indian educational interactions have been so far, this could give an entirely new "Chindia" dimension to such exchanges. M Rammohan Rao, Dean, ISB, speaks of the two schools as "ideal partners for exposing our students to each others' expertise, heritage and culture".

On the other hand, Jean Lee, Associate Dean, CKGSB, speaks of "sharing new ways of doing business in emerging markets." Globalisation in the borderless sphere of knowledge is beginning to get exciting all over again.

WIM MUMBAI
Marketers At The Gate

Mumbai's Welingkar Institute of Management (WIM) has struck a relationship with Pantaloon to offer a two-year post-grad programme in Retail Management, a discipline expected to gain rapidly in prominence as India modernizes and the likes of Wal-Mart set up shop.

Kishore Biyani, managing director, Pantaloon Retail Ltd, which runs Big Bazaar, looks forward to a "unique blend" of academic and on-the-floor retail training (not to mention steady manpower inflow).

Meanwhile, Uday Salunkhie, director, WIM, is also pleased. He is proud of this move to establish "an industry academia interface". Expect more along these lines in time to come. The trend of the marketplace edging closer to academia is intensifying.

Ask the youth. The word "lux" was once part of Yale's crest, with sculptural echoes of Oxford. Now, it's a soap with a "beauty secret".

LBSIMS DELHI
Institutionalized Exploration

Delhi's Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management (LBSIM) is preparing to felicitate former IAS officer C.P. Srivastava, the year's winner of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for "Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management", though the actual award will be given away by President Kalam at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Previous winners include C.K. Prahalad, Sam Pitroda and N.R. Narayana Murthy. "We must honour people who the younger generation can draw inspiration from," says Anil Shastri, chairman, LBSIM, describing Srivastava as "an institution builder".

Ever given to the pursuit of maritime exploration, he set up the World Maritime University in Sweden "" no believer, one assumes, in anchor worship.