Dr. Vrinda Jain’s tryst with Economics and her 12 years with Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida

“Geography has made us neighbors, History has made us friends. And Economics has made us partners,” said John. F. Kennedy once. That’s the wide ranging impact of the subject; from our day to day life to world politics. There are some who might consider Economics a dry topic, but Dr. Vrinda Jain displays tremendous passion for it. The senior faculty member who has been with Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida for 12 years teaches Managerial Economics, Economic Environment of Business and International Economics. Here she talks about her love for the subject and her association with the B School.

Dr. Jain developed a liking for the subject early on in her academic journey. The passion was honed as she pursued her Economics (Hons) from Delhi University. She was fascinated with topics like how does money come into existence, the role of Reserve Bank of India, and policy framework. Looking back on her tryst with Economics, she says, “These topics made me more curious about the subject. I did my post-graduation and Ph. D in Economics because I wanted to dig deeper into this fascinating world. My Ph. D was on International Trade because I was keen on knowing why countries trade, why some of them have common currency etc.”

These questions are extremely relevant in today’s world of globalization. As countries depend on each other, important questions about protectionism imposed by the US, India’s anti-dumping duties etc need to be looked at. Dr. Jain believes that Economics cannot be overlooked by anyone, least of all future managers. Since 2005, she has been trying to impart this knowledge to students at Jaipuria, Noida. “It is up to the faculty members to make the subject more interesting to students. When they come back to you with questions or show a keen interest, you know that you are reaching them.”

And though Dr. Jain says that her Ph. D in International Economics has opened new avenues for her, she gets true satisfaction from working with students and making a change in their lives. She has the fire in her to explore a lot more in areas of research, consultancy and training but imparting her knowledge to students is her driving force. “At Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida we are not just into career coaching. We do our best to enable professional learning and personal grooming in our students. Being closely associated with students as a mentor or in the role of a program director is quite satisfying and stimulating,” she says with the same passion she has for Economics.

What to expect at FORE- Summarising the unsummarisable

By Aanchal Malik, PGDM Class of 2016-18

Hello to all the new FORE admits. You have taken your first step towards what will definitely be an exhilarating two years! I decided to pen some thoughts, which will hopefully provide you with a glimpse of what will make this time exhilarating. So here goes…

First Trimester:

The beginning of your FORE journey can easily be rated as the most exciting period. This is the time when you will be surprised that so many new things can happen in such a short period of three months! Whether you have work experience or you are a fresher, expect to feel some pressure in the first trimester. There will be new subjects. Many will experience a classroom setting after a long gap. There will be plenty of new people you will need to get acquainted with. As daunting as it sounds, trust me: it can all be fun. Try to enjoy all this to the fullest, because time will pass way too quickly, so make the most of it.

Group Projects:

Group Projects and Group Work are an integral part of any MBA program. Most of your submissions will be done with your study group, which will be assigned by the luck of the draw. If you are lucky, you will have like-minded and hardworking people in your group of 4-5. This is important because you will be working with this same set of people for the entire 1^st year. At the same time, if some of your groupmates aren’t entirely agreeable people, that too is a good thing for you. Group work is a precursor to real-life situations that you will face in the corporate world. There, you won’t always be able to choose your colleagues and will have to find a way to work with all sorts of people. Consider this your initiation.

Student Committees:

I do not want to give the impression that the program is all about studies. The Student Committee activities provide another learning and growth perspective that classroom teaching does not. Through the activities, you gain hands-on experience in team management, coordination and working with an external network. At FORE, we have quite a number of Student Committees and Special Interest Groups – and all of the activities, from placements to inviting guest lecturers from the corporate world, are students driven. To make it a little interesting, there are only limited open slots. So, get ready to battle it out for spot in a committee/group of your preference.

International Immersion Program:

The International Immersion Program is always said to be the USP of FORE. This entails a week in Singapore to study in the Nanyang Technological University and have fun beyond your wildest dreams! Imagine a week in Singapore with 240 of your friends – how difficult would that be to organize on your own? Here, FORE sets up everything for you. If that isn’t enough for some, a trimester at the ESC Renne University in France as a foreign exchange student is also an option.

Extra-curricular activities:

Soon after the first trimester, as you get used to the routine on campus, you have a chance to participate in a variety of activities unrelated to your curriculum or career. These activities offer you a chance to continue to indulge in passions that you always had or even indulge in passions that you always wanted to but never could. Sports, Art, Dramatics, Social Service…. find your calling at FORE.

Hostel Life

Since the FORE PGDM is not a residential programme, locating and selecting an accommodation near the college is an added task.

FORE has coordinated with M/S Rajhan’s Hostels located in Katwaria Sarai near the campus for students who want hostel accommodation. The rooms are well kept and air conditioned. The food is acceptable but Delhi being Delhi, we have amazing food outlets nearby, offering delicious and affordable meals. Facebook and WhatsApp groups of FORE converts are the best places to look for a roomie in case you want to opt for a PG or a flat. Delhi’ites, opt for the hostel/PG only if you want to, considering the cost and commuting factors.

Whenever you feel bogged down by the course load or the feeling that there is always too much to do and too little time, remember that at the end of these two years a new and confident “you” will emerge, ready to take on the world. All the best with that journey!

Sandeep Balan of FORE School of Management’s Tryst with Write. Camera. Action.

“Films have always excited me. And books have always been my constant companions,” says Sandeep Balan, a graduate from the FORE School of Management (Batch 2005-07) who opted for marketing as his specialisation because he wanted to be involved with the exciting communication pieces that iconic brands put out.

Recalling his journey from a management graduate to winning accolades and writing a short film during his flourishing corporate career, Sandeep says that everything was possible because he found the time to follow his passion for writing. This desire was influenced by his father’s transferable job – this meant that books and films were his constant companions as he lost touch with his friends every time his father moved, he explains. And at a time when there was no Facebook or social networking as we know it today, this meant no distractions either.

Luck also played a big part in his journey as a writer when he was asked to join the Digital Marketing team at Idea Cellular right after his stint at FORE. This move fuelled his passion for storytelling as he began to create brand engagement through the digital medium, in which there is an emphasis on conversation and not just communication.

Moving on to Star TV after close to four and a half years with Idea, Sandeep found himself amidst writers who were churning out daily soaps. This helped foster his knack for storytelling and gave him invaluable experience as a marketing professional. Looking back, he says he found the whole process from ideation to creation a fascinating one.

United Breweries Ltd. was his next move after a year with Star TV, and here he heads the Digital Marketing space. “I feel I have done some of my best digital work here till date. At UBL, we put a lot of emphasis on creating the ‘money can’t buy’ experience for the end consumer. Our campaigns attempt to tell memorable stories,” he explains, adding that he has been lucky to have worked with some fantastic team members and in an ecosystem that is “conducive to great work, because of the freedom that top management gives us to execute our ideas.”

Being able to keep up with his enthusiasm for writing meant that Sandeep could develop a script for a short film titled ‘Half Ticket’ in his free time. “I was into writing short stories from my high school days and I would first test them on my sister to get her reaction. And my parents were always appreciative and would keep encouraging me to write more,” he says.“New age platforms, like blogs etc., only made it easier to keep writing and get feedback, sometimes really harsh comments, from random people. They don’t know you and hence may not have good things to say about your story. Feedback, good or bad, is always important and helps you reflect on your work” So, when he eventually wrote the script for ‘Half Ticket’ and wanted a critical review of his work, he asked his wife Naishy, also a FORE alumnus, to read the first draft.

“She gave me a lot of feedback on a couple of scenes and pointed out a few loopholes, which I hadn’t thought through initially. That, along with all the feedback I got from my team members at the workplace, helped me to fine tune the final script,” he says.

The response to the short film was overwhelming. Naveen Kasturia and Gunjan Malhotra put in fabulous performances in lead roles and took the film to extraordinary heights. ‘Half Ticket’ raced to a Million views on YouTube in a couple of weeks since its release and over 8 Million views on Facebook. The fact that it was shot very well and had great production value also helped. But success comes with its own pressures, and for Sandeep these are replicating the magic of ‘Half Ticket’ with each new film he creates.

For now, however, he seems to be the man with the ‘golden touch.’ The man who has seen several awards coming his way, including the Aditya Birla Chairman’s Award 2010 in the ‘Young Achiever’ category and the CMO Asia Star Youth Achievers Award 2014 from the Global Youth Marketing Forum. He was also the youngest candidate to be featured among eight futuristic brand heads of India by a leading social media blog.

Looking back at his professional graph and his days at FORE, Sandeep admits that the B-school was instrumental in moulding his career. “I wrote and directed plays, made corporate AVs for the college, made short films as part of academic presentations, contributed stories as a member of FOREword,” he says, elaborating on all of the activities that helped him achieve success. And, with a laugh, he tells us that most of the short films were set in our room or the hostel corridors. Things have certainly progressed from there.

Looking back on the films he created as a student, he remembers when his batch screened the premiere of a crazy short film he and his friends had created the night before their farewell party. “It was an insane script, a hilarious superhero story made possible by my awesome friends who brought it to life. It was meant to be our final sign-off to our batch and the juniors. We had a blast. It was our last night out at FORE,” says Sandeep. However, he adds, apart from the fun and the classes, an important quality he learnt at FORE was time management. He could never have “otherwise dreamt of finding time to write a short film” while he was working, he acknowledges.

Today, Sandeep affirms that the prospect of a one-on-one marketing interaction that social media brings to the table is both exciting and challenging for new age marketers like him. A challenge that makes working in the digital marketing domain both fun and exciting.

The Complete Manager

By N Meenakshi, Associate Professor in Marketing at Goa Institute of Management

Yes, the title of this article does suggest that there are incomplete ones. Managers seek sustained high performance in the face of ever-increasing pressure and rapid changes in the environment. Most approaches to sustained high performance connects it primarily with cognitive capacity. However, a complete, successful approach to sustained high performance must consider a person as a whole – it must address the body, the emotions, the mind, and the spirit.

THE BODY

The body is the fundamental source of energy. The key to increasing physical strength is the creation of balanced work-rest ratios. For example, in weightlifting, a muscle is stressed to the point where its fibers start to break down. And then the muscle is allowed to rest for at least 48 hours. The muscle not only heals, but it also grows stronger. But, if an athlete persists in stressing the muscle without rest, his muscle will suffer acute and chronic damage. Conversely, if the muscle is not stressed, it will become weak. In both cases, the culprit is not stress – it is the failure to oscillate between stress and recovery.

Rituals play a strong role in recovery. For example, the best tennis players use precise recovery rituals in the 15 or 20 seconds between points. Their between-point rituals include concentrating on the strings of their rackets to avoid distraction, assuming a confident posture, and visualizing how they want the next point to play out. These rituals have strong physiological effects on players: their heart rate rises rapidly during play, but drops as much as 15 p.c. to 20 p.c. between points. The mental and emotional effects of precise between-points rituals are also significant. They allow players to avoid negative feelings, focus their minds, and prepare for the next point. In contrast, players who lack between-point rituals expend too much energy without recovery. Regardless of their talent or level of fitness, these players become more vulnerable to frustration and loss of concentration, and are likely to choke under pressure.

Managers push themselves too hard mentally and emotionally, but too little physically. They do not realize that physical stress is a source not just of greater endurance, but also of mental and emotional recovery.

EMOTIONS

Positive emotions drive high performance, while negative emotions drain energy. Negative emotions like frustration, impatience, anger, fear, resentment, and sadness increase heart rate and blood pressure, increase muscle tension, constrict vision, and ultimately cripple performance. For example, a manager worked long hours and traveled frequently. He was a critical boss, whose frustration and impatience sometimes boiled over into angry tirades. A regular workout regimen built his endurance and gave him a way to burn off tension. He also developed a precise five-step ritual to contain his negative emotions whenever they threatened to erupt. First, he became more aware of signals from his body that he was going to explode – a physical tension, a racing heart, tightness in his chest. When he felt those sensations rise, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He then consciously relaxed the muscles in his face, and made an effort to soften his voice and speak more slowly. And then he tried to put himself in the shoes of the person who was going to be the target of his anger. Finally, he focused on framing his response in positive language. Initially, he felt awkward practicing the ritual, and often went back to his old ways. But, after a few weeks, the ritual became automatic.

There are a number of other rituals that help to offset feelings of stress and restore positive energy. For instance, music has powerful physiological and emotional effects.

Body language also affects emotions. In an experiment, actors were asked to portray anger and then were subjected to many physiological tests, including heart rate, blood pressure, core temperature, galvanic skin pressure, and hormone levels. Next, the actors were exposed to a situation that made them genuinely angry, and the same measurements were taken. There were virtually no differences in the two measurements. It means that effective acting produces the same physiology that real emotions do. Therefore, if a manager carries himself confidently, he will start to feel confident, even in highly stressful situations.

Close relationship is the most powerful means for promoting positive emotions and effective recovery. Spending time with family and friends induces a profound sense of security and safety. Such feelings are closely associated with sustained high performance. By spending more time with their families and friends and setting clear boundaries between work and home, managers will be reenergized and they will perform better at work.

THE MIND

The idea is to increase managers’ cognitive capacities, most notably their focus, time management, and critical-thinking skills. Focus means concentrating energy in the pursuit of a goal. Anything that interferes with focus dissipates energy. Meditation helps to train attention and promote recovery. An adequate meditation technique involves sitting quietly and breathing deeply, repeating a word each time a breath is taken, or just counting each exhalation. Meditation quiets the mind, the emotions, and the body, promoting energy recovery. Meditation slows brain wave activity and stimulates a shift in mental activity from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right. People so often find solutions to vexing problems when they are doing something ‘mindless’, such as walking, working in the garden, or singing in the shower. This happens due to mental oscillation, i.e. mental activity shifts from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right. Therefore, managers must learn to align their work with the body’s need for breaks every 90 to 120 minutes by alternating periods of stress and recovery. For example, an investment banker used to working endless hours without breaks, built a set of rituals that ensured regular recovery. Once in the morning and again in the afternoon, he did deep-breathing exercises for at least 15 minutes. At lunch, he walked outdoors for 15 minutes. He took fruit and water breaks every 90 minutes. He worked out six times a week after work. In the evenings, he often left his office early to spend more time with his family. At home, he and his wife made a pact never to talk business. He decided not to work on weekends. He instituted a monthly getaway routine with his wife. The result: he was far more productive, and the quality of his thought process measurably improved. He was doing more on the big things at work and not getting bogged down by detail.

Rituals that encourage positive thinking also enable sustained high performance. People have to create specific mental rituals that allow them to move from peaks of concentration into valleys of relaxation. For example, a golfer sharpened his concentration as he walked onto the tee and steadily intensified his concentration until he hit his drive, but descended into a valley of relaxation as he left the tee through casual conversations with fellow competitors. Visualization also produces positive energy. Visualization does more than produce a vague feeling of optimism and well-being – it reprograms the neutral circuitry of the brain, directly improving performance. It builds mental muscles, increasing strength, endurance, and flexibility.

THE SPIRIT

Spiritual capacity is the energy that is unleashed when a person taps into his deepest values, and when he discovers a strong sense of purpose. Spiritual capacity serves as a sustenance in the face of adversity and is a powerful source of motivation, focus, determination, and resilience. For example, a female executive tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking, blaming it on a lack of self-discipline. Smoking took a visible toll on her health and her productivity at work. But she quit smoking when she became pregnant and did not touch a cigarette until the day her child was born. Quitting was easy when she connected the impact of smoking to the health of her unborn child – a deeper purpose. She started smoking the day she was out of the hospital. Understanding cognitively that smoking was unhealthy, feeling guilty about it on an emotional level, and even experiencing its negative effects physically were insufficient motivations to change her behavior.

Making connections to one’s deepest values requires a person to regularly step out of the daily chores of deadlines and obligations to take time for reflection. Managers keep doing whatever seems immediately pressing while losing sight of the bigger picture. Rituals that give people the opportunity to pause and look inside include meditation, journal writing, prayer, and service to others. Each of these activities also serve as a source of recovery, i.e. to break the linearity of relentless goal-oriented activity.

A complete manager is akin to an athlete giving his best performance. The ability to manage all four aspects of the self – body, emotions, mind, and spirit – will aid in optimizing performance.

MBA Colleges Announce Application Deadlines for 2012-14 Batch

IIMs – 28^th, September, 2011.

XLRI – 30^th November, 2011.

FMS – 28^th September, 2011.

Narsee Monjee – 10^th October, 2011.

SP Jain – 30^th November, 2011.

IMT – To be announced soon.

FORE – 28^th November, 2011.

KIrloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies (KIAMS) – 15^th February, 2012.

 

After months of hard work, the day of reckoning approaches. The Best MBA institutes have come out with their application deadlines and it is time for MBA aspirants to start enrolling themselves. No surprises with regard to the deadlines, they are more or less similar to last year. The big change this year however, was Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Sciences (FMS) scrapping their own FMS Entrance Exam which they conduct annually. They will now use the Common Admission Test (CAT) instead.

Delhi University has always been historically conducting this exam for FMS. But they claim that they have to face severe stress on their other departments in order to carry out this national-level exam, and are unwilling to do so. Thus the FMS exam, scheduled on the 4^th of December, 2011 has been scrapped.

This has been a setback for FMS and the FMS Administration has voiced concerns about a possible change in the quality of students in their next batch as the FMS Entrance Exam is quite different from CAT. Reasons to rejoice though, for many who found the FMS Entrance Exam too tough to handle; they can still have a crack at FMS now through CAT.

Here is the list of exam window for the various Entrance Exams. Book your slots at the earliest.

CAT – between 22^nd October, 2011 and 18^th November, 2011.

XAT – 8^th January, 2012.

NMAT – 31^st October, 2011 to 6^th January, 2012.

Good Luck!