Management without books with Dr. C.T. Abraham

The Corporate Interaction Division at FORE School of management conducted its first ‘Anubhuti’ session for the batch of 2013-15 on June 20, 2013. The very first session was graced by the Finance and Admin Head (India) at Asian Development Bank, Dr. C. T Abraham, who addressed the students on the topic “Management mantras beyond books”.

Dr. Abraham’s started his session by telling how every individual’s world can be divided into three spheres: personal, professional and partnership. He told the students how the three differ and how their roles in those spheres vary accordingly. He then highlighted a very important fact that passion is the main driver for anything to happen, and it is passion only that can lead to positivity which ultimately leads to perfection.

                   

Another important point that he highlighted was that it was very necessary to understand an ‘organization’s soul’ if one wants to function well in an organization. According to him, in order to be happy, the mantra is to not only exude but also absorb positive vibes in the work place.

Another thought that Dr. Abraham stressed upon was that students have to be more than just good employees. They have to see the importance of and thus be effective human resources in the organization. The first requirement for that is appropriate temperament to work, along with the basic skill set and the ability to work in teams. Lastly he discussed the topic of transparency wherein, there was a lot of interaction with the batch and the enthusiastic response was just an indication of how he had engaged the audience throughout.

Dr.C.T.Abraham Finance and Admin Head (India) at Asian Development Bank

At the end of the session there was a highly informative and entertaining question and answer session and the response of the audience could be felt in auditorium. It was a highly successful session, to say the least and the inspiration that it imparted the batch. All in all, the session was highly informative and fruitful. The students were inspired and participated actively throughout and in fact it was definitely an experience to gain from.

CONVOCATION

FORE School of Management organized its twentieth annual convocation on May 10, 2013, where 171 students of the PGDM (FMG - 20th Batch), 59 students of the PGDM (IMG – 5th Batch) and 28 students of the PGDM (WMG-19th Batch) were honoured with their diplomas. The ceremony was graced by Mr. R.C. Sharma, President, and FORE School of Management, Dr. B.B.L. Madhukar, Vice President and treasurer, FORE School of Management along with Dr. J.K. Das, Director, and FORE School of Management. Mr. D. Shivakumar, President AIMA and Senior Vice President India, Middle East and Africa for Nokia, was the Chief Guest for the ceremony.

                              Dr. Madhukar, Mr. R.C. Sharma, with Mr. D. Shivakumar lighting the ceremonial lamp                   

The ceremony started with a welcome note by Dr. J.K. Das, Director, FORE School of Management. After the ceremonial lamp had been lit, Dr. J. K. Das, Director, FORE School of Management presented the activity report for the year 2012-2013. The major highlights of the report was that FORE School had received the ASSOCHAM’s “Best B School - North” award from the Hon’ble Union Minister for HRD, Dr. M. M. Pallam Raju, under the aegis of the “ASSOCHAM NATIONAL EDUCATION EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2013”, on April 9th, 2013. In addition to this the placement report for the year was also released. Herein, the highest international placement this year has been at Rs. 32 Lac p.a. and the highest domestic CTC for the batch is at Rs. 15 Lac p.a. The major recruiters for the past year have been from the IT Sector, followed by the Banking & Financial Services Industry, Consumer Durables, Market Research & Consulting, Financial Services, Automobiles, etc.

Mr. R.C. Sharma, President, FORE School of Management declared the convocation open. In his enigmatic style he showered his blessings on the students, and advised them that as an individual every student had to “upgrade themselves time and again”. Thereafter he conferred diplomas to the outgoing students. The scholastic medals were awarded to the toppers of the batches, namely Sonakshi Goyal, Harleen Kaur, and Megha Agarwal from FMG and Swati Jain, Sukriti Babbar and Mannu Khanna from PGDM-IB.

Lastly following the convocation oath by the director, Mr. Shivakumar, an alumnus of IIM Calcutta inspired the students with a motivating speech where he urged the students to represent themselves as leaders of tomorrow, especially in times when India is all set to become a global giant. One of the most important messages that he imparted to the students was that, “Success and failure will cross your path in equal measure. Success doesn’t last forever and failure is not fatal. Have the humility to deal with both success and failure in the same way”. 

Students at the end of the Convocation Ceremony

At the end of the ceremony, the students left, inspired to set a mark in the world, with degrees in hand, ambitions in heart and ideas bouncing off the walls of their mind.

FAREWELL 2013

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.
                                                                                                                   - Ivy Baker Priest

It was on March 7, 2013 that FORE School of Management bid adieu to batches of FMG 20 and IMG 5 through a memorable and immensely entertaining farewell night. The evening that was graced by students and teachers alike was a conflux of trips down memory lanes, beautiful performances by the students, and smiles all around.

FMG 20 and IMG 6 on Farewell Night

The evening kicked off with a beautiful band performance by the junior batch followed by an amazing salsa performance. Slowly the senior students were called aboard for various fun-filled activities that the NEXUS team had in store. Amidst the various activities that involved role plays, and crazy dances, many awards were given out such as the conventional Mr. and Ms Popular ( Paras Dhawan, and Divya Bhadouria) , and of course Mr. and Ms  FORE (Abhishek Singh and Saumys Shrivastav). However there were also a few out of the box awards such as the “techno freak” award for the technology whizzkid awarded to Mr. Vitul, and “ Khiladi No. 1” awarded to the best sportsman of the college, Mr. Nitin Gandhi and many other.

Performance by outgoing batch

However the highlight of the night was a surprise, nevertheless sensational performance by the seniors themselves on a medley of songs. The utter happiness and the inherent confidence with which the seniors bowled the audience over was just a testament to the kind of expertise, hard work and style that everyone at college looked up to this batch for. At the end of the evening the floor was open to all and as the students of the outgoing and current batch mingled together it was with a heavy heart that yet another batch was bid farewell with best wishes for their journeys to come and the thought that though the song may have ended, but the melody lingers on.

DREAM MERCHANTS

“You Have To Dream Before Your Dreams Can Come True.”

_ APJ Abdul Kalam

The students at FORE School of Management had a unique chance to gain knowledgeable insights through the “Opportunity Evaluation & How to write a B-Plan Workshop” conducted by Centre Fore Entrepreneurship and then the gauntlet was thrown down before them. The challenge was: coming up with a Business plan. CED’s event Dream Merchant was all about it. The headline said: “It's time now to scratch your mind, enlighten the visionary path and come up with an extraordinary Business Plan.” And everyone made sure that the opportunity should be tapped. After evaluating the executive summaries of various business plans submitted by the batch, CED shortlisted 5 teams for the final round held on 6^th march’13 in Virajam Auditorium, namely Storm Troopers, Small Wonders, Dreamers, Avensis and Avengers.

Each team had an idea to change the world, each member had a vision. But there could only be one winner and to judge that, CED called upon some illustrious minds from the corporate world viz. Mr. Ajay Tandon (Director, Citi Ventures), Mr. Tarun Bhalla (Founder, Building Blocks) and Mr. Abhishek Gupta (Founder, HR Synergy). The idea was that they would be able to better judge the feasibility of a plan by putting it in the real and practical context.

Dream Merchants event turned into a dynamic field where ideas were generated bandied around, discussed, discarded and sometimes, with much apprehension accepted, because apprehension is the key to precaution. Judges were very keen to explore the ideas thoroughly. Teams made presentation and every presentation was followed by an interactive Q&A sessions where students and judges posed questions and challenged the answers. The ideas presented by the teams were varied ranging from emergency medical services to home crèches; from customized smartphones to online forums for celebrity fashion; no avenue was left by the teams. It seemed that every business opportunity that could be exploited had been explored by the students.

Judges with Mrs. Anita T. Lal (Faculty-in-charge, CED) announcing the results.

All the teams were effective in their presentations and incisive in their answers. All the questions were tackled with; teams sometimes found themselves wrestling with contradiction, cornered by the questions but most of them found their way out after one or two bumps. But, Storm Troopers, with their idea of Zindagi 24x7 or emergency medical services (with Mumbai as target city) stole the glory and came out to be the winner of the event. Avengers came second and Avensis came third. Dreamers and Small wonders received praise and felicitations for participation. After a final address to the judges, teams and the audience, the event ended with a residual charm. The charm of a dream we hold close and don’t share because we fear. Something about Dream Merchants made us believe the cliché: Everything is possible.

HR CONCLAVE

On March 13, 2013 the Corporate Interaction Division at FORE organised an HR Conclave that brought together Experts from the Industry on a platform to discuss the contemporary scenario and challenges in the field of Human Resource Management. The Dignitaries included Mr A D Burman, Deputy General Manager HR at Maruti Suzuki, Mr G Jawahar Deputy General Manager at Power Grid and Mr Naveen Kumar from the field of HR Consulting.

Mr A D Burman started off with the Paradigm Shift in the Business Performance Management and the true value of a company-its people. He discussed about the Inclusive Growth policies at Maruti Suzuki India Limited that are focussed on achieving long term results. He highlighted the importance of providing a Fair Assessment and Rewards to the employees, the need for a communication channel and the value of sharing Business Success with the employees at different levels.

Mr G Jawahar talked about Talent Management- the key challenge being Employee Engagement. He stressed upon the need to recognise quality and appreciate hard work suitably. He brought forth the emergence and contribution of technology in the field of Human resource Management. Mr Jawahar also underlined the need of a feedback mechanism and developing an organisation wide culture that should run in its DNA.

Mr Naveen Kumar discussed about the challenges to Talent Retention in the era of Globalisation, focusing on the new opportunities which are available to the youth who is driven by excitement and the need to invest and develop the right people. He shared the contribution of having a strong Employee Connect Network. The Session concluded with the Q & A session with the Students gaining beneficial insights from the Experts.

Code of Conduct as per Mr. Shubendu Kumar

On January 7, 2013 the Corporate Interaction Division of FORE conducted an Anubhuti session with FORE Alumni Mr. Shubendu Kumar on the importance of code of conduct in a business organisation. Mr. Kumar talked about how learning at a b-school was not just a culmination of knowledge about the business aspect of work, but learning how to work in an organisation was also a very important aspect of the b-school education.  Mr. Shubendu advised the students that what one needs to do in the organisation is ‘aim for an impact that you want to deliver’. In simple words he stressed upon how there was a basic code of conduct that each company expected one to follow even without the induction program that each company provides with. Thus, he talked about the basic mantra of believing in team work, maintaining the office decorum and having complete accountability of our actions. He also put special emphasis on ensuring that one is always clear about the doubts regarding code of conduct and ensure that no unknowing mistake is committed.

He divided his presentation into various parts to make sure that he took the students through all the intricacies of what an organisation may expect out of an individual. Thus, he talked about rapport building and non-verbal communication. He also, mentioned about how important was it to follow the basic meeting etiquette, and to remember that the culture of a workplace is never documented, only observed and followed.  Another lesson that he taught one and all present was the learning of interpersonal skills that included both verbal and non-verbal communication. While the former included traits such as conviction, confidence and enthusiasm; the latter stressed upon following proper body language etc. Another important aspect of interpersonal skill was the communication styles. He basically talked of 3 major styles, namely aggressive, passive and assertive and talked of how one should be aware of their own style and act accordingly.

Lastly he handled the queries posed by the students and ensured that all students left with the key lesson that often it was common sense and logic more than anything else that was essential for the personal and professional development of an individual both within an organisation and even outside one. 

RENDEZVOUS 2012

The FORE Alumni Network  organized Rendezvous 2012 on November 27, where those alumni of FORE who had done exceptionally well were called upon to share their experiences and address the present batch at FORE.

The five alumni who graced the evening and made the panel of the esteemed alumni for the event were namely Mr. Harkawal Singh (Batch 2001), Mr. Sitesh Padhee (Batch 2003), Mr. Ishu Bhasin (Batch 2007), Ms. Prakriti Wadhwa (Batch 2008) and Ms. Radhika Gupta. (Batch 2010).

Ms. Prakriti Wadhwa, who is currently working as an Associate Project Director- Qualitative and Shopper consulting group at TNS was the first speaker of the evening. She started the evening on a high note by reminding everyone of how tough it is to survive that first year in an MBA College “with groups that are never the ones you want to work with but the same is going to happen in organizations and this is what will help you all later.”

Following her was Ms. Radhika Gupta, a Senior Associate in the Telecom, Media and Technology domain at Grail Research. She kept her speech light hearted and tried to relate to the audience while reminding all to keep hope regarding placements and to not be rigid in their choice, as her last words were “ you should either do what you love, or love what you do and I chose the latter.”

Next to grace the stage was Mr. Sitesh Padhee who is currently handling corporate relations for mortgages in Delhi NCR.  Mr. Padhee reminded the students of how “in the corporate world it is your team that is responsible for you success, and each and every team member is equally important for success.”

Next was Mr. Ishu Bhasin, Brand Manager for Hero MotoCorp, handling marketing campaigns of the CD series (CD Dawn, CD Deluxe etc.) as well as the Splendor Portfolio (Splendor Plus, Splendor PRO, Splendor NXG, Super Splendor etc.). He started it off by a simple statement that he was all about "marketing, marketing, marketing”. He also reminded the batch of how it is the CV that selects you, but the road ahead is based on your acumen and talent.

The last speaker of the evening was Mr. Har Kawal Singh, who is currently working as Senior Manager- Marketing in Oral care products at Dabur. He reminded the students of how beneficial the committees at FORE are for an individual’s overall development. He spoke about how “being a member of FCD myself helped me gain confidence, and improve upon my communication skills, especially when it comes to communicating with the corporate world”.

All the alumni answered questions from the students that range from as simple as about the correct CV to thought provoking ones like the lack of work experience and how it influenced an individual. It was a highly interactive and informative session with all the students enjoying the chance of having their doubts cleared and learning from the experience that the alumni shared.  As the evening came to an end there were more than a few fears relieved, a few doubts cleared and a better understanding of what life after FORE might entail.