Case study suggests strategy to offer 'maximum bang for the minimum buck'.
Wary of the times ahead in the job market, business schools are working on a risk-minimisation strategy and looking at doubling the pool of companies on the campus for the summer placements scheduled in November this year.
"Funds received from alumni and companies are usually meant for specific projects. These funds pour in between October and December every year. Current projects will not be affected despite the economic slowdown, but new projects might take a hit," said T K Ghosal, deputy registrar (finance), the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur.
It is mission damage control and ICICI Bank is pulling out all the stops. Weighed down by persistent rumours over its health, the bank's top management will meet senior employees on Monday to reassure them about their future.
Hollywood is all set to use Indian technology for the first time. An erstwhile incubatee at the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship, at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has been approached by prominent Hollywood production houses for his patented technology, which finds its application in the current film technology and also for Digital Intermediate Technology of the future.
The institutes have now begun sensitising students about business ethics and morality as well. Be it inviting eminent personalities like the Dalai Lama to speak on business ethics or incorporating ethics as a compulsory course, IIMs are making efforts to produce socially-sensitive managers.
The BCG project, which is supported by the United Nations' World Food Programme, the government of India and the government of Orissa, involves scanning finger prints and the iris for preparing biometric cards for a population of around 1 million. Srijan Pal Singh, an IIM-A student, who is part of the project, says the biometric cards will be filtered through a super computer to avoid duplications.
Some banks decide not to roll over short-term loans; others will do it only at higher interest.
This will enable the firm, a wholly-owned subsidiary called CIIE Initiatives, to buy stakes in the companies that it incubates by investing its time and resources.
Bankers have suggested that the Reserve Bank of India lower the statutory liquidity ratio and the cash reserve ratio as the present liquidity crunch is affecting their business. During the mid-term resource management discussion with the RBI team led by Deputy Governor Rakesh Mohan, the country's top bankers said the tight liquidity condition was pushing up the cost of funds and putting further pressure on margins.
The regulator wants to know if banks deploy the money to meet lending needs. Sources close to the development said that the central bank was checking if banks used the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) for raising resources to meet short-term lending needs or pay off high-cost bulk deposits. Bankers said the central bank might be worried that the steps taken by it so far had not eased the liquidity situation and that call rates remained high.
A senior SBI official said bank branches and controlling offices face a piquant situation where the top management expects prompt action, including filing of a first information report, while the local police is reluctant to register complaints often due to political pressure. Of late, investigative agencies have raised concerns over the large circulation of counterfeit notes.
State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, is on an outsourcing overdrive. After outsourcing the back-office work in foreign offices, the bank has now decided to rope in external agencies to set up automated teller machines to save on capital expenditure and reduce the rollout time. It plans to initially outsource 500 ATMs to vendors, including original equipment manufacturers.
A clampdown on fresh personal loans, credit cards and auto loans is taking a toll on direct selling agents hired by banks to push these products. According to estimates, banks have reduced the number of DSAs by 15-25 per cent, while marketing expenses are 35-40 per cent lower.
The Certificate Programme in Business Administration offered by the Institutes of Management has not found favour with information technology companies.
The yen may have depreciated to 110 against the dollar from a high of 96 earlier this year, but bankers are advising extreme caution in using the Japanese currency for raising resources and hedging risks.
Government banks have demanded that the amount eligible under the farm waiver scheme should continue to be considered lending to the farm sector till the government clears the dues to help banks meet the mandatory priority sector lending target.
While some have announced setting up of a PE club for aspiring entrepreneurs, others plan courses, special lectures and seminars to create awareness about the booming sector. Students of the Post Graduate Programme for Executives at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, will go through a course on PE in their last term between December and February.
Continuing the flow of home loans and accessing low-cost deposits are two key elements of the government's instructions to public sector banks.
Global crude oil prices have dropped 14 per cent in less than a fortnight, but the three public sector oil marketing companies could still end up borrowing more in the domestic market and put further pressure on liquidity. With the three OMCs still saddled with under-recoveries, estimated at Rs 820 crore (Rs 8.2 billion) a day, they have no option but to use bank credit lines in the coming days as they have run out of their stock of oil bonds.
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