Employability – a growing concern for students pursuing education in India

Dr.S.Sundararajan, Professor, SIMS

Many would argue that the core objective behind education is to gainful employability. They are not far from the truth. Indeed, many organizations that evaluate the return on investment in education do so on the basis of the employability quotient.The data with regard to India is, unfortunately, quite alarming. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), India has estimated unemployment at 18.6 million for 2018 in comparison to 18.3 million in the previous year. The reason behind this is that India has a small number of quality institutions in the country in spite of the growth in the number of higher education providers. Consequently, getting admission in the prime institutions is an uphill task as they would, naturally, like to maintain a student-faculty ratio that does not impact quality adversely. A large number of self-financed private institutions have mushroomed to cater to the burgeoning demand and lack infrastructure and qualified faculty. This impacts pedagogy and the quality of students they literally churn out.

As a net result, most of the students are not employable. They lack the aptitude and skills employers, particularly in the corporate sector, are looking for. They become a drain on the economy and India’s, much-touted demographic dividend faces the dire prospect of becoming a demographic drawback.The big challenge the government faces is how education may be re-wired to focus on imparting knowledge that responds to market demand. In Toffler’s words, how can education make students future-ready. Unless it does this, education and employability cannot be correlated. It would fail to transform lives and create a just and equitable society. Governance, consequently, would have failed. It is worth recalling that a recent report by The World Bank (WB) red-flagged India as needing to create at least 8.1 million jobs a year to match up to the employment rate of the country. This is a monumental asking, especially because over the past seven decades, education has never truly been a national priority. Gainful employment is among the grand challenges that India faces. It is critical for India to develop workable paradigms that addresses the knowledge revolution and the challenges the future workforce would need to address. At a fundamental level, it requires changing the very DNA of our educational institutions. The focus has to be on pedagogy and on infrastructure. This requires creating space and, indeed, a culture that embraces innovation and research.

SMG as Pedagogical Tool for Management Education

 

Introduction: What is SMG?

Management Simulation is a Computer based event that simulates a Business Scenario. It creates an opportunity for the participants to manage a business with multiple functional areas. They get to experience active competition and the perspective to handle it. They take strategic business decisions and see the impact through AIMA’s indigenously developed software.

Why Simulation?

Business simulation is a technique for developing, testing, and evaluating business strategies in a virtual environment before committing real money and effort in the marketplace. With the latest computer technology, state- of-the-art business simulations can manage hundreds of variables simultaneously and provide tremendous realism. AIMA creates business simulations using its unique and powerful software model.

Participants will experience a realistic and enjoyable learning experience, where they actually manage a multimillion company and benefit with:

1. Understanding the cross-functional relationships among various management functions.
2. Exposure of running a company in a simulated environment without causing damage to a live company.
3. Honing operative and strategic decision making skills under constraints of time, finances and information.
4. Understanding the financial implications of the decisions taken. Helping in finding and employing the available information for the data analysis of their own and competitor’s business.
5. Understanding the importance of team work under trying business situations and above all Gets a synoptic view of a company’s operations and experience the thrill of running a company in a competitive environment.
6. Developing business acumen through business simulation.

Managing Simulation is a new endeavor to provide an excellent opportunity to the current generation to familiarize them about Business Management concepts and manage a business in the simulated environment. The participants are sensitized to acquaint with the challenges faced by the top Leaders, Decision Makers, and Administrators as functional Heads to encounter these by forming the business strategies and making decisions. The exposure sharpens their business acumen and definitely makes them ready as versatile human asset to shoulder multi-tasking by using the business skills enhanced through developing business acumen through this Business Simulation.

Simulation Management Games (SMG) exposes participants to real economic, environmental and business issues. SMGs are effective in the hands of Faculty to impart practical skills to their students while concepts are taught; hence it creates a realistic simulated business environment and helps students understand the dynamics of business environment.  This programme will help the participants to understand the concept of SMG stands for Learning by doing and Doing by Learning, a pure experiential model.

End Note:

SMGs are played in teams of three participants each. Three or Four quarters of simulated business scenarios designed by the AIMA program facilitator are presented to the teams and asked to take and record their managerial decisions. Participants are welcome to use calculators or laptops. The decisions are captured and processed using software that churns out results in the form of business reports. The winning team is decided by overall profitability of the simulated business. The FDP program has initiated the faculties like us to inculcate these simulation techniques into the students’ mind/knowledge through their interactive session in the class room or laboratory sessions.

Participated and Written by

Dr.S.Sundararajan, Dr.D.Sathiskumar, Mr.S.Saravanan

Faculties of SIMS, SANSAC, Coimbatore-35

Online Reputation Management

S.Saravanan, Professor, SIMS

 A small or large organisation works on motive of getting higher profit out of its investment and growth of business. Profit and growth are directly related to the number of people business reaches. The brand of the organisation is vital in touching the daily lives of customers. Nowadays people go directly to social media to register their opinions about the brand or looking for more information about product or services. The brand presence online has more relevance how product or services perceived by the customers.  In today world of digital media the need for push and grab attention of brand takes all the efforts.

In digital world every individual is looking for an updated version of product or services. Customers have the luxury of getting information of product or service in mobile. Today brands should have a positive impact and bigger engagement online directly or indirectly to get connected on various social media. Online reputation is the key which helps in connect and build trust in customer mind for product or services. ORM can really help business build brand image which attract large customer base and engaged for lasting relationship.

Social media post is the simplest way to engage the potential customer and how the posted information reaction from the customer will determine the level of engagement with product or services.

In social media, fake news has greater impact on the trust and reliability on product or services. If the customer post negative information on product or services it reaches the people faster than positive review. ORM is the base for better engaging the customer and having a brand positive in the social media.

 

Marketing Myopia

K.Thirugnana Sambanthan,  Professor , SIMS

        Marketing Myopia is the term coined by Theodore Levitt. It is called as “Marketing Short-Sightedness”. Marketing Myopia would pave the way for a business to fail, due to the short-sighted mindset and illusion that a firm is in a so-called ‘growth industry’. This belief leads to complacency and a loss of sight of what customers want.

      Many Organization feel that their product or service is far superior than that of its competitors and they have an illusion that n number of customers are ready to buy their product or service. Having this wrong notation in their mind they fail to analyze about their product or service and they do not take any precautionary measures to handle any drastic changes in external factors.

      Organizations must ascertain and act on their customers’ needs and desires, not bank on the presumptive longevity of their products. In every case the reason growth is threatened, slowed or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management.

      Organizations must not fall as a prey of myths thinking that they are the superior players in the market and they can do as per their likes not taking into account of the customers’ likes and dislikes. 

         The basic concept to take away from marketing myopia is that a business will stay alive and execute better if it focuses on satisfying customer needs rather than selling specific products. Thus, this is as much about strategic planning as it is about marketing.

 

WAREHOUSE INDUSTRY GROWTH

Dr.D.Sathish Kumar, Professor, SIMS

            The Warehousing industry in the country is expected to grow at 13 to 15% in the medium term; these are by the impact of growth in FMCG, Manufacturing, Retail Industry, E-Commerce etc. The domestic warehousing industry grew from Rs 56000 crores in 2013 & Rs77000 crores in 2017. The warehouse is fragmented and most warehouses are having less than 10000 Sq feet, Almost 90% of the warehouse space is controlled by unorganised players. Modern warehouse capacity is concentrated in the country’s top six cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, pune, with Hyderabad and Kolkata, these factors like quality of infrastructure and availability of labour remains with these cities.

            Domestic industrial warehousing segment is expected to grow due to expected increase in global demand, growth in manufacturing activities and expansion in international trade etc. The demand for agriculture warehouse is expected to grow moderately on account of high base and expected normal monsoons. Integrated models, end-user industries are expected to growth of cold chain segment. Significant demand is also increasing from Vegetables, fruits and Pharmaceutical industries.  Scope for Logistics and Warehousing are promising.

A radical approach to job creation and education

Dr.S.Sundararajan, Professor, SIMS

India is a young country; nearly 65% of its population is younger than 35. It has an opportunity to drive economic growth on the back of its rising working-age population (those aged 15-64). This population has boasted a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2% since 2000, a situation often referred to as Indias demographic dividend. The nation is expected to add almost 10-12 million people to its workforce every year over the next two decades, with the working-age population crossing the 1billion mark by 2030.
However, India risks squandering this demographic opportunity if it cannot create quality employment opportunities at scale and train its growing workforce to excel in those jobs. With greater access to information and growing aspirations among the nations youth, the quality of employment that India provides will prove as crucial as the quantity. It is important to realise this as it is not just an issue for the nations confronting the demographic dividend or crisis, it is also a major risk for all G20 countries as they face the potential for significant migration, political instability and declining global growth if the challenges and opportunities are not addressed effectively in places. This will put significant pressure on the education systems in those places.
For India, it means having to add 6 million primary students, 76 million secondary students and 21 million university students to the current numbers. To achieve this through the building of traditional schools and universities would require the construction of 500,000 new institutions, requiring orders of magnitude more budget than India has in its entirety on an annual basis.
Leveraging demographic advantage will need active participation by academicians. Techno-Political-Governance model needs to be successfully evolved to execute Inclusive-Urbanization model for 100 top cities which will collectively contribute 70% of GDP to national economy by 2030. This will demonstrate the most appropriate turn-around strategy for rest of the country to adopt rapid growth and development to support and complement high performance urban network.
Academicians and Institutes need a radical approach to job creation and education.

 

                     Work Life Balance Exist

Dr. Priya Kalyanasundaram, Professor, SIMS

 What makes us so anxious that we need to nudge away our personnel plans for work and side line the people for whom we are working so hard. Do you remember skipping your lunch to complete your office work or sacrificing your vacation to complete your project or excusing yourself from your daughter’s school meeting for office crisis. How many times your colleagues and bosses have been around you to offer help when you are battling with a health crisis or family crisis?  None.

A research has been conducted for work life balance in four cities in India and it showed that Indians work around 2195 hours on an average every year above 1473 in Hamburg the city that was ranked among the top 3 for work life balance. Unlike the west a demand on response for mail and message is expected whether it is a holiday or during off duty hour. Mostly Indians are used to work “ beyond office hours “  and it has worsened with the digitally available era one lives in today you are on call 24*7 and in fact most of them say with pride. To enjoy a balance here are some few tips

• Having open discussion with employers: Have an open discussions with your employers and outline your expectation from the start work from home or working late to free weekend etc.
• Get Smart: To maintain a balance use new technology to make yourself efficient and productive so that you get more out of your time at work. Take your family for a break and do not multi task as it is more tasking and there are more chances of errors.
• Set Your Calendar in Advance: Take a stock of people and things that matters you beyond a fancy designation and if you are unavailable at memorable moments of your loved ones. It could strain your relationship. Highlight on your partner’s , children’s or parents birthday, PTA meeting and your annual holidays well in advance and this can help employers work around your plans. Doing this will ensure you that you don’t miss out quality time. Do the same for critical events at work place and this will help you to integrate the demand of both work and life.
• Self Care is Essential: Eat your food on time and spend atleast 30 minutes on your lunch break. Do not eat at your desk hangout with co- workers, laugh joke and lighten yourself. Develop your own cooling down mechanism like yoga, cooking, reading, playing with your kids or dog. Prioritise the importance and have the courage to say ‘NO’.

Let’s be real tomorrow when your walk away from the organisation. There is a replacement ready to fill your shoes and give careful considerations to your priorities.

Amazon as a Fintech player

Nishanthi, Professor,  SIMS

Amazon has become the innovation in e-commerce company, especially in India. They happen to be an innovation through technology and business models. The main idea behind their becoming innovation was just a single idea of changing the conservative Indian consumer and buyers to do shopping and purchase through online. Now what does Amazon is really focused upon!!. In recent times, apart from their investments in this e-commerce concept, they have diversified into online money lender thought capital float, which has specialized them in lending to small and medium scale businesses. Furthermore Amazon has extended to diversify itself into consumer loan lenders. Apart from these Amazon is laying the ground work to build a perfect eco system of the financial products around their digital payment which is well known as Amazon pay. In this regard Amazon has widened their payment mode range on Amazon pay by taking over upon Pay TM who is now seen as the market leader, and their partnership has typically about the customers, by making the customers to use their Amazon pay for buying pizza, booking a movie ticket and more. By keeping this as their core customer problem, Amazon has build up trust among all the customer and consumers for accepting Amazon pay. To put it across very simple Amazon is grapping the opportunity to transform the Indian’s payment habit. Amazon thus plays the perfect strategy towards lifting Fintech, which is going to be the next generation innovation.

This convincing power of Amazon has now hit thousands of merchants to accept Amazon pay. In short Amazon has sharpened its Fintech play which clearly shows that Amazon pay will soon become a much broader platform in the near future. It is more apt  to say that Amazon scratch the surface from one who is looking for a specialized startups who are ultimately favoring Amazon to figure out the way to build the right consumer solutions to the right person in terms of credit by making payment a simple and creating habits among customers to adopt e-commerce.

Amazon as a Fintech player

 

Amazon has become the innovation in e-commerce company, especially in India. They happen to be an innovation through technology and business models. The main idea behind their becoming innovation was just a single idea of changing the conservative Indian consumer and buyers to do shopping and purchase through online. Now what does Amazon is really focused upon!!. In recent times, apart from their investments in this e-commerce concept, they have diversified into online money lender thought capital float, which has specialized them in lending to small and medium scale businesses. Furthermore Amazon has extended to diversify itself into consumer loan lenders. Apart from these Amazon is laying the ground work to build a perfect eco system of the financial products around their digital payment which is well known as Amazon pay. In this regard Amazon has widened their payment mode range on Amazon pay by taking over upon Pay TM who is now seen as the market leader, and their partnership has typically about the customers, by making the customers to use their Amazon pay for buying pizza, booking a movie ticket and more. By keeping this as their core customer problem, Amazon has build up trust among all the customer and consumers for accepting Amazon pay. To put it across very simple Amazon is grapping the opportunity to transform the Indian’s payment habit. Amazon thus plays the perfect strategy towards lifting Fintech, which is going to be the next generation innovation.

This convincing power of Amazon has now hit thousands of merchants to accept Amazon pay. In short Amazon has sharpened its Fintech play which clearly shows that Amazon pay will soon become a much broader platform in the near future. It is more apt  to say that Amazon scratch the surface from one who is looking for a specialized startups who are ultimately favoring Amazon to figure out the way to build the right consumer solutions to the right person in terms of credit by making payment a simple and creating habits among customers to adopt e-commerce.

Managing Diversity in organisations

Dr.B.Sudhakar, Director, SIMS

Today companies are facing serious challenges in executing diversity and inclusion policies. Experts say that unconscious and conscious biases are the reasons for the failure of implementation of diversity and inclusion policies in the organization.  Homophobic behavior towards employees results in such acts by people at the helms of affairs. Hence organizations need to look at the criteria of selecting people to top positions based on the emotional quotient and their demonstration of compassion in their previous employments. Many experts have suggested that an appropriate use of psychometric tools and other methods during the selection process would help the companies to identify the right person for the position. Every company is focusing on this to bring in equity across the work place and bring in inclusiveness of all communities so that people are able to meet the challenges of biasness in the workplace.  Companies can ensure that the top leaders undergo necessary training on how they need to reflect of biasness and manage the workplace without any issues.  They need to understand the basics of this and have a rational mindset to understand and assimilate to act upon. Hence the roles of the HR need high Emotional Quotient to boost diversity at work. Recruiting the right person becomes important for corporate to face this challenge.

 

 

BLOCK CHAIN AND FOG

Dr.D.Sathish Kumar, Professor, SIMS

            Fog Computing is one of the challenges in a distributed computing environment.This environment is about how to safe guard network resources and transactions with equally distributed security structure. Fog creates nodes and all nodes have equal roles as per the capacity. Distributing computing needs distributed trust and security.

            Challenges in block chain technology will be how to manage trust in a decentralized, distributed manner among actors that don’t necessarily trust each other. Fog computing and Block-chain always has a match with each other. To maintain autonomous system it is true in cases where different actors need to work together. The autonomous features of fog computing require trusted transactions in situations where a system has to function while disconnected from the cloud. Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G applications have become a critical part for Fog technology. Distributed ledger technology is needed to establish an agreement for each transaction. Block chain agreement mechanism will not be suitable for all Fog applications. Ex: Proof-of-Work (PoW) agreement requires immense computing capacity and power to solve a complex puzzle.

            To adopt Fog computing, the open fog group is working on building an interoperable and compostable architecture for block chain in fog environment. The impact of this different entities in the system that don’t trust each other but need to make agreement decision in a distributed system. The group work in this area support autonomy.

            Several Block chain start-ups join the Open Fog groups, including:

• iExec: The First block chain-Based marketplace for decentralised cloud computing.
• Hyperchain: Enterprise-level block chain platform for fraud prevention, data trading, supply chain and securities.
• Keychain: Global block chain data security infrastructure for finance, industry and enterprise.
• Xage: the first block chain- protected security platform for industrial IoT
• SONM: Distributed cloud services such as PaaS and LaaS, based on fog computing and secured by block chain.
• Aetherworks: Original software for distributed systems. Including software-defined storage and fog computing.