IMM Comics: Life after MBA !

Last updated on Saturday, May 18, 2013|

Often B-school students aspire for a better life after MBA, which sometimes even becomes the primary reason for pursuing higher studies. Does life really change post-MBA? IMM Comics presents a small satire on "Life after MBA". Hope you like reading it !

Interview with an author who travelled around the globe !

Last updated on Friday, May 10, 2013|

Have you ever wanted to travel overseas? How about travelling across four different continents in a year and encountering countless memorable experiences? Sounds fascinating, Right! It gives us immense pride to have with us Mr. Adam Shepard, the author of One Year Lived, who achieved precisely the same in a journey that ranged from countries as diverse as the beautiful Caribbean islands to fascinating Philippines. Let’s hear it straight from the author!

Q. Tell us something about yourself and your earlier books.

I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina, and I played college basketball at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts. After my 36-hour professional basketball career in Germany, I went off to Charleston to live my first book, Scratch Beginnings, which is the tale of my effort to start with $25 and the clothes on my back in a random city to see if, in one year, I could have $2500, a car, and a furnished apartment without using my credit history, contacts, or education.

The book enjoyed some success for a few years, and then I hit 27 and thought about what else I would like to do with my life.

Creating green supply chains and ensuring a sustainable future

Last updated on Wednesday, May 08, 2013|

In 1985, Michael Porter gave the concept of ‘Value chain’ in his best- seller ‘Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance’, of which supply chain is an integral part. Two of the five primary activities: In-bound logistics & outbound logistics are explicit supply chain functions and in the other three activities also supply chain plays a vital role.

Please Recycle Label (Photo credits: www.recyclereminders.com)

When thinking about improving the productivity, enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing costs, supply chain plays a very important role. The importance of supply chain for a business is manifested in how it helps meet customer’s expectations. For example, it can be seen in Walmart’s same day home delivery system, Amazon’s efficient distribution system and Fedex’s overnight courier delivery. All of them are based on some of the most efficient algorithms & systems developed for logistics.

How to crack the glass ceiling ?

Last updated on Monday, May 06, 2013|

On March 8, 2013, the Jewish Museum of Florida, the only museum dedicated to the story of 250 years of Florida Jewish heritage, announced the winners of the 17th Annual  “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” awards for five women who have been successful in fields generally dominated by men.  What is Glass Ceiling?

Introduction

Glass Ceiling is the invisible but real barrier that obstructs women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, irrespective of their qualifications and achievements. In theory, nothing prevents women from rising as high as men. However, in practice, there are still such barriers due to the implicit prejudice on the basis of age, ethnicity, political, religious affiliation or sex. 

In a recent interview, Susan Lucas-Conwell, the Global CEO at “Great Place to Work”, gave keen perspective on how building and maintaining great work place culture drives business towards success. According to Susan, many of the challenges that women face in the workplace are the same as those for men like

• Parenting
• Multi-tasking
• Work/Life balance
• Juggling many responsibilities

A study made by Catalyst.org reported, Fortune 500 companies with three or more women on the Board outperform other companies with 53% more returns on equities, 42% more return on sales and 66% more return on invested capital. Yet, according to National Center for Women and Information Technology women executives account for only 6% of chief executives at the top 100 tech companies.

Microfinance Institutions: Impact, Sustainability and Regulation

Last updated on Saturday, May 04, 2013|

Our understanding of microfinance institutions is limited. It means different things to different people. Broadly, MFIs are neither exactly like government nor like businesses. They fall somewhere in between. They try to meet the challenges which typically fall in the domain of state with business-like approach. Their horizon tend to be shorter than the state and profit making is not central to their philosophy. These institutions, as opposed to the standardization method of the market and of the state, move towards developing localized solution to create insularity.

Community-based savings bank in Cambodia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Poverty, Inequality and injustice act as an impediment to a nation’s economic growth. They lead to a lopsided version of the society where the distribution of power and resources gets concentrated in the hands of few people. Initially, the poor had no access to loans from the financial institutions as they were not considered ‘bankable’. The cost of servicing this group used to be considered too high to make lending to this group profitable. In this landscape, microfinance institutions emerged as ‘niche’ players to cater to the needs of this ignored stratum. Regardless of their size, location and type of solution provided, all microfinance interventions had the common goal of social uplifting of the deprived.