Guest Lecture by Rajnish Borah

The junior batch of SIMSREE had the opportunity of attending a session by Mr. Rajnish Borah on “Careers in HR”. Mr. Borah has close to 15 years of experience in Human Resource Management and has handled diverse HR roles. He is currently working as Head, HR, L & T General Insurance.

He insisted that the session should be interactive and started by asking the batch what they know about the various HR functions. Following which, he enlisted for the students the various specializations within HR such as Recruitment, Talent Management, Employee Engagement, HRIS, Compensations and Benefits, HR Analytics, Training and so on and spoke briefly about the role of each specialization. This helped in clearing whatever confusion the students had in mind about these specializations. He said that all the HR roles can be divided into four distinct categories: Administrative Expert, Employee Champion, Change Agent, Strategic Partner.

He also shared with the students the attributes required for becoming a successful HR professional. He stated that the ability to understand business is extremely crucial for an HR Professional to succeed. He also said that along with an in-depth knowledge of HR practices and the ability to successfully deliver them, a successful HR professional also needs to have a great amount of personal credibility. He said that although, traditionally, HR as a function has always been relegated to the back-seat and left out of strategic decisions, things are changing now because talent has become an extremely critical aspect of business.

Towards the end of the session, he enthusiastically answered all the questions posed by the students. The session certainly provided the students with a clear understanding of the evolving roles in HR. We look forward to more such interactive and insightful sessions.

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Finance Summit - FISCUS 2011

SIMSREE Finance Forum, the Finance cell of Sydenham Institute of Management Studies Research & Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE) organized the Finance Summit “FISCUS ‘11” on 1st October at Indian Merchants Chambers (IMC), Mumbai. FISCUS ’11 brought together students and finance stalwarts on a common platform to discuss a vital issue in the field of finance. The list of speakers included eminent personalities from the world of finance.

Mr. Suresh Kotak

The Summit commenced with the inaugural speech of Mr. Suresh Kotak, Chairman, Kotak & Company. The Morning Session on “Financing the Corporate Needs of India Inc” was chaired by Mr. Gautam Patel, Advisor, Battery Ventures & Managing Partner, Citta Capital. The other Panelists included Mr. Manish Arora, Executive Vice President, Country Head-Product Development & Sales Effectiveness, Yes Bank, Mr. Bharat Sampat, CFO, DCB Bank, Mr. Sunil Sapre, CFO, CEAT, Mr. Vikram Gupta, CFO, Essar Shipping Corporation and Ms. Jayashree Ramaswamy, CFO, Dun & Bradstreet.

Panel Discussion- Morning Session

The Afternoon Session on “Developing the Indian Capital Markets” was chaired by Mr. B. Madhuprasad, Vice Chairman, Keynote Corporate Services. The other eminent speakers included Mr. Prashant Shetty, CEO, IDFC Capital, Mr. Rajiv Anand, CEO, Axis Mutual Fund, Mr. Sunit Joshi, Head-Capital Markets Group, SBI Capital Markets and Mr. Subrata Ray, Sr. Vice President, ICRA. There were Keynote Addresses by Mr. Viney Kumar, Executive Director, IDBI Bank and Mr. Sanjay Jain, Managing Director, head-Global Capital Markets, JM Financial on both the topics respectively.

Panel Discussion- Afternoon Session

All the hard-work put in by the students in organising the event paid off as FISCUS 2011 turned out to be a grand success. The event was enriched by the variety and depth of industry experience of the various panel members, panel chairpersons as well as the keynote speakers. FISCUS 2011 has certainly raised the bar and will serve as a benchmark for all the future finance summits as well as all the other corporate events organised by SIMSREE.

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Foundation Day Celebrations

The auditorium at Sydenham College played host to a talented display of performances by the students of Sydenham Institute of Management, Research And Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE).

In keeping with the SIMSREE tradition, Foundation Day saw students dressed in traditional attire. The evening began with a Saraswati Vandana and the lighting of the ceremonial lamp. The proceedings were attended by the SIMSREE Director Dr. M. A. Khan along with other faculty members. Former students of SIMSREE were also present in the audience-it must have surely been a walk down memory lane for them. The rest of the evening consisted of a cultural performance, largely organized by the 2011-13 batch of SIMSREE. There was also a short ceremony felicitating the faculty and winners of various awards during the last academic year. The surprise package of the evening was a short address by our most recent alumni (of the just graduated 2009-11 batch).

This was a great opportunity to familiarize the new entrants with SIMSREE tradition. It was surely a memorable evening and was enjoyed by all.

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Sujan Roy

SIMSREE was proud to welcome Mr. Sujan Roy, Head - Marketing Services & Product Planning at Tata Motors on campus for a guest lecture on Marketing Communications for the Automobile Industry. Also, our Alumnus from the 2004 batch, Mr. Rahul Pansare, Head, Marketing Communications at Volkswagen Group, India was present for the lecture. 

Mr. Sujan Roy

Mr. Roy told us how love and passion for cars led him to work in various automobile companies over the years. Mr. Roy made a presentation, in which he demonstrated how simplicity and directness are the best marketing tools. He said that the customer should be given information in a simple, easy to understand format. The essence of an advertisement should be understood even with the volume off, since most people turn off the sound during commercial breaks. 

Also, he shared an important insight made by David Ogilvy- that the customer is not an idiot. Your wife is your customer. So you should always try to market things in such a way that your wife would be convinced. He also told us how cranks are generally the most loyal customers. They care more about the product and company than the employees. So it is good to listen to them and not dismiss them in irritation. 

He then opened the Q&A session. Many questions were asked by the students, about why various cars were positioned the way they were, how to stop companies from losing money on dealerships since people went to local garages etc. We thank Mr. Roy for the insights we gained into marketing for the automobile industry. It was an amazing experience.

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MBAuniverse Report on SIMSREE

A leading MBA portal MBAUniverse has published a detailed report on our very own SIMSREE. The report is extremely positive and covers every aspect of life at SIMSREE-starting with the admission process right up to the time one graduates from here. It also includes quotes from the 2010-12 batch and gives a glimpse of a typical day in the life of a SIMSREEite. The report ends with a note from the present batch to all future SIMSREE aspirants.

The complete report is available at: 

http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/4940/Life-at-SIMSREE-Mumbai

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Niranjan Hiranandani

SIMSREE was privileged to have Mr. Niranjan Hiranandani on campus on 20th August, 2011. Mr. Hiranandani spoke to the 2011-13 batch on success, how to measure it and what it means to an individual as well as to society at large. Mr. Hiranandani is an Alumnus of Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics. He is also a chartered accountant. He is currently the Managing Director of the Hiranandani Group (a very well known name in India, especially in the real estate sector). 

The session began with Mr. Hiranandani describing the real estate industry and further went on to describe the business ventures of his daughter Priya and son Darshan. 

Some of the points covered by him were: 

• Change in global perception about India 
• Growth and increase in technological prowess of India 
• Stark difference between the India of the past and present 
• Sea change brought about in the Indian business environment due to Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization policies of the early 1990s 
• Business ventures undertaken by his children, Priya and Darshan Hiranandani 

With respect to the last point, Mr. Hiranandani emphasized that money does not matter if one really has a good idea and wants to carry it forward through a business implementation. One of his more memorable statements was “Take risk; after all, life should be challenging and interesting”. 

The session ended with a Q&A and was found to be extremely interesting and informative by all. We look forward to more such sessions in future.

- Gaurav Mewati (Batch 2011-13)

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Sudhir Khot

The SIMSREE batch of 2011-2013 had the good fortune of getting an insight into the mind of an entrepreneur. Mr. Sudhir Khot, an alumnus of the 1993 batch visited campus to address the newly inducted batch on entrepreneurship. Mr. Sudhir Khot is the owner of Kaijing Agro Services Pvt. Ltd. He currently runs three other ventures viz. Rural Reach, Kaijing Financial Planning and Sahyadri Agricultural Producer Company Ltd. He has been successfully running his entrepreneurial ventures for more than 10 years now. 

He insisted that the session should be interactive and result in some sharing of thoughts. He asked the students to put forth their views on entrepreneurship. After listening to the responses of the students, he summed up the concept of entrepreneurship by saying that an entrepreneur is someone who identifies a gap in the system and fills it. He also helped the students understand the difference between an entrepreneur and a small businessman. He explained that the difference is how the Risk/Reward Ratio for an entrepreneur is much better than that for a small businessman. 

He advised the budding entrepreneurs on three points:

a) Don’t be stubborn and stick to a single business idea; be open to exploring new ideas. 

b) Don’t over-analyze your business idea. If you have a good idea, just follow your heart. 

c) If you really want to start a business, the right time is “now”. The longer you wait, the bigger will be your liabilities and it will become increasingly difficult to come out of your “corporate cushion”. 

He answered students’ questions regarding the relevance of management education for an entrepreneur, the dilemma about whether or not work experience is required before starting an enterprise, how to deal with initial failures and so on. The session provided a dose of encouragement to all the budding entrepreneurs and introduced all the others to the various elements of entrepreneurship. It was a very insightful and engaging session and we look forward to having more such sessions in the future.

- Gauri Sawant (Batch 2011-13)

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