19. Post-graduate Certificate In Business Management For Defence Personnel

• Nature Of Course: Short-term business management programme for ex-servicemen
• Institute: Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Pune
• Duration: 6 months
• Work Experience: 5-20 years of service
• Batch Size: 50 participants
• Fees: Rs 1.75 lakh

20. International Negotiating Skills

• Nature Of Course: Contractual relations and inter-cultural skills
• Institute: IIM Bangalore
• Duration: 3 days
• Participant Profile: Middle- and senior-level executives
• Batch Size: 25-40 participants
• Fees: Rs 45,000 (residential), Rs 42,000 (non-residential)

21. Advanced Analytics For Management

• Nature Of Course: Business intelligence and data mining
• Institute: IIM Ahmedabad
• Duration: 4 days
• Participant Profile: Senior- and top-management from the banking, financial services, pharma, manufacturing and retail sectors
• Batch Size: 30 participants
• Fees: Rs 60,000

22. Food Supply Chain Management

• Nature Of Course: Supply chain and logistics in the food sector
• Institute: IIM Ahmedabad
• Duration: 1 week
• Participant Profile: Managers from private, government and co-operative organisations
• Batch Size: 40 participants
• Fees: Rs 70,000

23. Supply Chain Management

• Nature Of Course: Supply-chain integration and logistics for all industries
• Institute: IIM Calcutta
• Duration: 4 days
• Participant Profile: Senior- and mid-level managers
• Batch Size: 40 participants
• Fees: Rs 30,000

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On the battlefield, they have daring plans to conquer everything that comes in their way. This six-month course helps retired defence personnel do the same on civvy street. Strictly speaking, it isn’t a niche course. But it helps defence personnel specialise in specific functional areas related to the world of business. It was launched five years ago by the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies along with the Ministry of Defence’s Directorate General of Resettlement. The programme helps them build corporate careers across domains ranging from business development and administration to IT and telecom. “It teaches people from the armed forces the functional processes of the corporate world,” says Lieutenant Colonel Sachin Virkar, who completed the course and now has the pleasant dilemma of choosing from four job offers.

Students from the services have built up their skills. Here, we’re just sharpening them.Dr MC Agarwal, Associate Dean of Executive Education, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies

The curriculum covers a number of management disciplines, including finance, marketing, HR and operations. Seminars, workshops, case studies, group discussions and lectures are the common teaching methods. Students are continually kept on the ball with regular quizzes, mid-term tests, assignments and presentations. “It’s an interactive mode of teaching. They have already built their skills in the armed forces. Here, we’re just sharpening them,” says Dr MC Agarwal, the institute’s Associate Dean of Executive Education.

The general perception is that defence personnel excel only in professions like security services. Agarwal emphatically contradicts this: “Their experience in managing large-scale activities is better than most.” Many of his students have found successful and fulfilling careers in supply-chain management. And they have been recruited by the who’s who of India Inc: the Tata Group, Reliance, Bajaj, ICICI and Mahindra & Mahindra, among others. The first three batches saw 100% placement. Last year, the number fell to 50% because of the slowdown, but Agarwal is confident that the rest will be scooped up soon.

Tata Interactive, an e-learning company, recruited 10 graduates of the programme. “They were amazed by our students’ capabilities and the way they handled various projects,” says Agarwal, satisfaction writ large on his face.

The Defence Ministry foots 60% of a student’s course fee. And the programme isn’t restricted only to ex-servicemen; it can also be availed of by family members of servicemen killed in service. In 2008, an air force pilot’s widow was enrolled in the programme by the defence ministry. Today, she is well placed in Lonavala with the Kohinoor Institute of Management.

At IIM Bangalore (IIM-B), ‘advanced negotiations’ is a 17-year-old theme for executive education. Its evolution as a programme has been peculiar, but points to how far Indian enterprises have come in the global marketplace. The course started as a week-long programme. It ran that way for eight years until organisations started becoming reluctant to let their senior managers go for seven successive days. IIM-B responded, in 2000, by reducing the programme’s duration to three days. Participation not only reverted to normal, it rose.

Business intelligence is an important tool from a decision-making perspective.Professor Rajanish Dass, Faculty Member, Computer and Information Systems Group, IIM Ahmedabad

“Negotiating skills have become more institutionalised as an area of considered practice, rather than a one-off thing, in Indian organisations,” believes S Raghunath, Professor, Corporate Strategy & Policy, IIM-B. So, it’s not just senior managers who are expected to have the know-how, but rising managers too. “The managers we have seen in the past nine years have far more exposure to geographies than their predecessors.”

The faculty is seasoned in dealing with diverse participants. The International Negotiating Skills programme carries forward this IIM-B tradition in advanced negotiations. Its participants comprise functional managers and general managers, from both the public and private sectors. In recent times, the participation of expats with commercial roles in India has also been significant. The programme is spearheaded by

Alexandra Benz, an academic and international consultant, who also held positions at the World Bank and the United Nations during the 1960s.

As much as this programme addresses the core subjects of cross-border negotiations, it also addresses the soft skills required in complex negotiations. The sessions have a strong cultural flavour. As part of their learning, participants review and integrate basic concepts in inter-cultural situations. There is a deep focus on analysing different cultural environments to show how they affect negotiations.

Benz invokes the Harvard Negotiation Project, which is innate to any management course in international negotiations. The Harvard material dates back to 1978, with roots in Camp David, where the US brokered a peace pact between Israel and Egypt. Two Harvard researchers, Roger Fisher and William L Ury, were part of the US contingent. Their work has become the Harvard Negotiation Project, whose tenets are legendary. Sample these: don’t bargain over positions; focus on interests; insist on applying objective criteria.

“Negotiations follow a certain framework, in stages. Each stage has a level of preparation—at the content level, and at the process level,” says Professor Raghunath, who has a module in the programme. “We do actual cases where participants play roles from real-life cases. So, they experience the cultural aspects of each stage before we proceed to analysis.” In all, participants learn to apply strategies, styles, attitudes and behaviour that fit into typical international negotiating situations.

In January 2009, even as the economic slowdown threatened to stymie demand, auto major Maruti Suzuki stepped on the pedal. Its confidence to churn out new models and step up production in a grim market came from two places. One, the tax cuts announced by the government as part of the stimulus package. Two, the power of business analytics. When it sliced and diced numbers, both for the overall market and its own cars, it found many pockets of demand.

In a dynamic market, business intelligence is a tool no manager can afford to do without. “It’s important from a decision-making perspective,” asserts Professor Rajanish Dass, who drives the Computer and Information Systems Group at IIM Ahmedabad. Managers need to process data that their company performance throws up. Such ‘data mining’ calls for statistical analysis, almost on a real-time basis, and predictive modelling. The latter function enables an executive team to anticipate the nature of demand. Every company is doing this, which only puts the onus on a manager or unit head to apply new technologies and know-how to uncover something the market doesn’t know yet. Information is king.

We look at issues (in the food sector) closely and help the participants come up to speed.G Raghuram, Professor, Public Systems Group, IIM Ahmedabad

To address this, leading management institutes have introduced a host of open programmes in business intelligence. At IIM-A, the Advanced Analytics for Management programme has been in vogue since 2007. It attracts about 30 participants from the senior- and middle-management level. Each tier is treated differently, with emphasis on practical discussions.

“Most of them don’t have hands-on experience. So what we teach is backed by real case exercises, and there are discussions around that,” says Professor Dass. “We teach these senior managers how to use analytics tools to address their business needs.” The programme has been particularly popular among managers from the banking, financial services, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.

There are modules on business forecasting, financial modelling and financial risk assessment. The contexts addressed include database marketing, fraud detection, handling missing data and market segmentation. “In most cases, we provide participants with real-life data,” says Professor Dass. “Then, with the nature of transactions made available to them, we ask them to carry out inventory management. For example, participants have to come up with a store plan and a discounting plan for a new store. “We ensure that the broad level of participation is the same,” he adds. In other words, senior managers will be in the company of their hierarchical peers from other industries.

Supply Chain Management

Unlike managers who attend open programmes on strategic thinking or soft skills, those who participate in supply-chain management (SCM) courses don’t take to it merely for domain knowledge. Their concerns, and often frustrations, centre on the big picture: infrastructure, semi-organised partners, varying state-level policies and regulations.

These aren’t problems of their own making, but are integral to their performance. One manager in an IIM session echoed his losses in revenue-share because of stock-outs and untimely delivery—this, after his deliverables had been on track. Management institutes address these ‘live cases’ by helping managers step back. They strive to widen the familiarity of the managers with the external environment and the alternatives across the value chain. The IIM Calcutta programme on supply-chain management is designed for managers across industries, whereas the IIM Ahmedabad programme focuses on the food supply chain in India. The purpose of both is two-fold.

First, it develops a 360 degree perspective of the supply chain in India. The modules in the four-day IIM Calcutta programme include e-procurement and IT-enabled supply chains, as well as re-designing products and processes to enhance supply-chain performance. It is especially relevant to managers from sectors like pharmaceuticals and manufacturing.

The IIM Ahmedabad programme, on the other hand, has been designed exclusively for the food sector, given the increasing agri-security concerns. So, the issues here are, literally, more organic: perishability, small-scale production and seasonality, among others. “First, we look at the issues more closely and help the participants come up to speed,” says G Raghuram, Professor, Public Systems Group. “This means looking at changes in food habits: where food is finally consumed in India, how much is consumed in institutional places, how much in homes and how much in restaurants—the range of per-capita food consumption.” Such exercises, driven by cases, point to activity and quality norms in different parts of the supply chain. A lot of discussions are involve value additions like agro-processing.

About 20 participants attended the first session last year at IIM-A. They included entrepreneurs, agro processors, officials from state agriculture ministries, and agriculture researchers. The programme content features several inputs from the Agriculture Ministry’s Food Safety and Security Authority. Apart from this, IIM-A departments like the Supply Chain Group (notably, its Production and Quantitative Methods area) and the Centre for Management in Agriculture (which does research work on policy) have been involved in developing the subject matter.

This is evident in two topics the programme touches upon: food supply to the bottom of the pyramid in India, and exports. “Even with India’s biodiversity, food supply to the poor, especially during disasters, leaves much to be desired,” says Professor Raghuram. Case studies discussed include the Mid-Day Meal Scheme. On the exports front, case studies are from the areas of marine engineering and edible-oil procurement. “We look at our agricultural productivity, how it needs to go up and how it can meet international quality standards,” he adds. The content also looks into information management and logistics, including packaging, transportation, inventory management and warehousing.