Churn inside the Classroom

How does a business school deliver concepts and entire courses that speak to the rapidly emerging needs of various industries, especially the newer ones, without compromising on academic standards? How does it compete against alternate sources of learning that deliver content that have greater appeal as more immediately relevant to the needs of industry? G. Sabarinathan, PhD1, explores the issue A few weeks ago I wrote a post titled The YouTube Effect2.  I had articulated my hypothesis about the future of the delivery of learnings inside the classroom.  The light…

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2021: Looking back at the venture capital industry

Prof. G.Sabarinathan1 examines the swelling tide of capital, the growing allocation to alternative investments, institutional evolution and demand-supply dynamics that have impacted the role of the VC industry in the governance of investee firms It has been an eventful week for venture capital (VC). In USA, which I will focus on for now, Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos was convicted.2 Interestingly, Holmes’ conviction coincided with the end of a year when the US VC industry hit a funding record of $ 330 billion in 2021! Coincidentally, perhaps, the Indian VC…

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“The Cult of We”: The story of a venture funded start-up that nearly imploded

By Professor G. Sabarinathan1 Ever since its first attempt at an Initial Public Offering (IPO) was dropped, news about the developments at the highly visible co-working space provider, WeWork, later on rechristened as The We Company started tumbling out in the form of numerous press stories.  Books were written about its meteoric rise and the equally visible crises it descended into. This article is based on one such book, The Cult of We – WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell2.  Both Brown…

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In pursuit of the not so mythical unicorn

The recent rapid emergence of unicorns in India leads Professor G. Sabarinathan1, 2to explore this phenomenon and ponder whether the obsession has gone too far Last week, CBInsights, now an almost universal go-to shop for data on startups and tech businesses, published a list of unicorns across the world. At 702, the number of unicorns surprised me although it need not have, going by the almost daily flow of news of the minting of the newest unicorn somewhere in the world. That size of 700 was significant enough for anyone…

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A Tale of two Memoirs of Devaki Jain and Shanta Gokhale Prof. Rajalaxmi Kamath delves into the two books and comes away impressed

In a frenzy of an extended weekend reading, I finished two recently published memoirs of women, now well into their 80s – Devaki Jain’s ‘The Brass Notebook: A memoir’ and Shanta Gokhale’s ‘One Foot on the Ground: A Life told through the Body’.* Both women are exemplars of modern Indian women representing a unique cohort – generations that witnessed the unfolding of India’s post-independence years. The similarity in their life histories is rather incongruous but explained by their unique times and the fact that only a privileged few in those…

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Seeking avenues for growth – India in the top 50 innovating countries

Deepti Ganapathy, faculty in the Management Communication area, IIMB, writes that the signals are strong and one needs to mine the communication networks to pick up the conducive atmosphere for creating jobs The recent budget has given much emphasis on innovation and R&D, and doubled the total financial aid to students to INR 2482.32 crores. India entered the top 50 innovating countries for the first time in 2020, since inception of the Global Innovation Index, by improving its rank from 81 in 2015 to 48 in 2020. Among lower middle-income…

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‘Mind Without Fear by Rajat Gupta – My Reflections’ Prof. G. Sabarinathan delves into the book and discovers much more than courtroom drama in the compelling tale of resilience and growth

When Mr Rajat Gupta was elected Managing Director of McKinsey, it was headline material in Indian business media. A few years later came the news about Rajat Gupta’s being charged with insider trading and his going to jail.  So, when I saw his book, Mind Without Fear, in the campus bookstore I wasted no time in getting a copy. The book broadly deals with three aspects of Gupta’s life.  His personal life, of which he offers relatively scanty details, his life at McKinsey of which he speaks at some length…

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Twenty Years On… Prof. G. Sabarinathan shares glimpses of his journey of two decades at IIM Bangalore

It was twenty years ago to this day that I drove into IIMB to start a new phase in my life.  It was not just the start of a new career.   It was Kannada Rajyotsava day.  As my black ambassador, as old as myself back then, rolled through the streets of the campus, directionlessly because I did not know the way, it may have been a curious sight to the few residents who may have been looking at the streets.   Cars were relatively few on the campus in those days. …

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IIMB’s Centre of Public Policy (CPP) hosts a discussion on the book ‘Data Sovereignty: The Pursuit of Supremacy’ on August 13, 2019

The Centre of Public Policy (CPP) at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) hosted a book discussion on 13th August on the book,’Data Sovereignty: The Pursuit of Supremacy’, co-authored by Lt. Gen. D.B. Shekatkar (retd.), Lt. Gen. V.M. Patil (retd.), Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia (retd.), and Lt. Gen. Vinod Khandare (retd.), Jayadev Ranade, Bharat Panchal, and Vinit Goenka.  Professor Hema Swaminathan, Chair, Centre for Public Policy, said: “The Centre was established in 2000. It aspires to lead policy-thinking and praxis in India, promoting equitable, inclusive and sustainable solutions to the…

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IIMB alumnus writes book on ‘Unmet Needs of Entrepreneurship’

20 February, 2018, Bengaluru: A book titled, ‘Unmet Needs of Entrepreneurship: Why Entrepreneurs Do What They Do’, written by S Parthasarathy, Head – Alumni Relations, IIM Bangalore, and alumnus of IIMB’s Post Graduate Programme in Management, Class of 1994, has been published recently, by Rupa Publications. S Parthasarathy, Head – Alumni Relations, IIM Bangalore   The book, with a plethora of examples and illustrations, is centred around the idea of ‘needs’ and its impact on various aspects of entrepreneurship. It explores what motivates/stops people from getting into entrepreneurship, which needs…

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