Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow recently organized an outreach program to spread awareness about the National Entrepreneurship Awards. Under the guidance of Prof. Vijay Prakash Anand and Prof. Jatin Srivastava, the award briefing session aimed to sensitize young entrepreneurs about the awards that were established last year. Prof. Satyajit Majumdar from TISS was the guest speaker for the session that offered participants insights into different aspects of the award.

With over three decades of professional experience, Prof. Majumdar is an esteemed member of the core committee of National Entrepreneurship Awards. The guest speaker started his enlightening talk by giving participants a brief overview of the awards. He then touched upon eligibility, vision, procedure of application, and categories of Youth Entrepreneurship Awards.

“National Entrepreneurship Awards are a part of entrepreneurship policy by Government of India. Seven top institutes including IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur etc were invited by the Ministry to design the awards. The first awards were held last year in the presence of Honorable Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh,” explained Prof. Satyajit Majumdar to the audience. It reflected the emphasis GOI has laid on the awards, which were followed up by a review meeting earlier this year.

Prof. Majumdar stressed on the fact that the awards are meant for young entrepreneurs with the age limit set to 30 years by the Cabinet. “The vision of these awards is to keep the spirit of enterprise alive in the youth of our country and to keep them motivated.” He iterated that while there can be only one winner, active participation of young entrepreneurs in itself is a huge success for the much talked about awards.

The conversation was taken forward by Mr. Ravidas Durwas, who talked further about the 17 categories of the awards. They also constitute of 6 recognitions; 3 each for private and Government recognitions. 2 special recognitions – Social enterprise and Barefoot enterprise are also a part of the awards. Young Entrepreneurs present in the gathering then introduced themselves. The event ended with a Q & A session with Mr. Majumdar, making it a truly enriching experience for all.

It isn’t everyday you get the opportunity to hear from a senior academician who has spent 27 years of his life teaching at renowned universities and institutes across the world and authored eleven successful books within a span of two decades. Prof. (Dr.) M. Ashraf Rizvi, Director, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucnkow is one such man who has been a name to reckon with in the world of management.

On July 1st, the 5th day of the Induction Programme of Class 2017-2019 of Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow students had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Rizvi on the topic “Communicating for Happiness and Success.”

Prof. Rizvi commenced his session by underlining the importance of communication by making the students think about questions like: “Has this ever happened to you that in a situation of emergency, you did not have the right words to summon someone for help?  Or maybe, when someone came seeking for your help, you denied it to them because of your inherent behaviour? This is why communication skills are important.”

Prof. Rizvi’s sessions have typical characteristics. They are fun, dialogic. engaging and amazingly insightful. He brings real life instances and examples to help audience connect to him instantaneously. During this session, he brought forth the example of Mr. Dilip Shangvi, Founder and CEO of Sun Pharmaceuticals and explained how he started with INR 80,000 and currently stands as one of the richest people in the world, and is equally happy in his life too! According to Dr. Rizvi, “good communication has a major role to play in his success.”

Through all his examples and enactments Prof. Rizvi tried to sensitize the students as to how communication influences ones thinking about themselves and others. He highlighted that communication is important for one to be happy and successful. Being unable to communicate properly might even mean “losing a part of ourselves, for we, communicate our self-concepts, our sense of self and awareness of who we are – in many ways through words”. He further shared that people share meaning in what they say and how they say it. He emphasised on focusing on the approach of communication we follow- an open conversation wherein we are open for all sorts of suggestions and options from the other end too is always the most valued one.

According to Prof. Rizvi, “a good communicator is the one who is a good listener too” and stressed that people who initiate close ended conversations often have too many assumptions and do not even bother to check them. Consequently, “assumptions which are not realities have the power to ruin relationships, both professional and personal eventually neither allowing you to be happy or successful, ” he illustrates.

Further in his session, Prof. Rizvi said that communication skills are not about listening and talking alone but involves a lot of body language and facial expressions and observations too. In his words “your body speaks louder than your words” and he underlined that in a world that finds it easier to press randomly on a flat screen than talk face to face with someone, this may be a difficult thing to practice.

“Communication is a two way, mutual process, which should be open from both the ends. Therefore, communication is one of the most important attributes needed to be both happy and successful, and must be incorporated within us if we wish to reach the peak of success and be happy at the same time,” Dr. Rizvi concluded.

The session ended with an interesting role-play of a company having a communication issue with its GM HR and Senior Manager HR. Two students Arnab Kumar De, a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering with four years of experience in Mining Industry and Amlanjyoti Borkakati, B.Tech with 15 months of experience in Telecom Industry played the role of GM HR and Sr. Manager HR respectively. They did a great job in the role-play and the session had valuable lessons for each one of the attendees.

The thing with the Jaipuria Institute of Management’s PGDM curriculum is- you get to hear a lot of industry stalwarts addressing some of the most interesting, topical issues and brainstorming on them with students over hours’ sessions. Industry Sessions here is a daily practice and is comfortably weaved into the daily curriculum of students. A latest talk with Mr. V.P. Kamath, Non-Executive Director, WellCorp Health Services Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai at Jaipuria Institute of Managaement, Lucknow reinforced the fact once again.

Mr. Kamath talked about- “Emerging Challenges In Global Business Industry: Expectations From Young Managers” and the man with his 30 years of leadership experiences had some of the most insightful things to share with the students.

He initiated the discussion by highlighting Market capitalization, growth of business and international competition faced by the young leaders today. He mentioned- “with the changing environmental conditions, idea of innovative disruption is of paramount importance.” But with good ideas, come the pressing need of letting the world know about them.

Mr. Kamath shared that Customer Relationship Management that earlier focused on a single scale with moderate consumer contact has now transformed into long time scale benefits and consumer retention. Previously the population had limited use of technology while the consumer was almost a passive component. Today, the scenario is quite different. “The world has taken up a wide turn involving powerful use of new adapted technical ideas and consumer benefit programs. To survive in a market like this, is a completely new ball game” he elaborates.

Bringing the example of various schemes launched by Modi government on issue of Visa, Mr. Kamath further emphasised that “it is a remarkable step towards the network of growth and communication as well as business enhancement technique.” Similarly, the 4G services brought forward by Reliance Jio network has taken the whole economy by surprise. He underlined that “it is in fact the popular use of technical sciences coupled with incredible ideas to enhance customer experiences is what taking the world forward- one big step at a time.” Yet there are lot of things that can be done to help young leaders lead in better ways.

The talk got even more interesting when Mr. Kamath brought one of the foremost, pressing concerns of young entrepreneurs to daylight. “Marketing has to be personalized, customized, and made cost effective in today’s hypercompetitive atmosphere. Brand building in India has always been an excellent initiative but it is about time to think around it more constructively to attend success,” were the words of advice from Mr. Kamath.

Settling down to a new life has its own highs and lows however, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow kept no stone unturned to forward its PGDM Class of 2017- 2019 an unforgettable first-day-on-campus experience. The orientation programme is a two weeks process at Jaiuria Institute of Management and the Lucknow campus induction began from 27th June and shall be continued till 8th July, 2017.

A lot of brain stroming by faculty and industry experts goes behind creating the Induction schedule for the newbies on campus. Consisting of a series of fun, informative, networking, and academic activities before the formal beginning of the first trimester, the primary objective of the orientation programmes are to familiarize the students of the new batch with faculty, staff, and their peers as well as with the processes, systems, and culture of the institute.

However, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucnkow got some even more amazing line-ups to the day. The activities scheduled during the two weeks’ programme aim to equip students with fundamental knowledge and tools that will help them to adapt to the challenging life ahead as a post-graduate management student. 

The Orientation Program also involves the process of identifying students’ critical skills essential for participation in management teaching classes and for them to get inducted into a meaningful corporate life.

The first day under the coordination of Prof. Vir Ved Ratna, Associate Dean, Academics, Prof. R.K. Ojha, Chairperson, PGDM, Prof. Athar Mahmood, Chairperson, PGDM (RM), Prof. Reena Agrawal, Chairperson, PGDM (FS) and Mr. Naseem Ansari (PMC) started with the Registration of the students into their respective programs viz. PGDM, PGDM (FS) and PGDM (RM).

Amidst a high-spirited atomosphere, the registration process was followed by a Welcome Lunch wherein faculty members interacted with the students and their parents over a sumptuous meal.

Thereafter, students were introduced to the Director, Deans, Faculty members and officers of the institute. The two sessions were coordinated by Prof. R. K. Ojha, Prof. Athar Mahmood, Prof. Reena Agarwal and Mr. Pradeep Kumar.

The incoming batch of students enthusiastically interacted with the faculty members. The first day of “new beginnings” came to a fun end with “Knowing Each Other over Lucknowi Chaat and Kulfi” coordinated by Prof. Vijay Prakash Anand, Prof. Maneesh Yadav and Mr. Pradeep Kumar.

When asked to student Rishikesh Narayan of Class 2019 about his first day on campus, he remarked- “My first day in the campus has been amazing so far. Interaction with the faculty members got a lot of my apprehensions cleared.”