XLRI GMP ranked fourth in India by Outlook

XLRI General Management Program (GMP) has been ranked at 4th place among all one year programs in Indian B-Schools in the recently released B-school rankings by outlook magazine.

Overall XLRI secured 4th place in B-Schools rankings in India.

It is a partial list. The complete list can be viewed on outlook magazine website.

In the list of private B-Schools, XLRI secured first rank.

The complete rankings and the methodology used by outlook can be viewed in detailed here on outlook magazine website.

The End of End terms

The cheer and noise of my friends from outside Father Prabhu Hall who had finished their last exams before time while I was still thinking and writing to make some sense proved how big a relief it was. The uproar compelled me to submit mine too and join the party. Yes, end terms will return but right now the small joy of their end is bigger than their intimidation of coming again. 

Exam-fever can catch you at any age. You cannot get immune to it. It is indifferent to the facts that we all have faced many such exams long before in our lives and that we have faced tougher situations than them in our professional careers.  End terms are like a heptathlon event in sports.  Each exam different from the other yet fundamentally requires the same stamina and temperament. Interesting stories emerged after each exam. Consider this, "The heart start thumping as you are about to hit the final key on calculator to check if balance-sheet balances. And you get a mini heart-attack when you  see that liabilities are not equal to assets. The term 'balanced balance-sheet' seems oxymoron in that moment and it appears all those balanced balance sheets in the world must be fudged". Tragic as well as hilarious.

What I liked most about the end terms was the intensity in the environment. It is incredible to see people putting such efforts after a long hiatus from academic life. Some of us were going to sleep at four in the morning while others were waking up at that hour. Good mornings or good nights made no sense. Did we decouple ourselves from time or were we following different time zones in the same time zone?  For many, library was the new bedroom. Some studied in groups and executed divide and conquer. The deserted path to GMP hostel almost looked like a curfew being imposed. Astonishing adaptation!

Sleep deficit in GMP must have raised dangerously close to India's fiscal deficit and as Indian government awakes to overcome it through recent announcements of FDI in retail and aviation, cut in fuel subsidy and disinvestment, let us all sleep enough to reduce our deficit too in the one week break.

Happy Sleeping GMP...Go Hibernate..

Leaders talk - Customer service in the age of Social Media

Customer Service in the age of social media was the topic at the kick-off event of leadership series– an ongoing series throughout the year, organized by GMP students. The guest and speaker for the day was Ms. Anita Pai, Senior General Manager at ICICI Bank and currently responsible for operations. Prior to this, she was in charge of customer service. Using social media for customer service is a contemporary area and very few organizations have been able to embrace it effectively. 

Ms. Anita Pai enlightened us with some of the issues about customer service, which organizations such as ICICI Bank face day in and day out and how social media is changing the landscape of customer service. She started with the fundamental idea of what customer service is and stressed upon the fact that unless leadership is committed to customer service, it doesn’t happen at any organization.  Customer service is often ignored and it is only when top line starts declining organizations start thinking about it seriously. However, having a strong focus and culture for customer service not only has positive cascading effects but also yield fruits in the long run.

The talk progressed by taking social media in the ambit of customer service. She gave couple of examples where customers expressed their dissatisfaction about companies and their service on Facebook or blog and how reactions of organizations only back fired them. She also shared many examples handled by her teams where customer used social media to get their concerns addressed. Customers are increasingly sharing their experiences with customer service of organizations on social media and more often than not, the experience is about pain and frustration.  If the customer happens to be a famous personality on social media, the negativity gets amplified and may go viral in no time and by the time you wake up to address the concerns, damage is already done. Once done it is not easy to repair this damage.

The increased competitiveness between organizations and technology has reduced tolerance of customers. Today a customer, empowered with mobile and internet, may feel a wait of five minutes in the queue is long enough to express it on Facebook or Twitter. You don’t know from where a crisis may hit you. Previously organizations were able to deal with customer’s complaints and dissatisfaction in one to one mode. Now, it has become many to one. On being asked about how to deal with this new challenge, Ms. Pai said that it is important for organizations to wake up to the reality of social media, recognize it as a valuable resource and rather than reactive be proactive about it. Organizations must incorporate social media into their customer service strategy and endeavor to build a positive outlook using it as an effective tool.

All in all it was an absorbing session. Many of us, as customer could relate to it and now we all got a sneak peek into the other side too. Social media has become a busy highway. Every day people and organizations are finding innovative ways of using it. So the launch of new iPhone or iPad by Apple is preceded by enormous buzz on Facebook and Twitter. Brands are utilizing social media as a tool for evangelism marketing.  Its immense power and potential has already been felt by the world through political events such as Arab Spring. Perhaps nothing could better summarize the event than the following quote cited by Ms. Anita Pai, 

If customer is the king, social media is his empire.