Ex-servicemen at IIM ready to embrace corporate life

Nearly 20 candidates have actually seen field action and include fighter pilots as well as battalion commanders. Their qualifications range from engineering degrees from IITs to science and arts degrees; some also have degrees in international human rights.

But once they joined the six-month long,fully residential MBA course,there was no hierarchy like the armed forces. “We don’t address each other by our ranks,but by our names. It was the first step in a transition from the services environment to a more corporate and civilian one,” said Col Srinivas Raghavan,a member of the student placement committee.

In the course itself,all the candidates are mixed together in different study groups — fighting and non-fighting arms,Army,Navy,Indian Air Force,men and women.

This in some ways also explains why candidates occupy the single dormitories and not the family residences in the IIM-A campus. Being alone eases the transition to student life,they say.

The students of the batch are aged between 28 and 58,and have five to 30 years of service behind them. The older candidates like Col Raghavan are looking at careers in the NGO sector “where you work directly and face-to-face with many people”.

The preferences as well as complete profiles,resumes and contact information of all the candidates sitting for the process are listed in the website http://www.afpiima.com which they have conceptualised and designed by themselves. This way,companies can even pick out which candidates they would like to interview even before they enter the campus,Col Raghavan said.

Seven candidates are missing from the placement brochure and website. They have opted out of the process to start their own ventures.

UK enterprises to attend course

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) from the UK will attend the second edition of a special course on how to do business in India at the IIM-A this month. “The first such course held last year was a success and it has generated demand for another one this year,” a release from the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI),a department under the British government said.

Several SMEs belonging to different sectors have signed up for the programme. Besides,a five-day marketing course,‘The India Marketing Strategy Scholarship Programme’,will offer the SMEs a chance to work with an Indian company for a short time. The programme has been organised in collaboration with UKTI London,the London Development Agency (LDA),and supported by the Deputy High Commission in Mumbai and the British Trade Office in Ahmedabad.

—ENS