Historic Feat: SDA Bocconi School of Management’s MBA Program Ranked #6th in the World
The 2023 MBA Rankings by the Financial Times have brought forth a historic achievement for the SDA Bocconi School of Management: its full-time MBA program has been ranked sixth in the world. The one-year MBA program has surpassed some of the most established schools in the world to attain this outstanding recognition. It is important to note that the ranking by Financial Times is one of the most prestigious rankings in the world. “It is the most difficult ranking, coming from the oldest tradition of American business schools,” says Stefano Caselli, Dean of SDA Bocconi. “For this reason, the sixth position is a very prestigious achievement, but more importantly, it is a demonstration of the strength of our school, an open and inclusive, international place that can attract and transform talent from all over the world to make a significant impact in society.” The ranking is a matter of great pride for the International Master in Business program that SDA Bocconi partially runs at SDA Bocconi Asia Center, Mumbai which allows meritorious Indian students to achieve masters from SDA Bocconi with a meaningful Indian experience. The programs offered at SDA Bocconi Asia Center, Mumbai effectively mix the practical learning approach of the full-time MBA program with the familiar structure of a top Indian post-graduate program. The programs at SDA Bocconi Asia Center offer a tight-knit and diverse environment, with an international specialization immersion in Milano along with students joining from as many as 80 nationalities during immersions. Interestingly, the programs in India and Milano are taught by the distinguished international Bocconi faculty, who teach around the world and bring international experiences and cases into the classroom. This, combined with a unique peer-to-peer cultural interaction is what makes the programs and their learning experience so unique. The SDA Bocconi School of Management is one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious business education institutions, and the ranking has further helped establish its brand value on the global stage for the Bocconi Alumni community of 120,000. The prestigious worldwide ranking is sure to solidify SDA Bocconi’s presence as one of the top business schools in the world, attracting in turn the most highly-motivated goal-achievers worldwide who are looking for a transformational learning experience in their careers. EXPLORE IMB
Sustainability Lab Launched by Italian ambassador to India, Mr. Vincenzo de Luca
SDA Bocconi Asia Center is proud to launch “Sustainability Lab” in India which was inaugurated in the presence of the Italian ambassador to India, Mr. Vincenzo de Luca. The event was opened by Alessandro Giuliani, MD SDA Bocconi Asia Center. Our first venture of sustainability started in Italy by Prof. Francesca Romana Rinaldi who presented the research paper on “Monitor for circular fashion” powered by Enel X and now we are proud to expand this initiative in India at the Asia Center. Following up with a panel on Best practices from India, Prof Paola Bielli, M&T department moderated an incredible conversation on “When circularity drives collaboration and Relevance of sustainability for the future of business, with Vaishali Shadangule, founder and CEO at VAISHALI S Couture . Marco Guazzoni, Sustainability Head at Vibram Group The event was also graced with the presence of Italian Consul General Alessandro De Masi and many from the IICCI – The Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry The campus event to launch our initiative proved to be an educative platform that was successful in increasing the knowledge of our students about sustainability and how they can contribute to the same. SDA Bocconi Asia Center is ecstatic to see its contribution to the noble community be a part of it. #sustainability #sustainabilitylab #sdabocconi #sdabocconiasiacenter #mumbai #bschool As cohost of the @COP26 , Italy organised a huge meeting wh youth @youth4climate They’ve been straightforward: “Stop to say bla bla and take action” We were happy to receive this message in Milan and we are happy to forward it to Glasgow”@sdabocconi@Videluca59 pic.twitter.com/PjuaX4sLtW Italy in Mumbai (@ItalyinMumbai) October 25, 2021 Click here to watch the recap video of 🇮🇹 Ambassador De Luca’s visit to Mumbai. 👍https://t.co/51IVm4P1U7@ItalyinIndia@UniItalia_India @IndiaItaly@SDABocconiAC@CMOMaharashtra@AUThackeray@AsiaticSocMum@marangoni@sajjanjindal@anandmahindra@RNTata2000@Videluca59 Italy in Mumbai (@ItalyinMumbai) October 31, 2021
Starting my IMB Journey
I started my IMB journey at SDA Bocconi Asia Center in July after clearing the admission process in the first round itself. The time gap in between gave me enough time to contemplate my decision. I have been born and brought up in Ahmedabad and have had very limited connections with people outside Gujarat. However, I started interacting with my fellow colleagues from the very beginning. The diverse background of the students made it a very overwhelming experience to start with, considering their age and spectrum of experience. I found myself in a crowd of people who were exceptionally talented and highly motivated to achieve something in their lives. Having a peer group of such talented individuals gave me the confidence that I would require to transform myself into the best version of myself in the coming 2 years. Any management program demands immeasurable hours of studies, sleepless nights and not to mention undeterred dedication but our institute made sure that they prepared us for what was to come with the help of various workshops. These workshops were designed for us to get accustomed to and have basic knowledge of the courses. This was possible because the school acknowledged the fact that all the students are from various backgrounds and everyone stands differently. Market research, idea generation, and accounting were some of the workshops conducted among others that helped lay a foundation for us to start our studies upon. Only after ensuring that the students have the basic knowledge did the institute go ahead with the core subjects of the curriculum. Despite the online platform of studying due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I made a lot of friends and we studied together on video calls. We spoke not only about our cultures, but I also extremely enjoyed learning about the different lifestyles of people. We had myriad guest lectures from the start, covering different domains, ranging from sales, marketing, operations, and supply chain management which were led by top leaders from the industry. They tried to give us an insight into these domains to help us better understand the scope of the current job market. During these lectures, many activities were conducted to break the ice among the students and help them get acquainted with each other well. This was followed by various committee selections which demanded hard work and dedication and it was my privilege to get into the Placement Committee of SDA Bocconi Asia Center. Moreover, we were exposed to case study competitions wherein we won some and also lost some. The school has many professional clubs such as marketing, finance, operations, entrepreneurship, HULT Prize, 180 DC, TedEx Masters, and many more which offer you opportunities to explore more in the fields of one’s interest. I enjoyed the vigorous and creative selection process for these clubs while helping my other friends throughout this process. Being from a technical background, I faced difficulty in understanding finance and accounting. We had Italian professors for the subjects of Accounting and Understanding Investments. They paid special attention to each and every student to ensure that everyone had a strong foundation for the subjects. We always had our teachers and our seniors to guide us which made the process easier. I would like to make a special mention of professor Davide Reina who took the subject of marketing for us. I loved how a three-hour class was made so interesting and interactive where the first one and a half-hour of the class would be a lecture and the second half would consist of case studies that we would solve in groups. He has such a unique teaching style and always kept the class interesting. I really look up to him. I am excited about charting out my journey with SDA Bocconi Asia Centre and growing through every part of this course About Mansi Shah, IMB Class 2023 An information and communication technology engineering graduate with a penchant for constantly pushing the limits and dabbling into diverse departments sums me up perfectly. I have a distinguished history in managing several avenues ranging from academics, sports, internships to extracurriculars and breezing through them with substantial results. I am a national level volleyball player. I enjoy writing, modelling and dancing. Having said that I am a published writer. Not limiting myself to just one domain, I have held various leadership positions in sports and entrepreneurship cell of my bachelors institute. Author – Mansi Shah | Editor – Rohan Mehrotra and Vedika Nathani
An Energetic Start to the International Master in Business Batch 2020-22
– By Ayushi Dixit & Padmavathy Srinivasan In a first, SDA Bocconi Asia Center commenced the third batch of its flagship International Master in Business (IMB) 2020-22 programme virtually on July 13, 2020. Kicking off the induction session digitally, Managing Director Alessandro Giuliani, Dean David Bardolet, along with other renowned faculty, welcomed and addressed the gathering of the talented batch of new students. The academics team briefed the class with rules and regulations to be adhered to by the students to maintain camaraderie and decorum in college. With the same enthusiasm, the students attended their first pre-course in Accounting with Professor Laura Zoni. “Accountancy was one of the most feared subjects for students ranging from diverse academic backgrounds, but as Professor Laura Zoni virtually walked in with her warm smile, the class instantaneously lit up. Within a short period, most of us had answers to different questions from accounts to audit and were ready to deep dive into the subject, said Shreya Thukral, student of IMB 2020-22. With classes held online, there was an added importance given to team-building exercises for students which were conducted by Ms. Shilpa Khushalani from The Enlightenment Studio. To introduce the students into the enriching and rewarding field of management, the Career Development Services (CDS) team had invited eminent guest speakers from leading companies such as KPMG, Dell Technologies, Fortis Healthcare, ABinBev, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd, and Ernst & Young LLP. The speakers ranged from cross-functional domains including HR, Marketing, Finance, Sales, Operations, and Data Analytics. The industry leaders imparted their knowledge in an interactive session with the students. Some of the notable speakers included Mr. Unmesh Pawar, Partner- CHRO KPMG, who shared his insights on human capital strategy, organizational transformation, and workforce coaching. This was followed by Ms. Lulu Raghavan, the Managing Director of Landor Associates who elaborated her expertise on brand and corporate strategy. Another commendable session was organized by Mr. Ramesh Babu M, National Head- Projects at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd, where he conducted various activities such as interactive quiz and feedback session. Meanwhile, the senior students also introduced their fellow juniors to various academic clubs and committees operating in the college. The juniors were briefed about the objectives, selection processes, and KRAs of these clubs and committees. Thereafter, new core committee members were chosen from the junior batch to spearhead the activities of the respective clubs. Elaborating upon his experience of the selection process, Armaan Choudhary of IMB 2020-22, told, “The selection process of various clubs and committees were very rigorous. It helped me gauge the competition that lies ahead of me in the coming two years.” Given the importance of data analytics and the emergence of technology in management field, the new batch of IMB 2020-22 was given KPMG data analytics training under the guidance of Mr. Amit Choudhary, Manager-Analytics KPMG. Under the KPMG module, students were taught programming languages such as R, Python and SQL. Additionally, in order to inculcate basic management hygiene among the students, the CDS conducted multiple workshops to hone business skills such as advanced Excel, presentation techniques, and CV building. Another session by Mr. Manu Shankaran Potti, Sales Manager at LinkedIn, helped students optimize their LinkedIn profiles for networking with corporates. The rigorous yet thought-provoking workshops, guest lectures, and interactive activities provided a 360-degree view to the students on their journey for the next two years and beyond.
Hear from the Experts: Ms. Charu Gupta, Director- Chai Point, Answers Student Questions
Ms. Charu Gupta, Head of Marketing and Category (Director), Chai Point answers a few frequently asked questions by students at SDA Bocconi Asia Center. Her career has spanned across organizations such as Medlife, BigBasket, Healthkart, and Bank of America. Her insights would be of immense help to students in their careers ahead. Q1. How can students develop the right ‘business mindset’. Can you recommend any skills that they can inculcate now that would help them in becoming successful professionals in the future? One habit that I noticed in successful business managers and entrepreneurs is to calculate PnL of every business that they come across in their daily lives. For example: if they go to a restaurant, they should try to estimate its cost of running, daily revenue, yearly revenue, capital investment, and profits and wonder how the owner is making money. Even if they go to a tire-puncture repair shop, they should try to calculate the owner’s monthly earning. If they use a new software or SaaS they must try to estimate its earnings and costs. It’s a habit that makes you calculate, estimate, Guesstimate and ultimately focus on things that make money and things that do not make money, things that are high on cost as well as things that are low on cost. Translate this to professional work environment, and you would start questioning the cost-vs-revenue metrics of each new project, each new feature in a product, each new program that any department wants to initiate, and any new business line business vertical that an employee wants to launch. Team mates also get a perspective that what all factors are important to consider before declaring “this idea is good/ bad”. This suggestion is from a startup perspective, but I believe the habit can be useful for every professional in any department and business of any scale, however it needs to start at a small scale to fully understand at a simple level and then complicate it with scale. Q2. You have had a diverse career across industries ranging from healthcare, banking, and retail. Can you tell us in what ways this has benefitted you? For understanding this, I would recommend reading a book by Chandramouli Venkatesan – “Get Better at Getting Better”. The author had a successful corporate career, he had diverse experiences in business, marketing, HR and in different domains like varnish-paints, chocolates etc. A professional should understand the concepts of good decision making and then implementing those. Different domains and functions give us a chance to apply the “concepts”. A person having experience in different domains can go deeper in her/ his understanding of concepts. This has benefitted me in my agility, I am confident of quickly understanding new domains/ functions and hence new problems in my current role and providing solutions that are conceptual solutions rather than symptomatic cures. It gives me the confidence to launch new business verticals, extend the brands to new categories, the way ChaiPoint is attempting to enter Coffee market (Refer “The Ken” article in Sept’19) Q3. What are some of the memorable learnings you’ve had while working with startups? Most important was to remain confident and believe in the scientific approach to solutions rather than quick fixes. Having both a short term and long term view in mind is important to not lose hope Another was more effective time management and much stricter process orientation. This is counter-intuitive as people say that big companies have a lot many processes so they want to join small companies to skip those processes. Q4. Can you give the students some pointers about how effective marketing and branding strategies are made? As I mentioned in the guest session, the better the product, the lesser is the marketing cost. So the primary focus must be product improvement. Next comes the marketing stage which can either be events based marketing or marketing that follows expansion into new markets. However the most important aspect of an effective marketing campaign is to ensure that the communication is in the best possible form to get to customers. Q5. As Head of Marketing, what are some of the qualities you expect in the employees whom you hire in your team? My team members need to be broad in mindset, frugal in approach, visionary in their expectations, specialist in customer behaviour and experience but generalist in solving business problems. About Ms. Charu Gupta Ms Charu Gupta is currently the Director at Chai Point and she has had a remarkable career, having previously worked at Medlife.com as Head-Marketing & Businesses and as Brand Manager and Head of OTC business. She has also been the marketing manager at BigBasket.com, Category Manager at HealthKart.com, and Assistant Manager at Bank of America. Ms. Gupta has been the Gold Medalist during her B,Tech (IT) tenure at NIT, Bhopal. She did her PGDM from IIM, Lucknow.
Lessons beyond the Classroom at SDA Bocconi Asia Center
-By Milan Choudhury There’s a world of learning out there that’s beyond classroom sessions and it is especially during the 2 years of your MBA that you can maximize them. In fact, these out-of-class learnings prove to be of far greater importance than the rote learning one is accustomed to, since the real world out there demands skills that can be developed through diverse exposure. Here are some fabulous lessons beyond the classroom, which we at SDA Bocconi Asia Center get to experience. Overall Profile Building: Beyond academics, there are a lot of parameters that companies assess candidates on. In fact, more often than not, it is these parameters that play a key role in the recruitment process. Through various live project opportunities, internships and projects offered by the 4 Centers of Excellence, a student’s profile is strongly built up at SDA Bocconi Asia Center. In addition, the Career Development Services in conjunction with the Placement Committee puts a lot of effort into each candidate’s LinkedIn profile and CV building. Overcoming the Public Speaking Phobia: Every single person exhibits some or the other barrier to communication and it is these that lead to underperformance during interviews. At our lessons and workshops, we are not just encouraged to speak before the class, but are also provided two kinds of feedback. Peer to peer feedback is a definite asset which aims to identify lacunae in content and delivery; while expert feedback given by the instructors provides an in-depth analysis on how each student’s shortcomings may be overcome. The toastmasters club here at Bocconi is one such platform to help students talk freely before an audience. In addition, specialized classes on advanced oral communication ensure that every student is spot on as far as content and delivery is concerned while conducting business communication. Group Driven Insights: Learning solo would’ve worked until you were in your 12th grade, but it strictly limits your ability to learn as you go ahead. At Bocconi, the first thing that the management does is to divide the class into groups, which change every semester. No effort is spared to ensure that each group has people coming from diverse backgrounds and skillset. Class assignments and presentations are group-based and fresh insights are always encouraged. Working in these groups really helps build team work and coordination capabilities. New Cultures to Learn: Business environments are dynamic and navigating them successfully requires one to adapt to changes and get familiar with new cultures. At SDA Bocconi Asia Center, in addition to Indian markets, students are exposed to the European culture and European market scenarios. Cases from all over the world are discussed and latest frameworks and techniques adapted by leaders are taken up for open discussion. The international faculty definitely goes a long way in helping students grasp the holistic point of view. Beyond classes, the ESSEC exchange semester brings in international students, thereby facilitating a healthy cultural exchange between students from India and abroad. Extracurricular Involvement: Apart from academics, there’s a lot more to be experienced here at Bocconi, which makes student life enjoyable. The Cultural and Leadership Committee makes sure that the student talent is showcased in the right manner and is not just restricted within the school. Dance and music, skits and plays, and competitions are an inherent part of student life at Bocconi. In addition, the sports committee ensures that the players get their due by organizing regular matches and tournaments in which the students pitch in wholeheartedly. Aside from the challenging curriculum at Bocconi, there are multitudes of opportunities to help every student build his/her profile the right way for the corporate world as well as the real life ahead. It is ultimately the candidate who has to utilize the right resources from the available plethora.