IIMs are no longer a factory churning out more and more managers for blue-chips global companies and Indian conglomerates. In Placements 2007, as many as 11 grads have either opted out of the process or rejected offers and have decided to chase their own dreams! In fact, two of these students rejected coveted Associate offers that would have paid them in excess of Rs. 1 crore annually from investment banks -- to opt for starting their own ventures!

The emphasis is on quality of placements and this is reflected in the rising number of pre-placement-offersor PPOs as they are called in B-school lingo -- lateral placements and associate offers.

As many as 81 students got PPOs this year. A large number of students got associate offers too: 11 associate offers from the investment banking sector, and 12 from the consulting sector. Deutsche Bank, with 8 associate offers, was the largest recruiter at this level. IIM-A believes that these offers are at par with those offered to Ivy League B-school graduates.

Government should create more opportunities for students in the country by opening at least one IIM in each state, the committees report said.

This recommendation has sparked off a big debate. Can the current management education infrastructure -- particularly in the area of qualified faculty -- be ramped up to accommodate so many more IIMs? Will Brand IIM retain its appeal when so many new extensions come into the market?

Close to 90 companies visited the campus during the Final Recruitments Week. According to IIM-B, about 40% of the batch received offers from leading slot zero investment banking, consulting and private equity (PE) sectors. The placement process kicked off on March 6th, and ended on March 10.

According to a placement release from FORE, all students have been placed on the day zero itself. According to the FORE the highest package this year was Rs.12 Lakh with an increase of 30%.

The lecture is scheduled at Amity Campus in Noida on 12th March 2007. Amity University and Penn Club of India are organizing the event.

The Chief Guest for the day was Her Excellency, Smt. Droupadi Murmu, Honorable Governor of Jharkhand, who managed to take out time and grace the occasion with her presence, though she came only for an hour, her presence gave different form of confidence to the students. The Guest of Honour was Mrs. Rita Chatterjee, National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, Government of India. After the solemn procession of the Graduating students and the donning of the Convocation gowns by the dignitaries, the Annual Report was presented by Rev. Fr.

SIBM was represented by Rohit Jain and Nikhil Narayanan.Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad came second, while there was a tie for the third spot between K.J.Somaiya Institute of Management, Mumbai, and College of Engineering, Guindy.

Final placements this year saw a number of consulting firms like McKinsey & Co., AT Kearney, Ernst & Young, Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, TSMG, TAS and Bristlecone visiting the IIM L campus. The placement process at IIM L, which was kicked off in November 2006, was a multi-layered process with three stages Pre-placement Offers, Higher Entry Placement Programme (HEPP), and finally the general placements that ended last week.

To bridge this gap, academia needs to create partnership with corporates. This was the central theme that emerged during the recently-held Confederation of Indian Industrys (CII) seminar on Industry-Institute Partnership: Bridging the Gap.