There is a very awakening article written by one of our research scholars on “nation’s secularism”. It is rich in its explanation of secularism and also reasons on why India is suffering with communal hatred in today’s times? It is a good read to understand “Secularism in India”. Next is an article covering part of a project done under Prof. Rahul Varman. It has interesting information and good insights into Kanpur railway station organization. We are sure our readers can gain valuable knowledge. In this edition, two of our MBA students have shared their internship experience. It will be an informative read to know about internship of others. That’s all readers! No wait. We have also added a section of fun articles this time. So that makes this edition unique! Very interesting article in this section is on summation of natural numbers. It was mind-boggling when we read it. We think it will astound you too. Also, this section has articles on the MBA tour trip and badminton league. Both the events were fun-filled; we hope you enjoy the articles. And so, we take leave. We wish for good health of all the readers and also the non-readers.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Special thanks to writers. Thank you all the readers. We wish you enjoy reading. Without you readers and writers, this magazine would not exist. So keep reading and keep writing. Keep smiling.
Team Avant Garde

We welcome the batch back from the winter break. Here comes the December 2015 edition! We hope that you enjoy reading this magazine and gain some knowledge from it.

The first article “Motivation and Job Satisfaction: Changing Trends” by Saikat Chatterjee beautifully emphasizes on the importance of motivation of employees in a working environment.  Deepti Sekhri focuses on the manufacturing sector and highlights some issues in her article “Need to revamp manufacturing”.

Abhas Vyas makes sure to analyze the ecommerce sector in his writing “Is ecommerce industry at an inflection point?”. K Prakash Raju highlights the happenings in 2015 in a specific area in his article “2015-a year of science and technology”.

Coming to academics, Kinsuk Ghatak writes “Advantages of case based learning methods, the 21^st century MBA” in which he discusses how the students get benefitted from case studies by learning about the real world problems and suggests ways to solve them. Manpreet Singh throws some light on his winter internship experience in his article “Winter Internship at Promorph Solutions”.

Ishaan Singh writes a very thoughtful article about the potential of a person in “If I were me”. Shakti Chaturvedi focuses on defence sector in his article “Defence manufacturing-the next frontier?”. And Utkarsh Maurya writes about new hope to entrepreneurs in “A happy new year to startups?”

So the December edition is a combination of articles from various domains. We have a pleasure presenting this edition to you.

Happy reading!!!

Thank you

Team Avant Garde

Greetings to all the readers from team Avant Garde! We welcome the batch back from the holidays. This is the October edition! We have lined up an array of interesting and informative articles. We wish you enjoy reading this magazine of yours.
First up, it’s a pride to announce that one of our 1st year group has achieved a momentous victory at IIM Indore’s flagship
event. We have an article covering this glorious success story!
Our PhD scholars have written thought provoking articles. PhD scholar Vikas Sangwan has written an article on “Dividend
distribution policy”. The article explains the concept of “dividend taxation”. It talks on how dividend taxation evolved in
India and what improvements we can still look for. PhD scholar Priyanka Sharma, a maggi loyalist herself, has written a
fascinating article “How to tackle brand crisis?” citing the downfall of Nestle maggi. In a lucid style, she explains how maggi
fell from a sky high position and how companies could avoid such a fate. We are sure readers would be glued to this article.
We have an article by Arpit Jain on “Yuan devaluation”. This article gives us insights into the recent shocking incident of
“yuan devaluation”. The article has been written in simple and easy-to-read style. Karthik Bajaj has written an exciting
and stimulating article on “3D printer technology”. He calls it a “magic” and in a novelistic style takes us into questioning
the dark side of 3D printing.
Coming back to the world of IIT Kanpur, we have an article on the recent KPMG green belt programme. In a crisp style,
Bhavna has written about this 4 day event and how students benefitted from it. As promised in the last edition, we present
an article on ‘Vihangam’15’ – the cultural fest of IME department. Manpreet has written it beautifully, sharing the events,
experiences and vibrancy of this fest.
So this October edition is a compliation of fascination, education, experience, joy and more! We have a pleasure presenting
this edition to you. We are pushing barriers and reaching greater heights with every edition. We wish to come back with
a much more exciting and value-adding edition, next month. Till then, enjoy this reading! Bye from our end.:)

Thank you
Team Avant Garde

Team Avant Garde

-Anonymous

Greetings from Team Avant Garde! We welcome you all after a long summer break. I am sure you missed us as much as we missed you.

The new batch of MBA 2015-17 have joined us for the next 2 years. We would like to welcome and congratulate all our juniors for being a part of the IIT Kanpur MBA program.  We wish them good luck for future endeavors.

With the arrival of new batch, there has been a change in Avant Garde Team. We are happy to announce that 3 new members have joined the editing team. The new members are “Manpreet Singh”, “K Prakash Raju” and “Utkarsh Maurya”. We would like to extend a warm welcome to the new members.

This is a Junior’s Special edition.

We start the edition with MBA 2015-17 article written by Junior’s Alumni Relations team. It describes the orientation and initial experience at IITK. The article also describes various tasks accomplished during orientation and also the expectations from IITK MBA.

Next we have Chhavi Kataria who did her summer internship with Juniper, telling about her experience working there.

The next section then has two articles on current affairs. In the first one, Kinsuk Ghatak explains about “Make in India” campaign and how it is beneficial to India. In the second one, Utkarsh Maurya tries to explain the reason behind global falling of oil prices.

The next article is a philosophical one. In the article “How about becoming a good person first”, Pallavi makes an argument that it is important to become a good person morally and socially.

With a revamped “Prabandhan” round the corner, we end this edition with the big one. In this article, PR Team gives insights into “Prabandhan”, a management fest of IIT Kanpur. This year under the umbrella of “Prabandhan”, we have ACCS, Cognition and Optima which deals with Analytics, IT and Operations & Marketing events to be held on 25^th, 26^th and 27^th September 2015 at IME.

We are hopeful that you will enjoy this edition. Reviews, comments and articles from readers are always welcome. The next edition won’t be that long away. We will meet you next month with the “Prabandhan special” edition. Till then Good Bye, Alvida! Enjoy.

Team Avant Garde.

-Benjamin Franklin

Greetings from Team Avant Garde !

We welcome you back after a two month summer break following the last Analytics Special Issue of Avant Garde brought to you by Vishleshan- the Analytics Club of MBA, IIT Kanpur. The above quote quite rightly sets the tone of this particular issue – Internship Programme Special. Keeping in mind the considerable average work experience the batch (2013-2015) has, it’s interesting to observe their varied experiences once back in the corporate world as interns. While all students might have a lot to share regarding their internships, we publish in this particular issue a host of different experiences of students in different organisations or profiles. Also with the Internship Special Issue we welcome the M.B.A. Class of 2016, and hope this issue is particularly insightful for them.

There is a very special contribution by our distinguished alumnus Mr. Vipul Mathur (MBA 2005-2007) who shares his view about the Indian Retail Industry. Currently a Senior Manager – Supply Chain Projects (Corporate office) with Aditya Birla Group, Vipul has a rich experience in industries such as Retail, Textiles, Manufacturing & Telecom with functional specialization in Supply Chain Management, Business Process Improvements, Strategic Projects Evaluation & Commercial Excellence. In his article Vipul talks about different retail formats, teams behind any retail process, strategies used by retailers for sales maximisation & the overall industry outlook. The article brings out the true essence of the retail industry- both challenging & dynamic providing huge prospects of growth eventually in the FMCG sector.

Talking about the internship experiences, we have Anchit Walia giving us a first hand account of his internship at Mahle Filter Systems India Ltd (Anand Group) as a Marketing intern. So what happens when work becomes play & vice versa! The article talks about competitors, marketing & distribution strategies for a product while including his first love of travelling as well as meeting new people This is followed by an article by Abha Patankar as a Technology Consulting intern at Deloitte Consulting India Pvt. Ltd. The article while elaborating on all the tasks undertaken, also focuses on the process of continuous learning & its different phases she experienced during her internship.

Rohit Sindhwani also shares with us his internship experience at the Parwanoo plant of Gabriel India Ltd (Anand Group) as an intern in the Operations Domain. The article focuses on his efforts to innovate & thus try to improve the existing processes in the firm. His efforts of innovation at workplace bear fruit especially due to the implementation of his plan & project by the firm successfully. After this, we have Ankesh Khunteta who writes about his tenure as an intern with Market Insight Consultants in the field of Marketing Research, the processes & tools used by him & also about his ongoing transformation from a technical professional to a techno-functional managerial professional during his MBA course at IIT Kanpur.

We wrap up this issue with the final internship experience shared by Ketan Bagga with a start-up DeliveryChef.in as a Marketing intern. Being a start-up it gives us a much better outlook of his understanding of a business & it’s targets right in it’s nascent stages. Also like all other experiences it mentions about the attitude of continuous learning, improvement & adapting to the dynamism of any corporate firm which takes one ahead in the long run.

We hope that you like this edition of Avant Garde. Your comments, criticism and appreciation is awaited.

You can post your comments on the articles in the Add Comment section (for the online edition ).

Happy Reading !

Team AG

The MBA program at IIT Kanpur has always been a pioneer in the field of management education since its inception. Recognizing the increasingly important role that big data and analytics play in business, we have restructured our entire curriculum to give due importance to Statistical Modelling and Quantitative techniques. Out of this restructuring was born Vishleshan- the analytics club of our program. Vishleshan conducts seminars and workshops to educate students about the current happenings in the field of analytics and also to inform them of upcoming opportunities. As a part of their activities the people at Vishleshan have graciously agreed to contribute to this edition of Avant Garde which will focus entirely on analytics.

Looking at the articles being published in this issue, we have Saurabh Prasad of MBA 2013-2015 giving us an insight into the analytical framework used in business decision making.
This is followed by an article by Pratha Pareek of MBA 2013-2015 who shares her opinions on the impact of analytics in the advertising world.
Finally we have Varun Sharma of MBA 2013-2015 demonstrating how analytics can be used in business consulting by using the ‘word cloud” to deconstruct a speech made by the Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi of the BJP .

The issue also covers a special feature of the business quiz focusing on analytics to brush up your knowledge of the sector.
We hope that you like this edition of Avant Garde. Your comments, criticism and appreciation is awaited.
You can post your comments on the articles in the Add Comment section.
We would like to end by saying that this will be the last issue of Avant Garde for this semester. We promise to be back next semester with even better editions.

Till then we wish you all a happy reading and a great summer ahead.
Cheers.

AvantGarde took a huge leap forward last month by venturing into a complete new look and design along with the launch of the new eBook format. We take this opportunity to convey our heartfelt thanks to all our readers for all the accolades you have showered on us for this change and for recognizing our efforts. We promise to keep exceeding your expectations!

After a successful advent into this revamped design and new format, AvantGardecontinues to carry forward the legacy of MBA @ IIT Kanpur, with a new issue, full of articles on current and trending topics as well as on some key corporate affairs.

As the Rupee continues to break all records and hit an all-time low (65.94 against 1 USDat time of publication of this issue), usual discussions on the fall in the rupee bring up macro-economic matters such as slowing economic growth, corporate earnings and market volatility. However, the fall of Rupee burns a hole not only in Dalal Street, but also in the common man’s pocket.

Hence, we are dedicating this issue to the burning topic of “Falling Rupee” with Sayantan Ghosh and Chandrajit Mitra of MBA 2013-15 batch sharing their views on it, the causes of this fall and some counter-remedies.

Sunny Goyalof MBA 2012-14 batch shares his views and opinions on the NSEL (National Spot Exchange Limited) settlement crisis and talks about Spot markets and how people continue to exploit the existing loopholes in our financial system.

Piyush Sharmaof MBA 2013-15 batch shares his opinions on the Retail Sector and the Back End Supply Chain process. He takes us back to the early 90s when Retail Sector started to boom and also throws light on the present scenario.

Varun Sharma of MBA 2013-15 batch talks about an interesting topic of the advantages of BJP in the Lok Sabha elections 2014 as he analyses various factors and highlights how BJP might succeed if it continues to do the ground work of reaching out to the youth.

Finally, Arpan Rani of MBA 2012-14 batch gives us a glimpse of the first ever Industry-Alumni meet-cum-Symposium in Industrial Management Engineering (IME) department, IIT Kanpur, held on 6th and 7th April, 2013, with the theme – “Glory of techno-management: Success, challenges and road map for future.”

This issue continues to test and hone your knowledge of current Business Affairs with the Quizomania section, bundled with a complete new set of business related questions.

We hope that you like this edition of Avant Garde.

We await your comments, criticism and appreciation.

Feel free to post your comments on the articles in the “Add Comment” section.

Till the next issue, wish you a Happy Reading!

Cheers!

― E.F. Schumacher

As the November edition of Avant Garde is being released the campus is marching intensely towards the much awaited part of the year, the placement season! Corridors of the hostels, mess tables, cycling tracks and badminton courts all are echoing with the hot discussions on complicated academic concepts and thoughtful plannings about the future course of the candidates.

November was the month of a thrilling roller coaster ride as it was dotted completely with the End semester exams, term paper submission, special studies and industrial project presentations & submissions. After all it is the way two years of the life goes past an MBA grad, leaving behind the sweet fragrance of condensed learning and experience derived through hard efforts.

The major event of the month was the TedX IIT Kanpur chapter. That brought artists, thinkers, motivators, scientists and social workers to the campus to discuss their insights on what they think is happening around or going to happen in recent times.

This edition is centered around the theme of ’simplicity’ and shows through different articles the facets of simplicity that are going to mold the lives of common man in near future!

Articles covered in this edition are:

On Dec 2-3, Bhopal Gas Tragedy will complete its 28th years of occurrence. In focus of this edition Mayank Singh from MBA Batch of 2013 argues on how our constitutional rights were intended for real persons, not artificial creations. But with time corporations have emerged as most powerful entities in this century. He discusses the agony of the people of Bhopal through the lens of corporate person-hood as highlighted by the case of Bhopal gas tragedy. This brings back the question, is the system we are relying ’simple’ and efficient enough.

Monica Agrawal from MBA batch of 2013, shares her experiences from the HCL Emerging Women Business Leaders’ Summit held in September, 2012 where 2 women leaders were invited from each of the 30 top B-schools of India. She shares her understanding on how world leaders today are understanding the importance of women participation in decision making and relates it to the innate nature and skills they possess.

With the 100% recent FDI roll-out in parliament, the stage is set for the foreign investors to boost the organized retail sector in India. Mukul Joshi of MBA 2013 batch tries to highlight the legal aspect of the pricing and servicing model followed in these retail stores. Such a model has added to the convenience and cut the extra cost involved through a simplistic approach of customer freedom. He brings out an analysis on ‘offer’ vs ‘invitation to a offer’ in context of self service stores model through a self prepared case.

Prof. Sunil Handa, visiting faculty IIMA has motivated his students to follow the path less traveled. Chetan Bhagat, Rahsmi Bansal and Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Founder, Naukari.com) have all been his students under Laboratory on Entrepreneurial Motivation (LEM). Students of IIT Kanpur also got the opportunity to be the part of two day extensive workshop as famously called LEM. Anil Kumar from MBA batch 2014 shares his experience on how the workshop was an eye-opener and in very basic and simple manner Prof. Handa communicated the concepts that compelled him to work on breaking his shell of misconceptions.

Anand P. Gautam from MBA 2014 Batch shares his delight on cloud storage as a means of data storage and retrieval mechanism, which provides the option of ’simultaneity’ in access and is a boon for team working and assignments. At the same time it is opening avenues for future inter-linkages and progressions towards ’simplicity’ in carrying and transferring data.

We hope that you like this edition of Avant Garde.

Feel free to post your comments on the articles in the “Add Comment” section. We await your comments, criticism and appreciation.

Till the next issue, wish you a Happy Reading!

Team AG.

Nov’12