While Consultancy was a favourite at the campuses, it faced a tough competition with Wall Street I-banks, a drastic change from days of yore when it was undisputed darling on Day 0. That's another sign that placement at Indian B-schools is catching up with US B-schools' placement as far as the trend goes. At US B-schools, there is neck-to-neck competition between Consultancy and I-Banks for the cream of the class.

The top firms were McKinsey (known as "The Firm" in corporate circles) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Booz Allen and Hamilton (BAH), another Day 0 company did not participate in this year's placement process, as it was winding up the Indian Operations. Unviability of the operations was the reason given. McKinsey and BCG offered Rs. 8.5 Lakhs along with almost half of the postings abroad, majority of them in US.

Other Consultancy firms like Andersen Consulting, AT Kearney, E&Y, KPMG also had their share of recruitment. Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) was also a regular recruiter on a spree with booming markets in sight.

Another highlight was the "filtering down" effect. As the competition increases at the top B-schools, companies look towards other top Institutes for recruiting. Filtering down effect was observed in case of Lehman Brothers, Exeter Inc. and i2 Technologies, which in their first appearance on Indian B-schools recruited from IIMA in 1998, but now recruit from IIMB and IIMC also.

Big Consultancy firms like BCG and McKinsey (19 offers each at all IIMs) recruited more MBAs than they usually do. As a result, the percentage of students going into Consultancy was a little higher than usual. IIMA leads the rest in terms of number of offers to students from Consultancy. About 35% of offers at IIMA were from Consultancy field, whereas 19% and 17% of offers comprised Consultancy at IIMB and IIMC respectively. It was around 4% at IIML. XLRI and IIM Indore also put up a good show with 15% of all offers from Consultancy field where other Top-10 B-schools had 7-10% of total offers from Consultancy firms. Thus overall, it turns out Consultancy firms were favoured by students. Most of these Consultancy firms were given first day rankings, which implies that students preferred these over and above marketing or other finance/banking companies.

Bounty hunters

MMG was a star as it made over 15 offers with all of them overseas postings, mostly in US. BCG and McKinsey also recruited for their US, Singapore and European (London and Germany) postings. At IIML and FMS, Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen dominated the scene with 2 offers, each accepted.

At IIMC, PWC led by 11 offers with McKinsey with 8 offers, whereas at IIMB, it was PWC with 9 offers and Arthur Andersen with 7 offers. At XLRI, Andersen Consulting made 2 offers but star performer was Arthur Andersen with 10 offers.

At SP Jain, leading firms were PWC Global (4 offers), Ernst & Young, KPMG, Kale consultants among others.

At IMT also, Consultancy was a favorite among students with Andersen Consulting, Kurt Salmon Associates, McKinsey Knowledge Center, Eicher Consultancy Services, Business Consulting Group, CB Richard Ellis, Jones Lang La Salle, S.B.Billimoria commanding a premium.

At IIM Indore, AFF was star performer with 5 offers. Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting also starred at JBIMS placements.

Institutes	Consulting(%)
IIMA(	35
IIMB	18.66
IIMC	17
IIML	4
XLRI	15
SPJIMS	10
JBIMS	5
FMS	7.5
MDI	10
NMIMS	6

Note: All the above figuers are in %.

CoolAvenues.com Team

Placements 2001

Read complete story of Placement 2001 as it happened along with analysis and comparison across the B-Schools and segment-wise analysis.

Placements 2002

Read complete story of Placement 200 as2 it happened along with analysis and comparison across the B-Schools and segment-wise analysis.

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