Placement 2000

The demand for Indian MBAs continues to be strong. And not only in India but the effect has been observed in the US of A also. Placement 2000 saw abundance and diversity of the corporate recruiters well-known across the B-schools around the globe. Sectors of significant growth included venture capital and private equity, international jobs overall. Also were observed entrepreneurial ventures, especially e-commerce related jobs. And the Class of 2000 made diverse choices in their career decisions across the B-schools.

Entry of foreign players
The Gods arrived in droves! They came, they saw and were conquered. The highlight of Placement 2000 was the entry in India of the “Elite” of the corporate worldwide. World’s leading names such as Goldman Sachs, WDR, MSDW, Standard & Poor came to IIMA. Video-conferencing was arranged for 4 overseas companies at the IIMA. These companies were highly impressed with the students and have promised to come back for more next year, says Rohit, a placecom member at IIMA. This wave was started by the entry of Lehman Brothers, which was the first top-ranked Investment Bank from Wall Street to come to IIMA in 1998. And then other major investment banks took notice and the “Talent Rush” started.

Finance is back:
After a few years average show, finance was back with a “bang” and made a strong show at the campuses. The markets are booming, the firms are expanding their operations and the people are leaving the firms for net companies. This all resulted in increased requirements for people in the finance sector. A few years down the line, finance companies used to select only a handful, that too after a long process. This year, the offers were coming by dozens. ICICI was the major player basking in the reflected light after making a record 30+ offers at IIMB and IIMA. AT IIML also, ICICI made 14 offers.

The opportunities were offered in corporate and investment banking, funds management, retail banking, project and infrastructure finance. At JBIMS, Citibank took 5 students for global finance division. Foreign banks and corporate like GE Countrywide offered consumer-financing opportunities. At XLRI, GE Caps made 5 lateral offers with ICICI, HSBC, ABN Amro, SBI Caps, Citibank being other players.

ESOPs
The fat salary cheques do not interest the students any more. New magic mantra to woo the students is to offer the ESOPs in addition to the fat salary cheques. Old maxim “you will get monkeys, if you offer them peanuts” is passe. Now you have to add sugar to the peanuts to get the best. At IIMC, 7 companies offered ESOPs. Logically, ESOPs bandwagon is dominated by the infotech firms with Wipro and Infosys the commonly recalled names. Add to this the virtual newcomers like IRIS, Caltiger, Mindtree, Blueshift and the picture at IIMC becomes clear. Infact IRIS offered a dot com opportunity along with ESOPs. It offered students a chance to set up their own dotcoms at IRIS with IRIS holding 75% equity and providing the financial and technical support. Similarly, IIMB & IIMA attracted leading technology firms like iNautix, CTP, etc. At IIMA, Indian heavyweights, Wipro and Infosys didn’t get a chance to open their tally as the placement was over by then.

Dot Com Craze
The winds of change were blowing and the requirements were clear. Yet despite all the hype by Indian media (leading dailies had published in number of articles that dotcoms will seize the limelight at IIMs), it was pretty obvious to the alumni and the regular placement watchers that Placement season is the time when Consulting, Investment Banks, and traditional heavyweights in Marketing and Finance dominate. Despite all the hype and hoopola generated, majority of students seek a start to their career in a major firm rather than starting in a small company. And that’s what happened. Only the big companies in dotcoms like Mphasis, Mindtree, Planetasia managed to get the people. And these are in the support services, not in hardcore dotcoms like Yahoo!

AT FMS, Delhi, Compaq, HCL Technologies, HCL Infosystems, Planetasia.com, NIIT, IRIS, Polaris comprised IT flavour, seemed to be the in-thing as students chucked lucrative offers from traditional sectors like banks and FMCG's to jump on to the infotech bandwagon, both to whet their entrepreneurial spirit and to grab the phenomenal stock options offered by some of them.

Marketing & Finance
These performed their role with due diligence regards the number of offers. But to get their share of best brains, they were virtually made to increase their packages. And yet earlier, they used to have a look at guys in top 50, but this placement saw them looking at people around 80th ranked at IIMA. And this trend is sure to continue in the coming years. As a result the “trickle down” effect will be seen from now on as these FMCG companies would be forced to go to the institutes outside top 10.

And the winner is …
Undoubtedly, the clean winner is “IIMA” for the most fabulous placement season in the annals of Indian B-school placements ever.

But the real winner is the Indian MBA, who has arrived on International Business World. With a BANG!!!

Our prediction
Next year and the years ahead will see the entry of other big I-banks from Wall Street such as SSB, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, Bear Sterns, Chase, Merrill Lynch. Besides companies like Nike, ranked 14th among desired companies by US MBAs are still to recruit from IIIMs.

Goldman Sachs would be recruiting for placements for Wall Street. Mckenna Consulting, Microsoft, Bain, Monitor can be expected to be among the “dream companies” at the IIM campuses.

CoolAvenues.com Research Cell

Back to Placement Main Page

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.

Mail your comments at: webmaster@coolavenues.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------