WORKSHOP ON STRATEGIC MARKETING

The Alumni Association of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta conducted a workshop on Strategic Marketing yesterday. The programme was anchored by Mr. Ravi Santhanam,Founder,Meta Drsti, Mr. K ‘Mali’ Mahalingam,Partner,T.S.Mahalingam & Sons and Dr. Murthy, Founder & MD of Clickitjobs.com in the presence of Prof. S. Sundar

Mr.Mahalingam and Mr.Santhanam

To explain the importance of Strategic Marketing, two cases were taken up for discussion with the students. The first was a case of how an international bank can capitalize on the booming retail banking segment in India. Three student teams presented their analysis and findings and in the end, the team of PGP1 students, R.Muthuraj, S.Haareesh, K.Naren Kartic, S.Vikram and Philips Sandeep were declared winners.

Dr.Murthy (left) and Prof.Sundar (second from left) with Haareesh,Naren,Philips,Muthuraj & Vikram,winners of The Billion Dollar Question case presentation

In the second half of the programme, a case on the marketing mix adopted by Maruti Suzuki Ltd for its WagonR brand of car was taken up for discussion. Two teams presented their findings and the PGP2 team of R. Vishwanath, P. Balaji Anand, D.Nithila,Shivani Jain and Anne Sharon were declared winners.

Dr.Murthy (left) & Prof.Sundar (second from left) with Vishwanath,Balaji and Nithila, winners of The Ugly Duckling case presentation

The workshop came to an end in the afternoon with some words of wisdom from the dignitaries for the students.

AN END TO A SPORTING WEEK

SPIKES’10 came to an end yesterday with the Galacticos walking away with the trophy after defeating the Trojans 3-2. In a nail-biter of a final, the Galacticos drew first blood, winning the first set but conceded the next two to the Trojans, before coming back to win the last two sets. The road to the finals was a rough one for both teams as they overcame the Arcanes and the Shaolin Spikes, two of the strongest teams, in the semi-finals. Earlier in the day, the Shaolin Spikes defeated the Arcanes 2-1 in the third place playoff match.

SMASHES’10 the women’s badminton tournament, that happened alongside SPIKES, was won by R.Reshma and E.Imaya of Team Tornadoz. They defeated T.Akila and R. Sharanya of Team Gryffindorz.

The list of winners

Winner(volleyball)– Galacticos

Galacticos-Triumphant all the way

Runner-up(volleyball) –Trojans

Trojans- Never say Die

Winner (badminton) – Tornadoz

Girl Power : Imaya and Reshma of Tornadoz

Runner-up (badminton) – Gryffindorz

Third-place                  —Shaolin Spikes

Shaolin Spikes- A symbol of inspiration and strength

Best Promoted Team (volleyball)—Sheila Ki Jawaans

Most Spirited Team (volleyball)   —Appatakkars

Most spirited team (badminton)—Two States, represented by Anchita Khaitan and Sansu George of PGP2 and Nectars, represented by Thara Susan and R. Layadurga of PGP2

Team with best player chemistry (volleyball) – Arcanes

Best referee(volleyball)—K. Rajaram
Best referee (badminton)—Sujin Pringle

Player of the final and Player of the tournament– Prem Karthik (Galacticos)

 

AN OVERVIEW OF CLOUD COMPUTING

Mr. G Dinesh, Director of Projects, Healthcare vertical at Cognizant Technology Solutions delivered a special lecture on Cloud Computing yesterday. He began by clarifying that Cloud Computing is not another marketing gimmick and added that it had originated as early as in the 1960s itself, only that it was known as distributed computing then. He went on to explain the features of cloud computing, characteristics, cloud client, cloud platform, cloud storage and cloud infrastructure.

G.Dinesh

Mr. Dinesh concluded by saying that cloud computing will mark the next wave of growth. All information technology firms would have to adopt cloud computing as more and more clients want to cut costs by adopting the technology. The market potential for cloud computing technology is estimated to be about $160 billion of which $95 bn will be in business applications and $65bn in online advertising. Some organizations which have successfully adopted the technology include Harvard Medical School, New York Times, Washington Post and Virgin Atlantic, among others. In India, many IT firms are moving towards adopting cloud computing but some are still apprehensive about going for the paradigm shift. Providing an example of Finacle banking solution of Infosys, Mr. Dinesh explained that it can be used in a simpler way by hosting it in a cloud.

Mr. Dinesh is an alumnus from the 5^th batch of BIM. He started his career as software developer with CMC Limited where he worked for 8.5 years. Prior to joining CTS, he worked as Delivery Manager, Healthcare projects at Infosys Technologies Limited.

VOLLEYS ALL THE WAY

Spikes’10 the annual volleyball tournament is underway with the league stages done with and the second stage, the Super Six, in progress.

The action began on the night of Sunday the 5th with the Shaolin Spikes, the PGP2 team that called itself Catalans in the football tournament earlier this year, taking on Sheila ki Jawaans, the PGP1 team who were formerly known as the 57 Nakka Mukkas. After three days of league games, six teams – Galacticos, Shaolin Spikes, Arcanes, Renegades, Trojans and Appatakkars.

The first day of the super six matches was last night. The Shaolin Spikes faced the Renegades in the first encounter, defeating them comprehensively in two straight sets. This was followed by a nail-biting encounter between the Trojans and the Arcanes, a match that went down to the wire. The Arcanes emerged the winners in the end following many tense moments that included the two teams tied on 24-24 in the third set. The last game of the night was between the Galacticos and the Renegades and the former continued to prove its might in the tournament.

While teams like the Galacticos, Arcanes and Velociraptors retained the same names they had used in the football tournament, most others went for a change of name. The choice of names was reflective of the character of the teams. There was Oram Po, which meant “Don’t come in my way” probably signifying that their march to the winners’ title would be unobstructed. Then there was Sheila Ki Jawaans, a name inspired by a recent Bollywood item number, signifying that they were playing to chill out and have fun.