Management Student: Lead Activity - Meet the Culture

INLEAD conducted a LEAD Activity – “Meet the Culture” on July 27^th 2012 for the students of June and July 2012 batches. India has a rich cultural heritage and it’s very unique and versatile. The diversity in the cultural heritage can be seen throughout the country. Each and every state has different customs, traditions, beliefs and style of ceremonies as well. As INLEAD also has presence of students from different parts of the country so keeping this in mind the student affairs committee had thoroughly planned this activity for them. 

Students of both the batches have put in their best efforts to exhibit various cultures through skits and dance performances. All the acts were detail oriented, be it the costumes involved, lightning effects, and most importantly showcasing the cuisines of different cultures. The cuisines were tried by the judges and it left their palates salivating for more. All in all it was an afternoon which was full of fun & excitement and students of different programs were able to get to know more of each other.

All the acts were well performed and it did put all the judges in the spot of bother as they were not able to decide the winners because of the extraordinary performances by the students. But in the end there had to be one winner selected among the best performances and it was the Punjabi Team because of the vibrancy in the costumes, F&B Presentation and the exceptional role plays of all the characters. While the team performances received a thundering applause, special mentions were made for two individuals Mr. Tushar Saini depicting the character of Beeji (Punjabi team) and Nipun Gupta portraying as the Asur (Bengali Team). Both of them received the Individuals best performance award. 

Management Student: Industry Expert Session - Industry Orientation and Corporate Expectation (Mr. Vaibhav Gaur)

INLEAD conducted an Industry Expert Session for its International Hotel Management and Corporate Administration & FacilityManagement students of Jan and July 2012 batches. Topic Of the session was Industry Orientation and Corporate Expectations. The session was conducted by Mr. Vaibhav Gaur, Sales Director – Radisson Suites. Mr. Gaur has done his graduation in Hotel Management from Welcomegroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal. He has started his career as Front Office Executive at Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces. Eventually he shifted from the Front Office Department to the Sales Department of the Hotel and has worked in renowned organizations like Radisson MBD Hotel, Crown Plaza, Galaxy Hotels and Spa. Presently he is the youngest person to reach at Director Sale’s level.

Mr. Gaur has over half a decade of experience in this industry and shared his real time experiences with the students. He started the session with describing different departments of a hotel and how all of them are interdependent on each other in order to provide a hassle free service to the Guest. Mr. Gaur also talked on the grooming standards which are an important aspect to work in the industry and also the right kind of attitude required in the organization, which will eventually help them to grow in this lucrative sector.

The session was quite interactive as students being new to the field were very curious to know more about the industry, what would be the growth path and the corporate expectations as well. The Q&A session helped students to understand the hierarchy that is followed in the Hotels, to have a positive frame of mind while working and most importantly improving your skill set at regular intervals to have an effective growth. On being asked that how various hotel chains are surviving in such a competitive market, to which he said that “Service is the Key”. One has to focus on the high quality service being provided to the customer and because that will in the end help you to uphold the guest for a longer period of time. All in all the session was quite well-informed and it helped the students to understand the insights of the hotel industry and overall what are expectations of the corporate from the budding hoteliers.

Event Management: Industry Visit - Galaxy Hotel, Gurgaon

INLEAD conducted an industry visit for its Event Management and Public Relations students of June 2012 batch on 20th July 2012. Students were accompanied by Mr. Sandeep Bhandari, EMPR Faculty at INLEAD. The purpose of the visit was to familiarize them with the subject, Venue Operations. With the rapidly growing demand in MICE industry students should be aware of the latest facilities in a Hotel as a venue. Before doing any event it is very important for an Event Team to do a complete inspection of the venue, get acquainted with the services available at the venue and most importantly to do an appropriate venue mapping on paper in order to give a hassle free experience to the guest on the day of the event.

A Hotel provides various Venue Options like Banquet Halls, Conference Rooms, Board rooms etc. The students were taken on a tour of the Galaxy Hotel and were provided with information like the Layout Plan, Room Division Management, and Restaurant Operations. Students had a great exposure and learning during this visit.

Event Management: Industry Expert Session - Event Marketing Operations (Ramita Chaudhuri)

INLEAD conducted an Industry Expert Session on 13^th July 2012 for its Event Management students of June’12 batch. The session was conducted by Ms. Ramita Chaudhuri – Business Consultant. Topic of the session was Insights – Event Marketing Operations. Ms. Ramita is a Marketing Professional & has over 12 years of experience as Business Head for renowned brands. She has worked in various industries like FMCG, Media, Telecom and Advertising. Ms. Chaudhuri has made substantial contributions in activation of some of the popular brands like Carlsberg India, Big FM and Hutch. She was instrumental in ensuring that flagship brands such as Carlsberg and Tuborg gained visibility and acceptance amongst consumers across India through effective pan‐India brand activations and trade programs. Never shy of challenges, she is always looking for fresh venture and applying innovative approach to building brand.

The purpose of the session was to give students an introduction about the diverse Marketing Concepts like ATL/BTL activities, Trade marketing, Direct Marketing etc. Ms. Ramita also shared her practical experiences on various brand activation concepts. She stressed on the fact that comprehensive understanding of the Brand and the core Target Group should be the prime concern of the budding Event Marketers.

As India is majorly an emotion driven country so it is important that an event experience should be innovative so that it can engage more number of people and can strike on to their emotional chords. To come up with such a unique thought process it is essential that one should participate in brain storming sessions at regular intervals. The success of a BTL activity can only be measured through ROI (Return on Investment), hence it is essential for a marketer to invoke large number of people by using experiential marketing. According to Ms. Chaudhuri with such massive competition in a largely cluttered market, the person who possesses such skill set can only sustain for a longer period of time.

Healthcare Administration: Industry Expert Session - Disaster Management (Dr. Gaurav Aggarwal)

INLEAD conducted an Industry Expert Session on 11^th July 2012 for its Healthcare Administration students of April’12 batch. Topic of the session was Disaster Management. The session was conducted by Dr. Gaurav Aggarwal, Director – Pushpanjali Crosslay Hospitals. Dr. Aggarwal has completed his MBBS from JSS Medical College, Mysore and has finished his MD in Internal Medicine from Sri Ramchandra Medical College, Chennai. Dr. Aggarwal is at present the director of Pushpanjali Crosslay Hospital and prior to that he had worked with Clinical Diagnostic Centre and Pushpanjali Medical Centre (Heart and Trauma Hospital) as Medical Director. 

 From 16^th July all the HCA students of April’12 batch will start their Quarter 2 internships in various hospitals, so the major purpose of the session was to familiarize them with the effective working atmosphere of hospitals and also to give them an introduction about Disaster Management which is an essential aspect of an administrator’s job profile. Dr. Gaurav had made the session pretty much interactive and shared his practical experience with the students. Dr. Aggarwal also shared the growth story of the booming healthcare sector and according to him the major contributing factor for this is the increase in the competition in the current market scenario. The session also helped students to get exposed to the practicalities of the healthcare industry, what sort of challenges they may face in the real world (while working) and how to overcome them by applying the skills that they had learned in their theoretical sessions. 

During the session Dr. Gaurav also briefed the students on Disaster Management concepts. It helped students to understand about the triage cycle, type of disasters, creating the specific zones to reduce the overall response time and how communication (through different ways) plays a very important role in any emergency. Dr. Aggarwal also shared a format of Hospital Disaster plan with the students and laid emphasis on the fact that all the processes are need to be followed to perfection(an administrator’s primary role) so that the situation may not get  chaotic.

Management Student: LEAD Activity - War of Words

As a part of LEAD module INLEAD conducted an activity for its April 2012 Batch – War of Words. As the name sounds it was a debate competition, where students from all the programs of April 2012 batch had participated. They were all pumped up to do well and were ready with their armory (of Strong Points and facts & Figures). Student’s excitement levels were really soaring; we were glad that we had conducted just WAR OF WORDS and not the WAR OF ARROWS.

The activity was meticulously planned by our LEAD Faculty Ms. Priya Mehta. Students were given topics related to their specific industry domain. Groups were made to talk on For the Motion and Against the Motion. All the students had come up with some strong points and all the points were backed up by concrete facts and figures. Once the speech was over then the 2^nd hurdle for them was to face some hard-hitting questions from the rebuttal panel and as well as from the audience. All in all the activity was lot of fun and overall students had made it quite successful.

It was a closely fought competition and all the students had performed exceptionally well but in the end judges had to decide 1 winner. Students were majorly tested on Language proficiency, presence of mind, communication skills, Question Handling and Audience Connect.

Winners of the competition:-

·      Syed Imran Ali (HCA Batch) – Winner

·      Anjul Garg (Marketing Batch) – 1^st Runner up 

·      Abhishek Bhandari (HCA Batch) – 2^nd Runner up

Career Counseling: Industry Visit - 10th Infra Education Fair

INLEAD conducted an industry visit to 10^th Infra Educa Fair held at Pragati Maidan for its Marketing Students on June 23, 2012. Students were accompanied by one of the marketing faculties at INLEAD, Mr. Mohammed Amir. The sole purpose of industry visit is to give the students the hands on experience or the exposure about the industry in which they aspire, to turn out to be the future leaders. It gives a complete perspective to them about the corporate dynamics of the entire industry. In simple terms they are exposed to the real world, which will ultimately help them to come out as better professionals.

Through the education fair the students were exposed to the marketing practices adopted by the educational institutes with reference to courses like B. Tech, MBA, PGDM, Hotel Management, Nursing etc. They also observed the utilization of marketing tools like ambience, counseling skills, stall set-up, literature of various institutes and did a comparative analysis of it. They also analyzed the footfall of the students with respect to the courses being marketed like: B.Tech, PGDM, MBA, BSc Nursing, Hotel Management etc.    

Event Management: Industry Visit - Kingdom of Dreams (June 2012 EMPR Batch)

The Training and Placement Cell of INLEAD organised an industrial visit to Kingdom of Dreams on June 28^th, 2012 for EMPR students of June’12 batch. The students were accompanied by the one of the faculty at INLEAD, Mr. Sandeep Bhandari. The enticing and exquisite Kingdom of Dreams, in the heart of the “Millennium city” brings to life a vivid picture of India's art, culture, heritage, craft, cuisine and live art...all with the technological wizardry of today.On behalf of Kingdom of Dreams, a warm welcome was accorded by Mr. Rishabh Kumar, Floor Manager and Mr. Raj Kumar, Assistant Manager, Human Resource.

It was the first industry visit for the batch ever since the commencement of the session from 16^th June to give us a hands on experience as to what goes behind the working of one of the biggest entertainment extravaganza. The students were briefed about the sprawling setup at Kingdom of Dreams which included both Nautanki Mahal and Culture Gully. An elaborate culture, arts, craft and food boulevard, from visiting the backwaters of Kerala, savoring the taste buds in the royal nawab style in Lucknow, the statuesque beaches in Goa, an insight of the royal splendor of a Rajasthani Palace, the Mumbai local that rules the lives of major chunk of Mumbai, the live kitchens…..there’s so much you can look forward to at Culture Gully. In the Nautanki Mahal, the magic of Indian Cinema comes alive in a stunning, electrifying on-stage spectacle. It combines creativity and cutting edge technology to create an Entertainment Extravaganza which explodes our senses. The students had a glimpse of Jhumroo, an out and out musical comedy. Packed with 19 Bollywood retro songs, Jhumroo is a celebration of the spirit of Kishore Kumar, a legend who continues to charm the young and old alike. A brief visit to IIFA buzz café, a glamourous themed bollywood VIP lounge, added to the excitement.

The visit came to end with a lively interaction with Mr. Saurabh Kaushik, General Manager, Human Resource. He shared his experience at Kingdom of dreams and followed by a rapid fire round with students, asking questions as to what the students had learnt from the visit to Kingdom of Dreams. The students were also rewarded with gifts for the correct answers. The students had a great experience of learning at the hub of innovative and creative thinking.

Sanya Bajaj and Rashika Yadav

(Student, EMPR June’12)