Dr. G.P.C. Nayar

Chairman, SCMS Group

Vol : 7

No : 5

August 2011

A Monthly Newsletter of SCMS Group of Educational Institutions, Cochin

Vol : 9

No : 5

August 2013

A Monthly Newsletter of SCMS Group of Educational Institutions, Cochin

Edited and published by Prof. B. Unnikrishnan for and on behalf of SCMS Group of Educational Institutions, Prathap Nagar,

Muttom, Cochin - 683 106 and printed at Maptho Printings, Cochin - 683 104.

www.scmsgroup.org Email: scms@scmsgroup.org

Editorial Advisory Council: Dr. D. Radhakrishnan Nair, Prof. R. Sahadevan

Sciences International Research Journal, Vol 1, Issue 2 (ISSN 2321-

3191).

Smt. Megha Mary Michael, Assistant Professor presented a paper titled

'To Shop or Not: Factors Facilitating and Impeding Online Shopping' at

the Fourth International Research Symposium in Service Management

conducted at Marian International Institute of Management, Kuttikanam,

from July 2 to 6.

Smt. Daly Paulose, Smt. S. Stella Mary and Smt. Megha Mary Michael,

Assistant Professors, attended a three-day workshop on Research

Methodology and Statistical Analysis: New Trends, at Rajagiri Centre for

Business Studies, Cochin, from July 16 to 18.

Paper presented

Workshop attended

Dr.G.P.C.Nayar, Chairman, SCMS Group, inaugurating the 13th batch B Tech. From L to R:

Dr.Pradeep P.Thevannor, Vice Chairman, Prof.P.C.Pillai, Group Director,

Prof.M.Madhavan, Director-SSET, and Prof.S.Sahadevan, HoD-E&CE.

Shri.T.K.Jose IAS, Chairman, Coconut Development Board, speaking after inaugurating the nd

22 batch of PGDM at SCMS COCHIN School of Business. Sitting beside L-R: Dr.V.Raman

Nair, Director, SCMS COCHIN School of Business, Dr.G.P.C.Nayar, Chairman, SCMS

Group, Shri.Ravi Soman, Senior Group Leader, Visa Inc., USA, and Dr.Filomina P.George,

Dean-Academic Administration.

SCMS is one of the most unique institutions in our country, considering

the kind of passion for knowledge and excellence it holds and spreads,

and the manner in which the students are groomed to become global

professionals, said nd

Board while inaugurating the 22 batch of PGDM at SCMS COCHIN

Business School, on July 29.

With the kind of the best facilities provided in this campus it is your

responsibility to show that you become the best professionals the country

is waiting for, he advised the fresh students.

A serious problem the country faces today is the want of enough

professional managers to efficiently manage creation of wealth that will

Shri.T.K.Jose IAS, Chairman, Coconut Development

SCMS, one of the most unique institutions

in our country Shri T.K.Jose IAS

Contd. on page 2

Contd. from page 3

B Tech batch 13 inaugurated

The 13th batch of B Tech was inaugurated

by Dr.G.P.C.Nayar, Chairman, SCMS

Group, on July 22. The inaugural function

was held in the newly built auditorium with

a capacity to accommodate more than 2000 people.

The chairman briefly touched upon how the self-financing sector is

making a signal contribution for the betterment of not only the qualifying

students and their families but also for the society and the economy of the

state. He also emphasised that no institution can come up without

discipline.

Prof.P.C.Pillai, Group Director who presided stated that the knowledge

gained in engineering education should enable the students to innovate

means to create wealth beneficial to the society. Dr. Pradeep

P.Thevannoor, Vice Chairman, drew a picture of the various

developmental projects on the anvil. This year onwards more focus

would be given to the international research project established in the

campus. A twelve-member team of faculty and students are expected to

visit Germany soon on a joint project, for the first time in the history of self-

financing engineering colleges in Kerala, he disclosed. Yet another

innovative programme, he announced, was the 'earn while you learn'

scheme enabling students to work with live industries.

Prof.M.Madhavan, Director, SSET, welcomed the gathering and

Prof.R.Sahadevan, HoD-E&CE, proposed vote of thanks.

The Outlook-MDRA All India Survey 2013 to identify India's Best

Professional Colleges has ranked SCMS School of Engineering &

Technology (SSET) in 63rd position out of the approximately 3600

engineering colleges in the country.

The Week-Hansa Research to identify the best colleges across the

country ranked SSET in 99th position in the All India Level.

The technical paper titled 'Obfuscated Malware Analysis' authored by

Dr. Vinod P., Associate Professor-CS&E along with Rakesh R. and Alphy

George, 2013 batch CSE students, was selected for presentation in the

2nd International Invited Workshop on the Theories and Intricacies of

Information Security Problems, to be held at Johannesburg, South

Africa, from August 14 to 16. The Extended version of this book chapter

will be published in IGI Global Book Chapter.

Smt. Preetha Chandran, Assistant Professor-E&CE participated in the

workshop on 'Electronic Design Tools and Its Applications,' organised by

the Division of Electronics Engineering, School of Engineering, CUSAT,

under TQIP Phase-II, from May 27 to 31.

The fifth semester E&EE students participated in a campaign for

prevention of epidemics in Aluva Municipal area, as part of the activities

of the NSS unit and in association with the Aluva Municipal authorities,

from June 21 to 28. They visited around 950 houses, created awareness

on prevention measures and distributed medicines under the guidance

of Smt. Gayathri S. Warrier., Assistant Professor-CS&E. Anand J.,

Nirmal Chand P., and Haridev K.S. were the student leaders.

Three Mechanical Engineering students of 2013 batch were selected by

Sundram Fasteners Ltd.

One Mechanical Engineering student of 2013 batch was selected by

Apollo Tyres Ltd.

Four Civil Engineering students of 2013 batch were selected by Prateek

Construction Management.

Kaynes Technology conducted their campus recruitment for 2013 batch

B Tech students on July 12 and selected one Electrical and Electronics

Engineering student.

Two final year M Tech Computer Aided Structural Engineering students

of 2013 batch were waitlisted by Mammut Building Systems.

Konfidence conducted two days aptitude training programme for final

year Electronic & Communication, Electrical & Electronics students

during July 11 and 12.

College Rankings All India survey reports

Paper presentations

Seminars and workshops

NSS camp

Placement news

Success is often termed as getting what you want. But, truly successful

people are those who are able to scale success even when they don't

get what they want. Look at what Warren Buffett, the self-made

American billionaire, widely considered as the world's most prolific and th

successful investor of the 20 century, has got to say on his own

personal experience.

After finishing his degree from University of Nebraska he

was very keen on joining Harvard Business School to

become a professional value-investor. But, for some reason

or another, he was denied admission at Harvard.

However, he was not willing to quit. He was determined to

pursue his dream without wasting time and started his

research to find out another good business school where he

could get the right guidance from a competent faculty. While

scrutinising the faculty list of Columbia University he came

across the names of two renowned professors whom he

used to admire -- Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.

So, he got enrolled at Columbia Business School. Probably, the

luckiest thing ever happened in my life was getting rejected by Harvard,

Buffett recalled later. Suppose if I had joined Harvard, he explained, I

would not have gained the opportunity to know Benjamin Graham, who

became my teacher, mentor and boss. His association with Graham

turned out to be the most rewarding influence in his life.

The most successful entrepreneur of our times and co-founder of Apple

Computers, Steve Jobs, also had expressed a similar opinion reflecting

on the incidence of himself getting fired from Apple. Getting fired from

Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It freed

me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life, declared the

creative genius in his famous speech at Stanford University.

Live life fully

It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it,

confessed the charismatic pioneer of the personal computer

revolution. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose

faith, he advised the young generation.

There is very little difference between successes and failures in life as

long as one is willing to make one's life a satisfying

experience. And, the best way to be truly satisfied is to do

what you believe is great work.

I have never come across someone defining success as

comfort although there are many who behave as if it were

their ultimate goal. Life can be compared to a mountain

climb. Fulfillment is achieved by relentless dedication to

the ascent, even when the upward journey is slow and

sometimes painful. Climbers are lured by the

magnificence of the mountain and the sheer challenge it

offers.

Adversities are not to be treated as insurmountable

barriers. Failure is a failure only when you accept it as failure. Truly

speaking, each hardship is a challenge, each challenge an

opportunity in disguise to be embraced.

Success, then, can be seen as the degree to which one moves forward

and upward in the life-long mission despite all obstacles.

The negative complains about the wind;

The positive waits for the wind to change;

The realist adjusts the sails, and move forward.

Only the realists live life fully with a deep sense of purpose and passion

for what they do.

Dr.G.P.C.Nayar, Chairman, SCMS Group, was a member of the

delegation of the heads of leading PGDM institutions in India that met

Dr.M. Mangapati Pallam Raju, Union Minister of HRD, in his chamber on

June 27, requesting for speedy resolution of some of the pressing issues

facing the institutions.

Heads of leading PGDM institutions met

Union Minister of HRD

Dr.M.Mangapati Pallam Raju, Union Minister of HRD, receiving the memorandum from the

delegation of Education Promotion Society of India. Dr.G.P.C.Nayar, Chairman, SCMS

Group, is seen second from left.

The Retail Marketing Department of SCMS COCHIN School of Business

was commissioned by Decathlon Sports India, a wholly owned

subsidiary of the France-based Decathlon Group Chain Sports Retailers,

to conduct a feasibility study on customer demography and merchandise

preference in Cochin. The study was made preparatory to the opening of

a new sports good supermarket by Decathlon at Kalamassery, Cochin,

scheduled in December 2013.

About 25 students of SCMS participated in the study held under the

guidance of Prof. Sreekumar B.Pillai. The study was completed and

report presented to Mr.Thomas de Lizaso, Regional Manager (India) and

Mr.Laurent Fernadez, Community Manager, Decathlon.

The project was entrusted as a forerunner of a long term association with

Decathlon in which PGDM retailing specialisation students of SCMS will

become beneficiaries of the partnership.

Feasibility study for Decathlon Sports India

FDP with a difference

The Faculty Development Programme which began on July 2 by

conducting a series of class room sessions on diverse topics by in-

house faculty continued during the month. Dr. V.Raman Nair, Director,

set the ball rolling by reminding the faculty the acute need for

innovations in our pedagogy. He advised how FDP 2013 should

culminate into tangible and pragmatic ideas that could be incorporated

into the course delivery. He reiterated the shift in focus to

entrepreneurship this academic year onwards as the true backbone of

any economic growth lies in the hands of entrepreneurs.

There were 35 sessions in all spread over two weeks starting with an

insightful session by Prof.K.J.Paulose, Dean-Management Studies,

on Inventory Control. The sessions those followed were:

Dr.C.Sengottuvelu, Professor and Head-Consultancy on Impact of

Budget on SCM; Prof. (Dr.) Suresh Mallya on WTO; Prof. V.

Rajagopal on Managing in a World of Change; Dr.Filomina P.George,

Dean-Academic Administration on Outcome Assessment;

Dr.M.Appala Raju, HoD-Finance on Buffett's Investment Philosophy

Value Creation; Shri. Dennis Thomas, Assistant Professor on

International Finance & European Crisis; Shri. Melwin Jose, Assistant

Professor on Tax Saving Avenues for Individual Assessees; Prof.

Mariakutty Varkey, HoD-Systems and Operations on Requirements

Management for Systems; Shri. Justin Joy, Assistant Professor on

Open Source Insights; Shri. Ansted Iype Joseph, Assistant Professor

on Gamification in Management Education; Smt. Jisha J., Assistant

Professor on Big Data Basis; Prof. B. Unnikrishnan, HoD-

Communication on The Foundation of All Communications; Shri. S.

Jayakrishnan, Assistant Professor on Designing Marketing Systems

for Resilience; Shri. A.V.Jose, Associate Professor on Fish; Prof. R. T.

R. Varma, HoD-Marketing on Strategising in Marketing; Smt. Devi

Pisharody, Assistant Professor on CRM and its Implementation Issue;

Dr. Andez George, Assistant Professor on Global Pricing Objectives

and Strategies Prof. Santhosh S. on Introduction to Structural Equation

Modeling; Lt. Cdr. Shalini Nandwani, Associate Professor on Learning

and Evaluation through Gamification; Dr. C. K. Rajan, Professor and

Chair for Climate Change and Environmental Changes on Water and

Energy Crisis; Dr. Ajith Sundaram, Assistant Professor on Use of

Social Networking by Students and Staff in Higher Education; Smt. Stella

Mary, Assistant Professor on Investment: the Quest for Value;

Smt.Joby Joy, Assistant Professor on Measurement and Scaling:

Fundamentals and Theory; Dr. K. R. Nisha, Assistant Professor on

Scaling in Questionnaire Design; Smt. Megha Mary Michael, Assistant

Professor on Innovation from Outside: Art of Crowd Source; Smt. Anjali

A., Assistant Professor on Computer Aided Language Learning; Smt.

Bindu K. Nambiar, Assistant Professor on the Quest for El-Dorado;

Prof.George K.Mathew on Multi Marketing through Anand Pattern

Cooperatives; Prof. Sreekumar B. Pillai on Time to Change Marketing

Techniques a Reality Check; Shri. Sudheer Sudhakaran, Associate

Professor on Competency-based Training; Prof. (Dr.) I. Jayasri,

Associate Professor on Defense Mechanism and Shri. Srinivasan V.,

Associate Professor on Depository Services for Retail Investors.

Finally, Dr. V. Raman Nair concluded the FDP with a closing speech

stating how each and every session presented with a difference in

content and delivery had contributed to the objective of the

programme and expressed that it was the appropriate beginning for a

fruitful academic year.

Smt.Bindu K.Nambiar, Assistant Professor, engaging the session

Workshop attended

Papers presented

Prof.V.Rajagopal and Prof. Sreekumar B.

Pillai, attended a 'Workshop to Sensitise

the Managements and Teachers of

Technical Institutions to Tackle the

Menace of Sexual Crime Against Women,' organised by All India Council

for Technical Education under instruction from Union Ministry of Human

Resource Development, Government of India, at Trivandrum on July 1.

Dr.C.Sengottuvelu, Professor and Head-Consultancy, presented a paper

titled 'Implementation of Electronic Procurement System by an Aerospace

Company,' at the national conference on Value Creation in Services:

Issues and Challenges, held at Federal Institute of Science and

Technology, Angamaly, on July 18 and 19.

Shri.Justin Joy, Assistant Professor and Prof.Mariakutty Varkey, HoD-

Systems and Operations, together presented a paper titled 'Enterprise

Resource Planning in Management Education Institutions: The Next

Level of IT Implementation in the Education Sector in Kerala,' at the above

conference.

Smt.Bindu K.Nambiar, Assistant Professor, Shri.Ansted Iype Joseph,

Assistant Professor, and Dr.V.Raman Nair, Director, also jointly presented

a paper titled 'Adoption of Information and Communication Technology in

the Banking Sector: Services Augmentation of the ATM Marketplace as a

Customer Channel in Kerala,' at the conference.

SSTMSalver

enable us to improve the economy, Shri.Jose continued, since only

through the efforts of dedicated and committed professionals we will be

able to achieve our objective. While we plan our growth till the next

elections, a country like Singapore is preparing their plan for the next 60

years and the budget of the government is professionally prepared by the

experts in their National University. That is the kind of contribution an

institution of higher learning can make available to the government and

the society, he elaborated. He also urged the students to think of

creating global corporations in India instead of preferring to go and work

for multinationals to create wealth for themselves.

Dr.G.P.C.Nayar, Chairman, SCMS Group, called upon the newcomers to

be prepared to shed all their inhibitions of the past in order to become true

professional managers capable of facing the challenges ahead.

Shri.Ravi Soman, Senior Group Leader, Visa Inc., USA, the guest of

honour, reminded the students that while trying to make a difference in

their own lives they should also try to make a difference in the society

around. Dr.V.Raman Nair, Director, SCMS COCHIN School of Business,

welcomed the gathering and Dr.Filomina P.George, Dean-Academic

Administration, proposed the vote of thanks.

Contd. from page 1

The delegation consisting of 15 members under the auspices of the

Education Promotion Society of India discussed some of the key issues

like: (1) transforming the AICTE for making it into an enabling regulator,

(2) making India a Hub of Management Education, (3) enhancing the

quality of management education, and (4) improving the visibility of

Indian B-schools in International Conferences and Forums of Deans

and Directors.

The delegation. Dr. G.P.C. Nayar, Chairman, SCMS Group is seen fourth from right.

(Letter addressed to Dr. G.P.C. Nayar)

Your article (May 2013) was quite impressive and thought - provoking.

I have given a copy of this article to our MBA students for reading.

It is truly a fact that many of us get stuck at the camel stage. It is the case

with many of our MBA graduates in our country. In industry we see the

scarcity for middle and senior level managers. Many of our MBA graduates

start well, but don't convert themselves to higher levels and remain in

lower level (camel stage) for a long time. There is scope for an action

research on this issue to find out how many of our MBA graduates reach

top level within a stipulated period and what stop them from reaching top.

The story of workshop by Mr. Masai was also interesting. Apart from the

message you have given to this story, I feel that 'workshop' is one of the

most effective teaching tools for MBA students. A one day workshop on a

particular topic would be much more effective than 60 lecture hours.

I usually conduct 'two day workshop' on the topic 'International Business'

mainly based on my practical international business experience. All my

students were of the opinion that this was much more effective than usual

lecture methods. MBA students should have more opportunity to get the

practical wisdom from industry practitioners along with theoretical

knowledge. A balanced blend can really take them forward.

Looking forward for many such inspiring articles,

Dr. Saji Kuriakose, Professor & Head, Department of Management Studies

MES College of Engineering, Kuttipuram.

B Com (Taxation) batch 2

inaugurated

Articles published

B Com (Taxation) batch 2 was inaugurated

at SSTM South Kalamassery campus by

Prof. P.C. Pillai, Group Director, on

July 11. Dr.Radha Thevannoor, Group Director, presided.

Dr.C.Mohankumar, Director, SIBB and Dr.Mathew Varghese,

HoD-B Com, offered felicitations.

Prof.P.C.Pillai, Group Director, inaugurating B Com (Taxation) batch 2 at SSTM South

Kalamassery campus on July 11.

Shri. Ajith Sundaram, Assistant Professor, published a paper on 'The

changing face of engineering education in Kerala - An empirical study at

engineering colleges in Kerala' in February 2013 issue of International

Journal of Engineering Research and Technology.

An article on 'Asset Quality of Indian Banks' by Shri. A. V. Jose, Associate

Professor, has been published in Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing

and Management Review Vol.2, NO. 6 (June 2013) (ISSN ONLINE:

2319-2836).

A paper by Dr. Andez George, Assistant Professor, titled 'Social Media:

Technology for Relationship Marketing' was published in Business

Others in the picture are L to R: Dr.C.Mohankumar,

Director-SIBB, Dr.Radha Thevannoor, Group Director and Dr.Mathew Varghese, HoD-B Com.

Contd. on page 4

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