Bellwether

Operations Management by myBskool

Operations management course for myBskool was delivered by Thirumalai B.E, M.Tech ( IIT - Madras), Visiting Faculty at IIM - B.

            

How to Write a Winning Business Plan?

How to Write a Winning Business Plan

What Stephen Covey can Tell Executive MBA Aspirants?

Stephen Covey, the author of the famous book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is no more. We have lost a great trainer and management guru. But, aspiring management professionals can learn a lot from applying Covey's seven habits.

1. Be Proactive: Say you enroll for an online PGDM from myBskool, then you proactively increase your knowledge of management principles and practical tactics used in the shop floor and market.

2. Begin with the End in the Mind: Ultimately, as you grow up the career ladder, you will become a manager. The highest post you can reach is a CEO of a company or start your own successful business venture. Keeping this end destination of your career in mind, you can equip yourself with an online management education program.

3. Put First things First: First, qualify yourself with a management program from a top-notch institute like IMT Ghaziabad, before you become a top-notch manager. Degree first, job role next.

4. Think Win, Win : When you get to do an online management program, you can continue working and also continue studying. So, your employer wins and you also win.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood: When you study management strategies, you understand what your seniors are trying to do. You understand the dynamics behind everyday decisions that your managers make. So, you understand your management before you become a manager.

6. Synergize: You synergize or learn along with other experienced working professionals and interact with them in the virtual chat rooms. You, get to see video lessons delivered by professors from IIT, IIM, and doctorates too. 

7. Sharpen the Saw:  You need to constantly improve yourself. To be a sharp and active manager, you need to sharpen your management skills. 

Stephen Covey - Author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Isn't a Housewife or Homemaker the Best Manager?

“You do have some people who still question how well you can develop socialization skills to work with other people if you are getting the degree online,” Bailey says. “One person I interviewed said, ‘How do I know if someone who spent the last two or three years getting their MBA in pajamas can come into the office?’ That maybe a sarcastic comment, but that is what some people still think about people who get their degrees online from home. 

Trying a parallel argument, isn't a homemaker the best manager? She pays electricity and newspaper bills, bargains with the fruit vendor, works 24 x 7, delivers breakfast, lunch, and dinner on time. She coaches her son for final exams and attends parent-teacher meetings at school. And gives some homemade medicine to her ailing mother-in-law.

What about a Punjabi housewife who runs a Paying Guest outlet in her home? She manages young women from different backgrounds who work in different industries. She allocates rooms as per the rent the working women are willing to give. And delivers food on time everyday. 

So, how does being at home or working at home, make these women less of managers or entrepreneurs? 

The same holds good for a student or working professional who gets a management degree online. Say, for instance the experience of a student who does a PGDM online from myBskool. The student does not study in isolation. The social learning platform has online chat rooms where students can chat with professors and batchmates. The student can also call a professor on the mobile. The student engagement officer throws an activity chart every week that helps the student to study subjects regularly.

But, employers are now warming up to online MBA professionals. And hope technology fuels and solves the communication question! 

Will Babu Get a Management Qualification?

Babu was involved in his family business right from the age of fifteen. He did his under graduation in economics and continued working in his father's medical equipment factory. He traveled abroad for the business expansion and was very successful as a manager. 

However, one day in the factory, Babu overheard one his juniors pass a comment about him. "When half-baked managers run a business, you expect such decisions." He wondered why his junior, a management graduate from a popular institute made such a remark. 

Babu told this incident to his father. His father said, " I was able to manage and keep loyal employees, even though i did not have a management degree. But these days, employees can be both shrewd and vindictive. I think you should try to get an executive MBA."

myBskool is right place for Babu to pursue his management education. The one year PGDM from IMT Ghaziabad is completely online. Babu can access the video lessons from his smartphone or laptop even when he is travelling. And he will get course materials from IMT and will get a wealth of knowledge about management from practicing industry experts. He will be a more confident manager and a future entrepreneur in his own family business. 

Student Engagement - Holy Grail of Online Education

When learning technology and learning content becomes uniform and free for all online educators, the key differentiation will be the learning design. Engaging the students online is an important part of learning design.

There are few advantages of online student engagement:

- Introverts or shy students feel comfortable.
- The success of Facebook and Youtube shows that people throughout the world love online presence.
- 24 x7 availability and flexibility

How do you reward good student engagement?

An online student who will get a good grade point for interaction will be:

- one who posts relevant questions or content
- one who gives good answers to queries of others
- one who summarizes the points of a discussion

How do you monitor online presence of students?

In a panel discussion conducted by myBskool about 'Online Management Education - Emerging Trends', Prof Xavier of IIM Ranchi gave a few interesting points.

- Biometric login of online students for unique recognition
- Every 10 minutes, a web camera captures your face to find out if you are awake, present, and not asleep.
- Both erring faculty and erring students can be identified

So, that reduces the doubts you may have about the versatality of online student engagement process.

In the video below, lot of online educators share their views and methods for online student engagement. 

           

myBskool CEO Swaminathan.K - The Story of a Serial Entrepreneur

Recently, the Trinity College of London conferred the honorary doctorate title upon Swaminathan.K, CEO and founder of myBskool. The career path of Dr.Swaminathan is exciting, challenging, and it is no wonder he got the esteemed award. 

• Mr. Swami did his first business in 10th std. He sold firecrackers during Deepavali and made a profit of Rs.75,000.
• Started his career at Sterling Resorts, after completing B.Com at Pachaiyappas college.
• Took a break to pursue MBA from IIM Bangalore.
• Joined NIS as professor for marketing and worked at NIS for three years.
• Started EguruCool in 2000 with IIM Classmates. Egurucool was a novel education portal that NIIT bought later.
• Started Pookaikani - an online platform to sell vegetables. The orders were overflowing and Mr. Swami sometimes had to deliver the vegetables himself. Pookaikani was closed due to lack of staff for delivering vegetables.
• Started Aspire Learning Systems - to coach students for engineering and MBBS entrance exams. In seven years, Aspire became number one in South India. Continued coaching classes for IIT-JEE entrance once government stopped entrance exams.
• Started SmartLearnWebTV to give IIT-JEE coaching on Web TV. The slogan 'Just pay a rupee for a day' was a huge success. EdServ acquired SmartlearnWebTV.
• Started myBskool - a b-school offering distance learning management programs from recognized and top-notch management institutes.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain and have been released under an open licence that permits access, use, repurposing, reuse and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007).

The use of open technical standards improves access and reuse potential.  OER can include full courses/programmes, course materials, modules, student guides, teaching notes, textbooks, research articles, videos, assessment tools and instruments, interactive materials such as simulations and role plays, databases, software, apps (including mobile apps) and any other educationally useful materials.

The term ‘OER’ is not synonymous with online learning, eLearning or mobile learning. Many OER — while shareable in a digital format — are also printable.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) is a type of OER.

Online Management Education - Panel Discussion

The interactive panel discussion about 'Online Management Education" went on well on 8th June, 2012. The expert panel had Prof. M.J. Xavier of IIM Ranchi, Prof. Sriram - executive Director of Great Lakes Institute of Management, Prof Ramanathan - Sr Director of ISB, and Mr.Swaminathan.K - CEO of myBskool. Mr.Chandu Nair was the moderator. 

The discussion started of with a reference to Online Management Education as an evolving animal that can take any shape in the future. There is a need for holistic managers and not managers who are specialists with a big head ( good analytic skills) but a lean torso ( poor soft skills). 

'Rethinking the MBA - Business Education at Crossroads' - a book by Harvard professor Dr.Srikant Datar was mentioned often as giving new insights about the subject. A popular saying goes like, "A fool with a tool is still a fool." But, technology will supplement and not substitute classrooms. And teachers will become tutors and facilitators.

Online Management Education is known as the Facebook of Education. But, people have doubts about the quality of relationships and networks in a social learning network. The panel felt that the intensity of any relationship is more important than the length. So, the learning design and student engagement process must be fun and really interactive. For example, the AIDS vaccine was found by a set of young gamers who never met face-to-face. Their interactions were purely online. They saw each other only at the awards ceremony.

To view all event pics, click here.

'Click' has replaced 'Brick' - Peter Drucker was Right

As the internet burgeoned in the 1990s, management guru Peter Drucker said on-site universities would be dead in 50 years. "Click" would replace "Brick". Looks like Drucker's prophecy has come true.

The high speed of technology revolution acts as a catalyst for educational revolution. Recent research survey show that students prefer to learn using ipads and smartphone.

Now high-flying management institutes Harvard and MIT are taking their learning videos online through a project EdX. The number of universities offering online management programs is exploding.    

IMT Ghaziabad PGDM - Learn from the Leaders

It is surprising to know that thousands of students enroll for an executive MBA that is not recognized or accredited.What is the point of slogging for one or two years to get a management qualification that is not recognized anywhere?

How nice it would be if a top-ranked b-school can qualify you as a management professional? You are no more a Tom, Dick, or Harry. IMT Ghaziabad has won several awards for its excellent Distance Learning Program. And the online management programs it offers is recognized throughout the world. Don't you want to learn from the leader? Click here to download brochure.

Why Working Professionals Prefer Online MBA?

All aspiring professionals will take up managerial and leadership roles as they climb their career ladder. If you are an aspiring professional, you will look for a chance to get a post graduation in management. You plan to equip yourself with theory before you manage people on a real-time basis.

If you start looking at a full-time MBA degree from a reputed management institute, you need to prepare for the admission process. You need to clear CAT, get very good scores. You need to get past a group discussion round. The process sounds challenging, but do you have the time to prepare for this rigorous admission process? Even if you get admission, you need to shell out around 10 lakhs to 11 lakhs as fees.

Do you have the time and money for such a full-time MBA? If not, are there any alternatives?  Yes. There are almost 480 universities offering distance learning MBA. The cost of an online management education is between Rs.50,000 to 1 lakh. Affordable, but is it from a reputed institute?

myBskool has a solution for all your needs. myBskool has a tie-up with IMT Ghaziabad that ranks amongst top 10 b-schools in India. To download the PGDM brochure and look at our sample videos, click here.

Bye Bye Brick and Mortar Schools

Huge costs to build schools and classrooms are driving people to find alternate solutions. With the growing population and industrialization, institutions have to compete for land in urban areas. It is no wonder that online education and work-from-home are the norms of the day!

But sometimes there are shortcuts to success. In Gautemala, a school has been built out of  5000 old plastic bottles and litter. A really creative and cost-effective classroom it is! To read the full story, click here.

No Ragging Online?

Colleges are all set to reopen and youngsters will enter the college premises with dreams and passion. However, the ragging menace always looms large. Is ragging always a threat? Not necessarily. Ragging is an ice-breaker and brings fun and creativity in the initial days of college. And helps to network with seniors who can guide you in studies and around the college campus. Due to ragging, many people fall in love and get married later.

But sometimes the decency limits are crossed during ragging. As students come from diverse backgrounds, what is good for someone may be bad for another. So, ragging is like gambling. The Tamilnadu government has given a mailid raggingcomplaints@gmail.com to which students affected by ragging can send a message.

Online education overcomes the ragging menace. Students meet in the online chat rooms and are focused on clearing subject queries. Higher education Online learners are working professionals and have the maturity to deal with their juniors and peers. So, ragging is not a big threat in Online Education. 

Alvin Toffler's School of Tomorrow

Alvin Toffler, the author of books about change like "Future Shock" and "Revolutionary Wealth", propounds a list of attributes for the School of Tomorrow. Alvin feels that current educational methods cater to the needs of the Industrial Revolution era. The industrial method of working needs all employees to walk into the factory at the same time, work in tandem in the factory line, and mass produce goods. The same model is employed at the schools too. All children walk into the class at the same time, simultaneously take the same set of lessons, and maintain military discipline.

Alvin Toffler envisions a new model of education that caters to the current Knowledge Era of workers. Children can start schools at the age they prefer - one child may start school at age four and another at age eight.

It's (the new school) open 24 hours a day. Different kids arrive at different times. They don't all come at the same time, like an army. They don't just ring the bells at the same time. They're different kids. They have different potentials. Now, in practice, we're not going to be able to get down to the micro level with all of this, I grant you, but in fact, I would be running a twenty-four-hour school, I would have non-teachers working with teachers in that school, I would have the kids coming and going at different times that make sense for them. 

The schools of today are essentially custodial: They're taking care of kids in work hours that are essentially nine to five -- when the whole society was assumed to work. Clearly, that's changing in our society. So should the timing. We're individualizing time; we're personalizing time. We're not having everyone arrive at the same time, leave at the same time. Why should kids arrive at the same time and leave at the same time? 

The textbooks are the same for every child; every child gets the same textbook. Why should that be? Why shouldn't some kids get a textbook -- and you can do this online a lot more easily than you can in print -- why shouldn't a kid who's interested in one particular thing, whether it's painting or drama, or this or that, get a different version of the textbook than the kid sitting in the next seat, who is interested in engineering?

I think that schools have to be completely integrated into the community, to take advantage of the skills in the community. So, there ought to be business offices in the school, from various kinds of business in the community.

Alvin Tofflers School of Tomorrow:

These are the fundamentals of the futurist's vision for education in the 21st century:

• Open 24 hours a day
• Customized educational experience
• Kids arrive at different times
• Students begin their formalized schooling at different ages
• Curriculum is integrated across disciplines
• Nonteachers work with teachers
• Teachers alternate working in schools and in business world
• Local businesses have offices in the schools
• Increased number of charter schools

The management programs at myBskool match all parameters put across by Alvin Toffler. Check out the PGDM that myBskool offers along with IMT Ghaziabad. Click here.

Great Leaders Inspire Action with the Golden Circle

The communication style of leaders in business and community follows a style - Why, How, and What. They first appeal to your soul with a 'Why' and then give your brain details of 'How' and 'What'.

Read, Read, and Read

Everyday, a manager has to take important decisions. So, a manger has to read a lot to know the current economic, political, cultural, technology, and environmental scenarios. Daily, on an average, a good manager will read 50-100 pages of information. The source of information and data can be leading newspapers, magazines, blogs, journals, bestselling non-fiction books, and sometimes even fiction. If you don't have the habit of reading, you need to atleast listen to audiobooks. On the whole, reading is an activity that no manager can escape.

But with information explosion, one needs to have power reading skills. Improving your reading skills will help you to gather key points in a short time. Keeping reading in mind, the IMT Ghaziabad PGDM syllabus includes 'Reading Skills' module under Business Communication.

What is Blue Ocean Strategy?

Blue Ocean Strategy aims at creating new markets and not competing with existing markets. Innovate and succeed.

Who Can Opt for an One Year Management Program?

Say, you have around 5-15 years of work experience. You are a high performer. You plan to continue in your same field of work e.g electronics, construction engineering, or pharma. You want to equip yourself with a management qualification from a reputed institute - so that you are more confident in front of clients. You also feel that getting a management qualification will help your appraisals and promotion prospects.

Not sure where to take up the course? Visit myBskool. myBskool offers a recognized PGDM in Management from IMT Ghaziabad. It is a one year program. The program has interesting features. 

• Online Course - No Classess to attend
• No break from work
• Anytime, Anywhere learning.
• Widely Recognized by Leading Corporates.
• Exhaustive Study Materials
• Video lectures delivered by Management Gurus 
• Collaborative features for interaction and Social Learning 

To know about IMT advantage, Click here.