One Year Full Time MBA in India at Reputed B Schools

Its long time since I jotted down. Its  pretty sad that 2012 year passed away without even one article. I intended to write about so many things but then the laziness overpowered :) . 

In India one year full time MBA is a recent phenomena, may be they surfaced around 10 years ago. I would say this form of MBA suits for folks with at least 3 year work Ex with an aspiration to move into management roles in their existing industry. Drastic career change is not impossible though.

Please refer the link below for detailed description on 1 year Full time MBA programs in India.

Let me quickly give list of reputed colleges in India that offer 1 year Full Time MBA along with average exp required for admission .

All colleges below are very reputed and definitely they are good , I am listing down the colleges based on my knowledge and  in the order of my personal preference. All of them admit students through GMAT and a  few give additional options of CAT and XAT.

1. ISB - Indian School of Business -  Average Work Ex 5 years.
2. IIM Ahemdabad - Average Work Ex 10 years .
3. IIM Calcutta - Average Work Ex 8.8 years .
4. XLRI Jameshedpur - Average Work Ex 7 years .
5. IIM Bangalore  - Average Work Ex  9.6 Years .
6. IIM Lucknow -  Average Work Ex 7 years .
7. IIM Indore -  Average Work Ex 7 years .
8. SP Jain Global MBA-  Average Work Ex 4 Years .
9. Great Lakes Institute of Management  - Average Work Ex  4 Years .
10. SP Jain IMR -Average Work Ex  7 Years .
11. IMT Ghazibad -Average Work Ex  7.5 Years
12. Agesis - Average Work Ex  - Not Very Sure
13. Myra School of Business Average Work Ex 5 Years.

If there are any queries let me know I will try my best to answer. The best place to get detailed info regarding one year full time MBA program is  the respective colleges website.

ICFAI - Part Time MBA



This Picture is taken from ICFAI webpage



ICFAI University Tripura is one of the universities in India that provides Distance/Part-Time MBA.  Large numbers of students from all over India enroll to this part time MBA program. I seriously doubt if at-least 50% of the students enrolled clear the first phase of the MBA (Diploma in Business in Management, now this is second stage I guess first stage being Certificate in Business Management). And I do not think even 25% students enrolled complete their MBA.

I joined the ICFAI part time MBA course in January 2008 and I completed my PG Diploma in Business Management recently in July 2011. I could not take some quarterly exams due to my onsite trips and due to office commitments. The ICFAI university guys advertise saying one can complete the MBA in 2 or 2.5 years, according to me this is not at all possible. One requires atleast 3 years to 4 years to complete this MBA. The subjects are really vast, and all papers till PG diploma in business management are objective and most of the answers look very similar. Most the subjects in MBA are theoretical, and this makes life more difficult as we need to remember many things to answer objective questions correctly.

If one is ready to spend somewhere around 15 hours per week then he/she will be able to clear all the papers with good marks and some understanding of management subjects. But I am very sure if one goes to exams without any preparation then he will flunk, particularly in the objective papers.

ICFAI University is very regular in sending of the text books, study guides and work books. Each subject will have a text book, a study guide and work book. If one revises the study guide or text book once or twice and is confident about the questions in work book then, he can be sure of clearing the papers. Only thing I want to say is "one cannot take the exams of ICFAI very lightly".

ICFAI MBA is suited for people looking for extra MBA degree with some understanding of management topics. The ICFAI MBA degree is not so easy to obtain so it has some value in industry, particularly it is useful if one wants to move up the ladder in one existing organization. It is definitely of no use if a person wishes to make a career change from one domain to another. Also MBA is all about study of case studies and class room discussions; definitely ICFAI part time MBA lacks all of these.

According to me there are several other good certifications that one can take up to get some basic understanding of management topics like CBM , ABM from APBM organization or PMP, CAPM from PMI institute, then we have Management Development Programs which run from 3-4 days at reputed B schools like IIM's, ISB and XLRI . Even IISC and IIT's have some very good training programs for Project management in IT industry.

Also there are part time MBA programs offered by IIM-B, IIM-K, IIM-C which are definitely more worth also more helpful to understand the intricacy of management topics.

I d'nt think ICFAI part time MBA is a bad option but I would definitely say there are many other good options to get sound knowledge of management topics. One needs to analyze all options available and get to know their pros and cons before joining any part time MBA program. Also we should join part time MBA programs only if we are serious about it and we are sure of devoting at-least 15-20 hours every week, else it would be very difficult to complete the course also it will be mere waste of valuable money.

SISO Times

Tomorrow is July 14th 2011. It was exactly four years back that I entered the corporate world fresh from the college life. My software engineer's life started at SISO. So I thought I will pen my memories about it.


It was February of 2007; three more months were left for my graduation. I wanted to get into networking companies. I was interested to get into Cisco, and no one other company sounded interesting to me then, so I had let go many opportunities. Cisco was one of the last companies to visit PESIT in the Tier 3 slot, and when it came I could not clear the written test. Only consoling thing was that all my close friends at PESIT were also in the same state, and we use to crib about not getting into the product company now and then.

After the Cisco episode I had learnt my lesson and I had decided that I will give some serious tries to get into one good product company. At this point, the savior “Samsung India Software Operations” came into the picture. SISO had come for campus placements at PESIT for the first and last time (as they believe no other college other than IIT, NIT and BITS is good enough for their campus placements).The presentation given by HR and the work at SISO seemed to be interesting. The salary was another attractive point. So with one written test, one tech interview and one HR round I got into SISO. The best thing was my very good friends, Raghu, Dada and Mohan also got through. Half of my bench was in SISO now. For me this is how the life at SISO started on July 14th 2007.

First three months at SISO was fun, this consisted of 1 week training at Royal Orchid, 1 month C and C++ training and then another 2 months networking domain ramp up as I had chosen Telecom and Networks division at SISO. From the time I joined SISO until I left, I have worked at Telecom and Networks division itself , in various projects in Wireless and Core networks.

Samsung Electronics is a very diverse company, working on TV, Ovens , Mobiles, Printers, Memory Chips to System LSI chips. You name a electronic gadget and Samsung will have its presence. SISO being Samsung Electronics largest overseas R&D centre works on all these products except for home appliances and digital cameras. According to me the best division in SISO is SAIT (Samsung Advanced Institute Technology) Labs or ATD, now even Telecom and Networks is part of this group. This is because ATD generally works on advanced technologies and standardization, where the scope for research is more. Work life balance is quite high in this division.

Mobile division in SISO is huge, it is the largest group in SISO with almost 75% of employees working in this division. Mobile division at SISO is very dynamic, where change is the only thing which is certain. There is generally little more pressure in this division compared to any other divisions at SISO. This division mainly concentrates on commercialization, which brings in lot of revenue, so one can expect lot of onsite and better hikes at this division. There is also large amount of politics that needs to be faced in bigger teams at mobile division; it is one of the toughest parts at SISO. Some teams in mobile divisions are actually very badly managed, where the average working hours is the only thing that is counted. But yes there are some very good awesome teams also present in the same division.

SISO's advantages are in its pay, onsite, cutting edge technologies in consumer electronics domain and job security. SISO also provides lot of freebees like free breakfast, lunch, dinner, cab facility, annual gifts, and discount sales. As a fresher if one joins SISO, there are lot of things to learn and also lot of opportunities to go onsite in a short span. Also one can get involved in many of extracurricular activities like Casa-Fete, Football , Cricket , Chess , Rajyostava celebrations , Dandya Nights , Singing, Short Story , painting, Floor decoration etc...

As every coin has two sides, even SISO has. It has a very strict security policy; one has to go through metal detector every day. A person cannot work from home at any cost. A person cannot be flexible in his work timings. Employee should be in office for 9 works irrespective the amount of work one has. The organization is bit of autocratic type, where everything is decided by our higher authorities and we need to just follow them. Taking leaves is not that easy, particularly if it is for more than 3 days, even though the amount of work one has is less. One thing is for sure, according to business requirements one can be moved from one domain to other in a short time , and we should be ready for the continuous change that takes place. Some teams in SISO work very hard , going for night outs continuously for months together, particularly when employees are at Korea or USA for mobile commercialization work.

I at SISO had a good time. The job was cool, not much hectic mostly into R&D of wireless networks. Going to Korea twice a year for the demo of our prototypes making patents and writing papers was definitely special to me. I made life time friends at SISO like Arjun , Dhinesh, Somu, Aman , Manju, Sunil, Sharath , Suresh , and Jithu. Being with friends was the best part at SISO; I had lot of fun with them at the office as well as out of office.

But yes I was not happy with everything at SISO, particularly the now and then change of projects being done now and then, the timing policy during 2010, the strict security policy, the lack of value for employees feedback, the rigid rules and lack of confidence in employees ability and skills all made me to think for change . And out of box, from nowhere I got a very good opportunity at HP to work for processors, that also for one of their leading servers, with a decent hike. I never gave a second thought before taking up this opportunity because from my engineering days the two subjects I liked a lot were Microcontrollers and Networks. I had worked in the networks already for 3 year and 6 months and now the second most interesting thing was beckoning me , and I just sent the acknowledgement ..........

List of Best B Schools Providing Full Time Executive MBA in India

One year Full time Executive MBA caught my attention some time back and I conducted an extensive research on them. Executive MBA is generally for professionals with prior work experience, there are two types in this, part time executive MBA’s and Full time 1 year MBA’s. Full time Executive MBA’s will help to bring considerable change in one’s career like change in roles, responsibilities, and in some cases change his domain itself like software development to finance, where as part time MBA’s will mostly help to move up the ladder in one’s organization however they may not help to give a break as full time MBA’s can provide.

I personally prefer Executive MBA provided by best B schools in India rather than International B schools, because of the reasons given below

• In India one can get very good Management education (from B schools like IIM, ISB, Great Lakes, XLRI, and SP Jain) in par with very good international institutes at very affordable prices (compared to MBA cost in UK and USA). In India one year full time MBA may cost 20 lakhs INR where as one has shell out 35-40 lakhs INR to do MBA in reputed B school in Europe or USA.
• If one would like to work in India after MBA then the top B schools in India are the best bets to get challenging and quality roles and responsibilities in very good companies in India rather than International B schools which can provide very good opportunity in their respective nations.
• The Business education provided by Indian schools will be more relevant to Indian business scenario than International B schools.
• Also to get into best Indian B School one has to put huge amount of efforts which will definitely boost one’s confidence.

I will give the list of colleges which provide 1 year full time MBA in India along with some relevant information like Fees, prior work experience required, specialization and placement. All schools look for the good GMAT scores and most of them expect GMAT scores to be 700 or above. I will list the colleges, in the order of Best to Better (in my opinion), remember all these B schools are really good and definitely worth pursuing. One has to take up these programmes for the career change they offer rather than taking it up only for the sake of fat salary package.

1. ISB Hyderabad provides one year full time Post Graduate Programme in Management. ISB has been ranked 12^th in the world by financial times and this is huge achievement for any Indian B school. This programme requires minimum of 2 years of work experience average work experience being 5 years. The average GMAT score is above 700 and the fees for the programme is around 22 Lakhs INR including accommodation, tuition fees, books etc. The average salary offered is 16 lakhs.

2. IIM-A and IIM-B are next two B schools which provide 1 year Executive MBA’s at a cost of around 20 lakhs INR. Their average GMAT score is also almost 700. This programme is only for people with 7+ years of work experience and average work experience of the class is above 10 years. The average salary offered is 20 LPA INR in case of IIM- A.

3. IIM-C also offers 1 year Executive MBA’s at a cost of around 14 lakhs INR. They need an average GMAT score of 700 and above with at least 5 years of work experience. They offer very good career change and average salary is 18 Lakhs INR. The average work experience of class is 8.9 years.

4. XLRI provides General Management programme for people with 5 years of work exp. The average work exp of class is above 6 years and the cost of programme is 14 Lakhs INR. The average GMAT score of the class is 700 and average salary offered is 15 LPA INR.

5. IIM Indore provides 1 year Executive MBA’s at a cost of around 18 lakhs INR and work exp required is 5 years. The average work exp is around 6 years. The average salary offered should be decent but as of now it is not updated on their web page. The average GMAT score requires is 700 +.

6. SP Jain provides three different programmes for people with 3 and more years of experience. One of them is Global MBA; other one is Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) and the third programme is Post Graduate Certificate in International Management (PGCIM). All have varied GMAT requirements and different fees. All three are good depending upon the student’s interests. The Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) is offered at the SPJIMR itself where as SP Jain Global MBA is provided at their global campus and Post Graduate Certificate in International Management (PGCIM) which is the latest programme is provided with some part in India and rest of the part in Germany.

7. Great Lakes Institute of Management the brain child of Prof. Bala V. Balachandran is one of the very good institutes with less branding. Great Lakes Institute of Management offers Post Graduate Program in Management for people with at least two years of work experience. The average GMAT score of the class is 690 and average work exp of the batch is 46 months. The programme fees is 13 Lakhs INR and the average salary offered is 8.7 LPA INR.

Bryan Adams Concert @ Bangalore - A Superb Performance by the Legend

I was planning for our Valentine’s Day celebrations, it was then I came to know about Bryan’s show at Palace grounds Bangalore. Bryan Adams was coming back to Bangalore after a gap of 4 years. Honestly I was not a great fan of Bryan but he is one of Shweta’s all time favorite singer, so I thought the Bryan’s live performance will be the best way to start Valentine’s day as the show was on Feb 13th night.

The tickets were quiet expensive, the silver class was 1500 per ticket and Gold class was 3500 INR and VIP Lounge was 8000 bugs. I managed to get two tickets in Silver class. The show was supposed to start at 7PM. I and Shweta were in the Palace grounds at 3.30 PM itself, so that we can stand at the front row of silver class; but to our surprise almost 500 people were already present in the waiting line to get into the venue. It was too hot there was nothing much available other than water near the waiting line. The gates were opened at 5 PM, so we had to stand almost for 1 hour 30 minutes before entering the venue on a hot sunny day, and the worst thing was gals and boys were supposed to stand in separate queue. The best part is we managed to get second row in silver class after 90 minutes wait.

DJ Akbar played some music for next one and half hour, the music was not very good or great it was just average. Slowly people had started accumulating behind us, by 7 PM almost 5000 people were behind us, it was jam packed and there was no chances anyone going to drink water or even to rest room. Shiamak Davar and his troop gave 3-4 dance performances for may be 15-20 minutes, these performances were very boring. We had to wait for another 30 minutes before Bryan arrived.

Around 7.45PM Bryan arrived and from that moment to 11PM it was just awesome. Bryan stared with There will never be another tonight and played almost 20 plus songs. Three solo songs at the end were played by him using mouth organ and guitar. Bryan was singing nonstop almost taking no breaks in between. He belted out superb songs like Summer of 69, Run to you, There will never be another tonight, everyone needs somebody, let’s make this night to remember, Everything I do I do it for you, Back to U, Fastest Fingers, Please forgive me and The only thing that looks good on me is U. It was very nice of Bryan that he asked one of the gals from the audience to accompany him for one song. I and Shweta were dancing non-stop to all his songs, those 3 hours with Bryan were just superb and I felt the four hours of wait was worth it. I am now a huge fan of his husky yet mellow voice and I felt the lyrics of his songs are just incredible.

To summarize it was a very memorable and very enjoyable performance by Bryan Adams.

India Positive - Believe In India

I believe that India has a great future and I have lot of belief in its growth and its capability. I see every day how my fellow colleagues in IT industry put in lot of efforts to build a solid future to themselves and in turn make India successful as a whole. Yes I agree there are so many problems to be resolved yet,but these kind of initial hiccups are bound to exist in such a large nation with such a huge diversity in almost everything.

I am truly proud of India , its diversity , its life , its people and its energy. I see India as strong competitor at world level in years to come. I would love to see all the best talents produced in India to be in India and be part of its success story.

I read an interesting article in DNA's cover page on India positive and I am uploading the same article in this blog. I liked it a lot and I hope everyone else feels the same.

Chevrolet Spark is Value for Money

I had enough options to choose from (within 4.5 Lakh Rupees) like Alto , Wagon R, Santro, Palio , i10- Era and Spark.

I decided to buy Spark because I got fully loaded car with music system, four power windows, fog lamps , defogger , wind shields , seat covers, car cover,tubeless tyres and wireless locking system at a price of 4.20 Lakhs. I do not think any car with 1000CC engine comes with all these features at this price. Also Spark comes with three years free maintenance package. I have not spent a penny for my car services in last 15 months. I also liked the styling of the Car ,it has the look and the color of the car "misty lake blue" is very nice. I was very much impressed by the car's engine ,one can never make out if the engine is switched on or not it is that silent. The beige interiors of the car is of good attractive and has quality. I also liked the central cockpit control system which is very unique to Spark. The market rep of Sundram motors was very interested in selling unlike other leading car vendors where they act as if they are doing social service.

Now let me explain a few things about my experience , I have driven Spark for some where around 7500 KMs and till date I have never faced any major issues as such. I have taken car to my native Honnavar which is some where around 450 KM from Bangalore with four people and the journey was a smooth and comfortable one.I have driven car in heavy traffic of Bangalore , in highways and in ghat sections in all cases I am satisfied owner of Spark. The car service is pretty good in Bangalore , the service outside Bangalore may not be that great though. The showroom guys call regularly and take the customers feedback, remind us about the pending service , provide pick up and drop service at reasonable price of 250 rupees. I get a mileage around 13 to 15 which is not very bad in Bangalore traffic. The car is as much spacious as Santro and Wagon R, from outside one feels Spark is small but that is not the case, easily four people can travel in it. It is best car for small family within four members. Parking in city is not difficult with this car.

Some drawbacks with Spark are in the smoothness of the gear , it is pretty hard compared to i-10 , particularly the reverse gear. The central locking of the car does not include the dicky. One feels the car is underpowered if 5 people are in the car and the AC is switched on. The service outside Bangalore may not be that great as showrooms and service centers may be very less.

Spark is best option for people, who need smart looks, looking out for better mileage, who prefer smooth engine, frequent travelers within city , guys with small family, and who would like to get a fully loaded car with good interiors at best price.

Almost 125 Days in a Year is Off

I was interested to find out the exact number working days generally present in an year.I collected the data from my attendance at office in 2010 and found out that I had almost 125 days Off during this fiscal.This is not at all a bad number in private software company,I feel the number of leaves given are as good as number of leaves given by any government organization. The number of working days in each month was as shown below.

Jan – 19 days
Feb – 19 days
March – 22 days
April – 21 days
May – 20 days
June – 22 days
July – 21 days
August – 21 days
September - 20 days
October – 20 days
November – 20 days
December – 22 days

This turns out to be 20.6 working days on an average every month, which means (12*20.6) 247 working days in an year. To be precise I got 118 days off in 2010, which is 33% of the time I had off. And 247 days in an year were working days, which is 67% of the total number of days were working days.

One aspect every person should consider is,the best way to employ this free time (off) effectively. The free time (120 days per year) can be used to for various interesting and development activities like to learn a new subject or to pursue hobby projects or to do social service or to pursue some new course or certification or for physical training. We need to utilize the free time to spend with family and our loved ones. We can go to watch some movies or to some adventure park or to some new place along with our family and spend quality time with them. We need to keep in mind that the free time ( off days ) are provided to us so that we can utilize these vacations for our personal use( for our personal development and for our family ). Hence there is no point in spending these special moments at office without any genuine reasons.

We should always try to put in our best efforts to contribute towards employers goals during 67% of working days and the remaining 33% of Off days should be used for one's personal development and to spend quality time with the family.Only then I feel a person can have balanced work life.

Pancharangi - One of the Best Kannada Movies

I went to watch Peepli Live on Wednesday , it was a good one . But I felt it could have been made still shorter. I felt that 1 hour 45 minutes is little more for this movie , some scenes seemed repetitive .

I was not planning to see any new movie on the week end , but Shweta made plans of watching Pancharangi as she thought it will be a good movie. To be truthful I was not very keen about watching Pancharangi , because the last Kannada movie I saw "Nooru Janmaku" disappointed me a lot. Somehow Shweta convinced me to watch the movie"Pancharangi" movie @ Mantri mall .

I am very thankful to Shweta that she took me to this movie, otherwise I would have missed one of the very good movies in Kannada in recent times. I should admit Pancharangi is complete entrainer . It keeps you engaged all through out the movie. The dialogs are awesome. The songs are creative, with humor as well as very meaningful. The movie is shot may be somewhere near Mangalore on the sea shore. It is not very high budget movie or something it is a very simple movie with, a very good story , lot of humor, lessons, superb dialogs , some outstanding performances by the cast.

The movie is about life in general . It is about interaction between two families, which meet for the engagement of Diganth's elder brother . The movie covers the 2-3 days spent at Mangalore by the Diganth's family at the prospective brides place. One should watch this movie to see the interactions between different personalities , which come in this movie (the dialogs are too good) . I could relate this movie very closely to what happens in real life. According to me this is the best movie among all movies Yograj Bhat directed. One has to watch this movie or else take my word you will be missing one the best Kannada movies in recent present .

I hope to see more of this kind of Kannada movies being produced in future .

Crazy Owner

I and my dearest friend koli (we are friends from KG class) had recently decided to shift our house.


We were staying at seeta circle from last two years. Seeta circle comes near by to Basvangudi. This was our second house after we came to Bangalore.Even a single sun ray did not reach our house at Sita circle. It was perfect place for people like me who like to sleep :). We put up here as we wanted a very affordable house and a house very near by to the bus stop. After two fun filled years in the house we thought buddy its time to go for a change now. So there started the search for the third rented house.


We were about to complete our 3rd year of engineering hence all plans were revolving around having lot of fun. So the new house had to satisfy our requirement of fun. We finalized upon a lonely house with a big lobby . Most of bachelors prefer this kind of lone house with big lobby reasons are best known to bachelors :). At last the deal was negotiated with the owner and we were having gala time.


My friend Koli the punter, usually does full time pass with his PC on regular days, until a day before the internals. The penultimate day Koli is busiest man in the world and he will sit through out the night and finally do well in his internals.


As usual Koli had internals, he was fully involved in his studies and I was already sleeping , may be snoring also :). This fellow wanted to go to rest room . Rest room is outside the house. So koli mari locked the door and went to rest room felt relived :) there and was coming back.


While returning , he happened to meet the unexpected !!!!!!!!


Our owner slapped him my Godddddd, what the shitttttttttttttttttttttt


The pagal owner did this because, that night some robber had come in that area it seems and owner was confident that we are the robbers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Lot of people had gathered outside our house and were asking us to get out. They locked us in our house and were verbally abusing us.


Actually after getting slapped koli came running , opened the door and woke me up.


When I came near the door, our door was latched form outside and people were literally planning to pull us out of our house.


By God's grace some one else (some neighboring house guys ) caught the actual thief. Only then they opened the door. ... This is incident made me feel that everybody is not mentally alright , so we need to be careful regarding these kind of psychopaths.


Sometimes people are stupid and crazy to any extent.So we should be careful enough to avoid these kind of guys.