It has been widely reported in many media, including a MINT report that almost all IIMs are struggling

to complete their MBA placements 2013 in time. None of the IIMs except IIM B has announced hundred per cent placements, even though their convocation days are nearing, when the graduates would be formally declared MBAs. But many IIM graduates will be without jobs on the convocation. Are the days of glory of IIM placements over? Is placement week when IIM grads will land plum jobs a thing of past? It looks so. While IIMs are working overtime to rescue their fabled reputation, many B-schools like XLRI, SPJIMR & XIMB have announced 100 that all their grads are indeed placed. The average annual salary and job profiles offered at these elite non-IIM B-schools also put them ahead of many IIMs. Sample this: XLRI, on March 18 announced its final placement for its current outgoing batch of 201113. As many as 77 recruiters participated in the placement process with 260 offers being made to a batch of 240 students. The median salary of the batch stood at 16.2 lakh per annum. XLRI is ranked 4th on MBAUniverse.com B school Ranking 2013. SPJIMR on February 28 announced successful completion of its 2013 placement season which saw 97 companies visiting the campus with 206 offers to 175 students (2 students opted out). The average annual package offered at the institute was Rs. 16.13 lakh. SPJIMR is ranked 9th on MBAUniverse.com B school Ranking 2013. XIMB announced its final placements of 2013 on March 7. As many as 70 companies participated in the recruitment process. The average annual salary offered at the campus was Rs 11.81 lakh. Of the visiting companies, 26 were new recruiters. XIMB is ranked 17th on MBAUniverse.com B school Ranking 2013. TAPMI announced its final placements on March 7 with a total of 215 offers for 229 students who sought campus placement. The average domestic package offered at the campus was Rs. 8.65 lakh. TAPMI is ranked 19th on MBAUniverse.com B school Ranking 2013. There are many other top tier B-schools like MDI, MICA who are expected to announce 100 placement very soon. In this scenario where top non-IIMs are able to cope with the new challenges on placements, what went wrong with the IIM dream-run? MBAUniverse.com analysis suggests that IIMs are suffering due to following reasons: Dramatic increase in batch size and seats: Various IIMs have significantly increased their total intake from last year.

IIM Calcutta have increased their seats from 350 to 462; IIM Lucknow has increased to 430 from 380; IIM Kozhikode has now 325 as compared to 317 last year. The 6 new IIMs also added to the strength of total number of passing out IIM graduates which include IIM Rohtak (120), IIM Kashipur (37), IIM Raipur (120), IIM Ranchi (44), IIM Rohtak (120), IIM Shillong (60), IIM Trichy (84), IIM Udaipur (100). This increased number of IIM graduates has on one hand given recruiters luxury to enjoy many options and pick from amongst the best, on the other hand IIM graduates are also facing tough competition from graduates of the elite non-IIMs. Larger number of seats under reserved category: IIMs strictly follow the reservation policy as per the norms for educational institutions run by the government of India. As much as 27% of the total seats are reserved for NCOBC, 15% for Scheduled Castes, and 7.5% seats for Scheduled Tribes. Around 3% seats are also reserved for students belonging to Disabled Category Thus, only 47.5% seats are available for general category. The cut-off criteria of General category students are also high in comparison to NC-OBC, SC, ST and Disabled category. This combination of class brings down the quality of overall batch as compared to other top tier B-schools. Lower PSU placements: Banks and financial institutions go to top B-schools to hire for commercial banking activities, but in the last one year the pace of recruitment process has gone down. Although retail banking has seen some expansion for which banks do not need highly paid managers. As per IIM Bangalores report on Final placement, Procter & Gamble made five offers based out of Singapore and India. PepsiCo and Airtel offered international and Indian profiles to students selected. Other major recruiters who offered marketing roles to students were HUL, Nestle, Kraft Foods, Asian Paints, GlaxoSmithKline, LOreal and Nokia. Amazon and Microsoft made 11 and 8 offers respectively. In the IT consulting domain, prominent recruiters who visited campus included Cognizant, IBM, Capgemini, Genpact and Glopore IMS among several others. In the consulting domain Boston Consulting Group made 12 offers, making the consulting major top recruiter this year. Consulting majors McKinsey, AT Kearney, Bain and Booz along with BCG saw 34 offer acceptances. But, Indian PSUs name was surprisingly missing from the list of major recruiters at IIM

Bangalore this year. This might not be a trend as placement report from other IIMs is yet awaited. New IIMs yet to establish campus and presence: New IIMs are yet to move to a permanent campus. They are still operational from a temporary campus. The lack of proper infrastructural facilities at the new IIMs has affected the quality also and hence the placements. IIM Shillong is currently functioning from a temporary campus in the Mayurbhanj Complex. Work is in progress on the 120-acre site for the permanent campus. IIM Udaipur started its PGP programme with 58 students in a temporary campus located at Polymer Science Building, Mohanlal Sukhadia University (MLSU), Udaipur. The new campus for IIM Udaipur is yet to come up in 253 acres of land in the Balicha area, of Udaipur, Rajasthan which have been allocated by the Government of Rajasthan for the this purpose. IIM Trichy currently functions from NIT Tiruchirappalli, the permanent campus is taking shape on 172 acres of land on Trichy-Pudukottai highway, 12 km from Tiruchirappalli International Airport. IIM Raipur operates from the Government Engineering College Campus, Raipur. The Government of Chhattisgarh has allotted over 200 acres of land for the proposed IIM Raipur campus in Naya Raipur Lowering quality of overall Intake IIMs admissions are associated with high percentile & cut throat competition among students to book their seats. But, lower cut-offs for reserved category of students affecting quality of students intake adversely. The cut-off for SC, ST and other reserved category students go as low as 50 percentile for each section while overall cut-off comes out to be 65 percentile (IIM Udaipur). The nonreserved category students need to score a minimum of 70 percentile in each section and overall 90 percentile to be selected for the GD & PI round. Despite the gloom, what goes in favour of IIM graduates is the established brand name that the premier institutes part with them. The competence and corporate recognition of IIMs are some of the factors which still keep it on the top in the list of most coveted B-schools in India. Sample data from some of the IIMs with the median annual salary offered in 2012: IIM Ahmedabad: Rs. 14 lakh; IIM Kolkata: Rs. 18 lakh; IIM Lucknow: Rs. 15.5 lakh; IIM Indore: Rs. 12.5 lakh; IIM Kozhikode: Rs. 12.37 lakh; IIM Shillong: Rs.12.01 lakh; IIM

Rohtak: Rs. 12.22 lakh; IIM Raipur: Rs. 12.94 lakhs and IIM Ranchi: Rs. 12.97 lakh. Thus, IIM still sit on the top. But would they be able to secure their top position in the years to come. Does this also impact Which MBA decision MBA aspirants are going to make? Does it make worth for MBA aspirants to give a serious though on comparing IIMs with other top tier B-schools like XLRI, SPJIMR, etc? Its a close call! You cant take IIM tag for granted any longer! Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more analysis on B-schools admissions.