Coimbatore has always been a home to healthy management practices. Companies like South India Viscose, LMW, Elgi etc., were known for their professional outlook. Stanes group of companies, Periyakaramalai were among the few which were fully under the professionals. Management education was sought after by many. Prof P.R.Ramakrishnan (Founder Principal - Coimbatore Institute of Technology) was among the earliest to do a management programme. He did his programme at the Sloan School of Management in the USA. Eventually management education came to Coimbatore and the PSG Institutions were the first to create the programme.
Coimbatore has always been a home to healthy management practices. Companies like South India Viscose, LMW, Elgi etc., were known for their professional outlook. Stanes group of companies, Periyakaramalai were among the few which were fully under the professionals. Management education was sought after by many. Prof P.R.Ramakrishnan (Founder Principal - Coimbatore Institute of Technology) was among the earliest to do a management programme. He did his programme at the Sloan School of Management in the USA. Eventually management education came to Coimbatore and the PSG Institutions were the first to create the programme.
The Bharathiar University came up in the eighties of the last century and an MBA programme was introduced in the campus. It was meant to be a School of Excellence and fine gentlemen like Prof K.Ramakrishnan joined the institute which came to be known as BSMED (Bharathiar School of Management and Entrepreneur Development). B Schools were few in Tamilnadu and mushrooming was yet to take place. Therefore the students from those B Schools got to know each other well. They had either met up during interviews or group discussions during the admission process or participated in the intercollegiate events which were exclusive for B Schools.
I did my MBA at BSMED between the years 1988 and 1990. All of us used to participate in the B School intercollegiate events with full gusto. We participated in the event, Exe Games at PSG. I still remember one Rajesh Sivaramakrishnan winning the Mock Press event while participating as A.C.Muthiah. Immediately the friends at BSMED decided to do an event. "Permissions had to be sought from the university. We had to provide rooms for the participants.
Food and costs were part of the task. Therefore we started pretty early. Money was also raised and the event was a success. All of our friends worked really hard and the outcome was really good. It was a good training programme for all of us," recalled, alumni Nirupama Mayur Shah.
The event took place on the 10 th and 11 th of February, 1990. K.G.Balakrishnan, the then President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was the Chief Guest. Dr.K.M.Marimuthu (Vice Chancellor - Bharathiar University) delivered a special address. The two day galore of events started with a seminar. Participants presented papers on ' Consumer Protection in India ' and ' The Use of Computer Systems in Business - The Indian Scenario '. This was followed by other events : Entrepreneur Extraordinaire, an event which chose the most potential entrepreneur of the meet by a preliminary aptitude test project evaluation. The other event was Savour Faire, a stress interview which saw the participants impersonating leading personalities like J.R.D.Tata, Nusli Wadia etc., Sang Froid : the stimulated labour - management negotiations where participating teams negotiated to reach a settlement on some labour issues.
Brain Byte - the business quiz, Market Makers - the marketing event where participant teams developed and presented marketing strategies for their products and Roller Coaster - the simulated stock exchange where scrips were traded. Be it the serene seminar presentation or the stormy roller coaster, every event was well contested. The overall championship shield was won by the School of Management - Central University, Pondicherry. G.S.Keshavamoorthy, the Managing Director of South India Viscose gave the valedictory address and distributed the prizes. Dr.S.Subramanian, the Registrar of the Bharathiar University presided over the valedictory function. The surplus was used to donate a deck and television for BSMED. A lot of work had been done by Padma Priyadarshini, Nirupama, Indushree, N.C.Anand, B.Mahesh, C.Prabhu, K.Ramanathan, G.Balaji , Peter Daniel Premsingh, N.Thirunavukkarasu, Malarvizhi, Radha, Swarna, Shabana and others. The State Bank of India, South India Viscose, Dr.K.M.Thiagarajan (grandson of Karumuttu Thiagaraja Chettiar), V.Jagannathan (Chairman - Kovilpatti Roller Flour Mills Limited), T.Stanes & Co, Annalakshmi, Elgi, Apple Computer Education, Coimbatore which was managed by our alumni K.Manickkam and G.Suresh, Shobha Cloth Centre, HPF, Samba, TVS etc., were among the sponsors.
I still remember our experiences at the intercollegiate events. Each one of us decided to take up one event and that was to be our signature. I took up Mock Press and after coming second in the first event at PSG, I decided to get better. Good team players took up Market Makers. Many of us participated in the events that were held at REC Trichy, Bharathidasan Institute of Management (Pyarelal Arya the Director and his team were doing a great job), School of Management, Pondicherry University and PSG. A random team used to be formed and we would leave by the night bus from Hotel Aarvee. Some students used to come on their own too. Indushree, Padma, Nirupama, Anand, Mahesh, Prabhu, Ramanathan, Rajamanickkam, Thirunavukkarasu and myself used to be in the team. I still remember our trip to REC Trichy. It was a great success for us. We had reached Trichy a bit early. I decided to have a quick darshan of Lord Ranganatha. Therefore I got ready fast and was lucky to have a ' Viswaroopa Darshan '. Nirupama and myself did very well. I was Dhirubhai Ambani that day and also became the winner. One Srinivasan who was with the Hindusthan Lever group of companies offered to help Nirupama and myself with a job. He sent in the application forms with a recommendation letter. We were happy to have impressed him and our opening salary was to be to Rs.4500 during the training period and Rs.6750 thereafter. A princely sum those days. Both of us did not take the oppourtunity and sadly the gentleman passed away in an accident.
The event at the School of Management, Pondicherry University was wonderful. We went to the beach in the night and loafed around. It was a new Central University and the campus was simply great. I got an oppourtunity to catch up with my GRG School classmate M.T.Amarnath. His father Dr.Thiagarajan had been with the PSG Institutions and known Prof G.R.Damodaran very well. Amarnath did his MBA in Pondicherrry. Excellent prizes were given to the winners in Pondicherry. The Smooth Operator was one such event and I was the winner. I got a shield and also a gift coupon which could be used at Taj Coromandel, Chennai. My younger brother Suresh used it later. The cultural events at Pondicherry were a big hit. I still remember the song ' Ennai Theriyuma' being played while the students danced about. "The intercollegiate events gave us good entertainment and infotainment too. It was possible for us to see and understand the job market skills that were required. A lot of good happened as an outcome. B School education was rare and we where in a premium zone," stated N.Thirunavukkarasu, a financial consultant.
The event ' Enterprise ' was not just a signature event of the Bharathiar School of Management and Entrepreneur Development for it was also the magic potion which offered both, hope and experience to many of the students.