Prof. Atul Tandan Addressing the gathering of new PGDM students at SMS Varanasi

The four day Orientation Programme for the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) students concluded at the Khushipur campus of School of Management Sciences (SMS) with 'mantras' from the Industry stalwart Prof. Atul Tandan (Former Director, Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad). Addressing the gathering of new PGDM students, he said that we should change the way mind thinks about issues. Students must do the things they like to do. Results are important, means could be any. The things what matter are the 'attitude' and 'humility'.

Exhorting the students, he further added that learning comes by commitment to learn. One must be ready to seek knowledge not merely information. Commenting on the current scenario of our economy through his deliberations on "Preparing Managers for the new economy: Converting talent to competencies", he said that at one time it was all 'Made in Japan' which later shifted to 'Made in Korea' and now it is 'Made in China', the youngsters must dream and make reality that everything they sell bears 'Made in India' label in less than ten years from now and this is the challenge which we need to take up in this fast changing environment. Management is all about initiative, action and decision.

Adding further, he said that change is imminent, no one can stop it, and hence, we must make change for the betterment. We must learn how to remain comfortable with change. We are going to witness unstructured environment consistently, uncertainty is another factor and we all must manage it! Pointing towards SMS faculty, he satirically said that they should create confusion amongst students regarding management issues, and then only the students will come up with solutions.

Later in another interactive session with faculty in a Faculty Development Programme (FDP), Prof. Atul Tandan emphasized on the changing needs of the students with the changing technology. We must too learn how to handle technology along with students because that's the order of the day. He put forward a 'PITCH' approach (P: People, Prefession, Profit, Pace, Process; I: Innovation (or Jugaad / Creative destruction), Integration, Information; T: Time, Technology, Territory; C: Content, Context, Communication, Contemporary, Change, Community; H: Humane approach, Holistic, Heuristic). Teachers must 'facilitate' learning of the student, he stressed.

Earlier the Director (SMS Varanasi), Prof. P. N. Jha welcomed the advertising industry stalwart to the SMS campus. The programme was coordinated by PGDM Coordinator Dr. Meenakshi Singh (Reader). Dr. Sanjay Saxena (Dean-Management Sciences), Shri Alok Kumar (Dean-R&D), Shri Sandeep Singh (Dean-Student Welfare), Shri KS Mishra (Dean-Computer Sciences) along with the Registrar Shri Sanjay Gupta and other faculty members. Later Prof. Atul Tandan was given a warm send off by the SMS family.

The internal sessions by SMS faculty members covered the entire aspects of the campus including Library, Computer Centre, Knowledge Management Centrer, other Centres of excellence, foreign tie-ups, industry linkages and alumni association, business ethics etc. Prof. P. K. Mishra (Chemical Engineering, IIT-BHU) opined on "Identify yourself by Entrepreneurship" where he stressed upon the need for the young persons how to become job creators, not job seekers.