The Centre for Capital Markets and Risk Management (CCMRM)—a Centre of Excellence at IIM Bangalore, will conduct a specialized two-day certificate programme on Bloomberg database and NSMART on 7 and 8 November 2024. The IIMB certificate programme aims to equip participants with essential skills in financial management and investment analysis, leveraging the advanced capabilities of the Bloomberg Terminal.  

Dr. Amar Sapra, faculty of the Production and Operations Management area of IIM Bangalore, will lead the IIMB Chair Of Excellence Seminar, to be held from 4 pm to 5 pm on 4th Nov 2024, at Central Pergola. The session will be themed on, ‘Lease Customers or Prevent Wastage? Replenishment and Issuing Policy for a Perishable Product with Age-Sensitive Demand’.

To register, please visit: https://forms.gle/j48Ezx7EUKTRanjr6

Abstract: An online retailer selling a perishable product can issue inventories of different lifetimes in her preferred sequence. This leads to a trade-off between customer satisfaction and outdating costs since customers want freshness whereas the retailer desires units be sold within their lifetime. We study this trade-off by considering joint replenishment and issuing policy for a perishable product with general lifetime. We develop a periodic review model over a finite horizon and model customers’ sensitivity to the remaining lifetime of the unit received using a goodwill cost, which increases as the remaining lifetime decreases. Even though customer satisfaction is likely to be maximized by the last-in, first-out (LIFO) issuing policy and the outdating cost is likely to be minimized by the first-in, first-out (FIFO) issuing policy, neither policy may be optimal. In particular, when the product lifetime is equal to two periods, it is optimal to first issue new inventory till a threshold and then issue rest of the inventory in FIFO order. Although the value function is always concave, for longer product lifetimes, the optimal issuing policy can become complex. Consequently, we focus on bucket policies, in which inventory of each remaining is issued in a single installment. We show that for a subset of bucket policies, the value function is anti-multimodular. Furthermore, our experiments showcase that the profit of the best bucket policy is on average within 0.1% of the optimal profit. We also develop an easy-to-compute heuristic that determines a bucket policy as well as order quantity and show computationally that its performance is within 1.3% of the optimal profit on average. The heuristic also outperforms many replenishment and issuing policies that have been presented in the literature. Although optimal issuing policies that capture the trade-off between customer satisfaction and wastage due to expiry can be complex, simple, effective, and easy to implement issuing policies can be identified; the performance of these policies is close to optimal.

On 7^th October, Prof. Sukrit Pal, Iowa State University (Production & Operations Management area), spoke on ‘Efficiency and Driver Behavior in Ride-Hailing Platforms with Adjacent Services: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Food Delivery Introduction’.

The Office of Research and Publications hosted another webinar titled ‘Trade Shocks and the Changing Economic Geography of the US’, on 9^th October, by Prof. Priyam Verma, Ashoka University (Economics area).

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore has announced the Alumni Service Award (ASA) recipients for 2024. Launched as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, the annual award was instituted in 2023 to recognize past graduates who have made impactful and enduring contributions to the institute, the IIMB Alumni Association (IIMBAA) and the alumni ecosystem. The award winners are selected from a nominated shortlist by a committee comprising faculty members and alumni. This year, the awardees will be felicitated on the 51^st Foundation Day of IIMB on 28 October 2024.

Professor G Sabarinathan, Associate Professor, Finance & Accounting Area, is superannuating from the services of IIM Bangalore on 31^st October 2024 after a service of 23 years, including a spell of seven years as a full-time visiting faculty.

Prof. Sabarinathan obtained his PhD from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Bangalore. His academic interests are in Financing Small and Medium Firms in India, Private Equity, Venture Capital and Regulation of Securities Market in India. He has an active interest in entrepreneurship as an economic phenomenon and tracks developments in the start-up space. He has written several cases and has published widely in popular press.

Before joining IIMB, Prof. Sabarinathan had a long career in the industry for about 18 years. He began his career in ICICI as a project officer and went on to hold senior leadership positions including its Vice President, Venture Finance. While at ICICI, he played a critical role in establishing TDICI ( now known as ICICI Venture) which was the first venture capital firm in the country. Following a brief stint at GE Capital Services India, when he set up their private equity business in India, he held a leadership position at CDC Advisors Pvt Ltd, now known as Actis, before moving into academics. As Advisor to the Kuwait Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of Kuwait, where he worked closely with the MD and Executive Director, General Reserves. He was appointed at the highest rank that expat professionals are appointed by the Government of Kuwait and worked on multiple mission critical projects for the institution. He has served as a director on the boards of several companies, both as an investor nominee as well as in his professional capacity.

At IIMB, Prof. Sabarinathan taught Corporate Finance. The elective course New Enterprise Financing entirely designed by him, has remained highly popular over the years. His consultancy assignments include serving on the investment committee of private equity funds/ venture capital funds (government/private) and advising companies on valuation. He has served on several committees of the Government of India (DST, DPIIT) and is still actively engaged with Biotechnology Information and Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), the financing arm of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.

Prof. Sabarinathan has made significant contributions to institutional service at IIMB. He served as Chairperson at IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL for a four-year period during which he built on the Centre’s Preeminent position in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Bangalore. He also served as Chairperson EPGP, Office of International Affairs, Work Norms Committee, Admissions and Finance &Accounting Area. Besides these, he also served as a member of several other institute committees.

IIM Bangalore thanks him for all his contributions towards the institute and wishes him luck for his future endeavors.

“A deep focus on primary and pre-primary education has become a key focus area for India, and a lot depends on how much each one of us, as citizens of the country, can contribute to help children catch up and progress in terms of education. The Government has devised the New Education Policy and has adopted several other important initiatives. Now, all of us need to pitch in and play a decisive role in transforming India,” pointed out Dr Rukmini Banerji, Chief Executive Officer, Pratham Education Foundation, while delivering the Foundation Day lecture on, ‘Opportunities & Challenges for Education in Today’s India’, during IIM Bangalore’s 51^st Foundation Day celebrations, on 28 October 2024. The entire IIMB community, comprising faculty, former faculty, alumni, students and staff, were part of the event.

The Government of Karnataka has officially sanctioned the creation of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in FinTech at NSRCEL, IIMB, with an investment of INR 13.24 crores over the next five years. This funding will support INR 8.19 crores for incubation and acceleration programs, as well as INR 5.04 crores for skilling and training efforts led by IIMBx Digital Learning Foundation.

Anita Pawar, Project Executive, was relieved from the services of the institute on 18^th October 2024. She joined IIM Bangalore on 1^st June 2018, in the Israel Centre. During her tenure at IIMB, she has worked in the Centre for Management Communication (CenComm), in the Centre for Teaching & Learning (CTL) and in the Tendering & Contract section. In CTL, she made a substantial contribution to the creation and upkeep of several records and documents. In the office of Tendering & Contract, her major contribution was in handling tenders and contract management. 

Anuradha Shukla, Manager, Career Development Services, was relieved from the services of the institute on 11^th October 2024, upon her resignation. She joined IIM Bangalore on 14^th July 2015 in the Office of International Affairs (OIA) and then moved to the Career Development Services (CDS). Her primary contributions in OIA were in International Affairs and International Admissions. In the office of CDS, she contributed significantly towards placement of students.