Bhubaneswar: The two year, MBA in Rural Management programme of Xavier University Bhubaneswar concluded its annual placement season – Xuberance 2017 during the third week of February. This year’s recruitment cycle delivered immense joy and satisfaction to its students through lucrative employment opportunities offered from diverse yet relevant sectors. The post graduate programme which was previously offered under the banner of XIMB-RM, now falls under Xavier School of Rural Management (XSRM), Xavier University Bhubaneswar (XUB).
The uniqueness of this programme is designed to focus on nurturing enlightened knowledge leaders who would enable and contribute to the effective management of organizations engaged in progressive economic development and social transformation work. The MBA-RM programme provides a ‘MBA-plus’ orientation, which goes above and beyond the standard management curriculum to develop ethically responsible and value driven professionals with an extensive understanding of the rural context, communities, markets and opportunities.
XSRM was the first school under XUB to successfully achieve 100% placements for the Rural Management batch of 2015-17. The placement season witnessed participation of companies cutting across all the established major sectors of Research and Consulting, Financial Inclusion, Development, FMCG, Co-operatives, CSR and Banking & Financial Services Institutions.
Highlights • Xuberance ’17 saw the batch of 83 candidates of MBA (RM) programme participating in the placement process. • 30 companies participated, of which 12 were new recruiters. • The highest domestic salary stood at INR 11.00 Lakhs per annum • The average annual compensation stood at INR 7.32 Lakhs per annum • The Median annual compensation stood at INR 7.00 Lakhs per annum
This year the most attractive remuneration was offered by the FMCG sector, where highly coveted job profiles in Sales, Business Development and Rural Marketing were proposed by companies like AMUL, CavinKare and Sarda group. Although opportunities from this sector were extended to 7% of batch, the highest package of 11 lacs per annum was offered by AMUL.
Second in line, in terms of remuneration was followed by the Consulting domain. The programme witnessed the return of regular recruiters like PwC, Deloitte and Sambodhi Research. This sector offered the second highest package to the students and recruited 17% of the batch. Participation from new recruiters in this domain included companies like Quess Corp, Infiniti Research etc.
Highest number of offers made to students was fulfilled by the BFSI sector. It offered rewarding profiles in rural lending to 34% of the batch. There was an overall increase in the remuneration offered and the number of students recruited since last year. Some of the major recruiters were State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, TATA AIG General Insurance and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. Despite the slump in recruitment that was observed in the Financial Inclusion domain, no tanglible effect of the slowdown was perceived in the results of Xuberance 2017. Ujjivan Financial Services being a regular recruiter absorbed the highest number of students in this domain. Other recruiters included Arohan Financial Services, Fincare, Swadhaar Finserve, Village Financial Services, Samunnati who cumulatively recruited 22% of the batch and offered a healthy average compensation of 7.52 lacs
The success of the Rural Management programme offered by XSRM is highlighted by the number students opting to take offers from organisations that operate at the grassroots level. Reputed organisations in the development sector like PRADAN, Basix, Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society, SRIJAN, Humana People To People, recruited 10% of the batch. Additionally, the programme witnessed allied companies within the Development landscape, like TATA Trust and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd.(NAFED) providing offers in the CSR and Co-operatives domain.
SUMMER INTERNSHIPS FOR 2016-18 MBA-RM
In terms of Summer Internships for the Batch of 2016-18, XSRM had witnessed excellent opportunities this year for a batch size of 90 students, with 28 companies participating in the summer placement process. Companies across different sectors like BFSI, FMCG, Consulting, Agri Input Marketing, Policy Research, Development and Livelihoods, and Financial Inclusion visited the campus for the summer internship process. Some major recruiters were PwC, ITC, SBI Life, Cargill, Pidilite, HDFC Bank, Technoserve India, PRADAN, Centre of Budget and Policy Studies, Sarda Group. The highest stipend offered to young rural managers, was INR. 60,000 per month. While the average stipend stood at INR. 15,784 per month.