Press Release

XLRI announces admission to six-month online programme in Agri-Business Management

25 April 2014: Xavier School of Management announced admission to a unique six-month online, self-learning Certificate Programme in Agri-Business Management. Constituted in collaboration with Ikisan - an Agri Portal promoted by the Nagarjuna Group, the programme would supplement agriculture sector knowledge with skills to enhance business effectiveness, according to a XLRI press release in Jamshedpur on Thursday. This unique six-month, online, self-learning programme was designed for working professionals in agri-business sector and fresh graduates wanting to join this industry to help them prepare for an exciting sales and marketing career within the dynamic and evolving agri-business sector. The programme offered one week induction at XLRI campus, Jamshedpur; 10 courses covering Management and Technical Skills that required about 60 hours of effort from the students on each course; and an independent project wherein a student works on an agri-business sector topic.- IBNlive

MXLRI holds graduation ceremony of executive diploma courses

April 6, 2014, Jamshedpur : XLRI- Xavier School of Management today organized the Graduation Ceremony for students of its Virtual Interactive Learning (VIL), Executive Diploma in Human Resource Management (Lonavala, India & Dubai), Entrepreneurship Development and Agri-Business Management Programmes at their campus in Jamshedpur. On the occasion, T V Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel Ltd India & South East Asia, the chief guest for the ceremony, delivered the Graduation Speech.

At the ceremony, 606 students from VIL Programme under Postgraduate certificate programme in Business Management (PGCBM) and Postgraduate Certificate Programme in Human Resource Management (PGCHRM), 27 students from Executive Diploma in Human Resource Management Programme [Lonavala, India and Dubai campuses], 57 students of the Post Graduate Programme for Certificate in Entrepreneurship Management (PGP-CEM), 19 students from Agri-Business Management Programme received their graduating certificates and medals from Fr. E. Abraham, S.J., Director of XLRI.

Congratulating the outgoing students, Fr. E Abraham S.J., Director of XLRI commented, "XLRI with its singular vision of Magis, i.e., pursuit of excellence, focuses on three areas- academic excellence, personal values and social concern. Our Executive Diploma and Certificate programs have helped many working people to upskill their management knowledge-base and thus make rapid progress in their respective careers. With these multiple programmes we aim to serve diverse sections of professionals across many industry sectors".

"I thank T V Narendran for being with us this evening and inspiring our students with the graduation address" he added.

XLRI pioneered satellite programme for practicing managers in India in technical collaboration with Hughes Communication India Ltd (HCIL) in 2002. XLRI currently offers full-fledged Postgraduate Certificate Programmes in Business Management (PGCBM), Human Resource Management (PGCHRM), Logistics and Supply Chain Management (PGCLSCM) in collaboration with Reliance World, Sales and Marketing Management (PGCSMM) and Retail Management (PGCRM).

Commenting on the occasion, Prof. A K Pani, Associate Dean, XLRI VIL Programmes said, "The Virtual Interactive Learning (VIL) earlier known as Satellite programmes provide working professionals with the opportunity of formal learning at a convenient time schedule from various locations of choice without disrupting their professional work-schedule.

Currently there are around 800 students who are pursuing VIL programmes across various management streams such as Business Management, Human Resource Management, Logistics and Supply chain management and Sales & Marketing Management across the country in 114 locations of HCIL and 72 locations of Reliance World".

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Services Overview

The key services offered by Ikisan are:

System study, design and development of IT enabled solutions and services for the agri sector.

Execution of rural IT enabled projects on BOT/BOOT/Turnkey basis.

Development, Customization and Deployment of Ikisan's IPR protected software applications.

Providing support services and best management practices for augmenting the marketing development efforts of the groups agricultural input companies (NFCL and NACL).

Development and Dissemination of best practice and information though a unique multi lingual knowledge website for the agri sector.

Some of the key customers/partners that benefit significantly from our work include are Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, State Agricultural Marketing Boards, Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Tamil Nadu, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Motorola Mobility (GOOGLE) etc.

As highlighted earlier Ikisan provides significant support to the market development and marketing efforts of NFCL and NACL by providing best practices and information across the agricultural input value chain - weather, soil, seeds, fertilizers, water, pesticides, output prices etc. that have enabled the companies to develop deep customer relationships and in turn enable them to grow above market growth rates. Recently example in fertilizers includes the development of Customized Fertilizer Grades (for NFCL across India that are crop and location specific have not only reduced the current consumption of fertilizers of farmers but have significantly enhanced crop yields and farmer incomes) that are expected to add significant revenues to the company.

Currently, agriculture value chain is driven by technical expertise. However, there is a lack of adequate Management knowledge and skills amongst the professionals. Therefore, Ikisan and XLRI, Jamshedpur have jointly developed an Agri Business Management Program for Agri-professionals and students. Ikisan provides the domain expertise while XLRI provides pedagogy. This program is a combination of virtual learning and campus based module at XLRI, Jamshedpur. This program has been highly appreciated.

Intellectual Property Rights for many software applications such as Field Manager, Vyapar, Mandi, Quick Solutions Systems, Management Time Table, Agri Information System and Agrecommerz belong to Ikisan. A significant recent development in this area is the introduction of Weather Based Crop Insurance. This entails setting up of Automatic Weather Stations, which provide dynamic village-level data essential for settlement of weather based insurance claims.