Once in a while comes about an institution that believes in trudging along the path to the unknown and in its endeavor to do so breaks away from the tried and tested creating new boundaries of excellence. Sikkim Manipal University Distance Education is one such institute. Conceived as the first PPP model coming out of Northeast India and born out of a unique partnership between Manipal Education and Govt. of Sikkim in 1995, SMU-DE has since revolutionised not just the domain of distance learning but has also brought about a new era of practical industry oriented teaching.

In a country where since decades theory based education has been given sole importance as the world moved ahead of us, the approach by SMU-DE turned out to be a much needed shot of life improving vaccine. So heavily has our education system relied on theory that once the much famed IITs, recognized among the top 10 educational institutes in the world now fail to locate themselves even among the top 50. But the road for SMU-DE has not been smooth. After all, decades of habit had seeped deep into the veins of the education sector. But perseverance, patience and excellence over the last 15 years is now beginning to yield results. A testimony to the grit and vision of this pioneering institution.

SMU-DE is now the best distance education institute in India in terms of teaching efficiency and achieving results. The rankings out in the Hindustan Times also puts SMUDE as the third best distance learning institute in the country and the only one among the top three which is not an open university. ‘It’s a PPP model that works’ screamed an headline on another page of the Careers 360 magazine, indicating the path travelled by SMU-DE over the years.

Today SMU-DE offers more than 40 courses in 11 disciples spread across Management, Hospitality, IT, Telecom, Commerce, Journalism, Fashion Designing, Networking, Health Sciences and Biotechnology. Supported by 6,500 faculty and 65 core faculty, a network of 325 University Recognized Learning centers spread across 310 towns and an alumni base of 3 lakhs, it would easily have one the best prize if there was one for the quickest growing institute in India. The institute has also excelled in the integration of technology with education through its introduction of EduNxt, this multi award winning Internet based Learning Platform allows students to access faculty mentors, industry experts, counseling, virtual classrooms, self-learning materials and over a million journals over the Internet. Mock tests, videos, presentations and case studies are updated real time on this platform helping students to stay in sync with the industry. All this can be done 24×7 helping students to plan their studies beforehand. Moreover students can collaborate with their classmates and lectures on projects and assignments by just being on the web.

Any other institute in this position would have probably reached its burnout stage by now. But SMU-DE is in a different league. Its hunger for excellence and its constant endeavor to ensure education for all sees it launch a minimum of 1 new course every year, year on end. Along with new initiatives to increase its efficiency, reach and resources, SMU-DE has won the hearts of top corporate firms and its mentors. SMU-DE students work for the best public and private companies like Infosys, Wipro, Microsoft, IBM, HCL, Dabur, ICICI Bank.

SMU-DE is a vital cog in the wheel of India’s aim to achieve maximum literacy levels by 2020. A fact reiterated by the HRD Minister himself when he mentioned the importance of distance learning institutes vis a vis Indian literacy levels. The future too seems brighter than ever before. With the corporate world wanting only work ready skill oriented professionals from the first day itself and the spread of Internet in the Indian society, SMU-DE stands as the only institute which believes and practices in both of them. Over the coming years one would see SMU-DE scaling new heights, widening its resources and base and eventually creating the unknown path that it set out for so that others can follow.

Sales interrogation by one of the UK’s leading experience day websites has found that IT workers are most likely to book survival and ‘spygame’ experience days, with supplemental research of 1,347 British workers showing that 1 in 3 people working in the IT profession preferred adventurous experiences because it was so different from their working day.

One of the UK’s leading experience day websites, www.intotheblue.co.uk, noticed a large number of orders to attend spy days and other adventure experiences were being made from offices during work hours, and decided to investigate the work sectors most likely to book experience days.

A subsequent study of 1,347 British employees found that IT workers are the most adventurous in the UK, with 37% having gone on an adventure-based experience day in the last year, prompting intotheblue.co.uk Marketing Manager Rob Holmes to liken the results to ‘Superman Syndrome’.

Intotheblue.co.uk noted a correlation between the least active workers on a day-to-day basis and the ones most likely to book more adventurous experience days.

The study also found that, perhaps unsurprisingly, IT workers were the most likely to play videogames, with 81% admitting to being regular players.

The most popular videogame genre with IT workers was first person shooters, with 43% saying it was their preferred type of title. This fact mirrors the popularity of the paintballing and survival experience days with IT workers, according to intotheblue.co.uk.

Here is the list of the top ten most adventurous workers in the UK, by percentage of those who had been on an adventure activity in the last year:

1. IT workers – 37%

2. Marketing – 33%

3. Receptionists – 26%

3. Administrative workers – 24%

4. Checkout operators– 22%

6. Customer services – 19%

7. Salespeople – 18%

8. Hairdressers – 16%

9. Retail workers – 14%

10. Shop attendants – 13%

Of the IT workers who had booked experience days for themselves or been bought one, 71% said they enjoyed the fact it was such a polar-opposite experience when compared to their day to day life.

Rob Holmes, Ecommerce & Marketing Manger of Intotheblue.co.uk said,

“At first glance, it would seem that IT workers are developing themselves an army of super covert, gun-capable soldiers! I put it down to Superman Syndrome – where, by day, UK workers are mild-mannered employees, but outside of work, they take on a whole new, more adventurous persona.

“We noticed a huge rise in bookings of the more adventurous, survival-based experience days from offices, and thought it’d be really interesting to look at why this must be. There’s definitely a correlation between workers who are more sedentary throughout the day and those most likely to book more active experience days outside of work!”

LINK http://www.intotheblue.co.uk

END

For any more information on www.intotheblue.co.uk contact Gabrielle Lofthouse on 01452 348211 or email on [email protected] or on Twitter @Gabriella_PRowl

Editors Notes:

The website was launched in 1996 as only an Air Activity Gift Voucher site

www.intotheblue.co.uk offers over 600 experiences, including skydiving, tank driving, beauty spa experiences, water sports experiences and many more. This is a simple to use internet based business that prides itself on its customer friendly approach.

The leading business channel on the Russian IT market – @ASTERA (www.astera.ru) – presents the results of its 5^th annual “Best Distributors” survey.

Being a part of the “Rating of IT Companies” project, the survey was carried out during the period from October 1 to December 31 in 2008. The main idea of the “Best Distributors” survey was to find out the positions of distributor companies on the Russian IT market, according to Russian IT Resellers opinions.

This time during the survey 158 distributor companies were assessed. Traditionally, twenty top companies were included in the “Best Distributors” rating according to the survey’s results. The most frequently mentioned companies were also announced.

It fortuned that the “Best Distributors 2008” survey was conducted during the period when the global financial crisis had begun to affect Russia and seriously correct all spheres of Russian economics.

The country’s IT sector suffered as well. At that time all participants of Russian IT market were faced with considerable troubles. It was obvious that the companies had got in trap of loans that always were a part of usual distributor business practice. So Russian distributors were in trouble at that moment.

To make matters worse, in 2008 some distributor companies couldn’t return debts from their partners as the latter ones had no possibility to rid themselves of their own debts in time. Moreover, some of distributors’ partners found themselves on the verge of default. Great debtors meant great problems to distributor companies. For instance, Neotorg couldn’t meet its engagement – to pay 20-30 million dollars debt.

Meanwhile, in 2008 the distributor companies began to reduce the amount of new orders and tried to cancel some of the products ordered in advance in anticipation of recession in demand. As a result, there occurred a shortage of some product positions in the fourth quarter of 2008 that ended by resellers’ dissatisfaction caused by lack of needed items and necessity to look for them in other places.

Time showed that the distributor companies had been right – there was a great recession in demand in the fourth quarter. Some companies goods turnovers decreased to 50%. Consequently, there were lots of cases of goods glut on the market that lowered companies’ profits and led to losses.

At the same time reducing of profit led to internal restructuring and optimization of spending. Some distributor companies were forced to cut business lines, salaries and staff that as a consequence reflected badly on the quality of services offered to resellers.

In 2008 that situation caused concern, because long-term partnership between resellers and distributor companies could be destroyed. As a consequence, it also could lead to considerable changes in the rating of best distributors.

The proverb says: “A friend in need is a friend indeed”. The hardships that distributor companies had been suffering as a result bared them and made their positive and negative qualities look more evident. In this connection a value of the “Best Distributors” rating should be raised a lot since it was based on Russian resellers’ opinions that had been voiced in time of economic troubles.

Nevertheless, despite dramatic changes on the market in 2008 the most participants of the previous rating managed to keep their positions or even improve them this time.

Compared to the previous year there were seven new names in the top list of best distributors this time – AK-Cent, Fan, MICS, CPS, AXOFT, Pirit and 3Logic. Pirit managed to return lost in 2007 position. Except that year the distributor always was itself among the best companies. It’s worth to mention that in 2008 Pirit contributed a lot in development of the market with its initiative against goods raid which has become a scourge of Russian business. Such Pirit’s activity has earned the company a great reputation among resellers and also its workmates – other distributor companies.

Success of such companies as AK-Cent and Fun in the rating should be noted. For example, AK-Cent returned in the top list in 2008, last time it was in 2004 when it’d taken 13^th place. Moreover, in 2008 the company had been the leader of the intermediate ratings several times. Fan also had appeared in the threesome of top list leaders several times according to intermediate results. Eventually, AK-Cent took 2^nd place in the top list whereas Fan got the 4^th one. That was a doubtless achievement for both of the distributor companies.

LANIT and Lanck were also in the first quinary of the top list. Compared to 2007 LANIT improved its position having gained six points while Lank moved up from 6^th to 5^th place.

A company Marvel that had successfully started the year with a business growth rate exceeding 60% in the first half of 2008 then improved its financial results and strengthened its leadership position in the “The Best Distributors” rating. The year before Marvel had been on 10^th place but now it occupied the seventh position in the top list.

MONT, Landata, ELKO Group и NetLab also managed to get in the top list of ten best distributors. MONT and Landata considerably improved their results in 2008. Whereas MONT jumped from 14^th to 6^th position, Landata took 8^th place having gained seven points.

There were four companies in 2008 – AK-Cent, Lanck, MONT and OCS – that were really close to the leader position in the top list. But, finally, the position was taken by OCS. Thus the company confirmed its leader status for the fifth time.

Of course, the first place in top list is usually an excellent result. But, what is more important, all twenty companies represented in the “Best Distributors” rating are used to be the best ones among hundreds of distributors working on Russian IT market. It’s worth to mention that despite the effects of weakened Russian economy most IT distributor companies managed to satisfy resellers expectations and keep their relationships unharmed in 2008. That is a secret that helped these companies to stay among the best ones.

In the “Most Frequently Mentioned Companies” rating the largest distributors traditionally occupied the top positions. Like a year ago, Merlion took 1^st place. OCS and Marvel were behind it on 2^nd and 3^rd places correspondingly. LANIT took 4^th place and Verysell was on 5^th one. Also there were some new distributor companies in the rating – Depo Computers, MICS, Lanck, RRC and Pirit.

More information about the “Best Distributors 2008” on the Russian IT market: http://www.astera.ru/it-rating/bestdistributors/2008/ (available on Russian).

Contact

Zoya Stafienko

Assistant Director

[email protected]

www.estimedia.ru

Additional information

Rating formation

The initial list of applicants included 131 companies. It was based on the results of surveys “Best Distributors 2007”, “Rating of IT brands”, “Rating of IT companies in Russia in 2007” and also contained the companies that had applied for the participation before the survey starting. The participants of the “Best Distributors” survey could also add the companies that weren’t represented in the initial list. So the final list of applicants included 158 distributor companies.

The results of the survey were presented in the form of two ratings: “The Best Distributors. Top20” and “Most Frequently Mentioned Companies. Top20”.

The “Best Distributors” rating was based on the average value obtained at the survey conducted among the representatives of Russian IT companies. Each participant could assess the activity of any distributor company within the range from 1 to 10. The number of mentions determined the place of the company in the “Most Frequently Mentioned Companies” rating.

The survey was carried out only within the registered on the @ASTERA channel representatives of IT companies. Thus such factors as anonymity and professional incompetence of the participants were completely excluded. All answers were processed individually. The survey’s findings were based on professional opinions and the possibility of invalid data was excluded. So there was no place to overrating or underrating of some companies results by the participants.

Thus, the results of “Best Distributors” rating were supposed to give a professional assessment of companies’ work with resellers while the data of “Most Frequently Mentioned Companies” rating – display the range of its sales.

About @ASTERA

The @ASTERA Business Information Channel is the leader in providing business information for professional participants of the Russian market of information technologies and telecommunications.

Daily Channel @ ASTERA provides the latest information about people and business, technologies and companies, events, products and services, prices and deliveries. Monthly www.astera.ru is visited by more than 150 000 users.

Since 2003, the channel @ ASTERA conducts a regular work aimed at research of the structure of the Russian IT market. The research results are published in the form of Reports: «Rating of IT companies in Russia», «Best Distributors», «The best vendors», «Rating of IT brands».

website: www.astera.ru

e-mail: [email protected]

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