If you are a B-School student or have been at some point in time, there is one thing which you would remember very clearly – the disappointment and irritation after attending every corporate PPT. A corporate PPT is like an iPhone. You can call it 6/7/8/X - they all are the same with some minor changes. What I am going to talk about are some aspects which every IIM or top B-School student will surely relate to. After sitting through 197024083 company PPTs on campus, this is what I have learnt about them -
1. Best Place to Work - Every company has won the ‘Best Place to work’ award. It's either the best in its field, or best in its city, or best in the building its main office is, but it is BEST.
2. Diversity - Every company is the most diverse company in the world. It has women directors and special initiatives for women. However, its presenters are men and they sell sexist products. That's just for business purposes, c'mon.
3. Global Presence - Most companies are present in all 7 continents. Some are also in the process of opening an office on Mars.
4. Values - Every company believes in honesty, integrity, courage, *insert 1000 more adjectives*, etc. If they had worked on an actual value system rather than on finding these fancy words, maybe things would have been much better on the ground.
5. Random Jargon - What is a presentation without throwing some random jargons at the audience? Every company is a pioneer in machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence. Apart from their values, culture, people and PPT, even their intelligence is artificial now.
6. BEST VIDEO EVER - No corporate PPT is complete without a corporate video. Ahh.. the videos! All videos have people smiling, enjoying work, talking of the company as a blessing on earth. If videos are used to judge the market scenario, there would be zero employee turnover.
It is shocking that even after so many years, the companies are so disillusioned about what the students are actually interested in seeing. Half of the PPTs and presentations are pathetically off-track and do not connect at all with the audience.
However, it would be totally unfair to only complain about them. Let us look at some things the companies do right –
- Providing pizza and coke at the end. Now that’s what I am talking about :D
- Kahoot quiz – Fun and informative. Everyone takes a Kahoot quiz seriously. Especially if you provide some goodies to the winner :p
- Facts and figures – Rather than random jargons, if the companies throw some numbers at us and make their case, it leaves a better impression.
P.S. - A PPT is incomplete without the presenter mouthing these words - “I was also sitting there xyz years ago.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard this line, I might not have had to take this education loan.
What I have basically learnt is that either the standard of PPT delivery is actually quite poor or the companies really do not care. I think it is time they hire some IIM graduates to make their PPTs for them