XIMB authorities and senior faculty members with the final-year students at a media conference. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, March 24: More students at Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB) are opting for entrepreneurship in order to grab the opportunities of economic recovery.

At least five students from the premier business school have decided to start their own ventures.

“We are glad that our students are getting into ‘entrepreneurship mode’ and the university will offer all kinds of support to help them establish their start-ups,” said Paul Fernandes, director of XIMB, while announcing the institute’s 100 per cent placement achievement this year.

Despite the market slowdown, XIMB managed to achieve 100 per cent placements for business management, human resource management and rural management graduate batches of 2012-2014.

A total of 54 companies, including 18 new recruiters, hired students from business management.

The average salary for this group stood at Rs 12.08 lakh per annum in a marginal increase from last year’s Rs 11.8 lakh.

The job profiles included corporate finance, equity research, investment banking, marketing, sales and distribution, supply chain management, business consulting, IT consulting and business development.

A leading market research firm of Indonesia in the business development profile offered the highest international package of USD 40,750 per annum, while the highest domestic salary offered was Rs 18.00 lakh per annum.

Similarly, 34 companies attended the placement process for the human resource programme. The average annual salary stood at Rs 10.07 lakh per annum and the highest domestic salary for this batch of students stood at Rs 18 lakh per annum.

Aditya Birla HR Leadership Programme, Capgemini, Tata Steel, Glenmark, Deloitte Human Capital, ITC Infotech, Ambuja Cements, L&T, Randstad, Godrej and Boyce, Korn Ferry absorbed the students.

The postgraduate diploma in management (rural management) witnessed participation of companies cutting across all the established major sectors, including consultancy, development, sales and marketing, commodity trading, banking and financial services and so on. The average annual salary stood at Rs 6.21 lakh per annum.

The highest domestic salary stood at Rs 11.1 lakh per annum and the highest international salary stood at USD 40,000 per annum.

“The number of jobs in rural management is increasing every year. In fact the rural management batch got placed well in advance suggesting better opportunities,” said Niraj Kumar, senior professor, PGDM (HRM) programme.