A total of 45 companies visited the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, for the final placements of 2004.

These companies made 107 offers to 59 students. With nearly 1.81 offers made per student, the highest offer was from Computer Sciences Corporation for Rs 10.4 lakh (Rs 1.04 million) per annum. The average salary offered this year is Rs 635,000 per annum.

Though the number of companies that visited IIM-K was 52 last year, the institute witnessed a jump in the number of offers per company this year.

Infosys Technologies, which visited IIM-K for the first time this year, made 14 offers. It was closely followed by Wipro at 12, Digital at eight and five offers from CSC. Many recruiters were told to cancel their visit to IIM-K as students were placed on the first day of recruitment.

Speaking to Business Standard, Ernesto Noronha, chairperson placements, IIM-K, said, "This year's placement process, both finals and summers, has attracted a combined total of 41 first-time recruiters including Accenture, National Kidney Foundation of Singapore, Microsoft Corporation, AGS Morgan Stanley, IBM, Digital Globalsoft, Infosys, Wipro, ICI Ltd. and CavinKare. This confirms IIM-K's growing stature in the industry."

Stating that there has been no evidence of slowdown in placements when compared to the previous year, Noronha said, "This year's average salary is Rs 635,000 per annum compared with last year's Rs 546,000."

This year's highest salary was Rs 10.4 lakh and the lowest at Rs 400,000. This compares with last year's salary of Rs 15.2 lakh (Rs 1.52 million) per annum and Rs 250,000 per annum, respectively."

Regular recruiters such as GE Capital, ICICI Bank, ABN AMRO, Asian Paints, Godrej, TCS, Computer Sciences Corporation and the Aditya Birla Group also visited IIM-K for recruitment.

The information technology sector turned out to be the biggest recruiter with 51 per cent of the offers coming from this sector.

Around 27 per cent of the offers came for marketing roles. Offers for various roles in finance, human resource and operations constituted 15 per cent, 3 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.

As a result of strong recruiter relationships, IIM-K has also witnessed resounding success in its lateral recruitment process this year.

Commencing in October and running till the regular final placement process in February, the laterals programme was a rolling placement process that allowed firms and students with work experience more flexibility in recruitment.