The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, has tied-up with three top Asian B-schools to devise a strategy to attract more students from the US, Canada and Europe.
Along with the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), ISB officials will jointly market the potential of studying management in Asia to Western students. All four B-schools, including ISB, feature among the top 30 in the Financial Times (London) rankings of the Top 100 Business Schools in the world.
After five months of meetings and discussions, these four Asian B-schools have now branded themselves as ‘Top 4 Asia B-schools’, created a logo which depicts the same, have a common signature, and a website http://www.topasiabschools.com to achieve the creation of an ‘Ivy League’ kind of image for students from developed countries. The ‘Ivy League’ refers to eight north-eastern US colleges — Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth University, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
These ‘Top 4 Asia B-schools’, on their newly-created website, reason that “Asia is the new land of opportunity. This is where you should be...to be present to learn to address the challenges of today’s increasingly complex business world. And, it is what makes a vital difference in your CV and to the direction your career is headed.”
IIFT inaugurates African business cell
After focusing on the Indian market, Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) is now spreading its wings. The institute recently inaugurated its Africa Business Cell to bring business leaders to India to promote partnerships and encourage entrepreneurship.
“The Africa cell is completely a students’ initiative because, for far too long, the world has been overlooking the significance of Africa. To a large extent, the misconceptions surrounding Africa today are similar to the ones that surrounded India in the past,” says K T Chacko, director, IIFT.
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The cell will focus on two activities. One, to bring African business leaders to Delhi for promoting partnerships and schemes involving India. Two, to do live projects in Africa so that students get an opportunity to work there. Major business opportunities in Africa will be in agricultural commodities sourcing and trading, consumer goods, oil & natural gas, automobiles, education and healthcare.
IIFT has also been actively involved with the Ministries of External Affairs and Commerce to set up an African Institute of Foreign Trade in the continent. “Discussions are on, and we have given the ministries our inputs on academic linkages and faculties for the African institute that will be set up on the same lines as IIFT. In fact, this will be India’s contribution to Africa,” says Chacko.
The potential is huge. Last year, India called for doubling the India-Africa bilateral trade to the level of $70 billion over a five-year period, continuing the growth trajectory that began in 2000-01, when trade was a mere $3 billion. It shot up to $36 billion in 2007-08. In April 2008, India had announced a duty-free preferential tariff scheme for 49 least-developed countries, which has benefited 33 African countries.
African leaders have often called for boosting investments in agriculture, mining, power, agro-processing, irrigation, pharmaceuticals, IT, health, retail chain and small- and medium-scale sector for generating employment.
IMT benefits from EU programme
Students and faculty of the Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad — a signatory to the European Union’s educational programme Erasmus Mundus — have started reaping the fruits in the form of scholarships.
Erasmus Mundus is the global avatar of the Erasmus programme supported by the EU that encourages academic collaborations between prominent universities and academic institutions by providing better mobility for students and professors. It also provides scholarships for graduate and post-graduate students.
As part of the agreement, six management students from IMT have been awarded scholarships to pursue an academic term for five months at Erasmus partner institutions. A research scholar from IMT got a scholarship to pursue further research in a joint doctoral degree for one year. Ten students from universities across Europe have been selected to pursue academic terms at IMT. "Four students have already arrived and have integrated themselves with the academic rigour and culture at IMT. The International Relations team at IMT believes this exchange will prove to be a great learning experience for the students and will help in improving IMT's international standing further,” says Jayanthi Ranjan, chairperson, international relations, IMT Ghaziabad.
Ranjan says four faculty members of IMT have been awarded scholarships to pursue post-doctoral research at various partner universities. Four more faculty members were also selected for Academic Staff Exchange. Going ahead, the institute is in the process of negotiations for providing international internships and placements to students. “With this kind of long-term international exposure in the field of business and management, the students of IMT stand a better chance to obtaining international placements as well,” she added.
IMT has signed five independent bilateral agreements to explore further opportunities for other international academic exchange programmes. Talks are on with four more institutions. IMT along with its partners are also in the process of establishing joint-degree programmes at the post-graduate and post-doctoral levels.
Symbiosis B-school’s global tie-ups
The Pune-based Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) is in talks with around seven international institutes to be the content provider and course designer for their courses. The institute has a working tie-up with the Khimji Training Institute LLC in Muscat and Steinbeis University in Berlin.
“We are in talks with close to seven more such institutes in places like Frankfurt. There is a five-week study India programme for the Seidman School of Business and the Grand Valley State University, Michigan. Also, there is a 24-month executive MBA for IBM Germany in collaboration with Steinbeis University, Berlin. On the local front, we run the SIBM Pune weekend Diploma in Finance for executives. We also have a tie-up with the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management," says Vivek Sane, director, SIBM.
Ranked among the top five B-schools in the country, SIBM is looking to grow its brand further to gain international recognition. “We believe in one step at a time. Currently, we may not feature in Europe, USA and the like but in May 2010, SIBM received Asia’s best B-school award, presented by CMO Asia and titled the ‘Business School with Best Industry Interface Award’,” added Sane.
The institute is also running a lot of initiatives for the benefit of students. Last year, it spent close to Rs 1 crore on student welfare activities. The institute also conducts a series of guest lectures and panel discussions called Alpaviram, wherein industry bigwigs come and share their knowledge with students. “We have a collaboration with Yashaswi Abhiyaan wherein women entrepreneurs come over to share their experiences. Our latest initiative includes a training programme we run with the State Election Board to train elected candidates for leadership communication and the like in their own language,” adds Sane.
Last year, SIBM also started a value added lecture series involving lectures on latest industry trends in the subjects chosen by students.
The institute also offers customised executive diplomas in business management for corporations, for which it has tie ups with companies like Godrej, WNS, Avaya, Zensar, Wipro. “We deliver lectures on their grounds for the same. We have even innovated a diploma in business management for our engineering students,” says Sane. For this academic year, SIBM is laying emphasis on bringing the industry's best practices to the classroom.
1-yr MBA salaries up 25 per cent at XLRI
The placement for the 2010 batch of the General Management Programme (GMP) at the Xavier Labour Relations Institute of India (XLRI), Jamshedpur, concluded on a high note.
The highest salary this year touched Rs 30 lakh — a jump of 25 per cent from Rs 24 lakh last year and Rs 12 lakh the year before (2008). The average hovered around Rs 15 lakh.
The rolling placements for the one-year full-time flagship MBA programme had started in February 2010, followed by placement drives at Mumbai and Bangalore. In all, 82 students participated, with 15 on-sabbatical students joining their previous organisations.
According to sources from the institute, the response from companies was positive, with the likes of Google, Mind Tree, SAP, Accenture, IBM, HCL, HP, Mahindra Satyam, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, TCS, Future Group, Apollo Hospitals, Infosys Technologies, Applabs, Daimler, Exide, Genpact, and Tata Motors, among others offering jobs to the GMP students.
The placement process also saw 17 per cent students shifting sector/industry, apart from 38 per cent who changed roles. Moreover, shifts from medical practice to leading managerial roles in the health sector and conventional programming and project management in IT to business managing and consultancy were also seen.
Started in 1997, GMP is open to students with a minimum of five years’ experience in managerial work.
Induction cells may help IIMs meet faculty crunch
The Centre has finally stepped in to address the faculty crunch in premier educational institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). A committee, constituted by the ministry of human resource development and headed by IIT Kanpur Director SG Dhande, has suggested setting up induction cells in all colleges and universities to address the problem.
The cell will oversee recruitment, performance and promotion of teachers, and enhance their motivation levels. “We have suggested that every college and university should have a special provision for recruitment of faculty, and that the faculty management should be treated as a separate issue as it depends on the recruiting authorities,” says a member of the panel that submitted its interim report to the ministry.
Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal had, in April, constituted another committee headed by Ajit Balakrishnan, the founder, chairman & CEO of Rediff.com, to address faculty shortage at the IIMs. This committee has submitted a separate report to the ministry.
The committee has suggested ways and means to recruit and retain faculty members besides paying them on a par with industry standards. According to a member, who does not wish to be named, the committee has suggested ways to increase the number of PhDs, step up quality and quantity of research and attract faculty in areas where there is a dearth of candidates — such as marketing and finance. “This is an interim report, and we are examining it. It has recommended setting up of induction cells. Because it is a generic report, we need some more data before reaching a conclusion. It talks about setting up cells in institutes of higher learning but it is in the preliminary stages,” says a ministry official.
Some institutes have a dean of faculty affairs who looks into matters related to recruitment. However, salary-related issues are not decided by the dean. “We have a dean who looks at all faculty related matters but most of them are peripheral and general policy issues,” says an IIT director. The approved faculty-student ratio in respect of IITs and IIMs is 1:9. At IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras, the ratio is 1:13. According to the University Grants Commission (UGC), the student-teacher ratio should be 20 as against the benchmark average of colleges at 27. UGC is considering a ratio of 1:10 for science programmes, and 1:15 for humanities, social sciences, commerce and management courses.
At the National Institutes of Technology, there are only 2,603 faculty members, against the sanctioned strength of 3,747. The situation in IIMs is no different. There are only 388 faculty members against the sanctioned strength of 468. “Our faculty strength sometime back was 94 while we needed it to be at least 110. With 1,000-odd students, the faculty-student ratio stands at 1:11,” Samir Barua, director, IIM Ahmedabad, had earlier told Business Standard.
With four new IIMs to come up in the first phase (2010-2011), another 250 faculty members would be required. IIMs meet less than 5 per cent of India’s need for management education. They produce qualified faculty for both IIMs and other management institutes. The current faculty-student ratio at IIM Bangalore is 1:13.4, while at IIM Kozhikode it is 1:15.
The IIMs’ recruitment process is as follows: An advertisement for a vacancy is displayed on their website and invites applicants to make a presentation to a class before being interviewed by an expert — an external examiner from outside the respective IIM. On the global platform, the IIMs offer positions at conferences that are attended by faculty members.
Flame’s liberal touch to MBA course
The global financial crisis and the opening up of the Indian market have prompted business schools to reflect on their future course. To put some soul in management education, Pune-based Foundation for Liberal And Management Education (Flame) plans to integrate its management courses with liberal education to focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership in business courses.
“We are looking at the MBA programme from a different perspective, including new characteristics, and will decide the template for the new course in the next three months. Students need a broad base to see how the psychology of the country is evolving,” says Flame President Indira Parikh.
Liberal education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. Flame has schools of business, communication, liberal education and performing arts. It has 500 students and it plans to increase the number to 1,500 over the next five years by adding 200 students each year. The institute is now in its fourth year.
The institute offers a two-year MBA programme anchored in liberal education and an MBA in mass media — a course dealing with principles of professional management and the craft of mass media including journalism, cinema and television.
IBS to invest Rs 150 crore for campuses across India
Icfai Business School (IBS), a wing of the Hyderabad-based Icfaian Foundation, plans to invest Rs 150 crore to set up its own campuses across India over the next two years.
“IBS is consolidating its operations, and is investing in acquiring lands to build state-of-the-art campuses and high-end infrastructure facilities,” YK Bhushan, senior advisor and head of IBS-Mumbai, says.
IBS has seven campuses across the country. Six of them — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Gurgoan, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune — are on rented premises. Its Hyderabad campus is owned by the foundation. At present 2,850 students are pursuing their management courses.
Bhushan says that IBS will acquire land in the western suburbs of Mumbai by investing around Rs 30 crore to set up the infrastructure in line with the All India Council for Technical Education norms. “Subsequently, we will take AICTE approval,” he adds.
IBS has identified five acres in Kolkata and 15 acres in Bangalore where it would invest Rs 15 crore and Rs 20 crore, respectively. The institute is also planning a campus in Chennai on a 20-acre plot at a cost of Rs 20 crore. IBS further plans to invest Rs 70 crore to set up campuses in Gurgoan and Pune. “We have identified land and negotiations are going on for acquisition,” says Bhushan.
According to IBS, it has placed 3,200 students across the country in 2009-10 — a 15 per cent jump from the previous year. The placements were across sectors like banking and financial services, insurance, information technology and fast-moving consumer goods. An IBS spokesperson says the domestic annual pay package for the students last year has gone up to Rs 10,00,000. The international salary was around Rs 15,00, 000 with 21 global placements. Some of the key recruiters last year were ICICI, HDFC, Deloitte, Kotak, JP Morgan, Fullerton Securities, Sundaram Finance and the Tata Group of Companies.