The institute will look for rented premises to launch programmes in Dubai or Singapore
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) may have an international campus in Dubai or Singapore or both, by 2013. A senior faculty member from the institute told Business Standard the matter is being deliberated currently. The institute has decided it will go solo.
The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) had in October 2009, received an in principle approval from the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) to set up campuses abroad.
Samir Barua, director, IIM-A said the institute so far has been hesitant on an international campus due to faculty shortage and concern on the quality of students.
“We need a good faculty pool to launch a full-time management programme. We will also look at the cost structure and a local partner. We do not want to draw money out of our corpus to expand internationally,” said Barua.
IIM-A at present has around 95 faculty members and needs another 30 faculty members. “Once we have 105 faculty members we would be in a comfortable position to have another campus,” added Barua.
Last week Financial Times ranked IIM-A’s post graduate programme in management for executives, 11th in a list of 100 top B-schools in the world.
In September 2010, IIM-A had been ranked eighth for its two-year postgraduate programme in management (PGP) in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2010 ranking from among 71 programmes.
“International ranking will certainly help as we go international. We plan to rent a facility abroad and tie up with a local partner for the infrastructure. The fee charges would take care of the operating expenses for the campus. To begin with the class size would be 40 students,” added Barua.
The MHRD, had in October 2009, allowed IIMs to go abroad but only as a collective brand. Some IIM directors, however, felt it would affect the individual brand identity of their campuses, and had made known their fears to the MHRD.
Around six years ago, IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) was the first among IIMs to think of an international footprint — Singapore. The idea of a campus in Singapore, however, was turned down by the then HRD minister Arjun Singh who felt there was a need to meet domestic demand first.
IIM Bangalore on the other hand said, it is still figuring out what is the appetite for its MBA, internationally. “There is no clear strategy yet. As of now we have some partners with whom we are doing some international programmes but no plans have been firmed up for an international campus yet,” said Pankaj Chandra, director, IIM Bangalore.
IIMs have maintained that along with an international presence, they want to have a mix of international students and their global linkages will help them achieve this.
They are however, confident that an IIM campus abroad will be financially viable since the fees will be of international standards and therefore much higher than Indian fees. Indian institutes with campuses abroad generally go for a two-cycle approach, which involves setting up operations through a rented place for two years and branching out to their own campuses in three years time.
“Starting with rented premises helps the institute get quickly off the ground and also allow it time to understand and study the geography to set up a campus or expand,” points out an IIM director.
