At IBA, making students industry-ready is a process that happens through a variety of ongoing activities, says Director

Director Indus Business Academy (IBA) Bangalore Subhendu Dey discusses the several aspects that help the college stand out from others offering comparable programmes in an interview with Shiksha.com. Curriculum, faculty-student research, and placements are examples of these. He goes into great detail on the institute's multiple add-on programmes and platforms that assist students to become industry-ready.

Prof Subhendu Dey is a passionate educationist, researcher, consultant and an institution-builder. His expertise lies in providing people, strategic and operational leadership in the area of academics. An institutional builder, Prof Dey has been engaged in building B-Schools with special focus on strategic planning, developing academic processes, academic administration and management. Associated with Indus Business Academy as Director (P), Prof Dey is providing academic and research leadership to the institution.

Read the complete interview below.

Q: What are the three things that your institute is doing that will enable it to differentiate itself from competition?

A: Among the various things that IBA does that helps it to differentiate itself from other business schools, three of those are listed below:

1. Curriculum rooted in Indian ethos – IBA’s philosophy revolves round two major pillars – (i) to create research-oriented academics, (ii) to create entrepreneurs and leaders who exhibit sensitivity towards society. The foundation for this philosophy is based largely on the thinking of Dean Dr Subhash Sharma, one of the most well-known management thinkers in India today. His large body of research has helped shape the unique character of the institute block by block.

The initiatives towards the environment and social development is another part of the holistic development of our students. As part of their ‘Higher Purpose of Existence (HOPE)’, students of IBA conduct activities like clean and green environment initiative, community health development initiatives, support towards natural calamities, happy surroundings initiative etc. To enable students to understand our glorious past along with the contemporary, a specialised programme called Yes+ Programme conducted by the Art of Living International is offered to our students as a value-add program. In this programme students learn to be productive and dynamic while staying cool and focused through a mix of activities from learnings from ancient wisdom, Sudarshan Kriya, pranayama and meditation, yoga, contemporary intellectual exchanges, music and games. This programme helps students understand the leadership potential in them, and discover their latent potential.

2. Collaborative faculty-student research – Collaborative student-faculty research works are regularly presented in to conferences where they are also adjudged best papers. At IBA, all students have to write three major reports as part of their PGDM programme. These are over and above all the project works that students undertake as part of their regular courses. The three reports – Theme Paper, Corporate Internship Report, and Dissertation help faculty mentors identify papers that can be presented in conferences. Faculty and student then collaborate to bring the paper to the final shape where it is accepted in a national or an international conference. Theme Paper is a full-fledged primary survey-based research paper, while Corporate Internship Report is the outcome of students’ work during their summer internship. Starting at the beginning of the second year, a Dissertation is a thoroughly researched thesis that students complete in their final trimester. The dissertation paper at IBA is a highly structured, research project with focused guidelines.

3. Attractive payback period – IBA has intentionally kept a highly affordable fee for its PGDM programme. This helps students recover the fee very quickly. At 14-15 months, the payback period or the time in which students recover their fee is very low for IBA students.

Q: What are the top three initiatives undertaken by you that are helping your students become more industry ready?

A: At IBA, making students ready for the industry is a process that happens through a variety of continuous activities like course-ending presentations, guest lectures, live projects, workshops etc. There are also special programmes designed for honing the soft skills of students.

1. Advanced Placement and Training Program (APTP) is a specialised programme for grooming students. Becoming market-ready, especially for the fresher students is a challenging task. IBA’s career resources are an important part of the management learning provided. At IBA placements is a process that is initiated right from the day when students join for the PGDM Programme through the APTP. An exclusive Institute-Industry Interface Committee (i3) comprising of select students under the guidance of the Faculty In-charge of Placements and Corporate Relations serves as an interface between students and business leaders by organising a wide range of events like workshops, seminars and guest lectures. In such events, students meet and talk with experts from various fields. In its final leg, APTP aims at focused preparation for Aptitude Tests, Group Discussions, Interviews, and Corporate and E-mail etiquettes. The programme is run by a group of industry leaders, and it helps students gain confidence, hone their responses and think on their feet.

2. Career and Personality Development Programmes (CPDP) is a unique initiative of IBA that aims at imparting life skills to the students. Through six courses, one in each trimester, students learn basic communication etiquette, inter-personal interactions, develop entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial skills, cross-functional management, project management, negotiation skills, transition to corporate, sustainability and social enterprise as a future corporate model. All of these courses are delivered in a unique way, which also helps students learn the art of public speaking, and how to articulate subject matter in a logical, coherent manner. Students learn project management in CPDP through an academic project called ‘Kalakshetra’. This project carries a theme and a purpose and students have to work in groups to accomplish the set goals. The project is carried out for three months and it culminates with students presenting and showing their talent in front of an audience comprising of Alumni, Corporate fraternity, general public, faculty, staff and other students of IBA. Every year, the theme changes and are based on social cause, culture, profit-making, etc.

3. Interactions of students with Alumni through specifically designed platforms – Alumni at IBA working in very senior positions in their companies interact regularly with students through two platforms created specifically for such interactions. The first platform is called Reflection and the second is Hangout. In Reflection, alumni, who are in very senior positions, bring in their experiences of either setting up their own companies, or their rich and varied experience of working in multiple countries across the world and share it with current students. Hangout, on the other hand, is a panel discussion, where award winners in various categories from different batches during their PGDM days, share their experience of what it takes to be an award winner in IBA, and their journey post-IBA. All these experienced alumni also give insights to students about the current scenario of their industries, and what they should do in order to be industry-ready.

Q: What are the key attributes that a student should have in order to Qualify for your institution and perform well.

A: IBA follows a fair and transparent selection process for student enrolment. The selection of students at IBA is purely based on merit and comprises of cumulative two rounds of comprehensive interviews by senior faculty members of IBA. The selection is based on the candidate’s academic background, SOP, extra-curricular achievements, and work experience (if any), besides having a valid score in one of the competitive examinations as mandated AICTE. Applicants are evaluated on intelligence, confidence level, leadership skills, communication skills, emotional maturity, the width of knowledge, social awareness, integrity and adaptability. IBA selects its students not withstanding gender, religion, caste, language, social, economic background or geographical regions they belong to.

The PGDM programme at IBA is highly rigorous and requires toppers to be academically strong. In addition, students are encouraged to participate in classroom and non-classroom activities like co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, which form an integral part of the PGDM programme. At IBA, cultural and sports activities are driven by a Committee YMCC, while management fests are facilitated and coordinated by Newsletter Committee, social engagement activities through HOPE committee are conducted periodically. The in-house clubs support domain learning and drive different activities related to the domain. These functional area-specific clubs are; Navigators (Finance club), Barcodes (Retail Club), Hunters Ignite (Marketing Club), OM Club (Operations), InfiniT Club (IT Club), Spandan (HR Club), Dolphins Club (Communications) & COSMOS (B-quiz Club).  Mentored by a faculty member, each of these clubs are driven by students. Apart from learning about the domain, this also helps them exhibit leadership skills.

Students who take an active part in each of the classroom and non-classroom activities end up getting top grades.

Q: Which programme/s would you say is/are your best? What is it that helps your institution differentiate itself for this programme?

A: Management Perspective is a standalone General Management course that is delivered to all students. This course lets students know about Indian Management philosophy and allows them to draw a comparison between Indian and Western management practices. The course comprises of various concepts like theory of Human Quality Development (HQD), theory of Creativity, theory of Consciousness, theory of HOPE (Higher Order Purpose of Existence). All these concepts are developed by Dean, Dr Subhash Sharma and have contributed to students’ learning about the eastern and western management practices. 

Core courses on Entrepreneurship – At IBA two courses - Basic Course in Entrepreneurship, and Advanced Course in Entrepreneurship and Start-up Management are offered to all students as part of the core curriculum. Through the Entrepreneurship Learning and Incubation Centre (ELIC), set up in 2013, these two courses are offered. ELIC is run by students under the mentorship of a senior professor. These courses help nurture an ‘Entrepreneurial and innovation mindset’ among the PGDM students of IBA. This is distinctly different from many other schools where Entrepreneurship, if offered, is done as a value-add course.

CPDP – As mentioned earlier, Career and Personality Development Programs (CPDP) is a unique initiative of IBA that aims at imparting life skills into the students.

Integrating Theme Paper with Business Research Methods (BRM) and Business Research Tools (BRT) – IBA’s aim of creating research oriented academics has created a beautiful synthesis between BRM offered in the first trimester, Theme Papers offered in the second and the third trimesters, and BRT– a course on Advanced Statistics, offered in the third trimester. This is the time when students start analyzing data collected using these statistical tools., and thus the synergy works at its maximum. This experience helps students come up with good research work during dissertation.

‘Six Sigma’ Green Belt Certification Program by KPMG which enhances the skills of students by equipping them with the knowledge of driving large projects.

Capsim Business Simulation Certificate Program - Students get exposure of running a complete business, thereby getting trained to demonstrate leadership with tangible numbers showing the results of their decisions.

Q: What are you doing to improve/drive better campus placements for your current students and alumni? What kind of jobs routinely come to campus? What would you say are the key recruitment trends for your college (observed over the past five years)?

A: At IBA, the focus is on the continuous improvement of students, and we believe that no two students learn in the same way. In this era of mass customisation, one size doesn’t fit all, and so do the career of the students. Our unique mentorship programme where each student is assigned a mentor for the entire duration of the PGDM programme helps understand the individual needs, and expectations of students. Through this process, students’ realistic aspirations are drawn out, and industry/s, sector/s, and job role preference/s are narrowed down.

The Corporate Relations team of IBA along with the i3 Committee works on these inputs for final placement of students. Our approach towards the entire placement process is student-centric, which helps them for better career growth, showing stability in the organisations they work for, and producing tangible results.  This has resulted in the high consistency of the same recruiters coming over to our campus year after year. In our endeavor to reach out to newer companies, we have witnessed that the list of our consistent recruiters also help them believe that they will get the best of the talents from IBA.

While designations, compensations, roles are organisation driven these days, we have continued to get roles from Management Trainee to Research Analyst to Project Managers to Talent Acquisition experts to Sales Trainee to Business Analysts. The progress that India is making, especially in the last 5-6 years, even with the disruption brought about by the pandemic, we find many industries flourishing, the impact of which is felt in campus hiring. Hiring by startups have witnessed a spurt, so have all the companies this year. For the startups though, IBA has an internal evaluation, based on which they are invited to the campus. We have also witnessed a steady growth in the average opening salary year-on-year, even during the pandemic. We have also seen a year-on-year growth of about 25-30% in the recruitment for core analytics profiles. Even the companies in the Big Four accounting firms that consistently recruit students from IBA, and other consulting firms have seen a similar rise in the number of students hired from our campus.