Big Data Analytics in GIM

By Dr. Nitin Upadhyay

[Sponsored]

Big Data Analytics (BDA) has created a new paradigm of facts-based or data-driven decision making in the field of management. The world of business has recognized its strength and many companies have started using it in varying degrees. But BDA is not confined only to businesses and it can majorly help governments in policy formulations.

Celebrating its 25 years, Goa Institute of Management (GIM) has decided enter this field of study. After careful study of the prevailing market for analytics education in the country, it has been found out that most of the BDM courses being offered are catering to the current business needs for having skilled personnel to handle tools and techniques in vogue today. Therefore, even the B-schools have taken the technology route to impart BDA programmes. GIM, however, has decided to teach BDA without losing the management orientation. The vision for this programme is to prepare future ready managers, well versed with BDA and having hands-on experience of handling of latest tools and techniques to manage their respective domains most effectively.  

The unique two-year full-time course, Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Big Data Analytics), shall be offered to students with flair for numbers and computers. 

About PGDM-BDA

The main objective of GIM’s PGDM-BDA is to create future-ready, data-fluent managers who are well equipped to understand the ecosystem and manage the new paradigm of data-driven decision making. The programme is exclusively designed to provide students the understanding of various aspects of management with a focus on applying BDA tools and techniques to solve business problems. Students, under this programme, will have exposure to statistical theory, data management including big data and business intelligence systems including machine learning, artificial intelligence and deep learning and related tools, techniques and algorithms.

GIM has collaborated with SAS, one of the pioneering institute in the field of Analytics. SAS has complete set of tools to handle a wide range of Big Data Analytics. SAS has also developed interfaces with prominent tools/frameworks like R, Python, Hadoop and others.

The major emphasis of the PGDM-BDA programme will be on providing hands-on training to the students using all major software tools being used currently and working on actual industry projects. By the end of the programme, the students will be well trained in comprehending actual business situations and applying appropriate BDA tools and techniques to get better insights into the problems to be able to devise optimum solutions.

Pedagogy

GIM’s pedagogic philosophy is rooted in learning through applying innovative methods of teaching and actual problem solving. We encourage emphasis on participative learning i.e the students are expected to come prepared to the class with topics/tasks assigned by the faculty and actively participate in class discussions. This activity is aimed at improving the students’ capabilities of critical thinking and engaging with people to find a solution for the problem at hand. There is strong emphasis on teamwork, through interactive and group learning which promotes student participation. The programme has been designed with the aim to facilitate students to grasp business essentials through conceptual knowledge and empirical cases and apply the BDA-tools and techniques to those cases to come up with interesting insights. The students will be working on actual business data to learn how to apply various BDA in a hands-on mode. Actual BDA practitioners shall be involved in teaching a part of each course to give real-life flavour to the classroom. Teaching techniques at GIM are thus designed to enable students to become creative thinkers as well as effective executives. 

Summer Project

At the end of the first year, the students will be given summer projects in which they are required to spend eight to ten weeks in an organization doing a project on a significant aspect or problem related to BDA. The aim of the summer project is to make students learn how BDA is being used in organizations and to relate what they have learnt in GIM to actual practice. 

In-Company Project

In the last term (Term VI) the students shall be placed in companies to do actual analytics project to gain first-hand information and experience as to how the analytics driven industry functions. The GIM has tied up with a number of business organisations and expect to add more to its pool. The project has substantial weightage in final assessment. The students will be evaluated on this project which shall be jointly done by the company guide and the faculty.

About the Author:

Dr. Nitin Upadhyay is a researcher, inventor, innovator, consultant, leader, coach, academician and a prolific writer. He is a leading authority and speaker on innovation, design, cloud computing, big data & analytics, future technology and user experience. He is currently the Chair and Head of the Centre for Innovation at Goa Institute of Management and is a core member of the Big Data Analytic programme, Goa Institute of Management.