NITIE Mumbai online admission process to be different: Director MK Tiwari

But our big problem is perception, which is totally depending on the survey conducted by the NIRF. The institutions which are very younger, they are having 35%- 40% of this perception, whereas we are just only 20%. So, the perception itself created a big problem for us. Otherwise, we would have been among the top ten on the list.

Due to the perception in society that those Institutions that start with ‘I’ like IITs, IIMs, IISER, etc. are better, they are already getting better attention in society. The institutions like NITIE, NIT, etc. starting with the National word even though they are doing very well they are not getting perception-based visibility but this notion we have to break.

Q: What are the new courses and programmes that NITIE is planning to offer in the near future?  

A: NITIE was the first institute in the country to launch the online examination. We are the first institute to launch online admission. We have been carrying out our admission process through online mode and more than 150 different MDP programs are being offered online.

Two very interesting programs we have offered online from the USA, one of them with Professor David Simchi-Levi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). These programs were so successful that we have got around 850 industry professionals as participants. So you can say that has motivated us a lot to offer around 5 to 6 new programs in the domain of digitization in supply chain management, Fintech, etc.

There is a program that we are planning to have for marketing analytics, and we are also going to launch programs on what you call broader aspects of supply chain management with a focus on analytics.

NITIE is going to take up all those things from 2022 onwards so that we can serve society, industry in a better way as well as the people who are really desirous of building a strong career in their life.

Q: What type of changes NITIE Admission Process has witnessed/ is yet to witness amid COVID-19? 

A: The online admission process for our programmes will be different than the existing process. Here our focus will be on those who are having a very good track record and served the industry in many ways and also those who are having a very strong desire to learn something, those who have the appropriate background for the programme would be given due consideration.

It will not be like the traditional way of admissions that we are doing. Yes, like at present we have very high GATE and CAT score cut-off scores. NITIE is the only place where apart from PGDIM programmes, it's around minimum 98 percentile cut-off for GATE-based admission, for CAT 97 percentile is the minimum score for admission at NITIE.

So, with this kind of very comprehensive admission process, we will not be able to attract a very large number of candidates, so we shall try to see a different mix of the things so that our needs and requirements get fulfilled for offering those online courses, especially in the domain of digitization, supply chain management, supply chain analytics, marketing analytics.

Also, we are trying to plan programme in cyber security. Because the way in which we are functioning, if you want to be competitive, then many of the newer techniques like blockchain IoT, robotics, warehousing automation, all this thing needs to be re-looked from a different perspective.

Q: Is NITIE planning to increase in the number of seat intakes?

A: At present, already our seats are at 680. But we are taking only 615 because one big hostel is yet to come up. So, we have taken permission from the ministry to fill those seats once that hostel is ready. So, for the regular programs, we are not extending seat. But we are launching online courses which will be mostly online where we don't require any hostel facility.

Q: Will NITIE Mumbai face any fee hike in the upcoming admission session? 

A: NITIE is a top business school, Our Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Management is very popular. But compared to that if you see our fees is very less.  We are less than even IIMs also. Also, in that regard, we follow the government policies. We want to offer the best education with the given fee structure unless our grants are cut to a larger extent.

At present, there is no plan to hike the fee. NITIE also returned Rs 6000 per student for all those days when the students were not here. Like say there were no electricity charges and all, so, that we returned it to the students last year and this year also, we are planning to do that actually. For that, we're going to our Board for taking permission and then start the process.

Q: What is NITIE Mumbai’s academic and placement strategy amid COVID-19? How did the pandemic affect the same? 

A: Even during pandemic, a total of 113 companies came and more than 150 PPOs were received by the NITIE students.

So around 28% of the class received pre-placement offers (PPOs) and then the summer internship was completed quickly. Many of the firms dealing with the FMCG sector, finance, e-commerce, IT, logistics, manufacturing, pharma, actually come to NITIE regularly.  We are trying to attract more companies from other sectors like finance, marketing, etc. Perhaps we have to go for offline mode soon. But the exam and everything will be offline only. But for those large courses where we have bigger strengths, there we would go for online, rest of the courses will be offline. So we are calling all our students also very soon, perhaps by November, they will be here in campus.

Q: How NITIE is building thought leadership in the area of supply chain and logistics. What are some of the initiatives taken by NITIE?

A: NITIE is basically referred in the industrial circle as a Mecca for the supply chain. We are well known for operations and supply chain management and to strengthen the tie-up, we are selecting those who are very good in the world. So like this, we are going to rope more people who are there in the academic and industry. Recently, we have launched a Center of Excellence and Logistics and Supply Chain Management at NITIE to jump into the domain of multimodal logistics as well as shipping, rail cargo, air cargo and other kinds of related logistic problems such as housing, financing of the warehousing, leasing, etc. So that way I think our connection will further buttress with the industry as well as the other links.

Q: How are you planning to take NITIE Mumbai among the top B-schools?

A: We want to be very strong towards problem-solving. We want to train our students in such a way that they will be able to apply all the modern tools of management, and you can say analytics to handle the problems. Also, to build better strategies for improving the service level profitability as well as better holistic development of the students. We are also creating more infrastructure for executive development programs. So that more and more people will come for education and training at NITIE, and we can get connected with them. We also plan to invite more international people to the institute, besides having stronger MoU with different institutions in the world. That will help us actually, I think, to go in the close vicinity of top institutions.

Q: How NITIE can become a central node for the solution of all the logistics problems of India? What role alumni of NITIE is playing in this?

A: We've already started the Center of Excellence in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. There we are going to open all the domains, we are going to hire the people who have very strong experience from the different industries. We are going to start the Professor of Practice position.

We will take more live problems from the industry so that our students and faculty can get involved in solving them. And we plan to have constant interaction through seminar and webinars, conferences, inviting domain experts, inviting them for different lectures and other purposes. I think proving our capability by way of our alumni would be helpful. Our alumni are very strong, and they are doing wonderful things in the industry and that is why NITIE is in demand by all the top companies in India.

Q: NITIE, Mumbai collaborated with Professor David Simchi-Levi for a Global Online Course on Supply Chain Digitization and Management. Are we going to witness more of such collaboration? 

A: David is starting from November 13 one more course on end-to-end supply chain digitization and management on the NITIE platform. This course is only for the professionals who are working in the industry. In January, he will again come back with the supply chain, digitization, and management course.

David is one professor who is stalwart in the area of logistics and its beauty is that he has chosen NITIE as his base to cover and disseminate smart and advanced knowledge of the supply chain. We are very happy to have these collaborations with Prof. David Simchi Levi. We are going to not only serve NITIE but also the industry community by exposing his clarified thoughts like say he gave his idea of this stress test for the supply chain so that we can test it and we can find whether they're doing better in the pandemic or not.

Q: How is the institution working on improving gender diversity at campus?

A: NITIE wants to increase diversity in the campus, at present 14% of the girls are there, but we want to increase it to somewhere around 30% very soon. Accordingly, we plan to make changes in admission policy, also we are going to offer more scholarships to the girls candidates so that they can come and they feel that here there is more better prospects for them. We are going to have a woman chair professor in the Institute.

We are going to have more seats for the girls. New hiring would also take care of this aspect. Our target will be that wherever you found a better women leader, particularly as a faculty, we're going to hire them. So, idea is, through scholarship, through chair professorship, through exposing them to the different ways and also making them feel very, very comfortable on the campus, we aspire to increase gender diversity at NITIE. I think in this way we are going to have better diversity and its outcome will be better for the institute.

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