IFIM Business School announced its decision to take a break from B-school rankings for a period of two years, until December 31, 2020. The decision is an outcome of a strategic exercise to chart its direction for the future, having arrived at a new positioning that is in sync with the needs of the future, following the AACSB accreditation. IFIM is now positioned to cater to the needs of ‘beyond tomorrow’ by providing innovation-led solutions.
It will work towards three distinct interventions to align with the refreshed positioning. First, developing a curriculum based on extensive ongoing quantitative and qualitative exercise, with inputs from more than 100 CXOs of the country, in partnership with NHRDN and supported by AACSB International. Second, the introduction of a course on design thinking and innovation to prepare graduates to come up with idea prototypes and exhibit them as MVPs. And third, a collaborative platform that connects the industry, the academia, and professionals who need to be up-skilled and re-skilled, in gen-next technology areas of artificial intelligence, data engineering and business analytics, digital commerce and blockchain, to align with emerging job roles.
Wise words
Sharing his views on this move, Dr Atish Chattopadhyay, Director, IFIM Business School, said, “The AACSB accreditation brings with it a great degree of responsibility to deliver quality education which is at par with the global standards and keeps pace with the changing times. It also provides us an opportunity to introspect and prepare for the times ahead. Today’s environment presents unique challenges where existing business models and business education are fast losing relevance and getting disrupted. As the nature of jobs is changing outside, we, as an institution, would like to prepare ourselves for the needs of tomorrow. We believe and are confident that in these two years, we should be able to demonstrate a definite value outcome of our various initiatives. We are probably the only institution in India that is developing the aforesaid platform.”
He added, “This has found a good traction with the industry and we have forged partnerships with new age corporates such as Fractal Analytics, Infosys, Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Walmart, Flipkart, and Amazon through forming a think-tank in Bengaluru. This also helps us develop the courseware, provide real-life data for capstone projects and develop industry use cases across domains. Providing professional development programmes on this platform is on our agenda. This platform is supported by a research resource centre, an in-house research facility that we plan to extend to scholars across the globe. A Parasuraman, James W McLamore Chair and Professor of Marketing, Miami Business School, University of Miami, has joined us as a mentor faculty to guide us in developing a roadmap for the same to effectively partner with service led businesses. The research work undertaken with our partner companies is being leveraged to develop the Index of Service Excellence in India.”
Solid backing
In line with its new positioning and realignment interventions, the institute is also actively reorganising and reorienting itself. IFIM Business School now has a new leadership team that has a mix of outstanding academic and industry experience. The team comprises DK Agarwal, Dean Academics (formerly Dean at IIM Shillong); Suneel Sharma, Associate Dean of Working Professionals Programme (formerly Head of Professional Technology Programme at SP Jain School of Global Management); Rakesh Mediratta, Associate Dean of Executive Education Programmes (formerly Head of PGDM Executive at IMT Ghaziabad); Asit K Barma (formerly Chairperson of Digital Marketing and Consumer Insights domain at IMT Ghaziabad); Jahar Bagchi, a BITS Pilani and IIM-A alumnus, and a senior HR professional; Suresh Advani, formerly Professor at SPJIMR and Vice-Chancellor at Mody University; and Kalyan Sengupta, formerly HOD at IISWBM, Kolkata.