Dr Bhimaraya Metri, Director, IIM Tiruchirappalli, intends to keep a razor sharp focus on executive education. This will be a key revenue stream for the fledgling IIM in the future.
As Prof Metri explained in an interview, IIM Trichy is conducting executive programmes for several public sector units, such as Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Chennai Petroleum and BEL, as well as for commercial tax officers and the Ministry of Skills Development. “We want to rope in more PSUs for executive education,” he says.
For the HRD Ministry, IIM Trichy conducted a technical education programme for senior officials. In collaboration with the University Grants Commission, the institute had a training programme which was attended by Vice-Chancellors of several state and deemed universities; over 150 people underwent that training programme. The subject of the conclave was redefining the role of universities.
Helping raise the bar
IIM Trichy also conducted a training programme for the NAAC to raise the bar for accreditation. The institute has set up a national centre for higher education quality. “In India we have at least 900 universities and 46,000 colleges and all have to go for accreditation; we are using analytics and helping NAAC in its accreditation process,” says Dr Metri.
From an income earned of ₹2 crore from executive education, IIM Trichy wants to scale it up to ₹10 crore in a few years from now. “Our aim is in the coming two-three years, we want to be the number four player among the IIMs in executive education. If we raise the bar, we can cross IIM Indore and IIM Kozhikode and emerge the number four player in executive education (behind IIMs A,B & C),” says Prof Metri.
Data sciences, analytics
IIM Trichy also signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) on February 19 to establish the Centre for Applied Research in Data Science (CARDS) — a joint initiative of IIM-T and TNeGA. This will boost smart decision-making for the welfare of multiple stakeholders in the Tamil Nadu Government and will enhance data-driven decision-making across State government departments, says Prof Metri.
The collaboration seeks to promote research in the domain of government data analytics, facilitating the training of senior and middle level executives on data analytics and emerging technologies such as internet of things (IoT), blockchain and artificial intelligence.