The Department of Management Studies (DoMS) at IIT Madras plans to launch an executive or eMBA programme by January 2018. The two-year degree aims to provide mid-career working professionals a functional and integrated perspective, and contemporary management knowledge to lead a modern business organisation.
Says Prof Srinivasan of the DoMS: “We are in the process of finalising everything. We are looking at an intake of 30 students for this part-time programme. Students will attend classes on weekends. However, we are not compromising on credits and hours of teaching.”
Leadership in manufacturing
Prof Srinivasan says that apart from its flagship two-year MBA course, the DoMS had also kicked off a programme on Visionary Leadership in Manufacturing a few years ago; this is a year-long joint programme of IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur and IIM Calcutta.
The programme is run in consultation with CII, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), NMCC and the MHRD. The government of Japan extends cooperation to support the transfer of Japanese expertise and visits to manufacturing centres of excellence in Japan for the PGPEX-VLM Programme. The module is meant for the career advancement of engineers and executives who have between five and 10 years of experience and are at the middle management level. Internationally renowned Japanese quality guru Shoji Shiba is also associated with it.
Prof Srinivasan says the target group for this programme is very different from its two-year MBA course, as the executives are already in middle management. IIM Calcutta takes the major load in the academic part and in placements, whereas the IITs in Kanpur and Madras provide the engineering inputs. “That’s a big first-of-its-kind initiative. That’s been the biggest contribution to one segment of industry, particularly manufacturing,” adds Prof Srinivasan. The course has graduated around 300 students.
Placements and beyond
Asked how the DoMS, established in 2004, fares in placements, Prof Srinivasan explains that the MBA students have a separate placements agenda even though it is still part of the main placements schedule of IIT Madras and is supported by its placement cell. The numbers are also smaller compared to the IIT’s engineering disciplines, as the batch size is around 65 students.
In the first five days of the placement period that takes place in December, Prof Srinivasan says at least 60 are placed. “In terms of average salaries, we are somewhere between ₹8 and ₹15 lakh; people with work experience get paid higher. The average salary is ₹11 lakh. In the last three years, the median has risen by ₹1 lakh each year.
He says that being a department of management studies in a renowned institution like IIT Madras is advantageous. “What is also important is that our MBA students have the opportunity to take courses in areas such as systems and IT as specialisations, plus courses from related departments such as as computer science. The bigger gains are for MBA students to be involved in the mainstream activities of IIT Madras as well as the extra-curricular activities. Considering most of them have an engineering background, they fit into the system and gain by it,” he elaborates.