IIM-A, The Harbinger Of Change

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is India’s top B-school whose alumni includes Ajay Banga, Raghuram Rajan, K.V. Kamath, Arvind Subramanian, Shikha Sharma and Falguni Nayar. It was in an unusual spotlight recently as YouTuber Navya Naveli Nanda (granddaughter of Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan) took admission in recently launched blended MBA programme. It may not need that kind of publicity but this does indicate its appetite to change with the times.

While the B-school’s two-year on-campus MBA programme continues to be the most coveted, over past few years, it has started democratising management education. Recently, it launched hybrid MBA, a combination of online and offline. Priced at ₹20 lakh compared to conventional two-year MBA’s ₹26.50 lakh fee, it requires students to be present on campus for just 30 days. “Every term starts on campus. The remaining classes are online. The curriculum is 85% the same as the two-year campus programme (since you are working, you avoid certain base programmes). The faculty is also the same,” says Bharat Bhasker, director, IIM-A.

At a time when B-school education is being termed obsolete across the world, IIM-A is striving to stay contemporary by not only embracing technology but also reaching out to the world through industry-relevant digital courses. It recently launched online@iima, which offers short digital courses such as Advanced Programme on Financial Technologies and Financial Analytics; Advanced Programme in Digital Marketing Business Models; and Advanced Digital Transformation Specialisation. “If India’s GDP keeps growing by 6-7%, demand for management education will remain high. Online provides us the opportunity to leverage our capability at a higher level,” says Bhasker. “One of the key factors that define IIM-A and keep it ahead of the curve is the fact that it has never been stagnant or rigid in adopting innovative ideas and changes,” he adds.

Diptesh Ghosh, dean (Programmes), IIM-A, says some online courses that are also available on Coursera have done especially well. “Among top 10 Coursera courses last year, two were from India, both IIM-A. The Leadership Skills course has more than 1,80,000 subscribers; the other is a managerial statistics course which has been launched in 137 countries and has 1,05,000 subscribers. We are launching a course on digital transformation,” he says. These entry-level courses are priced at ₹2,500. The online@iima platform also offers eight four-month hybrid courses such as Executive Programme in Advanced Business Analytics, Accelerated General Management Programme and Senior Management Programme, to name a few.

Internationalising Education

At a time India is among the world’s top economies, Bhasker says it is imperative for Indian B-schools to be recognised as the world’s best. “IIM-A has a network with over 80 top international institutions and a presence in Dubai,” says Bhasker. “We need to internationalise curriculum by starting programmes for the global market. Our alumni are our ambassadors. When our young students outperform Harvard or INSEAD graduates, global companies will hire more from IIM-A,” he says.

IIM-A is also armed with EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) accreditation. Some of the criteria to qualify for such accreditations include global classrooms and faculty (students and teachers from across the world) and publishing high-quality research. Bhasker says IIM-A is among top 10 in research globally. “If you look at the FT50 publication list, IIM-A is on top among Indian schools. We had 20-22 publications last year. When you open a top global journal and see a publication from India, most likely, it will be from IIM-A. You know if I have to do any business in India, this is the institution I have to target. It leads to industry connect, academic connect and research connect.”

IIM-A fulfils other criteria for international accreditations as well but top institutions such as Harvard and INSEAD attract a far higher percentage of international students and faculty. Bhasker finds this focus on global passports unfair. “I am in a country of 1.4 billion. Why should I be bothered about number of students with international passport? I have so many talented students, why can’t you see my state diversity? The other parameter is number of international board members. We are bound by rules and regulations as we are governed by the government. My country has 29 states and every state is represented in my faculty. In Europe, B-schools have faculty from multiple countries, but the countries are so small that they have to look outside for faculty. If you remove these parameters, we are as good as the top 10 schools.”

Bhasker says it’s time to build an Indian international accreditation body. “I urge all ranking organisations to form a consortium and become global like QS and FT. Remove a few parameters which don’t matter for education much,” he says. IIM-A’s focus on internationalisation also includes opening overseas campuses. “We want to be a leader in the southern hemisphere but our future direction is still being evaluated, deliberated, debated and discussed,” he says. IIM-A is looking at Africa, South-East Asia and Australia. “We would like to open a new campus where it is impactful.”

Modernising IIM-A involves not just digitalisation and internationalisation. Bhasker says his classrooms need to embrace generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. The country’s highest ranked B-school has started using ChatGPT to generate class assignments. In a marketing course, for instance, it asks ChatGPT for answers and gets students to compare their answers. It also gets ChatGPT to critique their viewpoints. “Technology is going to play an integral role in every aspect of our lives, and hence, we have infused technology into several aspects of our teaching and learning across programmes for management education,” says Bhasker.

Instituted in 1961, India’s highest rated business school is truly on the path to embrace change.