New Delhi: Making forays into international collaboration, Indian Institute of Management-Sirmaur (Himachal Pradesh) will soon launch two dual degree MBA programmes for working executives with two government funded universities from France – University of Bordeaux and University of Paris. In an interaction with the TOI, Prafulla Agnihotri, director, IIM-Sirmaur said that more dual/ joint degrees were being worked upon by the IIM with international B-schools from the US and Australia. He also said that by the end of this year the IIM will shift to its permanent campus on completion of the first phase of construction.
The two new executive MBA programmes – general management and digital transformation and analytics will be offered from the forthcoming academic session. According to Agnihotri, the executive MBA in Business Management is an MBA in general management spread over two years and four terms. The third and the fourth term shall comprise a bouquet of electives. All these courses shall be taught by the eminent faculty members of IIM-Sirmaur and the partnering French University.
The executive MBA in digital transformation and analytics aims to transform middle and senior executives for leadership roles in the corporate world. It will primarily involve case-based teaching methods.
The programmes will have multiple-exit and entry options where a candidate who can opt out at the end of the first year with a postgraduate diploma and return to complete the course within three years.
“It will be a replica of the general full-time MBA with an opportunity to be abroad for two to four weeks. They are working executives, so we don’t have to go down to the grassroot level. The fee will be less. We are planning at Rs 9.5 lakh for the whole course,” said Agnihotri.
On new international collaborations, the IIM is in dialogue with University of Bordeaux for a full-time tourism management programme. “We are working on the tourism management programme as well as for an executive PhD in the same area. We are also going to explore something in Australia in July as well as with an American university based in California,” said Agnihotri.
The director said that in next six months the IIM will be seated in its permanent campus. “Phase one will be ready which includes hostels for 600 students, management development centre, first phase of classrooms and faculty housing, a student activity centre, administration block and student mess.”
On challenges for new IIMs, Agnihotri said: “For new IIMs the biggest challenge is to attract talent in terms of faculty members. Quality of education is directly related to the quality of faculty members and infrastructure provided by the institute. We are working on both fronts. In the last 11 months we have appointed 17 faculty members and the total strength of IIM-Sirmaur faculty is 35 today. I hope to have 50 faculty members which is why we have in the first phase constructed houses for 50 teachers. We have faculty members from the best IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow and from reputed schools abroad.
“We are also emphasising in selecting quality students. The norms we have now are much higher than those of the past like the CAT score, qualifying percentages of Class X, XII and graduation and additional weightage to postgraduation. And once we shift to the campus our students will get ultramodern infrastructure and facilities with the latest technology in terms of ICT and classrooms.
He also said that the young IIMs have advantages of state-of-the-art facilities. “Some of the old IIMs do lack a lot of things like their teaching classrooms, while we have the discussion type of rooms with the latest technology and designed ergonomically. Many facilities like electronic boards are not there in many old IIMs. Some of the older IIMs don’t have good hostels as well.”
The two new executive MBA programmes – general management and digital transformation and analytics will be offered from the forthcoming academic session. According to Agnihotri, the executive MBA in Business Management is an MBA in general management spread over two years and four terms. The third and the fourth term shall comprise a bouquet of electives. All these courses shall be taught by the eminent faculty members of IIM-Sirmaur and the partnering French University.
The executive MBA in digital transformation and analytics aims to transform middle and senior executives for leadership roles in the corporate world. It will primarily involve case-based teaching methods.
The programmes will have multiple-exit and entry options where a candidate who can opt out at the end of the first year with a postgraduate diploma and return to complete the course within three years.
“It will be a replica of the general full-time MBA with an opportunity to be abroad for two to four weeks. They are working executives, so we don’t have to go down to the grassroot level. The fee will be less. We are planning at Rs 9.5 lakh for the whole course,” said Agnihotri.
On new international collaborations, the IIM is in dialogue with University of Bordeaux for a full-time tourism management programme. “We are working on the tourism management programme as well as for an executive PhD in the same area. We are also going to explore something in Australia in July as well as with an American university based in California,” said Agnihotri.
The director said that in next six months the IIM will be seated in its permanent campus. “Phase one will be ready which includes hostels for 600 students, management development centre, first phase of classrooms and faculty housing, a student activity centre, administration block and student mess.”
On challenges for new IIMs, Agnihotri said: “For new IIMs the biggest challenge is to attract talent in terms of faculty members. Quality of education is directly related to the quality of faculty members and infrastructure provided by the institute. We are working on both fronts. In the last 11 months we have appointed 17 faculty members and the total strength of IIM-Sirmaur faculty is 35 today. I hope to have 50 faculty members which is why we have in the first phase constructed houses for 50 teachers. We have faculty members from the best IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow and from reputed schools abroad.
“We are also emphasising in selecting quality students. The norms we have now are much higher than those of the past like the CAT score, qualifying percentages of Class X, XII and graduation and additional weightage to postgraduation. And once we shift to the campus our students will get ultramodern infrastructure and facilities with the latest technology in terms of ICT and classrooms.
He also said that the young IIMs have advantages of state-of-the-art facilities. “Some of the old IIMs do lack a lot of things like their teaching classrooms, while we have the discussion type of rooms with the latest technology and designed ergonomically. Many facilities like electronic boards are not there in many old IIMs. Some of the older IIMs don’t have good hostels as well.”
