Indian Institute of Management - AHMEDABAD

In just four decades IIMA has evolved from being India’s premier management institute to a notable international school of management. It all started with Dr Vikram Sarabhai and a few other public spirited industrialists realizing that agriculture, education, health, transportation, population control, energy, and public administration were all vital elements in a growing society and that it was necessary to link these meaningfully with industry. The result was the creation of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1961 as an autonomous body with the active collaboration of the Government of India, Government of Gujarat, and industry. It was evident that to have a vision was not enough. Effective governance and quality education were seen as critical aspects. From the very start the founders introduced the concept of faculty governance: all members of the faculty play an important role in administering the diverse academic and non-academic activities of the Institute. The empowerment of the faculty has been the propelling force behind the high quality of learning experience at IIMA. The Institute had initial collaboration with Harvard Business School. This collaboration greatly influenced the Institute’s approach to education. Gradually it emerged as a confluence of the best of Eastern and Western values.

The Research Wing

The reputation of IIMA owes much to the exceptional calibre of its faculty. The Institute prides itself on creating an environment of substantial academic freedom overlaid by rigorous, self-imposed standards of excellence and socially responsive practices. The faculty willingly submit themselves to a unique, rigorous, open, and continuous process of appraisal and feedback from the students. This enables the faculty to fine tune course contents and delivery mechanisms. Through a variety of committees, faculty play a hands-on role in the governance of the Institute and assume total ownership of collective decisions. Research is at the core of IIMA and provides a major interface with the wider academic and business world. It provides new theoretical frameworks that enable reassessment and refinement of current practices and thinking. Groundbreaking interdisciplinary research by the faculty feeds directly into an enhanced learning environment at the Institute and indirectly to a wider audience of practicing managers and teachers of management. A high degree of attention is paid to the relevance, breadth, and depth of research. Focus areas have included social marketing, productivity, women’s issues, human resource development, optimisation models, organizational learning, institution building, management and leadership excellence, and public sector management.

While some research is internally driven, several projects are commissioned and funded by national and international organizations such as the Ford Foundation, UNO, World Bank, NCERT, Planning Commission, Central and State ministries, and industrial agencies.

The Campus

The IIMA campus attracts students and visitors alike. The stark and majestic buildings in brick have simple forms and bold openings, creating monumental spaces with minimal decor. Powerful beams of light and strong shadows create a dramatic and serene ambience that has inspired generations of students to achieve excellence while retaining humility. The Louis Kahn Plaza, the main complex named after the architect, is where most major interactions and celebrations take place. The faculty wing, the library, and the classrooms surround it on three sides. The broad, airy corridors, the amphitheatre classrooms, and transition spaces in the complex further enhance interaction among the faculty, students, and visitors. The present campus, spread over 67 acres with a lush green cover, is being extended by a further 39 acres. The extended campus will feature a state-of-the-art international management and convention centre along with further classrooms, dormitories, and ancillary facilities.

Life on the CampusAn atmosphere of community living prevails on the campus. The fervour with which every festival and social event is celebrated is a reflection of the close bonding in the IIMA community.

The campus has a wide range of housing facilities. Student housing is divided into 20 dormitories, each capable of accommodating 25-40 students in independent rooms. The dorms are located in close proximity to each other and the classrooms for convenient access and easy interaction. There is plenty of open space in each dorm for the students to interact freely. At the same time the independent rooms provide them the privacy they need to study without any disturbance. Each dorm is equipped with a pantry, washing machine, oven, stove - everything students are likely to need for a comfortable stay. For students who are married, separate housing is available on the campus. The faculty and staff residences are situated just behind the student dormitories.

The excellent sports and fitness facilities on the campus ensure that students can remain fit and healthy to take on the strenuous academic challenges.

Vikram Sarabhai Library The Institute’s library is an invaluable resource with close to 180,000 volumes, 600 current periodicals, 700 CDs and more than 2000 working papers and dissertations. It also provides indexing search services from a number of major databases like ABI/Inform, Econlit and BSP. The library has set up the 3i network or “Information Infrastructure for Institutions” to provide business, industry, environmental, agricultural, and economic information to the users. The entire library database is also available on the Institute’s intranet.

Information Technology Infrastructure A state-of-the-art network with almost 1600 nodes connects every corner of the Institute. Every student and faculty member has a networked personal computer at his or her disposal. High-speed servers running on a variety of platforms to suit all kinds of requirements support the entire network. The Institute’s network is linked to the Internet via a dedicated leased line enabling round the clock Internet connectivity on the campus. Every classroom has a computer connected to this network that allows faculty to retrieve relevant information from their desktop or the central database. This connectivity helps both the students and the faculty considerably in their research and projects.

Kasturbhai Lalbhai Management Development CentreAlongside Dr Vikram Sarabhai nobody did more to ensure the successful establishment of IIMA than the icon of Gujarat industry, Kasturbhai Lalbhai. It is therefore fitting that an important facility within IIMA bears his name.

The centre is a completely self-sufficient, stand-alone unit, a short walk from the main buildings. It has 64 well-furnished centrally air-conditioned double rooms, a dining hall, a reading lounge, badminton and table tennis courts, a computer laboratory, classrooms, and seminar rooms all equipped with presentation and teaching aids. The Institute’s management development programmes as well as seminars and conferences are held here.

The Post-Graduate Programme is the most prestigious curriculum at IIMA. The programme nurtures world-class managers by exposing them to real life unstructured situations along with analytical tools and business philosophies. Participants discover their true potential after practising rigour and focused hard work. Students gain conceptual and interpersonal skills while fine-tuning on the social purpose in managerial decision-making. The Institute has initiated exchange programmes with more than twenty-five foreign Institutions of equal repute. Every year the Institute selects close to a quarter of the students to spend one term at some of these institutes. The students get to benefit from the rich exposure that they receive. Similarly students from the corresponding institutes visit IIMA for a term. Joint activities provide each school with a better understanding of teaching methods they practice and give them a better poise. Students learn to appreciate diverse cultures and working environments and develop a holistic vision. Another important aspect of the PGP is the Summer internship. This eight-week programme provides the students an opportunity to work with reputed companies from various sectors where they get to put their ideas and skills to work. In retrospect the companies get to know their prospects better and a chance to enhance their visibility on the campus using the intern as their ambassador. Some of the best companies, in India and the world, visit the campus every year searching for the best talent in the field. Close to 6000 graduates of the PGP course have scaled to high positions in a number of reputed Indian and International corporations and institutes.

The PGP curriculum is the result of constant innovation and continuous review by the faculty with the help of practitioners in industry, alumni and students. The course comprises two components: the core programme, most of which is in the first year, which is followed by the elective programme in the second year.

The Programme

The core programme is focused on rigorous grounding in the rudiments of every discipline of management and the development of a common foundation of business knowledge and management theory. The core programme consists of 25 courses encompassing 21.75 credits of which two are offered in the second year. The first year is spread over three 11-13 week terms. The core programme for this period allows for 24 courses, encompassing 19.75 credits.

Following the first year programme, students undergo summer internship for a period of eight to ten weeks with the Institute's corporate partners. The summer internship is a powerful source of practical managerial insights, validation of management concepts, and valuable market knowledge.

The elective programme allows students to exercise complete freedom in the selection of courses and develop proficiency in the areas of their choice. The elective programme consists of in-class courses, often with project components, offered by several areas, courses of independent study, exchange programmes, and intensive field courses, totalling 15-17 credits over three 13-week terms. Each credit requires a minimum of one hundred hours of work.

Student Exchange Programme PGP students are provided with a number of opportunities at the Institute for developing a holistic vision. One such opportunity is through the Institute's Student Exchange Programme. A strong and self-sustaining exchange programme has been designed to help the Institute serve its purpose better and enhance academic standards. Student Exchange Programmes have been established with leading schools in Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region.

An international exchange programme facilitates flow of ideas between academic institutions. Joint activities provide each school with better understanding of the methods and programmes of the partnering school and enhance knowledge and skills of students and faculty members alike. Students participating in the programme seek to broaden their academic and cultural experiences. The experience contributes immensely to building management perspective and poise; visiting students add to the diversity of expertise at the Institute, and enhance the effectiveness of its pedagogy.

IIMA seeks to establish exchange programmes with institutions with an academic standard compatible with that of the Institute and which provide varied learning opportunities to exchange students.

Each year the Institute selects around a quarter of the second year students to spend one academic term at premier management institutes around the world with which the Institute has forged partnerships. Similarly, students from the corresponding institutions spend an academic term at IIMA. IIMA has been able to increase the number of participating institutions from 4 to 39 since 1999. The number of outgoing students benefiting from the programme has risen from 6 to 54 and incoming students from 16 to 44. The enthusiasm shown by institutions across the world has been tremendous and speaks volumes for the quality of programmes offered at the Institute.

The exchange programme has academic partners across continents and corporate partners across the globe that have made it possible for students to participate in these programmes without any financial impediments. Apart from the scholarships instituted by IIMA, several students have received scholarships from some participating schools, the French embassy, DAAD from Germany and some corporate partners. The corporate sponsored scholarships are as follows: IIMA, a member of PIM PIM, Partnership in International Management, is a consortium of leading international business schools, founded in 1973. Each member institution represents the highest degree of excellence in the fields of business administration and management, demonstrates leadership in their geographic region and delivers an MBA or a graduate-equivalent degree in management. PIM facilitates the development of international cooperation among members, fostering the development of joint programs, students and faculty exchange, joint research and cooperation among faculty members and researchers. Currently, PIM has grown to a network of 53 business schools worldwide. PIM member institutions have exchanged several thousands of students through the years. As a member, IIMA shares the reputation for upholding the highest degree of academic excellence both regionally and globally and values the organization’s spirit of international cooperation among its students, faculty and administrations.

Exchange School list North America Anderson School, University of California, Los Angeles,USA Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, USA Kenan Flagler School, University of North Carolina, USA McCombs School of Business, University of Texas , Austin, USA McGill University, Montreal, Canada Sauder School, University of British Columbia, , Vancouver, Canada Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada Stern School of Business, New York University, USA Washington University, St. Louis, USA

Europe Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark EDHEC ESADE, Barcelona, Spain ESC_Toulouse Business School, France ESCP-EAP, France European Business School, Germany Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland Instituto de Empresa, Barcelona, Spain JIBS, Sweden KOC University, Istanbul, Turkey Manchester Business School, Manchester, UK Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norway Rotterdam School of Management, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Solvay Business School, Solvay, Belgium Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden Univeristy of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Universita Commerciale Luige Bocconi, Milano, Italy Universitaet Mastricht, Mastricht, Netherlands University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany University of Pforzheim, Pforzheim, Germany University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland WHU Koblenz Graduate School of Management, Germany Wirtschafts Universitat, Vienna, Austria

Asia Pacific Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philipines Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand Australian Graduate School of Management, Sydney, Australia China Europe School of International Business, Shanghai, China City University of Hongkong, Hongkong Hongkong University of Science and Technology, Hongkong International University of Japan, Japan KAIST Graduate Business School, Seoul, Korea Nanyang Technological University, Singapore NUS Business School, Singapore

Africa and South America Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa University of Bogota, Colombia