IIPM goes global with better class

Having made a mark and gained a firm foothold in India, the Indian Institute of Planning & Management (IIPM) now plans to go global in a bid to become a truly world-class Business-school.

Already rated as one of the world’s top Business-schools with 5,000 management students in its nine campuses, across seven of India’s largest cities, IIPM is now keen on competing with the best on their own home turf.

“In fact, our Global Outreach Programme, which is an integrated approach to take IIPM to a world-class level, began sometime back,” said management guru Arindam Chaudhuri, who is currently Dean, Centre for Economic Research and Advanced Studies, IIPM.

According to him, the phase I of the programme involved the introduction of the innovative Global Opportunity and Threat Analysis Programme as a compulsory paper at IIPM, whereby students are given an opportunity to visit various leading international organisations like the World Bank, WHO, UN and ILO apart from management institutions and global corporates for a two-three week study trip to the European, American and Asian continents.

In phase II, students and faculty members from around the world were allowed to visit IIPM campuses in India to take classes and workshops.

For instance, over 30 professors of international repute and 200 students visited IIPM last year.

“This programme enables our students to be taught by professors from all the top 15 global B-schools,” said Chaudhuri.

IIPM, in phase III, entered into research and publications alliances with international academic partners, whereby Human Resources, finance, strategy and marketing experts and faculty from around the world collaborate with faculty and researchers at IIPM on gathering and analysing data on the latest trends and findings in the field of management.

In phase IV, IIPM started global campus placements, whereby it is aiming for the global placement of at least 1,000 students over the next few years.

And finally, IIPM has decided to expand beyond the national boundary and start up campuses in foreign lands.

“We are looking at starting our international campuses in London and Singapore in the next six months, and in Dubai by the year-end,” said Chaudhuri.

The fourth campus is likely to come up in New York in about a year.

In fact, IIPM students are also finding some of these programmes very useful. Take Pankaj Anand, for instance, who is doing a two-year MBA course at IIPM. His batch was taken for a 14-day study trip to Europe last April as part of the Global Opportunity and Threat Analysis Programme, which they found extremely useful.

“There was lots of knowledge gain as we had to interact with world-class professionals and organisations,” he said.

“We also learn a lot when faculty members from abroad visit our campuses to teach us,” said Lokranjan Mehtab, another student, adding, “as they are real professionals and impart practical knowledge.”

But achievements apart, IIPM is also faced with challenges.

According to Chaudhuri, however, the challenges that IIPM will face in future are interestingly none from Indian players, but from foreign players planning to come to India.

“The biggest challenge is from the international players as our potential students see them as an alternative when they don’t join IIPM. This explains why we are trying to become a global brand all by ourselves,” he says.