Model Town

Strictly speaking, the two instances were independent endeavours of the two iims. But they give a strong whiff of the socially oriented mindset at the two institutes, both of which were set up in 1997 and are much younger than their esteemed counterparts in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow. As such, one cannot help inferring that the new iims have realised that focusing on issues like community development is a better way to establish an identity for themselves. (In the Outlook-Cfore survey, IIM-I is ranked 11, and IIM-K 10.)

In fact, the new IIMs would have us believe it’s better to be young even in the world of B-schools, where age often equals reputation. "IIM-I and IIM-K have had an accelerated progress; they have done in five years what others may have taken 20 to do," says IIM-I’s acting director S. Sudharssanam, a bureaucrat in the Union hrd ministry. He adds that they also had the benefit of learning from the experiences of the other IIMs and, as such, did not have to reinvent the wheel.

For instance, while IIM Lucknow, set up in 1987, took almost 13 years to move to a permanent campus, IIM-K has already moved to its 97-acre abode ensconced in the hills of the Wyanad Range. And IIM-I is moving to its permanent campus—a truly picturesque one spread over 193 acres in Rau, just outside Indore—next month. The new institutes also had the luxury of analysing the course curriculum of other IIMs, leading to the conclusion that IIM-A’s case-study orientation was the best.

Still, one wonders how the young ones can compete with the older IIMs? The latter have acquired a certain image and credibility, and are globally recognised. More importantly, the alumni of the older IIMs occupy critical decision-making posts in both Indian and global institutions; remember Raghuram Rajan of imf, the former Infosys’ marketing head Phaneesh Murthy and Sunil Alagh, the former CEO of Britannia. Compared to such an impressive list, IIM-I and IIM-K alumni may not have moved beyond the general manager level yet; after all, their oldest batch is only five years old.

At an academic level, both the new institutes are focusing on a good balance of theory and practice, aligning the courses to match the changing needs of the industry. IIM-I follows what it calls modular learning, under which every problem is looked at from the angles of marketing, finance and human resources. The idea is to inculcate a holistic approach in students. Another method, called experiential learning, based on industry feedback, tries to ensure that students get first-hand practical experience over and above the mandatory summer training. Students are put in touch with companies from the second term on, so they get to deal with these firms’ operational problems. There are 10-12 such "in-company programmes" arranged by the institute every year.

The industry does not assess our students in the bookish way, but looks at their personality," says K. R. Rao, professor of marketing and head of placements at IIM-I. Due to this emphasis, a high percentage of students who join IIM-I are those who already have some work experience. In the current first-year batch (110 students) at IIM-I, less than 10 per cent are absolute freshers. The average work experience among the others works out to between 2-3 years. Still, the bulk of the curriculum is likely to be borrowed from the older IIMs and, hence, the former are likely to remain in the shadows.

This is where social orientation comes in. An emphasis on social issues is helping these new IIMs to carve out a niche for themselves. IIM-K’s course material, its teaching methods and its effort to train future brand creators to respond to the problems of the community set the example. Its Social Development Project (SDP), a mandatory but non-credit component of the post-graduate programme, has been designed to provide hands-on experience with an array of organisations.

The list of organisations that these students have helped is impressive: at Vimala, a home for handicapped women, the students have identified steps to enhance the return on capital for spices produced and marketed here; operations at the Pain and Palliative Care Clinic, Kozhikode, have improved due to the mapping of its entire range of activities and drawing up a new organisation structure; a team has been working with the department of posts in order to step up revenues of the Speed Post services at Kozhikode.

"We are certain our students will step forward to support these institutions even when they reach decision-making positions. They will be able to network with others in the corporate world to support them," says Kulbhushan Balooni, SDP coordinator and chairman (research and publications), IIM-K. "Interestingly, the organisations where the students worked have been writing to us for support in overcoming other problems too," he adds. The SDP figures at the top of USPs for IIM-K director Amarlal H. Kalro, when he speaks of why this six-year-old institute stands on a different pedestal. "We were clear we’d like to take advantage of the brand equity (of IIM). But at the same time we wanted to create a niche for ourselves, become an IIM with a different face."

At IIM-I, students have something called Society Business Management, under which student groups have worked on such diverse issues as rainwater harvesting, child education, and are also helping a neighbouring village organise a fair for its handicrafts. As a result, says Rao, "our students rank high on awareness". Ashish Chad, a teacher at IIM-I, believes the well-rounded students constitute its USP.

Apart from the ‘societal’ twist, IIM-K claims to be the first B-school in Asia-Pacific to offer satellite-based Interactive distance learning for post-graduate certificate in management (or Executive Management Education Programme) in cooperation with Hughes Escorts Communications. "It is this kind of initiative that has led us to digitise our library and create e-archives," says Kalro.However, it’s still unclear whether the USPs of the new IIMs will help them conquer the bastion of capitalism in the years to come.

By Suveen K. Sinha and B.R. Srikanth