IIFT Delhi: Creating Specialised Leaders For Trade

Set up in 1963, the Government of India started Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) Delhi as an autonomous organisation to help professionalise India’s foreign trade management and increase exports by developing human resources, generating, analysing and disseminating data and conducting research.

Recently, the government also set up an incubation cell at IIFT to provide support to export startups. The initiative is named as KITTES (Knowledge for Innovation in Trade and Technology for Entrepreneurial Startups).Run by the Centre of MSME Studies, the aim of KITTES is to provide hand holding support for MSME startups right from ideation stage to their internationalisation towards taking a final leap into foreign markets.

Academics: IIFT offers programmes like a two-year MBA (International Business), part-time MBA (International Business), Executive Masters in International Business and Certificate Programme in Export Management. The institute also offers full-time and part-time PhD programmes. IIFT’s MBA in International Business gauges development in the international marketing scene and its consequential impact on India’s domestic market. It teaches for a professional approach and sensitivity to international business environment.

The institute has foreign collaborations with universities such as University of Bradford, Bradford West, Yorkshire, Aberystwyth University, UK, Ajou University, Korea, Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute, Bangladesh, Bradley University, Peoria, USA, among others.

Teaching strength: With robust infrastructure, strong faculty and dedication to excellence, IIFT has emerged as a National Institute for pedagogy and advocacy. Most faculty members at IIFT are PhD holders and some are industry experts as well. While some professors practice case study methodology, others follow power point-based pedagogy. The role of fellow students is most important in formulating the lecture environment and it’s supreme given that it attracts and admits the immensely talented and competitive students. The professors make sure to answer any subject query asked to them and provide their full support through their inputs to the students in case study competitions.

Spread over 6 acres of area in the Qutab Institutional Area in Delhi, the IIFT campus has amenities such as lecture halls with audio-visual aids, conference halls for round-table conferences, an auditorium of 500 seating capacity, MDP centre, three computer centres, indoor games, and residential facilities for students. The students have access to database such as NIC, CMIE, India Trades, World Bank Indicators and other audio-visual aids on management. It has set up the WTO Resource Centre in the library to focus exclusively on WTO issues. The Centre is the only one-of-its-kind in India, which enhances the utility of the IIFT Library even further.

Collaborations & Placements: Students of IIFT interact with the industry on a regular basis through various guest lectures, interactive discussions, case study competitions and live projects. IIFT believes that industry interactions are a key to any budding manager and it is these that give students the perspective from various industry professionals. IIFT hosts Trade Winds — the annual business summit — and Headstart — a thought leadership guest lecture series through which guests speakers are invited to interact with the student fraternity.

In terms of placement, IIFT Delhi and Kolkata have recorded a mega placement this year with four of its students getting Rs 1 crore-plus packages ($1,50,000 for international placement).

The highest domestic package is up by 21 per cent at Rs 29 lakh per annum. With 100 per cent placement at the B-School, the average package is Rs 18.01 lakh this year with 23.8 per cent rise over last year.

First time recruiters on campus include Nivea, Pernod Ricard, 3M, British Telecom, TataSky, Synergy Consulting, General Motors, TGI Group, IDFC Bank, among others.