IIM Amritsar Embracing Changes & Challenges

As a third-generation IIM, what is your approach to establishing your credentials and making a mark in the community of B-schools? 

We are doing very well. We follow the same pedagogy as other IIMs and we draw from the same port and there is a demand for management education in this country. Since I took over five years ago, the number of students increased from 250 to 750 now. Next year, this number will go up to 800-850. During the same period, we also added several new programmes. For example, in the Ph.D programme, we added an MBA in Business Analytics because science and analytics are in demand. 

We also added an Executive MBA programme for which classes are held on weekends. This programme also comes with a campus visit once or twice in each of the three years. The curriculum is very closely aligned with the regular MBA curriculum. The average or minimum work experience of these students ranges anywhere from five years to 25 years. This programme allows people to enhance their careers without giving up their jobs. 

I believe the marketplace is the best indicator of the quality of the programme or the quality of products. So, each year, we have attracted top brands for campus recruitment. 

What have been the challenges in this journey and how has the institute overcome those? 

That's a very interesting question. I took over in July 2019 and within five to six months, the pandemic struck. For nearly 18 months, we all came to a standstill in terms of coming to the office and performing other official functions. As I had been in the US for 30 years, I was very well accustomed to the online or virtual learning model and that helped me to mentor and guide the students.

The second challenge we faced was in terms of the shift. I think the pandemic started in March 2020 and by October or November 2020, we shifted out to offline mode. From November 2020 to March 2021, we continued in the offline mode, with all the students back on campus without any disruptions. 

What are the advantages of being a new institute? 

I think as a director, when we start a new institution, we are able to follow some of the cutting-edge practices. There is not a complete legacy that we have to undo and unravel. At some point, we learn once and we have to relearn, the change is imperative and unavoidable nowadays. So, one big advantage I had was in terms of setting up some of the practices including the curriculum, mode of operations, and the type of culture that we create both with faculty and non-teaching staff and everyone, those were the positives. 

I do not think students come to IIM because of the physical infrastructure alone but because of its institutional reputation that is built on the quality of faculty.

What impact will the increasing penetration of AI and disruptive technologies have on management education? 

See, any technology has both pros and cons. I do not think that we can blame the technology for what it is. Even the people who invented those technologies are creative. There is no substitute for human capacity or human mind. I don't consider a man to be a threat to any type of education. The biggest challenge is how we can integrate those types of analytical tools and automatic intelligence into our curriculum. Ultimately, it is a decision-maker who has to take responsibility and accountability for his or her own actions. We find innovative ways of assessing the learning of the students where we can possibly remove the component of technology, but effectively we can integrate technology into our curriculum. 

What are the locational benefits of your institute, and what impact has the institute created in the region? 

I believe every institution has a duty to contribute to the local community. For example, a couple of years ago, our students and faculty worked with a district service centre, streamlining some of the processes where we studied the process and then showed them things such as applications for various services that the government provides. 

The institution has lots of clubs and activities. Many of these clubs interact with the local community and various NGOs to help them. From an economic point of view, I can confidently say that although we have not done an impact study directly per se based on my experience in the US and elsewhere, there is a huge amount of economic development for the local community in terms of entrepreneurship and development of small businesses.