IIM Indore: Moulding Managers Of Acumen

The Indian Institute of Management, Indore (IIMI) was set up more than three decades after the first IIM came into being. So, catapulting itself into the league of the top ten management education institutions in the country was a tremendous achievement. Now of course, being ranked among the best business schools in India has practically become a tradition. Since inception, IIM Indore has believed in constant interface with industry, government and public sector undertakings (PSUs) to be able to bring the best resources to its campus.

It is the only IIM that offers a Postgraduate Programme in Management off-location at its Mumbai campus in Belapur, apart from a wide array of programmes at its campus in Indore. The institute strives continuously to be a contextually relevant B-school. Excellence in management education, research and training, contemporary participant-centric pedagogies and teaching methods, form the backbone of the skills imparted at IIMI.

Over the years, management education has undergone a series of changes. Innovation is the key to coping with the requirements of students and industry for any management institute and IIM Indore has kept in step with the need of  the hour through specialised programmes and innovations in teaching pedagogy.

The institute increased the number of domain specialisations in 2016-17. It added six new domains and designed new elective courses accordingly for Analytics, Banking and Financial Services, FMCG, Infrastructure, Insurance, IT & ITeS, Consulting, Retailing, E-Commerce, Media & Entertainment, B2B Marketing and Entrepreneurship. The IIM, Indore also launched a PGP in Entrepreneurship to promote entrepreneurial skills among its students.

Imparting industry-relevant management education has always been a priority for IIM Indore. To take this thought forward, the institute has a dedicated Industry Interface Office (IIO) which enhances existing industry-academia partnerships. It provides a structured platform and hand-holds aspiring entrepreneurs by offering them business-related advice, consultancy at reasonable cost and knowledge repositories in various industry segments. The IIO has taken upon itself the task of organising meets among aspiring entrepreneurs, industry leaders and academia to promote a startup culture in central India.

The institute also has a Student Industry Interface Programme, which acts as a bridge between industry and academia. Another novel initiative of IIM Indore is the annual Industry Meet. The event is held in June and connects the current batch of students with hundreds of industries.

More than 127 delegates representing both big and small companies have participated in the Industry Meet. The event proves crucial for students at the campus, as it offers them a platform for interaction with corporate top brass so they may be able to acquaint themselves with knowledge and experiences of the corporate world.

The educational approach at IIM Indore ensures that aspiring managers,   graduating from its  campus are well-rounded, collaborative and competent leaders. Experiential learning is at the core of the institute’s pedagogy. For instance, all IIM Indore students have to undergo a unique rural immersion programme (RIP). The initiative was launched to sensitise students to various government schemes in villages and to analyse their effectiveness.

Students at IIM Indore also have to take part in an industry assignment, in which they visit a company once a week in the first year of the management course to study industries and key players in them.

The IIM Indore has lived up to its mission statement to be a contextually relevant business school with world-class academic standards, striving to develop socially-conscious managers, leaders and entrepreneurs.