Institutional Profile
IFIM BUSINESS SCHOOL
India
Established in 1995, IFIM Business School, Bangalore is currently amongst the first six business schools in India to have been awarded the AACSB accreditation. It is nestled in the heart of Electronic City in Bengaluru, which puts it a stone’s throw away from India’s leading Tech and IT companies.
In the backdrop of rapid technological change and disruptions ranging from sharing platforms to pandemics, IFIM Business School in its newest avatar – IFIM 3.0 – is committed to be the most sought after destination for quality management education in India, that will prepare students for a future “beyond tomorrow”.
The mission “nurture holistic, socially responsible and continuously employable professionals” is qualified by three fundamental premises for nurturing professionals –
- Holistic – develop the mind, body and soul of the being
- Socially Responsible – develop and inculcate individual social responsibility
- Continuously Employable – develop a continuous learner who can add value to society at any point of time.
IFIM Business School operates from two campuses in India. These campuses are strategically located at the Electronics City, Bangalore and Karjat, Greater Mumbai. These campuses provide a strategic advantage due their physical proximity with Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore. These three major cities are the hub for the, Financial Services, Automobile industry of India and Information Technology.
“The GBSN membership provides IFIM Business School the right platform to be part of the international learning ecosystem and learn and share the best practices from across the globe. We at IFIM Business believe that the community can derive benefit from some of our experiments and experiences in the context of a developing country like India and that we similarly will be able to learn from our global peers fostering a culture of collegiality. We are keen in joining hands in making Management Education 4.0 aligned to Industry 4.0 a reality.”
-Atish Chattopadhyay, Director, IFIM Business School.
Accreditations:
- AACSB Accreditation
- ISO 9001: 2015
- South Asian Quality Assurance System (SAQS) Accreditation
- National Board of Accreditation (NBA) Accreditation
- Association of Indian Universities (AIU) Accreditation
Dean:
- Prof. Rakesh Mediratta, IFIM Business School, Bangalore
- Prof. Navneet Sharma, IFIM Business School, Karjat Greater Mumbai
Ambassadors:
- Prof. Atish Chattopadhyay
- Prof. Rakesh Mediratta
- Mr. Geo George Philip
- Prof. Shaji Kurian
- Prof. Rakesh Mediratta
Emerging Markets Institute or Centre
IFIM Business School in Bengaluru, India, in collaboration with the Academy of Indian Marketing (AIM) has taken the lead in developing the Index of Service Excellence in India (iSEI), under the mentorship of Prof. A Parasuraman, whose pioneering work in the area of service quality measurement and improvement (e.g., the SERVQUAL model) is globally known in both academic and practitioner circles.
Anchored in the underlying principles of that work, the iSEI is intended to generate sectoral service excellence scores at the national, regional, sector and company levels in India and other emerging markets.
http://business.ifim.edu.in/pdf/Winning%20Through%20Service%20Excellence%20FOR%20WEB.pdf
IFIM Business School, Greater Mumbai campus on the other hand is leading the way to establish a centre of excellence for business responsibility.
Network Engagement
Current Partnerships with GBSN Member Schools
The Partnership with LUISS business School was struck in 2019 and enables students from both IFIM Business School and the partner school to spend a term abroad either in Rome, or in Bengaluru, India. This is culturally enriching experience for both partners and will help students gain knowledge across International Borders.
Darden School of Business and IFIM have collaborated where the students of IFIM can complete their Super Specialization course in the MarTech area at Darden. The program allows the students to undertake a three-week course at Darden and learn from their faculty. The students also have the opportunity to visit Darden for a cross cultural and industry experience.
Ways the institution will support the GBSN mission to improve access to quality management and entrepreneurship education for the developing world.
- IFIM Business School has a good corporate and NGO connect program. The school would be happy to extend these connections for the benefit of other schools globally who are keen to do joint research on Indian economy and/or specific industries/ companies.
- The School would like to extend membership to the A S Parasuraman Centre for Services Excellence to interested members of the GBSN network on special terms. http://business.ifim.edu.in/pdf/Winning%20Through%20Service%20Excellence%20FOR%20WEB.pdf
- The school would also like to extend its Research Resource Centre (RRC) services to other members. A detailed note on RRC is attached herewith.
- The School has established a Rolling Chair for International Faculty who are keen to teach/research for a term in India, The School would be happy to allow members of the GBSN network to explore this for their faculty.\
- IFIM Business School is also launching fully online MBA program for working executives and is keen to associate with star faculty globally to enrich the program experience for the students. The School is keen to engage with other GBSN members for exploring such opportunities.
- IFM Business School is keen to collaborate with GBSN Partners through Term Exchange Programs, Dual Degree Programs and International Super Specialization Programs.
- IFIM Business School has term exchange programs with 9 International Business Schools currently that aim to create a culturally enriching program for both Indian and International Students.
Institutional contributions to the network platform in the first year
- With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown situations globally, we understand that many members of the GBSN network would be worried about losing out admissions from India. IFIM Business School has developed a bridge program which could be utilised by the partner schools of GBSN to extend to their newly admitted students. This program would allow such students to pursue their online course work at the IFIM Campus till such time the situation improves. The students enrolled to this program can use the facilities at either of the IFIM Campuses and also attend some courses being offered at these campuses. The proposal for the same is being sent separately.
- We will be conducting several webinars on the Research and Thought Leadership generated by our Centres of Excellence. We would be happy to extend invitations to all the members of GBSN to participate in these webinars and we are confident that such interaction will help us identify synergies with partner schools.
- The new economic order emerging post Covid-19 may install India as a strategic destination for manufacturing offshoring. The Indian government is aggressively reforming stale regulations to encourage investments into India and this could be great opportunity for GBSN partners to educate interested companies on India in their respective countries. IFIM Business School’s faculty has developed an interesting online course on “Doing Business in India”. The School would be happy to offer this course in collaboration with other GBSN members to companies that are interested in exploring opportunities under this new order.
Institutional engagement with fellow GBSN member institutions
- IFIM Business School has been actively engaging with the Corporate and Society both virtually and physically. The Institute has a lot of experiencing in e-learning and has access to the necessary infrastructure and technologies required to support this. The School would be keen to have healthy conversations with GBNSN partners in the areas of Services Excellence, Digital Transformation, and Doing Business in India
- The Research Resource Centre (RRC) established by IFIM Business School could be leveraged by faculty of the members of GBSN to broaden their research interest and also to test the new emerging areas. The young well qualified research associates working for the RRC could assist senior faculty members in their primary/secondary research.
The details of the Research Resource Centre (RRC) is as follows:
The Research Resource Centre at IFIM Business School was set up with the vision of enabling collaborative research among the faculty, students, and practitioners in India and across the globe.
The Research Resource Centre at IFIM Business School will leverage the geographical and demographic advantage of India in collaborating with Business Schools and Universities across the world. As an emerging economy with its fair share of challenges and opportunities, India is poised to be among the three largest economies in the world. The dynamic business environment, regulatory challenges and demographics of the Indian nation makes it an attractive hotspot for research in emerging markets as well as in other areas of social science, humanities, and management research. Multiple Business Schools such as Harvard Business School and International Institute for Management Development (IMD) have already set up Research Centres to take advantage and develop research and case studies central to the region.
The Research Resource Centre at IFIM Business School works with the School’s various Centres of Excellence including the AIM-Parasuraman Centre for Service Excellence, the Centre for Excellence in Banking, the V.B. Padode Centre for Sustainability and the Centre for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Development. The Research Resource Centre works with the Centres of Excellence to cultivate long term research collaborations and research projects with International Business Schools and Universities. The Research Resource Centre will provide a unique platform not only to Business Schools but also to individual faculty members & social science/management researchers around the world to collaborate not only in research projects but also in data collection and analysis work.
The Strategic Objectives of the Research Resource Centre are as follows:
- New Knowledge Creation through the intellectual contribution activities of the faculty and Centers of Excellence of IFIM Business School.
- Supporting the IC Activities of the faculty and the Centers for establishing Thought Leadership in the impact areas of a) Practice, b) Scholarship and c) Pedagogy, to ensure maximum impact and visibility of the faculty & the business school.
- Bolstering Thought Leadership & IC through collaborations with Corporates & International Academicians for various collaborative research projects and studies.
The Research Resource Centre at IFIM Business School is keen to work closely with GBSN Members to open dialogue and discussion on research in several areas including but not limited to New Age Industries, Service Excellence, Entrepreneurship, Business Sustainability & Social Responsibility. Several E-Conclaves in the above mentioned areas are planned to initiate and encourage free flowing exchange of ideas and research even during these times of the COVID -19 Pandemic.
The biggest challenge facing management in your community and how the institution addresses this challenge.
The biggest challenge faced in Management education in India is that large numbers of management graduates in India were found to be unemployable by Industry. This is addressed upfront in the mission of the school. The school has deep engagement with the corporate and society to ensure that the curriculum of the school remains relevant and that more emphasis is given to experiential and immersive learning. Its innovative curricular interventions such as Personality Enhancement Program (PEP), Social Immersion Program (SIP), Execution, Design Thinking and Research Incubation and Industry Internship Programs (IIP) have helped the institution to deliver on its mission.
IFIM Business School with its unique blend of Core and Practice Courses augmented by Super Specialization courses ensure that students gain a breadth of knowledge along with depth in specific fields ranging from MarTech & FinTech to Blockchain & Data Analytics.
This enables students to become ‘T-shaped Professionals’, having a breadth of knowledge in several fields and also a depth of knowledge in a specific discipline, who can thrive in today’s dynamic and volatile job markets.
Program Highlight
Kanyathon
Kanyathon is IFIM Business School’s Annual Charity Run which raises funds for the girl child.
Kanaython enables not only charitable donations to impoverished women but also ensures that the Full Circle of Holistic and Social Development of our students is complete.
Our state-of-the-art curriculum, pedagogy, engaging student activities and our organisation’s structure, work hand in hand to help our students travel a Full Circle journey of Holistic and Social development. Integrated into this circle is the creation of means, the dissemination of the means and the deployment of the means. The Circle also has embedded into it, the holistic blossoming of our students, an empowered society and the institution’s contribution towards furthering the UNDP goals.
The Circle begins with our flagship student activity, Kanyathon, an annual charity Marathon that creates a fund corpus, the Kanyathon Company, a student leadership team drives Kanyathon.. The Circle continues flowing on with our partnership with CRY, the NGO that disburses the Kanyathon fund into marginalised communities.
IFIM has adopted five villages in the Kolar district under the government’s Unnat Bharat Abhiyan scheme that aims to link higher education institutions with rural India so that they can contribute to their economic and social betterment. CRY has set up a project in these villages to empower children especially the Girl Child. Finally, the Full Circle loops into our Social Immersion Program where the entire student community will work in tandem with CRY at Kolar to utilise the corpus effectively to impact society. The fourth and final pit stop is the new batch taking over from their seniors and the building up of the Brand Kanyathon once again through media leading up to the next edition and the creation of funds and so forth.
An added feature this year in this circle was Kanyathon rising to help the daily wage woman worker as well as families in our Kolar adopted villages during the COVID 19 lockdown.
The first step: Creation of funds through Kanyathon:
The very First Step in this circle is the Creation of Funds through Kanyathon. IFIM’s pride, Kanyathon is an annual charity Family run organized by our students to Save the Girl Child and for Women Empowerment. Runners from Corporates, Schools, Colleges, Army, Running Clubs and Fitness centres, families of Electronics City and volunteers from CRY all ‘Run for Her’’. Rs. 22 lakhs has been donated to CRY in the last four years and have impacted the lives of more than 300,000 girl children in education, nutrition, safety and hygiene through our partner, CRY (Child Rights and You), who has been working towards creating happier and healthier childhoods for the last 40 years.
The 9th edition, on 1st March 2020 that has been the largest so far alone garnered a surplus of 23 lakhs. The students of IFIM made this happen under the umbrella of the Kanyathon Company and with the able guidance of the Personality Enhancement Program faculty who have been managing this event for the last nine years.
Chief guest felicitating 10k pro run winner Simion Kipligat Too
Felicitation of children from Shree Ananthnagar Vidya Niketan – Run by G.S.B Charitable Trust
The funds are generated through the student volunteers through sale of tickets and offering event sponsorships.
The Second step: Deployment of funds and impacting the UN Sustainable Development Goals:
The Full Circle of Social and Holistic Development continues with students once again playing a pivotal role in the utilisation of the Kanyathon 2020 surplus funds to impact UNDP goals.
Empowering Students, Empowering Society:
250 students united across three institutions worked effortlessly with this edition and accrued a revenue of 46 lakhs with a surplus of 23 lakhs as compared to 12 lakhs in 2019. IFIM has been consistently impacting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with all its social initiatives. In fact, SDG 1 which is ‘No Poverty’ and SDG 5 ‘Gender Equality’ has already been impacted by Kanyathon 2020 during COVID 19 lockdown.
Kanyathon’s quick response to COVID 19:
The 21-day lockdown and loss of livelihood amidst social distancing has disproportionately affected migrant workers, daily wage-earners, the urban poor and other vulnerable groups.
IFIM’s first social initiative of compassion during this COVID crisis was to help the daily women wage earners in our Electronics City community through the funds of Kanyathon 2020.
Our second initiative from Kanyathon was to empower the women at Kolar with nourishment to supplement her rations during the lockdown. The initiative was about distributing a kg of desi ghee to each household. A team of faculty and staff organized packets of ghee from Nandini Dairy, a volunteer student team was made, police permission was got with help of the Kolar Zilla Parishad, PPE kits consisting of a mask, gloves and a sanitizer for each of the ten member team was organized. The entire IFIM Family of faculty, staff and students rallied around to make this successful. On 10th April our team distributed ghee to 600 households under the guidance of officers from the Panchayat. The IFIM team went relentlessly from village to village and students actively participated in delivering this sustenance to women, children, young and old. The happiness was contagious, and the villagers’ expression of joy was enough for the IFIM team to feel that it was all worth it.
The third round of deployment of the Kanyathon funds, both of 2019 and 2020 will be utilised in Kolar, starting this year to alleviate the lives of young girls in the areas of education, health and nutrition. CRY also plans to empower mothers with ways to look after their children. The project details have been outline in the next section.
The Third step: Student participation in Deployment and Fund Utilization:
As we had mentioned earlier, the driver of the Full Circle of Holistic and Social Development is the student who has created the funds to impact society, has developed a Holistic basket of skills along the way, helped in the deployment of the funds and plays a vital role in the utilisation of these funds. The deployment of funds was conducted through our flagship IFIM initiative towards achieving our mission of nurturing Socially Responsible professionals through Social Immersion Program as described above.