IMT Ghaziabad: Recruiters Choice, Ranks At Number 7 All India

The Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad ranks among the top 10 business schools in India. It is  a centre of excellence in management education. What should be of immense  interest to students, and recruiters alike is that IMT is being increasingly recognized by recruiters as one of the top 10 B-schools in India.

A recent survey of recruiters by Economic Times places IMT Ghaziabad at number 7. The institute has been awarded this rank after a survey whose respondents were 500 of India’s largest companies. Businesses were selected based on their turnover, and the areas covered were Marketing, IT, HR, Finance and Production. The ranking system was quite accurate  with deep thought going into the several factors accounted for.

A key factor for this ranking is that IMT's placement process aims to match the requirement of recruiters and aspirations of the students. The campus recruitment tries to meet the increasing demands of the business houses. Moreover, IMT Ghaziabad truly believes that students must follow their passion instead of picking courses that would fetch them higher pay checks. It is then that their work excels, speaks for itself because every nuance of work becomes a creative piece of perfection, irrespective of the field. It is this passion that IMT Ghaziabad awakens, bringing out the best in each  student.

This is what Bibek Banerjee, Director and Academic Mentor, IMT,  had to say about the teaching pedagogy at IMT, Ghaziabad, “My vision for IMT is to continually reinvent education to stay relevant to stakeholders through innovations in experiential learning, co-create a strong culture of research with bright young minds from around the world. We will do whatever it takes to create sensitive, intelligent and ethical leaders.”

The placement story for 2010 reinforces these facts. Almost 300 students have been placed successfully. The companies that hired the savvy students of IMT Ghaziabad include Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, JP Morgan, Deloitte, Reckitt Benckiser, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citigroup, Airtel, Vodafone, GE, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Reserve Bank of India, Bacardi, Tata Consultancy Services, Panasonic, Whirlpool, Accenture, Wrigleys, CRISIL, Amrop, Ernst & Young and many more.

The key highlights of the placement for the PGDM Batch of 2009-11 are:

- The highest International CTC offered has been Rs. 26 lakh per annum.
- The highest Domestic CTC offered has been Rs. 15 lakh per annum.
- The average CTC for the FT Batch is Rs. 8.63 lakh per annum.
- The average CTC of the top 55 percentile IMT graduates is Rs. 9.50 lakh per annum.

Successful selections and job offers for this batch of students came in from varied sectors, and the students were offered excellent profiles. Some of these sectors include FMCGs, Consultancies, BFSI, Market Research, Manufacturing, Consumer Durables, Consulting, Pharmaceutical, IT & ITES, Oil & Gas,  Services, Telecom, among others.

IMT students have been recruited for niche profiles such as Brand Managers, Software Delivery Managers, Analysts, Credit and Equity Analysts, Research Associates. Other successful appointments include Relationship Managers, Business Managers, Key Account Managers, along with rewarding positions in Consulting, Investment Banking and Advisory services, to name a few.

On the ranking, Dr Bibek Banerjee, IMT, had this to say,  “Today we are number 7, and that is a huge  achievement. With every achievement comes growth. IMT Ghaziabad is all about introspection, improvement and innovation that leads to greater heights.” He further says, “At IMT Ghaziabad, “We do” and the ET ranking stands testimony to the team effort of all the faculty, officers and staff.”

Students also have a story to tell. Nimesh Gupta, a student of IMT Ghaziabad says, “IMT-Ghaziabad is one of the best institutions in the country. The opportunities available here are enormous. It has one of the best exchange programs.” He further says, “The brand value that IMT holds is very strong. Even after having many converts like IMI, XIMB and IIT-M, IMT was an obvious choice. The faculty is among the most renowned and the alumni base is huge.”

He got a summer internship at Absolute Data-Research and Analytics. It is one of the leading firms in Market Research and Analytics. He will be working in The Client Groups team, which works on solving the business problems for clients and giving them richer insights to make better decisions.

Rakesh says, “I chose IMT-Ghaziabad due to its locational advantage, practical teaching methodology, one of the best placement records and a great faculty.”

He is  doing his internship at BECTOCHEM Consultants and Engineers Pvt. Ltd. He will be preparing a customer satisfaction index for the company which would henceforth be used as a benchmark for all customer interactions.

Every academic year not just traditional recruiters but new companies also head for the campus, and are impressed with the talent that IMT Ghaziabad repeatedly produces. As an institute, IMT Ghaziabad has also been perceptive to the changing times and has always explored freshavenues and invited innovative companies as well, thereby offering its students a diverse number of rewarding opportunities.

You can find more information about IMT Ghazibad and its placements at:  http://www.imt.edu/.

Leading from the front – Bibek Banerjee, IMT Ghaziabad Director takes us through a research based future of B-School Education

Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad has a sound legacy of 31 years, bringing about freshness in business education in India. The management school has been ranked consistently as one of the top institutes in India and has achieved yet another hallmarked success on its listing for 2011. The Economic Times listed the school as amongst the top ten after a rigorous research with the top 500 companies in India. Spearheading this incubation hub for business leaders is the man who plans to steer education in India towards research and development. Dr Banerjee is the current Director of Institute of Management Technology Ghaziabad (IMTG) and Academic Mentor of Group-IMT (India).
With Dr. Banerjee’s experience as a Professor of Marketing and Economics at IIM Ahmedabad and as one of the key architects of the collaboration between IIM Ahmedabad and Duke Corporate Education, his foresight into the business education in India, ratifies many concerns. His focus on building intellectual capital rather than just polishing and preparing students for the business world has brought about a sea of change in the outlook amongst other leaders as well. He insists that the school needs to focus on honing the creativity and ingenuity of students, rather than guiding ‘corporate target chasers’. This is a widely appreciated progressive thought and marks the beginning of a new viewpoint towards those who see India as a hub for churning out B-school graduates, who are not necessarily world class leaders.
His efforts are not only directed towards the students alone, but also the faculty. In this day and age, teaching is just a nuance of being the faculty in a reputed school. What Dr. Banerjee wants, is to scale up research facilities of IMT, where faculty can find infrastructure to conduct their own research and provide fruitful results. As a result of this, many IMT professors are now doing collaborative research with foreign schools, thus creating resolute liaisons and exposing the students to new avenues as well. This works for all parties involved - the students, the faculty and the business school.
Even though there is huge encouragement towards research, Dr. Banerjee clarifies that the school needs to measure research productively almost accurately. Only attending conferences and preparing white papers will be not enough.  Tangible results have to be shown in order for this to be a success.
With Dr. Banerjee’s expertise in designing management executive development programs for organisations like, such as Ericsson, Coca Cola, the Aditya Birla Group, Genpact, Microsoft, the Citigroup, INFOSYS, TATA group (TAS, TML, Tata Steel, TCL, TMTC), Unilever India (HUL), HDFC Bank, TVS Group, BPCL, IOC, GAIL, ORG-MARG, Maharaja Group (Sri Lanka), Comcraft Steel (Kenya), Bajaj Auto, Asian Paints, Crompton Greaves, Mahindra & Mahindra, ABB (India), Greaves India, OTIS India, and many more, he is set to lead IMT as a research based success story.

Dr.Bibek Banerjee in the panel discussion of Indian Management Conclave 2011

At IMT we often debate about what we are creating. Who are our major stakeholders? It is our students. But are we treating them as ‘customers’ or do we consider them our ‘products’?

The debate is ongoing because a B-school’s DNA is constructed and guided by how we treat our stakeholders — the students or the talent that we are actually mandated to help co-create. Are we taking responsibility for them? What we do, the way we structure our curriculum and our teaching methodology would actually depend upon our philosophy, of how we look at our position as a business school in the larger picture.

Many of my colleagues want feedback; it’s another ongoing debate at IMT. How seriously should we take this feedback? We have a mandate and what we are teaching our students makes sense to them and is of real value to them. But the point is that the metrics we use in actually running the DNA of the business school could get corrupted if we take a ‘product’ view than a ‘customer’ view.

And how are we measuring our throughput?  If you look at the metrics that Indian B-schools use it always comes down primarily to the average salary. Most focus on the maximum salary — the 21st century’s proverbial Rs 1 crore job —but what about the percentage of students placed? I agree that in order to have an outcome-based system we must be able to measure what we are creating; but are we using the right metrics to measure what our throughputs are creating for the world?

With regard to inputs, Dr. Singh has already given us a sense of the enormity of the scale we are talking about — 4,000 B-schools and 200,000 applicants. How do we ensure that we are getting the right talent? We have a set of exams, we have a set of metrics and we use high cut-offs, CAT scores, MAT scores, GMAT scores, this score-that score… are we using metrics, which really are partial measures, only as great marketing tools?

My school-my CAT minimum score… that sort of sets the order. We question this at IMT. I would like to share with you an experiment we tried which shows that when we are talking of high cut-offs, there are certain errors we committing, for instance, not-so-deserving candidates just about make it through while there could be very deserving candidates who just miss.

We used an innovative technology platform and said forget about cut-offs, let’s talk to the 20,000 aspirants who have applied to IMT. What were our constraints? — time, money and manpower. So we created a virtual interview system through which we spoke to 7,000 aspirants, despite bandwidth and technology issues, and asked them five questions each. And we were actually able to overlay the standard metrics and had a far more flesh and blood sense of how each individual could be as a potential candidate and a potential leader. When we are talking about innovation, we ought to be innovating ourselves and that requires work.

With regard to the process, the issue that Dr. Singh touched upon is very important. To what extent should business schools be ‘market-driven’ as opposed to ‘market-driving’? Does the business leadership think that way too? We need to be far more innovative in our methods; we need more engagement with the business community which is an important process of leadership creation, and it cannot be at a better time because that is the fraternity to whom we are supplying our set of values. We have been conducting some experiments at IMT this year, for instance, we had a few students from Kellogg who were teamed up with the students of IMT and each worked on a consulting project in the social entrepreneurship and technology area. The details of the same are on our website.

The issue about the university system is an interesting one and I totally agree that what is academics if not freedom of thought. And about financial aspects, specifically of creating incentives, I cannot agree more as it’s incentives that drive people in any area not only in academics.

The other major motivation for academics is that you have the freedom to let your mind soar and actually create something of value and influence. Are the B-schools providing that? India is very different from the rest of the world, business schools have been standing alone; they are not part of the university system and perhaps the only way for us to go forward, and I think these platforms are vitally important for that, is to collaborate because we do not have the breadth of discipline or the breadth of resources available for us to let these minds soar to create things of value and influence. And therefore the business schools of India must be allowed to collaborate with all stakeholders.

I think for the sake of the future, business schools, together with all other stakeholders, need to really think about the set of values they are creating. Dr. Singh mentioned the meltdown, but I would disagree slightly with him. The cause of the meltdown was not the failure of fancy mathematical models but the ethos of human greed. That was the fundamental cause of where we are at today, and I predict that if business schools don’t change their ways, this meltdown is going to occur again.

Business schools need to actually start believing that being good businessmen means being good human beings as well. The role of ethics, integrity and hard work cannot be the 1.5-credit course or the 3-credit course; it needs to be in why the business school exists. I believe in order to make this happen, it is important that we keep envisioning the future, today we can’t see the forest for the trees.

It is crucial that we start working on that right now and understand why we need the accreditation, why we need the rating or the right research to dismantle the Western view and create an Eastern view… work has to begin immediately and I hope the rest of Conclave will join me in this endeavour, given that so much of work lies ahead of us.

Our first task of creating ethical and value-driven human beings who become fantastic business leaders in the future should begin right now and then should radiate along the entire eco-system.

Abhinav Kamal of IMT-N is creating what he wants to be a part of

Unconventional as though it may sound for a management student to go on to make short films, one of which would go on to win a prize from LIBA, Chennai, Abhinav Kamal is not your archetypal management student to begin with. Having grown up in seven different cities of India, and with an education received from eight different institutions, he has had a lot of exposure to different people across diverse cultural backgrounds.

A student of IMT- Nagpur, Abhinav would just have been one of the top brilliant students of India, studying and earning his Management degree from one of the pioneer institutes, had he not had a keen sense of movies since his childhood. A passionate and tenacious moviemaker, he directed a short film on anti-smoking, Swing, which has won the Best Short Film Award in the festival Hollywood Boulevard, LIBA Chennai- an event which was judged by the famous Tamil filmmaker Cheran.

 “Having coming from a family where education is of utmost importance, literature, music, dance, films have always been a part of me”

Dissecting every movie he watched as a child, he developed a forte for direction, being an observant member of the audience, and criticizing the director’s work of all the films he watched. He realized there were many loopholes in the works he saw and remained unsatisfied as a cerebral member of the audience. His discontent with the storytelling and lack of directorial sense in the films he watched were probably the causes that prodded him to make a movie of his own where he could experiment and improve. Abhinav believes that an ordinary short film can be made into an extra-ordinary one with some of the basic ingredients of filmmaking: An interesting screenplay, a strong script, sincere artists and visual aesthetics all brought together by a passionate director with an innate sense of movie making.

Abhinav has an avant-garde outlook towards movies.

Abhinav sees his management lessons and creativity inter-fusing with each other all the time. He says, “A film is a product. A director is a leader, captain and a creative manager for its team in the process of making the product. The process of filmmaking demands many intelligent decisions to be taken, keeping in account your available resources. You need to know the segment of audience to which you intend to focus the film on. I feel management is not just about running business and making profits, it is about being informed and making better decisions, irrespective of the field of work. Management is a way you live your life. It is an art of implementing your crazy ideas but with proper blue print.”

Abhinav’s small production house- Ten Motion Arts intends to forward a common platform to like-minded creative people who have the talent to contribute positively in filmmaking but don't have any sponsors to support them.

Swing – a short film on anti smoking is close to my heart.

Abhinav, Rajesh K and his other team members experimented and explored many new techniques of cinematography in this film. The film is a visual delight with a very unique way of storytelling. “We wanted our audience to think” states Abhinav. After all a good movie is one which makes the audience feel the story, rather than just tell a story.

“An ordinary short film becomes extraordinary through its basic ingredient: An interesting screenplay, a strong script, sincere artists and visual aesthetics. Not to forget, a passionate director.”

“The Danish film ‘Little Man’ is my favorite. Closer home, I follow, Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Bharadwaj’s films a lot, and take lessons from their genre and style of filmmaking.”

A movie buff and an experimental film-maker, Abhinav has come a long way considering he has no formal education in film making and editing. It is his passion for film-making which instigated him to organize the National Short Film Festival at IMT-Nagpur. Abhinav and his team were instrumental in making the film festival a huge success. It garnered a lot of interest from the national and the local media alike.

Watch out for this cerebral filmmaker, who might very soon make his institute proud and join the small handful of filmmakers who believe a film is a perception of reality seen through the eyes of an artist and painted on the canvas of an editing table.

Learning Economics with Prof. V.S.Pailwar

Q1. How do you think a colleague or a friend who knows you well would describe you?      

1. Three words- Hardworking, Sincere, Trustworthy

Q2. How do you evaluate success?

1. In the short run, success is overcoming hurdles to accomplish a task in hand. However, in the long run, it is an overall happiness which, though cannot be measured and quantified, can be felt from the respect and love from the people involved in one’s life. The larger the number of such people in one’s life the larger the success.

Q3. Do you think grades are a good indication to measure ones competency in a field or a subject? Why?              

1. Grades are an indication of the hard work people put in learning a subject and acquiring knowledge. Competency, apart from the subject knowledge, requires ability to implement that knowledge in one’s work sphere, and thus, is much wider term. It can be better assessed through an efficient implementation of a given task.

Q4. Tell us a little bit about your book- Economic Environment of Business. How do you think students and instructors should use it?

1. The book – Economic Environment of Business - has been designed for the students of management and practicing managers who constantly face challenges emerging from a continuously changing economic environment, but have little or no background in economics. This book aims at strengthening analytical skills by explaining basic economic concepts in simple lucid language and using those concepts for assessing current evolving domestic and global economic scenario. Students and instructors can use it along with the business newspapers and magazines to understand current business and economic scenario.                      

Q5. Narrate us one of your most interesting classroom experiences at IMT-N. 

1. Batch of 2007-09 in IMT-N, was very involved and participative in my sessions. The most memorable event belongs to this batch. In one of my sessions, two students of this batch fought with each other to answer one of my questions. Their enthusiasm and participative spirit is memorable.

Q7. Which is your most favorite book and why?                                                                                     

1. Wings of Fire, An Autobiography of A P J Abdul Kalam, for its simplicity and philosophy.

Q8. Quote us your favorite lines.                                                                                                           

1.  My favourite lines are:

“…The kingdom of God is within you in the form of this power, to help achieve your goals and realize your dreams.

“There are many different types and levels of experience that turn this internal power reaction critical. Sometimes, when we are ready, the gentlest of contacts with Him fills us with insight and wisdom. This could come from an encounter with another person, from a word, a question, a gesture or even a look. Many a time, it could come even through a book, a conversation, some phrase, even a line from a poem or the mere sight of a picture.”

Wings of a Fire, An Autobiography, A P J Abdul Kalam with Arun Tiwari, Universities Press (India) Private Limited, 1999, pp 49.

Q9. How do you think economics should be taught at management level and how do you think Indian B-schools are leveraging the resources they have to deliver the subject?                             

1. Theoretical underpinnings should be illustrated with their applications at micro (industry) level as well as at macro (country) level. Both offline resources (e.g., magazines, newspapers, case studies, role plays) and online resources (e.g., simulations games) are used by business schools for illustrating applications of principles of economics in business organizations).

Q10. What are the various methods you employ to make classroom sessions interesting?                

1. Sessions become interesting if there is total involvement of the teacher and students in the classroom. To keep my involvement in the sessions I prepare well in advance by revising the theoretical underpinnings and updating myself by going through current developments. Students’ involvement in the class room partly depends on their preparedness for class which I try to ensure by giving them take home assignments. But largely the interest depends on what goes within the class. For involving students in the classroom, an interactive mode of teaching is adopted. Students are made to participate in the learning process by brainstorming on certain crucial issues, going through simulation exercises and participating in role plays.

Q11. Give us three words that describe a perfect manager.                                                                    

1. Knowledgeable, Organized and Involving.

Q12. How do you describe IMT?                                                                

1. IMT is on par with the best b-schools in India in terms of physical and learning infrastructure, intellectual capital, course curriculum, pedagogy and processes.

Q13. Message for your students.

1. You are the privileged few in this world to get opportunity to study in institutes like IMT which provide the best of the facilities. For many of you this may be the last chance to learn various subjects formally. The primary activity of students should be to excel in studies. So be focused on your primary activity and make use of the resources you have in hand to excel in it. Make maximum use of the class room time and professors’ expertise and experiences to enhance your knowledge. Make use of online and offline resources available in the computer centre as well as in the library to refine your understanding. Interact with your peers who are from diverse social, educational and economic background to enrich and widen your horizon.

However, do not forget that our body is the medium through which we carry out all our activities. A sound mind can only live in a sound body. The efficiency and efficacy of the work also depend on the soundness of our health. Therefore, a part of your time should also be devoted to your body fitness. Equally important is to take proper rest and sleep. Sleep helps in rejuvenating our body and mind and energizes us. Therefore, do not compromise on your sleep hours.

Success with ethical practices and right values helps in gaining respect from others. The right values can be imbibed through formative stages which you are still going through. So excel in exam and other activities with right value system.

Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Nagpur – International Conference on Management of MSMEs, 2011

Driven to expose the students to a variety of business challenges, Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur, is conducting a yet another inspiring event on August 19-20, 2011 - International MSMEs Conference on Management of MSMEs, 2011. The micro, small and medium enterprises impact the industry substantially and are now being looked at with greater importance in the business arena. This new tribe of enterprises come with their own challenges which need an alternative vision and problem solving capability. It has become the need of the hour to equip the industry on the same and make them skilled. The key endeavour of the conference is to ensure that the academia, practicing managers, industry researchers and students share a common platform to discuss practical challenges that the businesses face.

While the conference looks out to give a space to an interdisciplinary forum, the key idea is also to expose the students to a wider problem solving business space. The future industry leaders of the school are bound to get an in-depth exposure to the kinds of problems faced by this sector and what are the probable solutions to them. The conference is sure to be a phenomenal success with research, entrepreneurship and professional management converging at one place.

Dates: August 19-20, 2011

Accommodation: Delegates will be hosted at the campus on a first come first serve basis at a nominal fee

For further details: Contact Convenor
Phone -  0712-2805304
Email - msmecon11@imtnag.ac.in, msmecon11@gmail.com