Diversity in management classrooms is advocated not for the sake of it, but as an experience that impacts who you are and what you do in the workplace. In today’s globalized multi-cultural business environment, diversity at the workplace is common.  More often than not, employees are working in teams comprising people from different countries, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, educational backgrounds etc. Such a diverse work environment can create significant challenges to overall team performance and organizational effectiveness if employees do not have adequate exposure and training to work with people from different backgrounds.

Shared vision

It is well known that high-performance teams require a common and shared understanding of the vision and what needs to be accomplished. Typically, organizations have one corporate language and employees who are less fluent in the language of the majority are unable to express themselves effectively and are not understood by the people who are fluent in the corporate language. This can result in these employees feeling isolated and excluded from the rest of the group, their contribution to the task at hand can suffer and overall team performance can be negatively impacted.

Diversity of languages

Beyond just the communication challenges, diversity of languages can have a deeper impact on team dynamics.  Research by cognitive scientists has shown that language can shape the way we think and how we view the world.  For example, in English nouns can be countable and have plurals (example, books) or be non-countable with no plurals (example, you say “two grains of rice” and not rices).  Other languages like Japanese don’t make this distinction. This may cause English speakers to have a different understanding of the distinction between substances and individual objects. Exposure to people from other languages at an early age can improve the comprehension of the differences in how people think and thus prepare individuals to interact and work better in a diverse team environment.

Cultural differences

Understanding the norms and behaviour patterns of different cultures is important to create an atmosphere of trust in the workplace.  For example, Indian employees (as compared to some of their western counterparts) working in MNCs are known to have problems meeting deadlines, are generally less punctual, and have difficulty saying “NO” to tasks even if they know they will not be able to deliver on time.  It can take months or years of working together before these cultural differences are understood. By then, considerable damage may have been done in the form of lost trust. Many global companies now routinely conduct cultural diversity training to change the mindset and behaviour of employees working in a culturally diverse environment in order to create an organization that is more inclusive, respectful, trustful, and ultimately more productive. The above points highlight the importance of preparing students for a diverse workplace where they have a deeper understanding and respect for the differences between people and are able to not only overcome the hurdles created by these differences but in fact, are able to use these differences to succeed in the workplace.  One of our goals as educators is to prepare our students to thrive in a fast-paced, unpredictable, and fundamentally diverse and international business environment. Increased diversity in classrooms can go a long way in achieving this goal.

Performance enhancer

Despite the several challenges that diversity can create in the effective functioning of teams, it has been found that if these challenges are adequately addressed, diversity can actually enhance team performance.  So, diversity in classrooms not only better prepares students for today’s workplace but also can enrich their learning experience and raise the standard of discourse in a classroom. Culture influences the way we see the world. A variety of viewpoints along with a wide-range of personal experiences can offer new perspectives that inspire students to see the world differently. Students with differing viewpoints have unique things to bring to the table, enabling more creative solutions. Diversity of thought has been shown to enhance creativity and drive innovation, helping to solve problems in new and exciting ways. 

A valuable learning

Student learning can be enhanced from understanding different cultures, regional and gender differences and applying this knowledge in their courses whether it be in the production of effective marketing strategies or understanding customer needs and preferences or price sensitivity of different socio-economic categories. This is valuable learning which students can leverage in their jobs. Companies with employees who are culturally diverse can be quicker to spot a gap in the market. They will also have the market-specific insight and experience to help a new or adapted product to meet changing consumer behaviour—and succeed.

Impact of women involvement 

Educational institutions need to encourage women to pursue higher studies or else they would be missing out on the talents and abilities of half of the population. Classrooms with both men and women benefit from different points of view and different life experiences. Varied perspectives trigger creativity and innovation. Having both genders on teams helps to improve processes and boosts collaboration. A field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the share of women in management teams on their business performance showed a causal inverse u-shaped impact of the share of women in a team on the business outcomes of the team. Team performance peaked when the share of women was around 0.55. The research further suggests that this positive impact of gender diversity is caused by more intense mutual monitoring and more equal learning in gender diverse teams.

Conclusion

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review argues, the challenges of working in a diverse team are one of the reasons why diverse teams perform better: “working on diverse teams produces better outcomes precisely because it’s harder.”

To summarize, a diverse classroom can enhance the learning experience and productivity of students in the classroom as well as make them “future-ready” for an increasingly diverse workplace.

The author is Dean, School of Management, GD Goenka University

A common dilemma that almost every graduate has at the time to choose between MBA and PGDM courses. The basic difference between the two is that MBA is a degree course offered by universities and PGDM is a diploma program offered by the B-schools/colleges affiliated to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). However, the recruiters consider both PGDM and MBA degree holders equally qualified as B-schools offering PGDM courses are at par with IIMs. Now that we have cleared the confusion, let’s discuss how PGDM courses can be helpful in getting the dream job you have always wanted. Every year thousands of graduates opt for either PGDM or MBA to propel their careers in the right direction and to a great extent pursuing these courses can give your career a flying start. 

So, as the test season is approaching fast, I would like to share a few insights that might help you prepare for the exams. The first question that needs to be answered is why management courses are so popular among the Indian youth and the answer is quite simple. Management programs are designed to turn amateurs into professionals. Any graduate having technical background can earn brownie points at the time of recruitment who possesses a certification from a management institute because of the simple reason that a management pass out has all the basic skills like leadership skill, time management skill, communication skill, crisis management, etc embedded into them that are required for any managerial job. So naturally, they get preference over candidates from any other background. Also, the range of specializations offered by the management programs gives the student the freedom to choose their career in accordance with their core interests.

The ever-evolving market dynamics have compelled the institutes to move from the traditional teaching processes and take the modern approach to suit the current industry demands. It has also been observed that even the freshers are expected to possess a certain level of proficiency. So, even before they have the chance of getting hands-on experience in a real job, they need to be prepared to perform. The only way to achieve that is to train them while they are still studying at the institutes. This is how industry integrated courses make their way to our education system and are in high demand. These courses actually helped the students to have a glimpse of the real-life challenges faced by the professionals and also provided them with the solutions. Country’s biggest organizations are coming forward to help educational institutes to design the curricula and provide first-hand guidance to the students through in-class interactive sessions with experts. The interesting part is the experts share their real-life experiences which give them a foretaste of their life after they step out of the campuses and start their employments. However, it has been observed that the curriculum of PGDM courses is frequently altered according to the industry requirement as compared to the MBA degree courses.

At ASM we have integrated PGDM courses in different subjects such as logistics management, enterprise management, business analytics and big data, etc. We have been privileged to collaborate with market leaders like IBM, SAP, Safeducate to provide our student’s industry-relevant courses and I am glad to share that our students who have opted for these courses have received an extremely positive response from the recruiters. The interactive sessions with the experts have proved to help build their confidence to face real-world challenges. It gives us immense pride to be able to transform ourselves with the changing dynamics of the employment needs of the varied industries. 

One trend that has recently piqued the fancy of Indian students is the international internships and short term courses by foreign universities and credit transfers to international universities. For example, ASM has tie-ups with global educational institutes like Harvard, CityU, Vistula University (Poland), CETYS University (Mexico) and University of Applied Sciences (Poland). Like these universities, many other international universities are collaborating with Indian counterparts to offer their exclusive courses to Indian students. ASM is the first Indian institute that offers Harvard Business online courses to its students. Certification from these global entities adds much value to the profiles than certificates from any homegrown universities. Recently ASM has announced its one plus one program with CityU University where students get to learn at the CityU’s campus for one year as an exchange student. Needless to say, the exposure these students receive by studying at these foreign campuses is unimaginable and especially helpful for the students looking at a global career. 

Another field of management course that is gaining popularity rather rapidly is our Agri-Business Management course. The recent booster too the Agri sector provided by the Govt. of India has made the jobs related to this sector pretty drool-worthy. A job seeker holding an Agri management degree is eligible for numerous job profiles across sectors including food and beverage, crop production, animal husbandry and many more. Also, the lack of interest in the last few decades among the youth regarding agriculture has been one of the biggest reasons behind a large number of vacancies in almost every profile. Naturally, the possibility of getting a lucrative option in terms of position as well as remuneration is quite high. Though few things need immediate attention from the administration to bring due glory to this sector. The frequent news of struggles faced by farmers such as the low return of the produce, problems caused by the middlemen, unfavourable Govt. policies have been the pain points for the Agri sector for the longest period now. However, since the last budget Govt. has been working on many initiatives that have encouraged and steered many new-age entrepreneurs towards agriculture and a number of start-ups have come up which has added to the job opportunities.

At ASM we thrive to empower our students with the relevant and useful skill sets to ensure that they shine in their respective careers. The faculty at ASM is a rich blend of academicians and senior industry professionals. ASM is proud of its Excellence Driven Guaranteed Employability program or EDGE which is the result of our relentless efforts to enhance the employability of our graduates and I am glad to state that ASM has a stellar placement record – 69,000+ alumni working with top-notch MNCs in India and abroad. 

(This article has been written by Dr. Sandeep Pachpande, Chairman, ASM Group of Institutes)

In this article, we will talk in detail about what it takes to get in the International Master in Business (IMB) programme at SDA Bocconi Asia Center Mumbai. The IMB program is a specialized master program fully equivalent to a postgraduate program that brings to India the expertise and the international standing of SDA Bocconi School of Management, Italy. With the rare exception of holding a triple crown accreditation (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS), SDA Bocconi School of Management is currently ranked sixth best business school in Europe by Financial Times. 

The program is an amalgamation of solid theory-based academia, case-study methodology, international experiences, certifications & corporate exposure through live projects and internships. It extends over two 11-month modules, which includes a 4-month specialization semester spent at the SDA Bocconi main campus in Milan, Italy, where students have an option to choose their specialization subject from a pool of more than 70 subjects.  

That being said, securing a seat at SDA Bocconi Asia Center is a different ball game altogether as the college follows a profile-based approach while shortlisting the candidates for its IMB program. 

The process of shortlisting is based on an overall profile analysis of the below mentioned factors:

Academic Abilities

Unlike other B-schools where a major chuck of the population either hails from an engineering or a commerce background, SDA Bocconi Asia center believes in accommodating a diverse pool of talent ranging from hospitality, fine arts, psychology, commerce, pharmacy to name a few. A consistent academic background and a demonstrated ability to work under pressure will have an added advantage in the selection process. To be eligible to apply for the IMB program, applicants must have an undergraduate degree in any discipline or should be in their final year while applying. The eligibility criteria for academics is a minimum of 50% across 10th, 12th and under graduation and a minimum aggregate average of 65% combining 10th, 12th and under graduation scores.

Test Scores

For (IMB) International Master in Business, SDA Bocconi Asia Center is accepting the following Test Scores:

It is also expected that applicants must score well in various admission tests that SDA Bocconi Asia Center accepts. While the college does not indicate any “cut off” restriction, there are safe scores established by the same. Candidates scoring anything above the safe score range are encouraged to apply as the final selection is based on overall profile and not just the test scores. For students applying through CAT, a safe score of 90 percentile and above is considered favourable. Similarly, for GMAT- a score of 640 and above, for GRE -a score of 310 and above and for NMAT by GMAC -a score of 200 and above is considered favourable. Additionally, if the candidate does not have any of the above-mentioned score while applying or the scores available are not in the safe score range, the candidate can choose to sit for the Bocconi Test which is an internal exam held by the institute. It must also be noted that despite having other test scores, a candidate can still choose to sit for the Bocconi test. The best scores out of all available is taken into consideration while evaluating a candidate’s profile. That being said, a high score definitely increases the chance of getting an interview call, but an average score could be compensated by the candidate’s excellence in other areas.

Take the Bocconi Test, if you have Missed or are Not Satisfied with Other Entrance Exam Scores

Although SDA Bocconi Asia Centre accepts other test scores, they also conduct an internal test for admission – Bocconi Test. For the benefit of MBA aspirants, apart from accepting CAT, NMAT, GMAT, GRE test scores, will conduct its own Bocconi Test scores are also applicable for IMB Admission 2020. So, you need not worry if you have missed the CAT, NMAT or other exams. However, timely submission of application will make you eligible to appear in the Bocconi Test.

The Bocconi test is relatively different from its counterparts as it tests a candidate not just on hardcore aptitude concepts but also on workplace adaptability. It is a computer adaptive test that doesn’t penalise a test taker for a wrong answer but will expect more from the candidate if he/she marks a right answer i.e. the test will adjust the level of difficulty according to the response provided by the candidate.

While evaluating the overall profile of the candidate, SDA Bocconi Asia Center takes into consideration a candidate’s best test score. So, the Bocconi Test is a good shot for those who have not achieved a benchmark score in other tests.

A candidate can apply for the Bocconi test while filling up the application form at SDABAC’s website. No additional fee is to be paid for taking up the Bocconi Test. The test is normally scheduled within two weeks of applying and results are declared within a week of taking the test.

Extra-Curricular & Soft skills

Extra-curriculars such as relevant work experience, leadership position held, entrepreneurial experience, communication skills, creativity, interest in sports or cultural arts, and involvement in community or social clubs are additional considerations to the profile of the candidate. A diverse and well-rounded application has better chances of selection. Also, while filling up the application form, the candidates are asked to submit three to four essay-type questions, a well-defined statement of purpose and two references. All this information combined with a high-test score and academic consistency makes up for a strong profile.  

Personal Interview

Interviews are conducted following an initial pre-selection based on the application submission. While freshers can expect domain specific questions, candidates with work experience are mostly checked upon industry related topics. When it comes to basic hygiene questions, it is advisable that the candidates be well prepared with these questions in advance. Identifying one’s strengths, shortcomings, key challenges faced in personal and professional space and steps taken to overcome those challenges are some of the common questions asked in the interview. It would be an added advantage if the candidate can support his/her answers with real-life instances. The personal interview is extremely crucial when it comes to extending an admission offer to the candidate. Keeping that into consideration, SDA Bocconi Asia Center conducts webinars, info sessions, coffee sessions at various places to better equip the students with the admission process. One can check the college’s website for any upcoming webinars or info sessions. 

This article is written by Arunima Lal and Milan Choudhury who are currently pursuing IMB at SDA Bocconi Asia Center & are a part of the Student Admission Committee.  

To apply – Click Here

On completion of graduation, a student seeks for a course that can set the course of his professional life. The selection of an appropriate post-graduate course is a careful decision to be made. Many students select the stream of their graduation course without being foreseeable. A mistake in the selection of a post-graduate course can prove to be a costly error. There are traditional post-graduation courses such as MA, MSc, MCom and professional courses like MCA. MTech and MBA.

The traditional courses provide a limited career opportunity, while most of the technical courses provide industry-specific career opportunities. Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) are two master programs in management that are omnipresent in all sectors of business and hence can be called as king of post-graduation programs. MBA/ PGDM are two contemporary and most job-oriented courses of the current era. The idea of business administration lies in the idea of 360-degree business management and the overall development of the taker.

Any business; manufacturing or service has four fundamental dimensions associated with it. These dimensions are Marketing, Finance, Human Resource, and Operations. The rest of the components of business management such as supply chain, sales, accounting, analytics and etc. are either sub-domains of these fundamental dimensions or interdisciplinary functions for these dimensions. Master of Business Administration is the course that provides knowledge to all these essential domains/ dimensions of business management. Most of the MBA regular programs are two-year full-time programs divided into four semesters of 6 months each, while the PGDM courses comprise of trimester system of 6 trimesters. An aspirant gets fundamental knowledge of all the functions of business management during the first year of the course and may get specialization in one or two domains depending on interest and availability of specialization with offering institute/ university.

The modern-day business administration specializations have taken a paradigm shift. The specialization such as international business, retail management, disaster management, energy management, business analytics, data analytics, and business intelligence have emerged. These cutting-edge specializations are designed by intellectuals to equip a business management aspirant with effective database decision-making skills. The beauty of these specializations lies in their interdisciplinary approach.

If an aspirant gets specialization in fundamentals domains of business management the career growth is one dimensional. The specializations like analytics provide a multi-dimensional window of career progression. An aspirant can be specialized in analytics and enjoy positions like financial analyst, marketing analyst, human resource analyst, operation analyst, research analyst, data analyst, data scientist or business analyst. There is no advocacy of choosing analytics as a specialization over the traditional specializations here.  Before selecting a specialization of business management, a student shall introspect his/her ability interest and market need.

The selection of specialization can be made in one of the two ways; a management aspirant can choose to do business administration with a clear mindset on specialization right in the beginning of course or an aspirant can take a flavor of all streams of management in first year of the course and then may select the specialization on the basis of his developed interest. A student shall be very careful in selecting the specialization of business management. The selection of a wrong specialization can prove to carry a chip on the shoulder for a lifetime. Apart from domain-specific knowledge and specialization, the Master of Business Administration course ensures the overall grooming of an aspirant.

The course is embedded with the modules of soft-skill development, personality development, and communication. The course also develops skills like teamwork, adaptability, entrepreneurship, business acumen and efficient decision making in aspirants. The business administration course develops the skill set of aspirants to compete in the global business environment. The program also provides sufficient industry exposure to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge by incorporating summer and winter internships.

The challenge in front of an MBA aspirant is also to find a competitive business school that has the biggest bouquet of the finest specializations. Further, the challenge for modern futuristic B-Schools is to design and deliver these courses effectively. The challenge starts from designing a new curriculum as per the need of industry and future of business, further, the challenge extends in finding the right people to deliver these specializations. Some of the front line and futuristic B-Schools like Lloyd Business School took this challenge and designed an effective mechanism for delivering these dynamic specializations of business administration. It is needless to say that these specializations need a high-end industry integration. The B-Schools like Lloyd Business School have tied with premier companies like IBM to deliver these specializations. The career progression of an MBA having sharp competitive skills is exponential. A candidate may start his/her career as junior or assistant manager and may grow to become chief executive of the organization, in a nutshell, it can be said that for an MBA aspirant Sky is the limit.

Our education and experience is what makes us eligible to apply for a job, but what will make you successful in various roles? Management skills are what employers look for in their employees and managers. In most management roles, these skills are needed to sustain most roles and to be successful. Management skills or employability skills are skills that are not specific to a particular job or career path but are helpful and applicable across all employment sector. Employers are often looking for skills that go beyond qualifications and experience.

MBA jobs require candidates to have a particular set of management skills. These include various interpersonal and professional skills that can be used to accomplish different tasks, and/or manage the team handling them. An MBA is seen as the perfect course to train them in these skills. However, even if your MBA college does not cover the entire range of skills, you can always learn them through alternate methods, in order to give yourself a competitive advantage. Here is some information about the types of management skills employers seek, and how the students can become industry-ready. 

The Management Skills Employers Look for 

Management skills or employability skills are the building blocks of one’s career and often confused with soft skills. The current media and news frequently run stories about how MBA graduates lack these skills. B schools are blamed continuously for the outdated curriculum taught in business schools. Organisations nowadays put in a lot of resources in terms of time, money and expertise to train and re-train employees to increase retention. Though these skills are needed, honing and building these skills is a long term process.

The following are the management skills employers look for:-

Analytical skills

Analytical skills are easily one of the most used skills set from a management professional’s arsenal. They can be used to carry out a variety of tasks associated with MBA jobs, such as analyzing data, evaluating employees, solving problems, creating business strategies and much more. Companies understand the importance of these skills, which is why they put so much stress on finding candidates that have a good analytical mind. Even if you are not analytical by nature, there is no need to worry, as you can always develop these skills through practice and training.

Academic achievements

An MBA is a very taxing degree, in terms of the knowledge and determination required from the students. A student who has completed his/her MBA degree is the absolute upper crust and shows their commitment and determination towards their career. Possessing an MBA degree is in itself a great feat, as it requires serious attention and commitment to the business, and in order for this to happen, the student would have invested a lot of time and effort. The ones who are joining and completing their programs demonstrate a level of application and high performance, and this is a vital management skill employers look for.

Practicality

Many times we hear people using the phrase, “Come on, Be practical. Being practical is the ability for a person to set goals that are realistic and practical. Practicality is one of the most important management skill employers look for in their managers. Unlike technical courses that teach students the assumptions on which the hypothesis is based, an MBA degree is a highly practical one, working within realistic limits. Therefore, an MBA graduate automatically inculcate practicality as a management skill, which makes the recruiters sought MBA graduates out more.

Decisiveness

A person who is able to find facts using their skills and then judge with clarity and courage to come up with the most productive solution is a good decision-maker. Making the right decisions is a significant trait and a very important management skill that employers look for nowadays in a corporate business setting. A level of decisiveness is needed in every step, even in the small matters of life. An MBA curriculum, even though intensive, will provide the students the opportunity to learn the necessary skills needed to boost their decisiveness

Communication skills

Communication is not just a skill, but also a job responsibility for MBA graduates. MBA jobs require professionals to maintain proper communication between themselves, their team and their employers. Communication is one of the most important skill to have, especially to grasp and sustain one of the highest paying jobs of an MBA. These communication channels are used to facilitate the exchange of input and feedback between various departments, handle grievances, solve problems, manage employees, and carry out other types of managerial tasks. This is why communication skills are some of the most sought after qualities in MBA graduates. Communication skills include both verbal and non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication includes body language, tone of voice (even emojis) and listening.

Intellectual creativity

Intellectual creativity is the ability to develop new concepts and ideas that are innovative and engaging. The dynamic corporate industry is constantly looking for fresh and engaging innovations that can keep the business growing and thriving in this fast-changing world. An MBA helps develop a deeper understanding of the complicated and sophisticated working of the business world and intellectual creativity will help you make innovative solutions and decisions.

Conflict Resolution management skills

When you are in the field of business and management, conflicts are natural and frequent occurrences. Conflicts can come from anywhere, whether it is conflicts within the company, from the consumer side or with competitors. Management professionals are expected to know how to handle these conflicts quickly, and without damaging the company’s operations or reputation. If you are looking for good MBA jobs, then it is advised that you start working on these conflict resolution skills, in addition to other key management skills.

Teamwork management skills

Being able to work and grow as a team is an important ability to have for any job profile. It becomes even more important for MBA jobs, as you are also responsible for managing the team you work with. In addition, professionals in management jobs also have to work together with the upper management team to ensure that the goals and values of the company are being upheld. This can translate to all types of teamwork activities, such as maintaining communication, monitoring progress, training and integrating new team members, as well as bonding and motivation activities to improve team spirit. With so many uses, it is no surprise that job recruiters expect MBA graduates to have the skills needed to encourage teamwork.

Computer skills

Computers are not a new invention. However, recent advancements in technology have created thousands of new applications for this invention in the business space. Thanks to these new innovations, businesses can handle everything; from manufacturing to marketing, sales and even logistics through computers and/or computer-controlled machinery. This makes it essential for every management professional to have a healthy level of computer skills and technical know-how. You must focus on learning about technology, as well as the different ways it can be used to grow a business. Without this knowledge, getting good MBA jobs will be next to impossible in the current job market.

Project Management skills

One of the key job responsibilities in most MBA jobs is the planning, execution, and management of various projects. In addition, management professionals are also expected to do all this within a set budget, and in line with company goals. Good project management skills are crucial for handling these tasks. Once you learn these skills, you will also get an understanding of how each project fits in the company’s long term plans. This ability to see the big picture is a highly desirable quality in management professionals. Thankfully for MBA graduates, these skills can be learned through practice and can be used in all types of job profiles.

A willingness to learn

Sometimes in a more formal setting also referred to as personal development, a willingness to learn is being open to new ideas, opportunities and risks. When one is looking for opportunities to improve one’s skill set and knowledge, it gives way to the learning process. It is no secret that change is inevitable, in any setting, especially at the workplace, employers who embrace change both personal and professional, recognise it as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to recognise, understand and manage one’s own emotions and that of others and to then use them positively to achieve the desired outcomes. This is a huge factor in how we interact with others and build a good rapport with our colleagues and clients. Emotional intelligence governs the skills that allow us to participate effectively as a member of a team and how well we work with other people.

Being Dependable

Being reliable basically means to do what one says they will do. However, it also means to be aware of what needs doing- and then doing it. Doing what you say you will do also requires one to manage their time effectively and to prioritise one’s goals in an organised manner. Being dependable is in a way working on one’s emotional intelligence and being conscience and trustworthy. This requires a level of self-regulation and management. Self-regulated and reliable people take responsibility for their actions and ensure that they live up to the values they claim to stand by.

Concluding thought

Inevitably, there are a wide range of skills that could be useful to employers. Each of us has a personal range of skills that make us unique and we, therefore, can make our own individual unique contributions to any organisation.  Learning to recognise one’s skills and to use them appropriately is essential.

An open mind and a positive attitude is probably one of the most useful attributes you can bring to any organisation.

Business Analytics (BA) has become a buzzword in the corporate world as business analysts are equipped with the required knowledge and skills to take the business to new heights. In broader terms, Business Analytics is a subset of Business Intelligence (BI), which is related to the collection of data and is further sorted, processed, collated and transformed into business insights to measure business performance and to produce valuable conclusions. This facilitates companies to predict future trends of business indicators using various statistical tools and techniques.

Business Analytics connects the technical side of the business with decision making. It helps to identify useful datasets and how these datasets can be leveraged to solve business problems such as profit maximization, risk minimization, higher efficiency, sales maximization, cost minimization, etc.

Everybody talks about “data” and there is an immense flow of information in this era of digitalization (estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are now produced every day)[1] but we need processing of data as well to reach concrete results of business models. The raw form of data or any information is not valuable as it does not support any decision of the company. Hence, business analytics is focused on the data organization and data analysis to help companies to improve, grow and overcome challenges.

Recent trend on labor market indicates that business analytics including data scientist, data analyst, financial analyst, market analyst etc. are currently among the highest in-demand roles in the labor market, which are all a part of the curriculum for a management student. It has been estimated by the World Economic Forum that data analysts will be high in demand globally by 2020. Also, IBM stated that “the annual demand for data scientists, data developers, and data engineers will lead to 700,000 new recruitments by 2020.”[2] Further, IBM reported that 2,350,000 jobs for Data analytics listed in 2015 and it is estimated that 364,000 of additional job listing in 2020 (projected growth of 15% by 2020).[3]

Considering the huge potential of the domain, Amity University offers 2 years full-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in Business Analytics. This program has been designed in consultation with industry experts to cover crucial elements of business analytics that have been blended with the management education.

[1]http://reports.weforum.org/digital-transformation/big-data-analytics-and-the-cloud-a-smarter-more-connected-future-ahead/

[2]https://www.morningfuture.com/en/article/2018/02/21/data-analyst-data-scientist-big-data-work/235/

[3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2017/05/13/ibm-predicts-demand-for-data-scientists-will-soar-28-by-2020/#2ba171bb7e3b

What distinguishes ITM’s ‘Marketing Department’ and makes it stand apart from other colleges is the nature and execution of the program. The Marketing Dept. believes in the adage of Learning by doing. A heady mix of theoretical as well as experiential exercises characterize the pedagogy of the department. A dynamic syllabus with topics updated according to the industry trends gives the students an edge over others when it comes to industry readiness.

The unique inclusion of various experiential pedagogical tools is a major attraction in the course.

The marketing pedagogy includes activities like Business Choupal – a sales simulation exercise organised every year to provide marketing students with the platform wherein they understand and experience the actual market, hone up their selling skills and practice business management, ethics and values.

Small industry-based projects, Industry visits to companies are conducted so that students are able to relate practically to the various marketing subjects that they learn and study. Business Mentoring is also introduced wherein students collaborate with SME firms and enable them to find and bridge the gaps in their business operations and strategy in the best possible way to overcome the bottleneck.

Learning through a Marketing Simulation software is also part of the curriculum in which students learn to strategize and understand the basics of marketing like the 4 P’s, Brand management, Integrated Marketing Communications etc. by being a part of a virtual learning experience.  Subjects like Marketing research, Consumer behavior are taught through student-initiated projects with detailed analytical class discussions. The 5-month internship in various companies further creates an in-depth understanding as well as an opportunity to apply the theoretical inputs that has been garnered during the course.

Workshops, Panel discussions and guest lectures by the corporates are regular feature to help students to know the challenges and opportunities in various domains of the industry, to learn real-time skills and get trained as per industry requirement.

Markedemics is a fresh initiative started by Marketing department under which basket of workshops, all futuristic in nature is created and conducted by practitioners from start-ups. Some of the topics covered last year were Mobile Marketing, Content Marketing, Artificial Intelligence-Machine Learning, Website Designing, Personal branding. Again, for this year a new basket is created with topics like Licensing-Merchandising, SAP module for Sales & distribution, Sports marketing and the like. Selection of topics is done in a way which takes students beyond the curriculum and gives them learning on the latest trends, technologies relevant in the field of marketing.

MA-CR-INNO – the marketing forum runs on campus under which various inter and intra-college events are organised by students which leads to learning & development in different areas of management and marketing.

Marketing is a vibrant and dynamic subject hence there is never a dull moment in the class. All lectures are taken along with a plethora of case incidents, videos, cases, examples, roleplays, story-telling and other audio-visual teaching aids. Since Business Newspapers provide with current day to day happening, relevant news analysis forms an integral part of the pedagogy thus giving the students a more updated business scenario. Case study databases like ‘Warc’,  ‘Proquest’ further are accessible to students to give them a variegated perspective of Marketing.

Career opportunities that come for the marketing students are across all different sectors, be it E-Commerce, IT, Banking, Financial Services, Logistics, Media, FMCG, FMCD, Telecom, Real estate, Retail, Research & Consulting and the like.

Profiles which are offered to them are of Sales & Management trainees, CRM roles, B2B sales roles, Business development roles, Market research Roles. Other areas that marketing students work are social media executives, social media account managers, online reputation executives etc. In retail for store operations and category operations as store managers. In Logistics, they get jobs in Inbound, Outbound logistics, warehousing, supply chain. In the IT Industry Pre-sales job and in pharma sector Product Development Roles.