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“Need to sensitise management courses to global demands”

IIM-Indore’s state-of-art, 193-acre campus was recently inaugurated and dedicated to the nation by Mukesh D. Ambani, the Chairman and MD of Reliance Industries Ltd. Leading figures from the government, administration and industry along with IIM Indore’s illustrious Board of Governors converged at the IIM-Indore campus to witness this red-letter-day ceremony.

Ambani elucidated on his vision of India as an economic powerhouse and the steps that need to be taken to achieve India’s potential to be a global power in the coming decades. He stated his expectations from the premier management institutes of India towards nurturing talent and aligning it to the emerging sectors, continuously renewing knowledge competencies, fostering entrepreneurship amongst the youth of India and moulding students to develop within them a global mindset and dispersed skills. He foresaw management schools, business and society forming a partnership with a proactive mindset of “Ameeri Badhao” and management education getting reorientated to keep pace with the dynamic nature of today’s business and to align individual, organisational and national aspirations.

While elaborating on management education, he said that in the 20th century, MBA courses met the snowballing demands of industrial age managers. However, in the new knowledge economy, managers need to be world-class leaders and innovators who can handle complex situations in a dynamic environment with élan and are sensitive to environmental forces. He said that business education must infuse a range of inputs like culture, technology, etc to programs that drive the company’s growth as well as ameliorate the well-being of people. It is important to keep up the pace of growth of wealth generated in today’s economy without the economic disparity that has got accentuated lately. He wished the students well and urged them to fulfil their aspirations and the goal of a developed India.

Kalyani in his welcome address delved on the rapid progress of India in the global economic scenario and applauded the development of IIM-Indore as another step towards building India’s knowledge capital, which according to him will be the key driving force of competitiveness for our economy for many years to come. He said that India’s intellectual horsepower and inherently strong educational culture enables us to leverage the opportunities presented by economic liberalisation and phenomena like ‘reverse brain drain’ gaining momentum.

Dr. S P Parashar, Director, IIM-Indore, highlighted progress of the institute since inception in 1996. He said it has been a journey of rapid growth and IIM Indore today stands shoulder to shoulder in the league of top business schools in India and is fast emerging on the international scene. He also elaborated on the plans of IIM Indore for 2006-07:

Increase student intake for the PGP programme from 120 to 180 Launch Fellow programme (equivalent of Ph.D) Launch web-based programmes Institute more Centres of Excellence and Research Chairs Enter into student and faculty exchange programmes with premier business schools across Asia, Europe and the US.