In Conversation with Professor Debasis Mallik (Director, Institute of Management, Nirma University Ahmedabad)

Institute of Management, Nirma University Ahmedabad is a private institute that was established in 1996. It is NAAC accredited and UGC recognised. Institute of Management is a constituent of Nirma University Ahmedabad. Courses at the Institute of Management Ahmedabad include MBA, integrated courses like BBA+MBA, B.Tech+MBA and PhD in Management. Know more about the Institute of Management Ahmedabad admissions, programmes in the article below.

Careers360: What makes the Institute of Management, Nirma University distinguished in providing practical management education?

Prof. Debasis Mallik: Since I joined, I have been trying to change the overall teaching-learning pedagogy, especially if you look at the learning experience of students. That is where we are trying to bring a pattern shift and we are trying to see how we can have more facilitators and fewer teachers, which essentially means that we don't want you to know happy lecture mode all the time. So we are trying to specialise more on the learning experience of the students which is more of you know two-way attraction or maybe some part is non-classroom learning also. So for that what we are doing is we are all that can be learned from books and case studies we ask them to read and come to the class. So, of course, the students have a lot of prework before the end of class and once they are there, the discussion that happens in the class is not teaching, it is discussion.

Discussion on what they learned and to clarify the doubts. So that we can move to the next level of application-oriented learning. So typically for example a class in accounting can be like you learn the basics of accounting as a book, there are YouTube videos, there are a lot of online you know teaching tools do that and come to the class, we start with the balance sheet right away. So we will not discuss which company's balance sheet it is because then they might get biased, so we start with the balance sheet and say where do you find, what has gone wrong, what is right, what could have gone, what kind of a company is this? Why do you feel the company is liquid and ash-rich?

Do you think that the company is having any liquidity issues? Do you think that the dates can be managed in a better way? So, do you think that the company should come out with an IPO based on its financials? So, these are the improved conversations that we have in the class and this is where I am trying to take it. So, of course, this requires a lot of, one thing, which is very good for us like all the top business schools. Our programme is a restriction programme and that is a boom you know, a great boom because students don't have the burden of going home after classes every day.

So they are here they can chat in the canteen and discuss among themselves still midnight post-midnight till whatever time they want to. So that helps a lot and that also helps in different ways for example we try to form groups which are diverse so for example in a group if there is a CA and there are four engineering students Then the CA can teach these students about the basic accounts part where the engineering students could be weak or for example in a group there is an economics order student so the economics order student can you know help the students with courses like managerial economics or business environment and so on. Where other students may not be so good. I think there is a course or say decision-making processes or say optimisation techniques then the engineering will do well engineering students will teach the CA look you taught me there now I am going to teach you this. So these kinds of issues are there, these kinds of things we are doing slightly differently and we are focusing more on self-learning.

Self-learning so that the owner of learning is not on the faculty. The owner of the teaching is not on the faculty. If the faculty is just a ringmaster, just to calibrate and to see that all the players are doing their job well. So that is 1 of the principle differentiators. Another thing which I discovered after joining the name is that most of the students I see are very grounded and very very counted. They don't come with a chip on their shoulder. They don't, they are quite down to earth. You know, and they are keen to learn and one of the reasons why they are keen to learn is because they don't belong to a top 10 business school. So they know that there is a long way to go. So that is why the urge to learn is more.

They know that they have to do well only then they will get the right job opportunities. So that is a big help to ask you to know that arrogance is the end of learning once anybody is arrogant and you know feel that I know it all then no matter how much effort you take it's a time. So these are a few things and of course, we are trying to strengthen a lot of alumni relations also because at the end of the day you know they play a very important role in nurturing the students when they are ready for placements. Do you know what process they went through? They passed it out to the students so that also was not so strong earlier. We are trying to strengthen alumni bonding so just over the last 4 months I had two alumni meets. One in Delhi and another in Bombay. So I am just trying to activate you know, everybody so that some movement happens.

Careers360: What are the different management programmes taught at the Institute of Management, Nirma University?

Prof. Debasis Mallik: Traditionally we have, I mean, traditionally we were not a university, we became a university only in the year 2003. So before that, we were offering the PGDM programme just like you know XLRI or SPJIMR or MDI and so on. In 2003 when we became a university, the Institute of Management also became part of the university. So since then, we have been called you know Institute of Management, Nirma University. Earlier it used to be a Nirma Institute of Management.

So now we have the MBA programme which is our flagship programme which used to be an earlier PGDM programme and along with that over the last few years we have started a few more programmes we have a programme called MBA in HR we call it MBA HR and it is not just a specialisation like first year they do all together and then second year they special either we don't do that thing. We treat these students differently right from the beginning. We try to get courses which are not typical technical courses like fintech or say corporate finance or or deep into supply chain management and all that. Those are not the subjects which are taught in this course.

So we deal with these students with a lot of care and we have just crafted a new programme called MBA HRM. It is doing quite well. We have a very small cohort of just 50 students year on year. We are not, we have no plans to increase the cohort size also and that programme is doing very well because these will be you know flat bearers and the corporate representative of Nirma eventually. So that is why we handle this programme with a lot of care and then we have, we have programmes which are kind of integrated programmes like we have a BBA MBA programme which we call integrated MBA programme, MBA programme.

Then we just last year started a new programme called B.tech MBA. So it again reduces the duration of the B.Tech by 1 year. So it is a 3 plus 2 model which is a 5-year integrated model now all IIMs have also started a lot of others all started just like the BBA MBA model. So we have BBA, MBA, we have B.Tech MBA, we are also planning to start you know BE MBA for mechanical engineering students and electrical and so on. So those are the things. And eventually, we are also planning to start a 1 year MBA model. Maybe soon, maybe in one year. We are planning to start a one-year MBA programme. Only for experienced 4 years plus experienced candidates.

Careers360: What is the key to a healthy balance of academics and extracurriculars for a student? How is this developed at NIRMA?

Prof. Debasis Mallik: I am a strong proponent of out-of-the-classroom learning, non-classroom learning is a big you know I am a big fan of that and I have seen how some of my students have transformed into years and those students who are very weak in the class, those students who have been always doing something on the other other than class, other than the subjects.

So these students I have typically seen, they have just been able to pass B or a B + and so whatever a plus a, nothing like that. The B category did not do so but they have always made it in the B category and they have done the annual fest, they have been participating in competitions, football, volleyball and doing everything other than studies and you will be surprised, these are the students who get the best of the best jobs. And when I was at SPJIMR, I was always in charge of you know for over 10 to 12 years I was in charge of the annual fest Ojas.

I used to handle Ojas and every year the convener of Ojas grabbed one of the best jobs in the industry. And they used to always scream “Sir because of you we are not able to concentrate on our studies”, I used to tell them about it, about yeah studies are important but then if you do this very well, it you know, makes you a better human being because you know most of the learning in management is how do you manage people how do you perform in different kinds of sets, different kinds of frames and how do you put your learning from the class in real life. So here also I am trying to push a lot of students to participate in competitions. Participation in competitions across the country is not just winning, it is also just participation. Participation in different ways.

They get to know a lot of new people there, they get to know students of their level in other institutions. What do they learn, what do they do? So a lot of these kinds of discussions happen and then when they come back, they say “You know Sir we went there, so at that place and you know this is the way they are doing things, can't we do this? can't we do that?” So they also bring new ideas to the table and more than anything else you know it also helps to build our brand because then Nirma is visible in some Trichy, some college or in Haryana or Gurgaon wherever it is Bangalore and so on from where otherwise we wouldn't have got students.

So the all India presence of Nirma can happen only when we can spread our technology throughout the country and competition and remind people to the campus throughout the country and so on is one of the very important ways to help people know that we exist. So non-classroom learning is a very big thing and we strongly facilitated it also from the teaching perspective for example we have a lot of simulation-based courses where you know a real-life situation is created and then you play on it, you debate on it and groups are formed and they groups are like companies and they have to perform one against another and so on. We have a lot of case study competitions, we have the fests as I told you, we have more than 24 committees and groups, health and hygiene you know, you name it and we have it and all the students are distributed across these groups and these are all graded activities. So each of the committees just like when you are joining a job have JDs in your job description similarly every committee has a JD and they are evaluated based on what is the extent to which they perform and where did they not so at the end of the year there is a pool of faculty at students and Alumni together judge others.

How well you have performed, what could have been better and how the next committee will do better and then at the end of the year, this is there only in the first year, not in the second year because in the second year, they are very busy with their electives and specialisations and also job search and interviews and so on. So this kind of exposure we generally practice in the first year. Second year, they are not so much involved in these groups and committees. Like just last week, we had our international conference and mostly everything was so smooth and seamless. It's only you know that you can see Rajesh Khanna singing the song but in the background, there is Kishore Kumar. So these students are Kishore Kumar's.

Careers360: What is your vision for the future of the Institute of Management, Nirma University?

Prof. Debasis Mallik: One thing which I wanted, I have already achieved, I have already in the last 6 months and I am about to sign 3 good MOUs with 3 US universities, Michigan State University, University of Linashicao and University of California Davis. So, from the collaboration perspective and inasha and exchange that is quite taken care of now with these 3 MOUs. The next target for me is to bring the salary levels, and the placement records of students to at least 20 lakhs plus, that bracket 20 lakhs bracket.

It's not an easy game because for that I need to mobilize my alumni, recruiters, everything but that is one of the challenges I have and that is one of my you know, short-term missions if you can say 2 to 3 years and another very important thing which I think is very important in today's world, especially from the brand perception and for even for the outside world to recognise us is rankings and accreditations. So, we want to come in NIRF 20 very shortly and for accreditations also, we want to be triple ground, AACSB and above together so these are the three things that I am working towards now

About Professor Debasis Mallik

A PhD (Econ) with 30 years of experience in teaching, research, accreditation, academic leadership and international collaborations, Professor Debasis Mallik has been a conscientious contributor to SPJIMR, Mumbai for 18 years and later to Prestige Institute of Management & Research (PIMR), Indore for over two years. He has published extensively in international peer-reviewed journals. He loves working on accreditation & ranking, student learning experiences, curriculum management and alumni engagement.