MBA at VIT Business School: Interview with Dr. A Sivakumar

In this exclusive interview with Careers360, Dr. A Sivakumar (Professor), talks about VIT Business School admission, key features of VIT BS MBA, specialisations, placements and more. Read the interview to know more about VIT Business School.

About: Vellore Institute of Technology Business School (VITBS), Vellore was established in 1994. VITBS Vellore offers management courses at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels in different specialisations. Students need to apply in online mode. Selection at VIT Business School MBA is on the basis of CAT/ XAT/ MAT/ NMAT/ GMAT/ CMAT/ ATMA scores, academic scores and performance in the personal interview.

Q. MBA admissions at VIT Business School are open till February 3. Can you give details of the admission process?

A: Students need to apply online. The information will be available immediately after they apply. The VIT Business School MBA application considers Class 10th, and 12th marks, UG marks, and scores of CAT/ MAT/ XAT. Shortlisted candidates will be issued the admission letter for the MBA programme.

Q. Which entrance exam has a higher weightage when it comes to VITBS MBA admissions?

A. CAT is given greater weightage as compared to other entrance exams. Further, shortlisted candidates will be called for an interview. Based on the combined scores of the entrance exam + personal interview, the final list of selected candidates is released.

Q. CAT / XAT / MAT / NMAT / GMAT / CMAT / ATMA to be eligible are considered for shortlisting. Which entrance exam will be considered in case a student has appeared for more than one?

A: CAT gets a greater weightage compared to any of the other entrance exams. In case students have appeared for more than once entrance exams, we will consider the best scores provided students have mentioned the same in their application forms and have proof of the same.

Q. MBA specialisations offered at VITBS are Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Operations & Business Analytics. When are students asked to choose one?

A: At VIT Business School, students go through all the courses in the first year. They are exposed to various functional areas like Marketing, Finance, Information Systems and Human Resources. At the end of the first year, students are given orientation on the different specialisations along with personal counselling. That helps them in choosing the specialisation that will fit in with what they want to do in their career. It's at the end of the first year and not at the time of application.

Q. Does work experience count? If yes, is there any ratio of freshers vs experienced during admissions?

A: VIT Business School doesn't have a ratio as such. However, we give preference to those with work experience as compared to freshers. We believe that students with work experience can make a big difference in terms of the heterogeneity in the classroom and also contribute better in terms of class distributions.

Q. What were last year’s general cutoffs for CAT / XAT / MAT / NMAT / GMAT / CMAT / ATMA?

A: This year we have a large amount of applications. The past VIT Business School cut off may not be a good indicator of what may happen this year. So, I would rather say that it depends upon the nature of the competition in terms of the different applications. Since they come with a wide variety of entrance examinations in the cutoff. It is not fair to talk of a particular cut off. I would only encourage people to apply and see further.

Q. What are the various scholarships that students can avail? Please give details

A: VIT Business School has different kinds of scholarships based on means and merit and also based on their CAT scores. The details are available on the VIT Business School website. Scholarships at VITBS are separate for different categories such as merit-base, sports category, government schemes and more. Some VIT Business School scholarships are VITEEE Scholarship given under “GV School Development Programme” (GVSDP), Smt. Rajeswari Viswanathan Memorial Scholarship etc.

Q. Please elaborate on the MBA programme highlights in detail so students get an idea of the same.

A: I would like to highlight five aspects that matter:

1. 12 weeks of internship - this is mandatory. The three months spent by students will give them a better idea of what is happening in the company and the companies will be able to gauge the performance properly. The result is high chances of most of these internships converting into placements.

2. Immersive project-based training on Business Analytics - This is compulsory for every student because we believe that Business Analytics will be the need across every specialisation. Therefore, Business Analytics is a compulsory core course in the curriculum.

3. Cases and simulation as a pedagogy - More than lectures, students have cases and simulation resulting in greater experiential learning for the students through these pedagogies.

4. Six Credit Career Management course - This is unique. Students who get into MBA are generally not clear about their career paths, options available and how they can fit into those careers. This course aims to fill this gap.

During the six-credit course, we try to inculcate Career Management. Starting with, understanding their skill sets, industry requirements, match between the two and finally attitudes. This course is more of experiential learning to help students fit easily into the careers that they want to pursue.

Q. A sync with industry is a must. In this context what is the industry led pedagogy that is followed by VIT Business School? Please elaborate.

A: We have several kinds of contact points with the industry.

1. Every course has an industry expert who comes and shares his views, gives insights on the current and future trends. For example, if it is Retailing, somebody from the retail industry comes and talks about online and offline retail, what are the trends and what’s happening etc.

2. Industrial visits are a part of the course and help students get a close view into the industry.

3. Alumni talks and guidance. Our alumni come and share their experiences with the industry. That’s another way we try to link students with the industry.

4- The Business and Society course in the second year. While pursuing this, students work with the local MSMEs and medium and micro enterprises. The exercise gives them consulting experience and the opportunity to implement the learnings from their MBA programme in real life. This means, that instead of just only listening to what those from the industry are telling them, they are going to talk to the industry and suggest what can be done.

Q. When does the 1+1 Exchange Programme with US partnered universities take place?

A: This is optional and is open at the end of the first year. Any student can opt for this programme with the University of Michigan. However, they need to meet the eligibility criteria in terms of CGPA and other requirements of the partner university. The good part is that students will get a dual degree. They get a one-year MS from the partner university abroad plus an MBA from VITBS because we consider the credits of the programme for completion of the MBA programme here.

Q. There is a focus on Business Analytics in each functional area. How does this benefit students?

A: It is a fact that analytics has kind of penetrated across all the functional areas. It has now become the most important element in business be it finance, marketing or human resource or information systems; you have Analytics coming in all of these areas. At VIT Business School, Business Analytics is an important core part of the MBA programme. Students get exposed to all the various techniques of Business Analytics and their application across multiple functional areas. In the second year, they can also opt to specialise in each one of the Analytics specialisations like Financial Analytics, Marketing Analytics etc.

Q. Unique courses such as Fintech, Business & Society and Design Thinking are part of the curriculum. Are they for everyone or electives that students can pick and choose?

A: Fintech is an elective course mainly for those who are pursuing finance. Fintech is important because almost every financial transaction is now digitised and there is technology involved even in Finance. Hence Fintech is a course for students who have opted for Finance as a specialisation.

Business & Society is a core course that all students need to go through as explained earlier.

Design Thinking is a generic course. Those who get into the industry or want to go into entrepreneurship, would have to look at new product or service development. This is when they need to think in terms of how a designer should develop a product or service etc. A design aspect is involved here and a student who knows what this is will do well. All this is to make students industry ready.

Q. Please give insights on the internships that students have to undertake.

A: Internship is a compulsory requirement and every student goes through an internship. One quarter/ three months or 12 weeks of internship is a requirement for every student. Typically the student gets a paid internship. At the university level, we have a Career Development Centre (CDC) which takes care of the internships for the students. However, we have a faculty from the VIT Business School who is in charge of connecting the Career Development Centre to specifically Business School internships. These options are open and available to all the students who register for the same. Most of the companies that come for internships conduct the interviews like a final job placement process. This is because they can evaluate somebody very closely for 3 months and see if they are fine to absorb. Most of the time, students get a pre-placement offer which means the internship will get converted into a job for them.

Q. How are accreditations like Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programmes (ACBSP), USA useful for students?

A: At the country level we have Indian Accreditations for the entire university. VIT is getting accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). VIT Business School is a constituent school of Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore which contributed towards the NAAC accreditation. In the current context, in a globalised world, we require global accreditations. There are two types of global accreditations, one is the school getting accredited and we have ACBSP and AACSB accreditation in that category. We also have ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) accreditation for the BBA programme which is a programme-level accreditation.

The benefits are once you are AACSB accredited then its understood that stringent and rigorous quality management process has been there for every activity that goes on in the business school. Almost all international accreditations look through admissions, what is happening in terms of the teaching and learning process, what happens to the students after they graduate, placements, faculty and faculty recruitments and their contribution to the business school. All these are part of the accreditation process.

Essentially what students get when they get admission at AACSB accredited business school like VIT Business School is an assurance of the quality of the entire academic process.

Q. Please give details of the latest placement statistics.

A: Both the latest VIT Business School placements and internships are still ongoing and 70% of students are placed. This entire placement process will be over at the end of this month. If we look at the last few years' placements, more than 100 companies have visited the campus for placements. The number of offers depends upon their requirements and till now we have had a good run of placements. We are expecting the same to continue this year and the years to come. VIT Business School average salary package last year was about Rs. 11 LPA.

About the Interviewee

Dr Sivakumar is a professor in the Marketing area and comes with around 25 years of experience in academics. Professor SivaKumar holds PhD in Marketing from TU Delft Netherlands with a published book on Retailing under his name and also served as a Guest Columnist in RetailBiz a retail magazine for four years. His cases have won prizes at the ISB-Ivey Global Case Competitions and are listed in prestigious Case Clearing houses like Harvard, Ivey.

Professor Sivakumar has coordinated AACSB accreditation at VIT and TAPMI Manipal and co-facilitated AACSB workshops in India and abroad. Professor SivaKuma also taught in institutions like Oakland University Michigan USA, IIM Bangalore, Vizag and NIAM Jaipur.