Siva Sivani Institute of Management, Hyderabad: Interview with Dr S.V. Ramana Rao, Director

Siva Sivani Institute of Management (SSIM), Hyderabad started functioning as an autonomous institute in the year 1992. SSIM is the first AICTE-approved B-School in Telugu speaking states. The PGDM programmes of SSIM received accreditation from National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in the year 2014 and re-accreditation in the year 2021. SSIM courses are PGDM, PGDM (BIFS), PGDM (BA), and FPM/EFPM. Percentile/scores of Aptitude Test (CAT/XAT/MAT/CMAT/ATMA/GMAT/State Government Exam) are accepted for SSIM Hyderabad admissions to PGDM programmes. For admission to the FPM/EFPM programme, candidates have to appear in the admission test SRAT conducted by SSIM. However, scores obtained by the candidate in UGC NET/JRF/SET is also considered valid for FPM/EFPM admission. Siva Sivani Institute of Management provides merit scholarship based on the entrance exam score/rank/percentile and academic background (10th, 12th and Graduation).

Careers360 in this interview with Dr S.V. Ramana Rao, Director of Siva Sivani Institute of Management, Hyderabad. In his interview, Dr S.V. Ramana Rao shared the details about the institute, the courses it offers, the admission process, and the placement track report. Dr S.V. Ramana Raohas also answered several queries related to the PGDM and its specialisations, entrance exam scores accepted for SSIM Hyderabad admission and details of the alumni network at SSIM. To know more about SSIM Hyderabad go through the completed interview of Dr S.V. Ramana Rao, Director of SSIM with Careers360.

Careers360: Siva Sivani Institute of Management, Hyderabad popularly known as SSIM started functioning from 1992 as an autonomous institute. Please describe the journey so far and the achievements.

Answer: Siva Sivani Institute of Management started its courses in 1992. The institute started with a PGDM programme approved by AICTE. In the past 30 years, the institute has progressed tremendously and the institute is offering PGDM, PGDM (BIFS) and PGDM (BA). The institute recently introduced a Fellow Programme In Management (FPM) which is equivalent to the doctoral programme. Four different programmes have been offered in the institute as of now. The institute has got accreditation from NAAC and NBA for its flagship PGDM programme and very recently the institute completed the second cycle of it. The institute started its journey in 1992 with a modest intake of 40 students and today the institute intake is 300, occurring in all three different programmes at the master’s level. For PGDM the seat intake is 180, PGDM (BIFS) is 60 and PGDM (BA) is also 60.

Careers360: The institute offers PGDM. Could you give details on the various PGDM programmes.

Answer: The PGDM programmes are Post Graduate Diploma in Management, these are all approved by AICTE and autonomous schools are offering these kinds of programmes. SSIM is offering three different programmes one is PGDM and since students are allowed to take three specialisations after completion of their first year, popularly students called it as triple specialisation and in the short form, they called it as TPS. To cater to the needs of the banking and insurance sectors, the institute introduced PGDM (BIFS) programme in the year 2007. The students who are going through this particular programme, get the requisite knowledge in skills and in the area of banking, insurance and financial services. Especially the students who are very keen to go for the finance domain, banking or insurance, they normally prefer this particular programme. SSIM started Business Analytics in the year 2020 and this programme basically covers three broad domains: Information Technology (IT), Statistics and Business Analytics. The students who are very keen with the aptitude for quantitative numbers and wanted to get into the Business Analytics or Data Science domain, normally choose this particular programme. PGDM- Triple Specialisation programme, which is the flagship programme and started in 1992. Students who wanted to have different combinations for their career choices, like students interested to go for Finance, Marketing and Analytics, can choose this PGDM programme wherein they are allowed to choose Finance, Marketing and Analytics courses. Similarly, if somebody is interested in Marketing, Operations and Digital Marketing. So, the students can go for PGDM programme wherein they can choose Marketing courses as a major and then Operations as a minor and then Analytics, the Digital Marketing in the sectoral programme.

Careers360: How should a student choose the PGDM specialization? Please advise.

Answer: Normally, the institutes will try to orient the students on the kind of offerings the institute is making, the employment opportunities that are available and also the institute did for example in SSIM. The students who are enrolled in the PGDM programme, the first year they will be going through all the common courses or the core courses and in the third trimester the institute will provide orientation by all the functional heads and also the placement team. Also the institute rope in the industry expertise in the various domains, who can share the kind of opportunities that opened up available in the marketplace. So, this kind of input is basically provided by the institute to the students. So, with this information, students would comfortably choose and find out what they like and what is their career and how they can connect these two. In addition to that, the institute advises the students to go for the psychometric test, which would basically help them to understand their personality. Because this also plays a major role while choosing a particular specialisation and also having a career plan.

Careers360: What is the unique feature of the PGDM with triple specialization? Please give details on Major + Minor + Sectorial.

Answer: I definitely agree with this kind of statement because if a student is not very clear about the career choice or is very clear in terms of what he/she is planning to do. And down the lane of five years, if the other sector is opening up or another functional area is providing a lot of opportunities at that time, the student who has done this triple specialisation will have an advantage. Take an instance a student who started a job in the area of finance and after five years the student found that he has a strong flavour for marketing and probably five years of spending in the market could have made him understand that he is in a better marketeer then the minor that he has chosen marketing will become handy at that point of time. In certain cases like suppose a student is starting his career in the area of finance or selling financial products. Especially, in today’s marketing environment, companies are expecting to have exposure, the familiarity with more than one domain because in the organisation the majority of functions are interdependent and interlinked not interconnected. So, thereby the students who are doing more than one specialisation will certainly have an advantage.

Careers360: What is the eligibility for these programmes? The institute uses CAT/XAT/MAT/CMAT/ATMA/GMAT and State Government Entrance Exam scores for admissions. Which exam is given more weightage? Is there any preference order to this?

Answer: Normally the schools will look for the aptitude scores and they will decide the cutoffs. But SSIM strongly believes in a different kind of academic progression that the student has made till date to be considered, without believing the institute gives weightage to the graduation scores and also the aptitude scores and also the performance during the personal interview, group discussion and statement of purpose that the student submit, the video introduction of the candidate, these are all the various parameters the institute consider as it doesn’t go only on the aptitude scores. The Institute does a comprehensive assessment of the student for admission into the PGDM programme. Because the kind of academic progression that the candidate has made till graduation has got its own weightage and it's going to help the candidate to do well after getting the admission. That's why the institute should not be ignorant of that and that’s why it gave weightage to the graduation scores, the aptitude scores and also the performance in group discussions, and personal interviews in addition to the SOP that the candidate submits.

Careers360: What are the entrance exam cutoffs that are used for admissions?

Answer: The particular one that we do at SSIM is that we go by the relative of this course that the candidate made. We don’t say that this percentile is mandatory one. Because in a particular year, the scores would vary depending on the CAT paper and all. So, that's why normally 50% we consider but in certain cases, in particular, year if these scores or the paper is very tough and the scores are not so good then in that cases we will try to reduce the cutoff but normally we go on the particular academic admission cycle, the kind of applications we received by different levels or scores and based on that we decide the cutoffs.

Careers360: Students from vernacular mediums generally feel apprehensive about their chances of admission and coping mechanisms. Would you elaborate on the admission process for such candidates?

Answer: It's a very quite common question that we come across from various students especially when they are coming for counselling, the parents also express this kind of concern. SSIM has got managerial competency modules, wherein we have different modules that would help the students to overcome this particular challenge. For example, in the first trimester, a student has to do a company fact presentation. Here the students will pick up the company of his/her choice and thoroughly go through the entire content that is available from different sources and then prepare the PowerPoint presentation and make a presentation in the class. In this process, the students would thoroughly go through the company profile and make himself or herself ready for the presentation. Since it's in a mandatory module a few students do have fear and are apprehensive about their presentation. But, since it's mandatory they attempt it very seriously and in the process they try to overcome the fear factor first and the second one is to develop the skill of presentation. Like this, there are five different modules in five different trimesters, this is the one way of addressing this particular programme. The second one is that, we have modules called experiential learning and social project and it's all team-based or group-based activities. And here we put students from different regions wherein the common language for them to speak is only English and when it comes to the team performances and they are working in a team, they obviously need to speak in English. Over a period of these two years, they definitely overcome the language limitation that they are worthy of and also communication wise there is a better off because they are making a lot of presentations during that two-year time period. And the faculty would push the students to come up with preparations to make the presentation especially when the faculty is administering the cases for their courses.

Careers360: Placements are very important from a student’s perspective. Please give details on the latest placement statistics as well as details about the top recruiters and roles/ profiles that students have taken up in this drive.

Answer: In any school for its survival for a longer period of time, especially in business schools, need to have a very good placement record then only the student would look for the school for their admissions. Siva Sivani being the oldest one, has got a very good placement track record and every year we place 90% above our students in various firms. Students who are opting out from the placement obviously will be joining their own family businesses or maybe starting their own ventures. Otherwise, all other students would be getting placement through the campus placement cells. Companies like Deloitte, Accenture, KPMG, Oxane Partners and companies from different sectors also participate in the SSIM Hyderabad placement drive. We conduct the placement week and different companies look for that placement week and then the companies would be choosing their choice of participation through the placement that is to happen in SSIM. Students looking for companies like Deloitte, Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and Bandhan Bank do visit the campus for recruitment. Like, sector-wise we have different companies that regularly visit and pick up the students from the institute and when it comes to the students' progression after joining, today we are able to see the earlier batches of students occupying the top positions in the organisations. There are students who rose up to the position of vice president or CEO and they are really making a mark in the places where they are working. Varying from year to year and last year we take the top 20% of them got around an average salary package of Rs. 7.5 LPA.

Careers360: Please give details of the alumni network at SSIM.

Answer: SSIM has a registered Alumni Chapter and every year on the third Saturday in the month of December, the alumni meet does happen on the campus. Apart from this, we have a Chapter in Bangalore and also we have a Chapter in Delhi. Around 4000+ alumni are there in the industry and we rope in the alumni to the institute for various events apart from the alumni meet. For example, there is a programme inauguration, we first look for our alumni to be the chief guest so that they can share their experiences when they are on campus and also when they are in the industry. A majority of our alumni are being in the senior position, they help us in our placement process. And also when we do the company-specific training, rudimentary it would be alumni who will be sharing the company details and what kind of operations that the company is involved in and what kind of verticals they have, what kind of career progression the students will have, and what kind of work culture is there. When the alumni come to the campus for alumni meet, we connect the present students who are on the campus with that alumni and then there will be a networking that would happen and the alumni would guide and do mentoring the students who are on the campus.

Careers360: What factors according to you should a student consider while choosing an institute and course?

Answer: When it comes to the choice of an institution, there is no doubt that the students definitely look for placements and then how much I’m going to get back and all. In addition to that, the student must look for the institute's legacy and the institute intellectual capital in terms of the faculty and their experiences and the kind of pedagogy that the institute is following because there are many institutions which really help the students to have the holistic development, whether that particular development would happen or not has to be looked by seeing the programme structure that the institute is having because each institute follows their own programme structure because these are all autonomous business schools and then what kind of modules that have been embedded in the programme structure and how is that going to help for the student's development. Siva Sivani Institute of Management strongly believes in the learning process and if the learning process is very strong, placement is the outcome of the entire learning process and it should come automatically, they should not try separately for placements and all. So, they must look for the kind of programme structure that the institute is having, the faculty and what kind of pedagogy the institute is following and there are many other factors. Today, even these accreditations would play a major role because accreditation is the symbol of quality and it is an important factor that the students look for.

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