DMS, IIT-Delhi:
Racing Ahead to the Top!
- by Parthasarathy N. *
The key to remain abreast of
competition in the corporate world is 'Sustaining Your Competitive Advantage'.
While B-school students are taught and tested over how to sustain competitive
advantages for their brands and companies, there are promising B-schools that
evolve around their own competitive advantages, and Department of Management
Studies, IIT Delhi (DMS, IIT-D) is one of them.
Business Schools in India today
are warehouses of huge management talent pool in the making. The storage and
processing procedures are what demarcate one warehouse from the other. If a
B-school does nothing to aggrandize the managerial acumen of its wards, it would
always remain a warehouse. But to evolve, make a mark among so many excellent
B-schools in the country, it is not enough to be a warehouse. The need of the
hour is to be a Processing Center for Managerial Brains, and DMS, IIT-D seems to
have read this writing on the wall.
While the name IIT may strike to
everyone an image of a very technical institution, it is a little known fact
that IITs are making a conscious attempt to imbibe all disciplines into their
repertoire, all the time taking care not to deprive each of them of their
sanctity. An MBA course at IIT carries the essence of IIT, but only the ethical
and moral fabric of IIT - to be complete, honest and enriching. A look at the
students coming out of DMS, IIT-D would sure make this clear.
DMS makes sure its wards are
given the best of education and managerial exposure. Unique courses like Health
Care Management are offered to the students apart from the mainstream curriculum
to give them an insight into various requirements of the market. To do complete
justice to this, Prof. Stan Kachnowski of Columbia University has
been invited to hold sessions for this course. Prof. Kachnowski floated this
course for all the students of DMS as an elective and students enrolled for this
course were engaged in a Two-Day Intensive Workshop on Healthcare Management,
which was presided over by Mr. Jonathan White, Senior Vice President,
Worldwide Technology and Business Innovation, Pfizer Inc.
Mr. Jonathan White flew in from
New York to judge a business plan competition at DMS, IIT-Delhi. The competition
was part of Healthcare e-governance course conducted by Prof. Stan Kachnowski.
Both Prof Kachnowski and Dr. White were impressed by the quality of students.
"You all have lived by your truly word-class reputation and I am thoroughly
impressed," said Dr. White while addressing the class after the competition.
Some students of DMS, IIT-D are also pursuing their summers at Pfizer Inc., USA.
DMS, IIT-D is one of those unique
B-schools in the country with a philosophy of its own. World over the need of
considering an organization with respect to the environment it sustains in is
being observed, and it is a universally accepted fact that the key to master
this situation is Flexibility - in processes, in persons and in organizations.
This can be achieved only by observing, understanding and mastering the
organizations in a holistic perspective. DMS, IIT-D focuses its curriculum and
activities wholly on this perspective, and this has attracted managerial talent
worldwide to take strong notice of DMS, IIT-D, a result of which was the visit
of Evening Batch MBA Students of University of Minnesota. 33 Students of the
Management of Technology programme of Carlson School of Management,
University of Minnesota visited DMS, IIT-Delhi and interacted with both
students and faculty. The HoD of the School, who also visited DMS, in a note
mentioned that he and his students were impressed by the way students and
corporats in India were leveraging their core capabilities in science,
technology, manufacturing, intellectual / human capital, improved processes,
know-how, and leadership base to power economic growth and to realize India's
aspirations toward societal progress with positive economic impact, which is
where students of DMS can efficiently contribute. The visiting students were all
either entrepreneurs or students who have earlier worked in organizations like
Sea Gate, BEA Systems, for long years and were looking for a career change. They
learnt of the philosophy and focus of DMS, IIT-D and chose to visit the
institute for a week to interact with the students and faculty. Their visit was
as enlightening to the students of DMS as it was to them.
The uniqueness and validity of
the thought, philosophy and focus of DMS, IIT-D is reflected through the
universal barometer we employ to measure the strength of a B-school - The
Placement Statistics. Companies that visited the campus and recruited the
students learnt about the institute and students, and being immensely satisfied
with them had upped their recruitment figures. This industry appreciation to the
institute and students is illustrated by the fact that corporate appreciated the
compensation offered to the students of DMS after their interaction with the
students and discussions thereafter. The positive feedback about the students
seemed to reach the right sources, thus, escalating the erstwhile average salary
of INR 8.57 Lakhs per annum on the placement day to INR 8.892 Lakhs per annum,
which was the outcome of the increased compensation offered in the Final Offer
Letters received. The median salary now stands at INR 8.35 Lakhs per annum.
Companies were very eager to have the students on their rolls and this resulted
in a final roll out of 94 offers to a class of 45 students, thus, ending each
student with an average of 2.1 offers. This is a standing testimony to the fact
that the convictions and focus of DMS, IIT-D are what makes market-ready
managers who can take organizations to greater heights.
