Setting Up a New University

 I am now in the position a brand manager for a new brand finds himself in. It's an exciting process, with a lot of things to be done. With a usual product-based brand, it's about the Go-to-market plan/strategy. But with an educational brand like ours, it's a lot more than that. It's a vision, that has to translate into action on multiple fronts. I am involved as the VC, in setting up Prestige University, a new venture at Indore.

The most difficult part in any educational endeavour is getting the right people. In a university like ours, it's three kinds of people- the students, who would become our Brand Ambassadors, the faculty, who will be the torch-bearers, and the non-teaching staff who will support these without questions.The physical infrastructure is the easy part, and is a hygiene factor.

So we are now on a quest to recruit the best faculty we can find. We have a range of niche MBA programs, so it's not an easy ask. Sustainability, Supply Chain, Analytics, E-business, and Agri-business/Food are the areas we will cover. We also plan to offer a 5-year integrated MBA program, made popular by IIM Indore and others.

Students would come through CAT and similar competitive exams conducted on a national scale. We also have plans to offer programs for experienced people in an online mode, because that enables executives to enroll without leaving their jobs. A lot more is on offer, and will be rolled out at an appropriate time. 

One Year With Brand NMIMS Bangalore

 Late in November 2021, I completed my first year at NMIMS Bangalore. Some reflections-

In spite of the pandemic, students exhibited a lot of energy whenever I met them online, and sometimes, offline. They were curious and enthusiastic, which serves you well, I think, rather than being a boring genius. 

Students of the Year, MBA (above) and Exec. PGDM (below)

Exec alums, and BBA girls who won medals.

Rank holders

Events, and guests -Finnish, below.

Exec PGDM alums (above) and MBA students below.

We try playing Golf in the grounds too, and train students who are interested.

I have seen two TEDx events, a couple of Marketing events, an HR Panel discussion, two online Convocations, an Independence Day curated online by students for cultural events, and a couple of Felicitation ceremonies for Rank Holders. We also managed to hold two FDPs on Teaching Innovations and Research, and also one physical Retreat with the VC and others at Lonavala. And an online Social gathering of FACULTY from across all campuses.

We have multiple campuses, each vibrant with its unique character, and mix of programs. Some have engineering, pharmacy (we don't). At Bangalore, we started with an Exec PGDM on weekends, and it is now into its 28th Batch. It is AMBA accredited, and quite successful. Followed by MBA, also accredited, and ranked 32nd in India by Business Today!

Undergrad programs have bright students coming mostly through the NPAT exam (for Law, BBA, Eco, Finance and Commerce), but we also have direct admission in B.Sc. (Applied Stats and Analytics), a unique program with placement potential. 60% in Maths or Stats at 12th grade is a pre-requisite to enter this program. 

Faculty have both industry and teaching experience, in most cases. Some Adjunct Faculty have over two decades of industry experience in Supply Chain, Advertising, Analytics and Strategy. A great group of mentors for students, in addition to a strong alumni base- helps us in placements, live projects and advice to young students. 

We will definitely go places, is what I think. Happy to be a part of this distinctive brand- Brand NMIMS Bangalore, as we have named it! 

NMIMS Bangalore

 Some of our offerings..at the city campus in Koramangala 

The campus.. includes a terrace on the 5th.

The facade, and the programs offered here- two are part time (one below and a general one-last pic), while the Banking &Fin Services program with CRISIL is full-time.

Undergraduate Programs in NMIMS

 We have quite a few innovative undergraduate programs in all the campuses including at Bangalore, where I now work. Not just a B.B.A., the younger cousin of M.B.A., but a program in Applied Statistics and Analytics, a B.Sc. Economics (Hons.), an integrated B.A./B.B.M. + LL.B. and a B.Com. (Hons.). Some of these are potentially job-oriented. All of them are rigorous, and add value to the plain vanilla courses offered routinely by others. Except for the Law courses, all others have an entrance exam conducted by NMIMS. 

We also have Post-graduate Executive programs at the Koramangala campus, specialising in Banking and Finance in partnership with CRISIL, and weekend programs too- one in Analytics, as well as a flagship MPE, an equivalent of the MBA for executives.

Milestone 600000

That's 600,000 views for my blog, that started around 2009, and has spent a decade in the virtual world. 1968 posts in all so far. Thank you, readers.

From the July 27 Google Stats-

Pageviews yesterday

99

Pageviews last month

3,549

Pageviews all time history

600,594

Pageviews today

148

Rain Fury

This year, it has spread to unusual places- almost the whole state of Kerala, Kodagu in Karnataka, and a few places in Gujarat.

Makes me wonder if there are any long term measures that one can take to prevent such devastation in case of heavy rains, and maybe also preserve the rainwater for use in lean times. Of course, emergency rescue in the short run needs a lot of improvement too. I do remember seeing some reports of cyclones on the east coast- Orissa, or Andhra Pradesh being handled relatively well sometime ago.

Governments would do well, both at the Centre and the states prone to such disasters (now we know many states are), to think about such measures in advance. For example, can release of water from dams that are likely to overflow be timed better so that it does not cause floods?

That is what progress is for. Otherwise, all talk of mundane applications of AI, IoT, Analytics,  and all that is just talk.

A Friend Retires

A friend (right, above) retires this month to go back to his hometown, Chennai. And I am happy that I can bug him a little more when we meet (more often) on our Golfing trips together. We have known each other since my days at Harihar (1995), when we worked at Kirloskar Institute. Also played Golf together at the wonderful course we had on campus.

I learnt a lot from him, including some of the niceties of SPSS. He is a natural teacher, and has also co-written a chapter in my Marketing Research book (on its way to a fourth edition soon). I was happy that he joined IMT Nagpur, where he has been the last few years, teaching HR at first, and then Analytics, which is his forte. He has helped countless people with their Ph.D. s, officially and unofficially.

I am happy I am in his list of friends. Happy retirement, Vijayakumar.

Blographics

This is the reported readership of this blog since it began ( I plead guilty to having started it all). I found it very interesting, assuming these are real readers. Earlier, I did have a revelation of sorts that there were statistics probably misreported due to servers being located in various non-English speaking nations that seemingly read my blog.

Anyway, accounting or discounting for trawling that idly sends anonymous comments to me fairly regularly, one may assume that there is some increase in readership of the said blog. I also have to thank some authors whose books I happened to review (not paid ones) for the spike in my blog viewership.

Interesting, and a graph of the sort that most sales companies would like to see. Thanks to the genuine readers. If you are reading this in spite of IPL (at least in India).

HR Analytics

Can human beings be analysed? There are jokes galore about men being an open book and women being difficult to figure out. But seriously, HR analytics is an idea whose time has arrived. In line with analytics of customers (marketing analytics) and Financial analytics (analysis of anything financial, such as instruments, investments, companies or what have you), HR analytics- both explanatory and predictive, has the potential to improve HR strategy and its impact on the organisation.

IMT Nagpur today launched its centre of excellence (a research centre) on Human Resource Analytics in style- at Hotel Airport Centre Point, Nagpur. It brought in HR experts from corporates in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and of course, Nagpur. There was a good gathering of all HR faculty and some others, student managers with interest in the area, and faculty research associates. An old friend, Mr. Vijay Phanshikar, who had launched my autobiography in Nagpur a year ago, was also there.

We hope many good things will come out of this initiative.

Data Analytics Seminar

There are lots of openings for MBAs in Data Analytics. This was the message that came out strongly in a seminar on the subject where I was the odd man out. Meaning, I was the academician among industry speakers. This was held at Narsee Monjee Institute's Hyderabad campus. I spoke about marketing analytics by virtue of my having written the marketing research book, and having taught the subject.

There was an interesting presentation on Banking and its uses for analytics, particular emphasis being fraud prevention by looking at patterns of spending or other behaviors. There was another on Big Data. That reminds me of a joke I read elsewhere that a person wanted to do a course on Analytics techniques, AND on Big Data, thinking that Big Data was a software package for analytics. Anyway,  what I gathered is that Big Data is all data, text or graphics or Facebook Likes or whatever, about an entity that you are tracking-like you and me. Gathering it is easier sometimes than figuring out how to use it. We frequently have this problem with all types of data.

Anyway, one sidelight was that a speaker likened the Data Analyst to a Sherlock Holmes on a murder trail, because you are trying to find meaning in it, by trying out various things, or trying to prove a hypothesis. There was some discussion about use of the cloud by small and large companies, and of applications for cricket players and teams, and techniques like Camera-based reviews.

All in all, an interesting 3 hours, compered and organised very well by the students.