The number of students obtaining a university degree rises annually and the subject major ‘business’ continues to be a popular choice. Whilst studying business can open a world of possibilities, to succeed in the global job market it is necessary to learn how to stand out among the crowds of students graduating each year. This is where Shanti Business School, Ahmedabad proves its mettle – year after year, striving for a wider recognition and educational excellence.
Shanti Business School (SBS) is a vibrant community, since its inception it has produced socially responsible and sought-after industry leaders. “We take pride in our student diversity, Students from various geographic areas of the country with different cultural backgrounds and education come to SBS”, shared – Dr. Neha Sharma, the Director of the B-School.
Sincerely concerned about promoting research among its faculty and thereby creating an intellectual ambience and ecosystem in the campus, all the courses offered during the two-year PGDM program at SBS are cross-disciplinary in nature. Among all the components, research has also been blended in the courses.
As the Management education by nature demands to be holistic, all the emerging fields of studies that are deemed fit for management students are introduced as workshops that are usually conducted by industry experts.
Global Opportunities Await
Well in-sync with the world in terms of the ICT-enabled infrastructure, SBS is known for its wide and constituent use of Digital Media. While also having a strong digital strategy, which enhances the ranking and visibility of the Institute website organically, this setup is also proposed to register on educational portals which are frequented by aspirants to get preliminary information on various institutes.
Operating as a research-dominant B-School, all the students at SBS are encouraged to write Research Papers, Blogs or articles based on their SIP or Grand Projects. SBS proposes to include writing projects as part of the assessment basket to encourage professional writing by students. Also, motivating students to go beyond their comfort zones and partake in extracurricular activities, at SBS participation in different intercollegiate events is recognized as a way of increasing student exposure, where – SBS usually sponsors the participation, travel, lodging and boarding for such purposes. “SBS proposes to enter into agreements with International Universities / Institutions of repute to facilitate student exchange, student travel, higher education opportunities etc.”, added Dr. Neha Sharma.
A Welcome Haven for All
Not only is the b-school a hotspot for budding management professionals of tomorrow, SBS is also sincerely concerned about promoting research among its faculty and thereby creating an intellectual ambience and ecosystem in the campus. While organizing research conferences, seminars, workshops, colloquiums etc. frequently with adequate advance planning and provision of budgets, SBS encourages all its faculty members, who have not completed PhD, to pursue PhD programs. Moreover, SBS has instituted a separate category of leave called ‘Duty Leave’ for purposes mentioned.
Infrastructural Brilliance
Even before the Pandemic, SBS had started providing e-learning facilities in classrooms for use of various kinds of electronic media and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education. These facilities utilize the latest technologies to assist and enhance knowledge distribution and call for flexible and active interactions amongst teachers and students. This was further enhanced during the Pandemic when online teaching emerged as the only way to conduct sessions and impart knowledge.
There are 12 classrooms for conducting sessions for the two batches of PGDM. Each classroom can accommodate the required number of students and is equipped with comfortable furniture, projector, speakers, computer and air conditioners. SBS provides sufficient space to ensure students learn Business, Communication and Data Science. The students are divided into small groups and the tutorial rooms are used. SBS complies with all the requirements of AICTE for infrastructure.
Industry-Academia Connections
SBS is proud of its Summer Internship Program (SIP), which is an integral part of the PGDM curriculum as they provide a unique opportunity to the students to assimilate their classroom teachings and apply them practically in a professional setup. Apart from this the internship also helps the student a glimpse into professional life and reduces the uncertainty in identifying their areas of interest. This is a valuable learning curve especially for students who have little exposure to the professional world. At the same time it also provides the industry with vibrant valuable human resources and potential candidates for recruitment. The students too gain from the Pre – Placement Offer (PPO) made by the industry.
Another area where SBS has worked very diligently is on enlisting itself with companies that do campus placement. There are many national and multinational companies that do pan-India campus recruitment and they have started visiting the SBS campus every year. A few examples of such companies are MRF, Hindustan Unilever and Nestle. Every year, when these companies start their process, SBS get an intimation for the same.
SBS has also worked on the quality of placement. During the last three years, a conscious effort has been made to have diverse job profiles on offer for the students. For example, during 2017-18 most of the jobs available for the marketing students were that of sales. However, during the last two years, SBS has been successful in getting diverse job profiles like that of digital marketing, marketing analytics, international marketing, retail store managers and BI intelligence for the well.
A total of 136 companies visited the campus last year, where the conversion ratio has also improved. In 2017-18, the conversion ratio of SBS was 0.38. And, with continuous placement training, the ratio improved to 0.92. Also, the average pay package is Rs. 5.5 LPA.
Emphasis Laid of Entrepreneurship
SBS acknowledges the importance of entrepreneurship and hence has decided to give a platform to the student managers to unleash their creative ideas. It has collaborated with Wadhwani Foundation, a not for profit organization that takes active part in large scale initiative in entrepreneurship and small business growth to run the Entrepreneurship course as a part of PGP curriculum. Entrepreneurship is a compulsory 3 credit subject for students studying in Semester II. This is done to develop more accountability of the students towards the course and at the same time unleash the nascent creativity existing amongst them through design thinking.
Developed fully in the form of projects, the students in groups of 2 or 3, over a period of 12 weeks are required to develop a prototype of a product or service that they feel has a need in the market. If the prototype is seen as investment worthy and the student group wishes to take the prototype further SBS has a provision of providing the initial pre-seed funding for the student group to take the project forward.
Dr. Neha Sharma – Director
A talented individual with over 25 years of corporate and academic experience, Dr. Neha Sharma holds a MBA and a Doctor Degree in the area of Services Marketing. She is widely recognized as an expert in the area of turnaround management of academic institutions and has a demonstrated history of introducing innovation in teaching learning methods in institutions of higher learning. She has served at the helm as Director of various management institutes across India including Indira Group of Institutes, MITCON Institute of Management, Pune, NIT Nagpur. She is a recognised doctoral guide of Savitribai Phule Pune University and Symbiosis International University. She is member of advisory Committee for Ministry of Shipping for developing training programs for capacity building for manpower deployed in organizations under the aegis of the Ministry. She has been lead consultant to MIDC, MMRDA, ICICI, Thapar Group, Ministry of Commerce, GOI, Hypercity, Spinach Retail, Godrej Agrovet, Janwani, Odisha Open University, MSBTE.