The Higher Education Review

Management education prepares a student with more than just employable skills. Students obtain entrepreneurship and leadership traits after completing a management degree. With the primary aim to deliver equivalent holistic management education at an affordable price, Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management started in 2007 in Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi. However, the part-time PGDM began in 1995.

As part of Delhi Kendra of Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management imbibes its ideology of 'Sanskrit and Sanskriti' (extracting the spiritual essence of life in the most refined language). The Institution offers a course in Business Management, a fulltime AICTE approved PGDM Program along with cutting edge courses like Business Analytics, Marketing Analytics, Financial Analytics, Human Resource Analytics, and Digital Marketing as electives. The world of IT and data management is continuously changing, and new ways of managing data, however, require new ways of training and developing technologists. As a result, institutions, apart from Analytics, started courses like Design Thinking, Content Writing, and Live Project on digital marketing are parts of the learning of students. Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management has a fee structure where they neither overcharge nor undercharge from students. It delivers courses at a very affordable rate because most of the students are from working for middle-class families.

Thriving on Core Values
Going back in history, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan was started by Dr. K.M Munshi, who believed in the sustainable growth of society by equipping students for handling future challenges. "This is the vision with which we work at the moment. We use a lot of raw cases from newspapers and magazines and involve students in real-life, ongoing situations in the environment for courses like International Business and Marketing.

Other than this, club activities, seminars, international conferences, and management fest both co-curricular and extracurricular pursuits make students well versed with both cutting edges technology courses and make them highly trained and flexible management graduates.

"Running a curriculum model that comes from AICTE allows Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management kind of bandwidth to modify the curriculum with the latest academic inputs"

"Next year we will have the 14th batch of PGDM," says Dr. M. Durgamohan, Director, Usha& Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management.

There is a lot of discussions is happening these days amongst the student communities on ROI (return on investment) in education. Even the parent communities talk about ROI. "I passed out in 1981 from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), but you know, I'm earning my living even today because of what I paid in 1980-81 to IIFT."

He further shared that in terms of pedagogy, the institute follows continuous assessments where, "we focus a lot on presentations, assignments, simulations on the latest events in the business world, make learning contemporary and not extremely theoretical. I do bring in case studies. For example, in the marketing class, I gave views on how in three months, Kia Motors have become the number four car manufacturer in India. It's not an antiquated case study but the latest one. The students conclude after running thorough business analytics operations," shares Dr. M. Durgamohan.

Running a curriculum model that comes from AICTE allows Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management kind of bandwidth to modify the curriculum with the latest academic inputs. The institute has academicians and industry professionals from different domains like marketing, finance, HR, International Business, and Analytics. They give direction to what needs to be done. Secondly, faculty inputs to make changes in a particular subject or introduce a new subject keep degree program relevant at Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management. Further, the academic advisory committee and their views make learning better.

Earlier, a company used to provide vocational training period for six months, eight months, nine months, one year. But today no training kind of thing happens. It is that from day one, real job sense is given to the employees. Industry practitioners are coming and teaching at the institute, giving inputs from the industry, which is making the students on board for employment.

Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management's students get differentiated from the rest basically because the industry need not invest any time or money in training them. Following a three-step approach in teaching adopt, adapt, and innovate, faculty have been able to produce fervent business professionals. First, the faculty 'adopt' to what is being taught. They impart the same to the students and later the 'adapt' of teaching methodology by adapting recent Indian case studies in course modules. After that, innovation in teaching happens automatically.

To build the students' conceptual framework, Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management gives them summer internship, live projects, and dissertation works. Students get to know what the latest issues in the business world are and how to resolve it. "We come up with an analysis and solutions to the organization. Inter- Business School case study competition, International conference, seminars, and panel discussions, where we call the industry people to come and interact, and HR summit augment students' industry skills. Faculty Development Program includes research, publication, and presentations at conferences; we incentivize that. Faculty mentors help in the process. The faculty gets exposed to both from the academic point of view to the academic research. They get in tune with what the industry is looking for and how to do it," explains Dr. M. Durgamohan. In order to promote entrepreneurial activities within the college, Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management has an E-cell that has established connections with the National Entrepreneurship Network ­NEN.

Introducing applications of AI, Block Chain technology is what Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management looking forward to.