The Higher Education Review

Indian management education has gone through a lot of changes over the past couple of decades and various institutions are now trying hard to strike the right balance between theoretical and practical education. At the same time, the mushrooming of b-schools that are not up to the mark and the scarcity of qualified and capable teachers has made the industry academia gap even wider in the country. With that said, one b-school that has been able to successfully reduce this gap by offering the perfect blend of theoretical knowledge and practical know-how is Calcutta Business School.

By introducing unique teaching pedagogies, the institute strives to offer holistic education for the wholesome development of their students so that they can achieve success both at the personal and professional front. Calcutta Business School operates with a mission to produce performance-oriented leaders with a global vision but who embraces the Indian ethos and values. This unique value-based education has also helped the b-school to develop into a unique entity in the crowded Indian management education space.

Nurturing Industry-ready Professionals
Calcutta Business School operates with a unique vision of becoming the most preferred b-School in eastern India and strives to make sure that their students acquire both industry as well as scholarly knowledge. “We are trying to bring in the corporate connect and recently we had webinars by the deputy manager of Exide regarding how to manage in the current pandemic scenario and we are having regular online classes right now.

When it comes to our curriculum, we get input from people within the industry to make necessary changes and upgradations. We are an AICTE approved autonomous institution which makes us very nimble and agile and we can make changes in the course curriculum very fast.

This also means that our curriculum is much more flexible and scalable which makes it very dynamic that helps us to make our students more industry-ready. Also, for every subject, there is 40 percent weightage for light projects. We also understand that online is quickly becoming the new normal and have a special class for grooming the students to help them get ready for interviews in the current scenario”, avers, Dr. J. N. Mukhopadhyay, Director, Calcutta Business School.

The institute has the support and backing of experienced faculty who cater to their students’ requirements and make sure that the students reach their fullest potential. Even if there is a weak student, there are small classes conducted to clear their doubts which create a meaningful mentor mentee relationship. The mentors also help the students when it comes to the issues apart from academics also.

“Calcutta Business School operates with a mission to produce performance-oriented leaders with a global vision but who embraces the Indian ethos and values”

Students at Calcutta Business School are also given real-life business scenarios and are asked to come up without-of-the-box solutions. This enhances their critical thinking abilities and through various classroom projects, practical work and roleplays, the institute is able to equip their students with essential practical skills. In line with Stanford Design School, Calcutta Business School also offer courses on design thinking and innovation to their students and apart from that, the institute also has tie-ups with Harvard Business School.

Innovation and Research is Key to Succeed
Innovation is a key driver for organizational success and what Calcutta Business School do is focus on developing critical thinking. Understanding concepts and applying them to real-life scenarios is very important and Calcutta Business School often focuses on simulation. Research is a crucial aspect when it comes to ensuring constant innovation and when asked about the research activities at the institute, Dr. J. N. Mukhopadhyay says, “Here research activities are done in three ways, one is in which students are encouraged to look

at different frontiers of management education and then there is a collaboration among teachers and students and under the mentorship of the teachers, students write research papers that are even published in peer-reviewed journals.

Then there are also in-company research projects that our students can be a part of. These findings from research activities are also put into real-world scenarios for forecasting as well as understanding various scenarios and topics. We also do research on social values and the psychology of the people. When it comes to our research, on the one side, there is an analogy, one side there is social values and on the other side there are business values. So, we want to strike a perfect balance between these three”.

Calcutta Business School encourages their students to be job creators and not job seekers as well as train their students to develop their entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial skills. The institute also has a course called creating and managing new ventures where they train students to start new business ventures. With the help of their entrepreneurship cell and relationships with the national entrepreneurial network and EDI as well as with various investors, Calcutta Business School has also been able to make sure that their students’ business ventures are given proper support.

Going forward, the institute is aiming to improve the industry-institute relationship and also to keep setting new standards in the Indian management education space. Calcutta Business School is also doing integration of technology management to understand how to leverage various technologies for improving businesses. The institute is also planning to come up with new courses in the near future itself and are planning to go for NAAC accreditation next year. More importantly, Calcutta Business School wants to continue creating good human beings that can have a positive impact on the community as a whole.

Dr. J. N. Mukhopadhyay, Director
Dr. J. N. Mukhopadhyay is an IIT and IIM graduate and has done his Ph.D. in Economics. He has got 17 years of industry experience and has held respectable positions in multiple reputed organizations.