The Higher Education Review

Over the years, we have experienced a migration from print to digital and have adopted a contemporary approach from traditional practices in the way we fulfill particular tasks. Hence, the world in which today’s students will graduate is fundamentally different from the world in which we grew up. The 21st century students do not want knowledge just from the books; instead, they are looking for an experiential learning. Located in Thane, Dr. V.N. Bedekar Institute of Management Studies (BRIMS), is an epitome of experiential management education. To further the cause of education in the country and serve its students with a commitment to excellence, the institute has been striving tirelessly to be amongst the top management institutes in the country and become the world-class center of excellence in learning and innovation driven by social sensitivity and state-of-the- art technology.

“Our teaching pedagogy is what makes us different from other B-schools. Here, we focus on ‘Learning by Doing’ and our teaching structures are more on workshop based. We believe in student engagement through scenario planning and problem solving cases,” claims Dr. Nitin Joshi, Director, BRIMS. Affiliated to Mumbai University, BRIMS do not have much control over the curriculum.

However, the institute continuously puts in efforts to update students with the current knowledge by sending them for industrial projects and conferences, wherein the students get to interact with the people from the corporate sector. While, continuous interactions with the industry have been helping BRIMS to attract more recruiters into the campus, the institute has been offering additional programs like excelling through excel, decision making through SAS or SPSS to make students ready for the market.

“Industry has become more selective and they are now trying to evaluate people on their attitude, business skills and ability to lead. We have identified some of these trends of recruiters and have been inculcating these skill sets for our students. We start our grooming activities from July onwards to make our students ready to face interviews and every year we try to add new companies who would recruit our students,” says Dr. Joshi. The institute believes in building an industry academia interface, which would be helpful for both students and faculty members. At present, BRIMS has collaborated with the BMA (Bombay management Association) and Flipkart for providing opportunities to do live projects under the assistance of experienced industry professionals. On the flipside, the institute has tied up with Pitambari Industries where the faculty members train the managers working with the industry and understand their day-to-day problems, which keeps the faculty members connected to the industry. Indeed, almost all the faculty members employed by BRIMS have a considerable amount of industry experience in addition to their strong academic knowledge. One example is the Director, Dr. Joshi, who does assessment of business excellence through corporate with European Foundation Quality Management, which focuses on sustainability, profitability and strategic thinking.

Dr. Joshi explains, “To ensure that our faculty members are completely aware about the latest developments in the education sector, we encourage them to attend lots of programs and conferences organized by national accreditation and professional bodies. As most of our faculty members come with a strong industry experience, we are also able to undertake a good number of consultancy projects with the Industry and come up with relevant case studies, which can be used in teaching.” While, research has become an integral part of our education system today, BRIMS has formed a Journal club, which is a platform wherein anything new in the area of research is discussed among students and faculty members. The institute also encourages research paper writing among students with the assistance of faculty members to jointly write and publish research papers and articles. Today, with an annual intake of 120 students, BRIMS offers MMS, PGDM, EpMBA and PGP, in addion to the Certification programs in Supply Chain management and Digital marketing.

The institute also runs a unique startup programs wherein students are expected to do a live project with the industries, which will give them an insight and firsthand experience about the real business. “We wish to work on cutting-edge technology, thereby creating a platform where learning is not restricted within the four walls of a classroom. We wish to deploy highly interactive and engaging technology that will continuously engage the learners to explore their potential and adapt with the ever changing and demanding business environment,” concludes Dr. Joshi.