The Higher Education Review

As the pace of business accelerates, managers and leaders of all stripes require deep context to understand how business has developed, leading insights to see where it’s headed, and real perspective to put it all together. Established in 2020, Providence School of Business is built on the principle of the Late founder Shri George Mathew; creating a reputable business school that would stand out in every aspect and consistently contributes to the growth of the state and the nation. The school is located in Chengannur, which is ideally situated between Kerala's major commercial hubs. Since its inception, the institute has been working to nurture leadership skills among management trainees from various academic and professional backgrounds.

Simulators, case studies, projects, and traditional lecture techniques are all part of PSB's academic program. These approaches are grounded in a blend of practical and collaborative elements. Even faculty performance and quality are measured on academic performance, initiatives in student support & development activities, administrative functions, staff advisory & mentoring, research development, and professional development.

PSB offers stateof- the-art air-conditioned classrooms, Wi-Fi, language labs, computer labs for simulation, and an excellent library with books, journals, e-databases, and magazines. Basketball, badminton, volleyball, and football courts are available for recreation and sporting events. The school now has a student-to-faculty ratio of 17.4 and employs seven permanent faculty members and four guest faculty members.

Breaking the Industry Experience Barrier
Companies today demand good collaborative thinkers who cooperate to solve problems. Too often, schools deliver good analysts who compete to apply business-school formulas. In contrast to the majority of business schools today, PSB is committed to bridging the practical-oriented teaching and learning gap. Another significant issue that a business school must solve is the dearth of soft skills among the student population.

PSB is tackling this issue by implementing an aggressive training program to help its management trainees develop their leadership skills and self-confidence.

Furthermore, companies demand specialized knowledge useful to particular professions. Schools, however, are more likely to deliver generalists who have trouble digging into special fields that can distinguish them and their employers. Companies demand leaders who can powerfully articulate ideas, orally and in writing, to motivate and guide their people. But schools tend to train people to simply assert their ideas; they don’t sensitize them to the critical value of being an excellent communicator. This is due to a lack of support for research by the school faculty.

Within PSB, there is a research ecosystem with Incentives to encourage faculty to perform research. The main goal of Providence School of Business is to develop future leaders who can have a transformative effect on society and business around the world. In order to gain practical industry experience, numerous case studies and business publications are discussed and analyzed by the professors and can be experimented with simulations. Many CEOs and senior executives of significant organizations have visited PSB, giving trainees the chance to network with them and gain knowledge from their experiences and insights into the corporate world.

Tailor-made Industry Oriented Curriculum
PSB offers electives in marketing, finance, human resources, systems, and operations. Additional certification programs like SAP, Design Thinking, Advanced Excel, IFRS, Data Analysis with SPSS, and Digital & social media Marketing also are available at the institution.

The school encourages students to participate in clubs for sustainability, human resources, marketing, and finance so that the students foster a passion for each specialization. For each specialization, PSB holds conclaves, and a management festival draws trainees from all across the state and country. Through these gatherings, students have the opportunity to socialize with their peers and meet new people from different backgrounds and interests.

These constructive interactions help the students' interpersonal and communication abilities, and they also better prepare them for day-to-day life in the real world. Their staff members and visiting professors have substantial backgrounds in academia and business.

Many CEOs and senior corporate executives visit the campus and interact with the trainees, motivating them to pursue careers as managers or business owners. PSB prepares the Management trainees for placement interviews by fostering a culture of decency and goodness, compassion, honesty, and humility, followed by wisdom and knowledge. A student chapter of PSB is affiliated with ISTD (Indian Society for Training and Development). All our students are members of this body. PSB conducts 45-day internships as part of its corporate exposure program. Almoayyed Contracting Group Bahrain, Lulu Group, Grand Hyatt, Marriott International, HDFC Bank, and others are a few of the well-known businesses where our students have interned.

TCS, Byju's, ITC, Lulu Group, 360FT, ESAF Bank, others are some of our top recruiters. In honor of its late founder, PSB established the George Mathew Scholarship Fund, which allows one trainee from each batch to receive free tuition. Additionally, trainees are offered scholarships at the time of intake based on their performance in their undergraduate studies. These scholarships range from 10 percent to 30 percent depending on their academic profile.

Dr. Arun Gopi, Professor & Head of the Department Providence School of Business, Chengannur
Dr. Arun Gopi has over 13 years of experience spanning industry, teaching, training, and consulting in the private sector. In addition, he handles training assignments across a spectrum of various industries. An expert in Outbound Training and NLP, he completed his PhD from SCSVMV University and holds an MBA from Kerala University. He was with Eris Life Sciences Pvt.

Ltd as Area Sales Manager for two years and has worked with the De Paul Institute of Science and Technology for three years and Musaliar Institute of Management for five years as an Assistant Professor, with Marian International Institute of Management for two years as HOD and IQAC Committee member & Internal Auditor and he was an Associate Professor and IQAC Coordinator in Bishop Jerome School of Management, Kerala.

Currently, he is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Providence School of Business, Chengannur. He is an avid researcher in the area of marketing and has published many articles and presented papers with national and international repute. He received the best research paper award at an International Conference organized by IASTEM in Dubai.