NewsX was recently joined by the director of International Management Institute (IMI), Kolkata, Professor Mohua Banerjee for an exclusive chat in its special segment, NewsX India A-List.
Talking about IMI Kolkata, Prof Mohua said that it was one of the three chapters of IMI, India’s first corporate sponsored business school. She added that IMI Delhi has been there for the last 39-years, the Kolkata campus came up in the year 2011, IMI Kolkata is promoted by the RP–Sanjiv Goenka Group that has diversified businesses in power, retail, FMCG, IT services, etc. Further addressing the objective of the business school, Ms Mohua said that IMI Kolkata aims at promoting significant opportunities for students to learn and grow.
Prof Banerjee, talking about the courses offered at IMI Kolkata said, “Marketing and Finance are typically the two domains that attract the maximum number of students. We also have Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources, Information System, Data Analytics, Operations Management & Strategic Business are the specializations we offer on campus.”
IMI Kolkata and Professor Mohua Banerjee have been awarded and recognized by a number of awards for their work. “Needless to say, it is AICTE approved and the PGDM programme has been credited from NBA since 2016, now the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) have accorded the programme equivalent to NBA. If I am talking about the NIRF ranking, the National Institutional Ranking Framework which is done by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, in 2020, our ranking has been 52. I was going through Outlook-ICARE ranking, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to see that we have ranked 4th private business school- east zone, 8th as private stand-alone institutions and 18th private MBA institutions in India,” said Prof Banerjee.
Further, Prof Mohua said that as a faculty, it was her job to be there at the service of the students, ensure and handhold them as they make the transition from the educational setting into the practical real world. She said that she was happy to be able to do it.
Talking about the placements at IMI Kolkata, especially during the covid times, Professor Banerjee said, “There has not been a major difference as such other than- the entire cycle has gone back by a couple of months. BFSI, our biggest recruiter is still showing interest in IMI Kolkata, there’s ICICI, there’s HDFC, etc. Market Research companies are also hiring and as are the consulting companies, FMCGs we believe are cautiously hiring.”
Professor Mohua told that summer internships have been made a 6 credit course this year onwards. “Apart from just wide academics, our job is also to ensure a safe and secure learning environment without compromising on education quality. So, all campus protocols are in place, SOPs entirely based on UGC guidelines and AICTE guidelines & state government’s requirements. So whenever the state government allows us to get into the physical mode, we have set up blended classrooms at this point of time, which means some kind of investment in IT. So, there are 360 degrees cameras and 50-inches monitor screens, so what will happen is, students who can not visit the classrooms physically will be able to Livestream it. So, at a time, the faculty will interact with both the sets. For hostels, we are doing periodic disinfections, sanitisation of the entire campus, be it classrooms, hostels, library, gyms, lounges, limiting visitors from outside, set up contactless delivery counters. We have set up quarantine rooms also, we have converted our executive rooms to quarantine rooms so that when the hostellers come in, they can stay there for 14 days and get themselves tested in this interim period and thereafter, shift into the hostels once they are clear after the 14 days quarantine period and we are also in contact with 2 hospitals,” said Professor Banerjee.
Towards the end, Professor Mohua said that during an interview, there’s no shortcut to success and there’s no substitute to hard work. She expressed, “So you have to believe in yourself and gear up to do your best.”
