Faculty must be exposed to global changes

After nine years of working as regional manager for Anand Milk-producers Union Ltd (Amul), a dairy cooperative in India, Pandit Mali wanted to move to academics.

At Amul, he was involved in the implementation of the Total Quality Management (TQM) programme and policy development strategy based on the Japanese management technique, Hoshin Kanri.

During this period, he identified his potential as a teacher and shifted to academics. He joined the Indira Institute of Management (IIM) as an assistant professor in 2004. He is the recipient of the Dewang Mehta ‘Best Teacher in Marketing Management 2008’ Award. 

Now, Mali is director incharge and senior faculty for subjects like retail marketing, supply chain, sales and marketing management. He tells DNA about the academic excellence model, redesigning a quality enhancement programme and introducing the concept of learning facilitators.

How does the academic excellence model that you have developed help students? 
To monitor academic enhancement, our team at IIM follows a direction setter, called an academic excellence model, which evaluates what we have learnt during the whole year with innovation as the core objective.

While planning any activity, we do not forget that it has to give direction to our core objective. Therefore, all our activities are from the students’ perspective at the centre, along with faculty development, industry relations and government initiatives, all directed towards the benefit of students.

How important is it for educational institutes to constantly enhance their quality? 
After an educational institute completes a certain period and comes to a particular level of excellence, it is necessary that it moves to the next level.

To do that and bring about a change, the faculty must be exposed to the required updates and developments. It is essential for the institute to know what enhancements are required while moving from the local to global standard. We have to redesign our quality enhancement programme on the basis of academics, domain application, general and business awareness, communication, logical thinking, value-based thinking and overall fitness of the faculty, administration, management and students.

Can you tell us about the learning facilitator?
In our academic departments, we have a hierarchy of learning facilitators. These people facilitate learning right from the top level, which is head of the department to senior and junior faculty members with students as the end receivers.

The concept of learning facilitators is to identify the second in line and guide them towards excellence.

The teaching faculty has to constantly update itself. Nowadays, students are smart as they keeping asking questions on current issues. If teachers do not update their knowledge, they will not be able to answer students’ questions, especially in IT and management education, which sees constant developments.

Is there a lucrative career opportunity in the retail sector?
The retail sector in India started with a lot of anticipation before the global slowdown. Thereafter, it was stagnant for nearly two years. During that period, no one in the retail sector recruited new managers and they were actually downsizing.

Since the end of 2010, retail companies have approached us for placements, which is an indicator that the sector is taking off. The retail industry is a derived industry, depending on the prosperity of other sectors.

Consumers will go shopping only if they have spending power. I would say that now the time has come for the retail sector.

How can management institutes play a role in solving environmental issues and problems?
Management students are future managers who will occupy positions of power in the corporate world. As managers, they will drive the habits of people. We can sensitise them about environmental issues when they are being groomed at B-schools.

Probably 10 years down the line, they can make a difference with their decisions and actions as managers.

Are management students getting attracted to working in the rural sector or in agro-based management?  
Rural areas are high potential markets now. Their spending capacity is less, but the volume is large. Agro-based management is in demand and the government and industry are already identifying rural potential as an industrial sector for agro products and as markets.

Cold storage, supply chain and warehouses for agro products are few of the potential fields. It all depends on how bureaucrats deal with the issue.