It was my dream to study in IIM and it got fulfilled through EPBM-15 (Executive program in business management) course. IIMC is far from city, placed in Joka. According to our course curriculum, we visited campus for 1 week.
Day 1: 17-Apr-2011 (Sunday)
It was hot in Kolkata. From airport, I hired a prepaid taxi and came alone. On the way I saw myriads of old fashioned cars (ambassador)– taxi painted in yellow car. Trams, many on-going constructions, shops and buildings made me to visualize that it is one of the oldest city of India (though I heard about it). With approx.1:30 hr duration, I reached IIMC campus and located in Annex hostel. It was a small single room. My stomach was in pain asking for some food and I asked someone where the cafeteria is. The food was really delicious (felt homemade) at Tagore hostel though I was hungry.
I took a nap and loitered nearby in the evening in the campus. The serene surrounding of greeneries, pond, chirping birds soothed my mind as I was longing for this type of environment from a long time. After having dinner, I did some browsing with my laptop. It was very difficult to sleep due to the hot and humid weather.
Day 2:
I was forced to awake in the morning when I heard someone banging the door of my room. I saw the boy from the canteen with tea handing over it to me, but I refused to have. Soon I finished all my morning jobs and got ready for class. The registration process started at 8:30 am at auditorium. I saw many known faces from Bangalore. After completing the registration, we all went inside the auditorium. At 9:30, EPBM directors Prof. Anindya Sen, Prof. Soumen Sikder, Prof. Amit Dhiman gave formal speeches of campus visit purpose. Soon “Information System” class was taken by Prof. Subir Bhattacharya and it was very interesting and much of my usefulness. Porter’s 5 forces model, Value chain, IT interaction model, McFarlan’s strategic grid were of main focus. I was thinking of my future role in job looking at the Information System StrategyJ. I loved the class which ended in 1pm. After lunch Macroeconomics class by Prof. Sudip Chaudhuri started which mainly covered “India and The world Economy”. In the class students from various industries (IT, banking, aviation, medical, automobiles, media, etc.) are there. In the evening I met with another Odiya student who works for Allahabad Bank in Ranchi and we both visited Behela , a place near to Joka, which is famous for shopping. Around 8pm we returned to campus and had dinner and did study for next day’s topic. In the night, it rained and we had a cool sleep.
Day 3:
As usual in previous day, I was made got-up by the tea-wala and did my daily morning routines and got in the classroom on time. Prof.Subir Bhattacharya took class on “Information System & Strategy”. We discussed ITC eChaupal case which revolutionized the supply-chain in agriculture in India. After launch we had class on Human Resource Management by Prof. Amit Dhiman and he was mainly focusing strategic HRM (case study involved was Infosys HRM). At 5.15 pm, we had a group photo of around 300 colleagues followed by HRM class continuation. It was also a good day to learn a lot.
Day 4:
As usual this day also gave me lot of knowledge. The class started on topic “Changing Geo-politics & the International Business Environment” by Prof.Biju Paul Abraham. He discussed about trading, liberalization in trading, WTO agreements. Post-lunch class was taken By Prof. Anindya Sen on “Law & Economics”. As usual the class was much interactive with fun and knowledge.
Day 5:
In our satellite program, we all were much impressed by Prof. Anjan RaiChoudhury with his topic on Entrepreneurship. We all were waiting for him to come and as he entered, he was honored with standing obeisance. He covered the first topic on “Family Business” and as the class progressed all students were surprised to know that most of the worlds business (90%) are family business and so much successful such as Cargill, Bosch, LG, BMW, Walmart, Loreal, Hyundai, Motorola, Levi Strauss, Ford Motors, etc. and the list goes on. Second session was on “A look at the future“ and it was full of entrepreneurship. Much interesting points were observed: Moving the trend from selling power to buying power, from product to experience, from exploitation to sustenance, from bureaucrats to innovators, from dominance to partnering (gender). I was impressed by knowing the fact that economic growth is driven by women.
Post lunch session was really exciting. Prof. Ranjan Das took the class who was the main person behind this EPBM course. He taught us about Strategy management which was very useful for all of us regarding entrepreneurship and management. To be successful we must have conviction and strategy. Later the class, Prof. Manju Jaiswall (Finance) and Prof. Jacob Vakkayil (Behavioral Science) came and we had a good interaction with them.
In the evening, I visited library. It was full of books, however I looked some magazines of Strategy & Leadership.
Day 6:
This day’s class was taken by Prof. Runa Sarkar on “Sustainability and the Firm” which mainly focused on environmental issues, how to go green. As usual, all topics taught were highly interactive and interesting. This was the last class in the campus visit session and some of the colleagues started leaving the campus. In the evening I visited Howrah bridge and Belur Math alone, while returning to hostel surprisingly Mamta Banerjee showed her face in sudden on the way.
Day 7:
This was the last day for me in IIMC campus. After lunch, I hired a taxi and went to Airport. All my 6 days during the visit were highly impressive and definitely I utilize the teachings in my life; Hoping for some other day to visit it again!
