Firms increase role on B - School campus

Companies come up with new ways to increase their involvement in B-schools to make sure they are able to interact first-hand with potential employees.

Gone are the days when corporate involvement in management schools was restricted to providing internships, and sponsoring cultural festivals and research chairs.

The race to hire the best students during final placements is leading more companies to get into major collaborations with educational institutions. Be it setting up news terminals on the campus, opening research wings or developing joint education programmes, companies are more than eager to contribute funds for industry-academia partnerships.

Leading the pack is Citi Group which has decided to commit around Rs 6.3 crore to the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad to promote financial inclusion for small investors and enterprises.

Citi Foundation will provide the grant to ISB's Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) over a period of three years. CAF will undertake projects on a range of subjects in the financial domain and formulate recommendations to support regulators, practitioners, academics and other opinion leaders to implement financial development in the country.

"With this research programme, our longstanding relationship with ISB will be further strengthened. CAF is uniquely positioned to undertake this project as it has prior experience of doing quality work in this and other related areas," said Sanjay Nayar, CEO Citi India.

The rationale behind the corporate world's eagerness to partner with management schools is simple. Along with first-hand interaction with students, who could be potential employees, the companies can also access research data compiled by institute faculty members and students.

BS Sahay, director, IMT Ghaziabad, said: "These collaborations are part of research, training and consultancy. IMT has collaborations with companies in the private and public sector including Hankel, Transport Corporation of India, Moser Bear, HPCL and ONGC. Our forte is to create, impart and disseminate knowledge through applied research, which can be directly used by not just the company, but also the particular industry."

JP Morgan, which hires a significant number of students each year from Indian campuses, became the first company to sponsor a news terminal for an educational institute. This was in the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

The terminal provides real time and historical data for about five million securities covering equities, bonds, currencies, derivatives and commodities from around the world to help students prepare term papers, assignments and project courses.

Larry O'Donnell, chief, human resources India, JP Morgan, said that this was part of the company's endeavour to create a partnership early and not just during recruitment.

The company has hired students from the IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta as well as other top institutes like XLRI Jamshedpur. The firm is looking at sponsoring lecture series, internship programmes and other activities for institutes in India.

SAP has decided to support IIM Bangalore's Centre for Enterprise Resource Planning, where IIM-B's faculty would collaborate with SAP in the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. SAP and IIM-B's plan includes conducting industry-specific national and international conferences, workshops, and roundtable discussions. Special focus will be given to working with government (Central, State and Local) ministries and departments in the field of e-governance.

Microsoft India has been organising a competition called the ‘Imagine Cup' for students across Indian campuses to come out with innovative technologies. At the end of the event, the company looks at promising students for recruitment and is also open to funding feasible innovations from students. Likewise, Sun Microsystems has collaborated with Gujarat-based Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT) to form a club, which aims at promoting Sun's technologies in the campus.

Companies like Reliance, NIIT and Accenture among others have launched online education programmes with top management schools like Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) Jamshedpur, IIM-A, IIM-C and ISB.