An interesting strategy building session at Alliance School of Business ..

It was interesting to have an interesting 4 hour interaction of Area Chairs with Prof. Dr. B V Krishnamurthy, the Advisor to the Pro Chancellor of Alliance University in Bangalore on the first of April 2021.

We are taking up the step after a Bench marking session, an Operations Strategy exercise where our University was bench marked to some of the world's best and we fixed the targets to reach these standards in the next five to ten years. It was great to see an Operations strategy exercise yo compare our Institution with the best in the country being deployed in our University. ( Please click here for the HBR paper How to measure yourself against the best, Tucker et al, Jan '87 mentions Xerox's experience initially with Bench marking and how it grew to be global in quality eventually)

We brainstormed over 4 hours on Thursday from 10.30 AM to 4.30 PM to find how to proceed to beat the competition and remain among the top in the NIRF survey where we were ranked among the only three schools in the top 50 Bschools from Karnataka along with IIM Bangalore and TAPMI, Manipal. Other business schools were far behind and we hope in the near future they will offer us credible challenge and competition to the top position.  

One of the most important points was to start mentorship yet again, but this time instead of the faculty deciding the mentees, the mentees will decide which faculty member will be their mentees for the next one or two years, till the student passes out of the University. A real challenge to the faculty as they will be put to test in the eyes of the students. Students would naturally like to align with those faculty whom they feel will help them with real industry knowledge for them to perform and shine in the industrial world.

As was done in some of the top ranked Bschools of the world, the bottom 5% is forcibly detained or asked to repeat the course. For Institutions with high academic performance and GMAT entry scores, where one of the faculty's son happens to be studying, the last 5% of the class is asked to repeat the course. For example in IESE Barcelona for a course on Economics, the author's son scored 90 %, the class average was 92% and the 5 percentile score stopped at around 76% and they have been asked to reappear in the subjects in the following semester. ie. 95 percentage of students in the class scored above 76%. The class average of 92% was indicative of the high academic standards in the class. The Economist #1 ranked Bschool of 2021 could not be anywhere else .. Can we employ similar standards in ASB ?

Some of the other interesting points that were discussed included 

1. Taking concrete steps to improve peer learning was an interesting point discussed. 

2. Incorporating SWAYAM MOOCS from Govt of India was also discussed to help improve the quality of instruction delivery.

3. It was also proposed for faculty to prepare a detailed subject outline for each subject which was being taught. 

4. Tackling steps to improving the strike rate of student placement from from the 5-7 lakh band to 7-11 lakh band was also discussed. 

As per Prof. Krishnamurthy, when the faculty expresses real passion for teaching and students know that the faculty really cares, it is the success of the faculty member. 

We hope to discuss some more points in the coming days.

George