Vital Statistics

WHAT IS IT? A B-school. WHO’S THE BOSS? Dr Vijay Sarthi is the director. HOW CHEAP IS IT? The fees for a two-year PGDM programme are Rs 3.95 lakh. WHAT ABOUT JOBS? The college has a placement cell. It claims to have 100 per cent placement. WHERE TO STAY? There are hostel facilities for boys and girls. WHERE IS IT? 8P-9P, KIADB Industrial Area, Electronic City, Phase 2, Bangalore. Phone: (080) 51102820/21/22. Website: www.ifimblr.com.

The Institute of Finance and International Management (IFIM), Bangalore, keeps elite company. The institute shares its boundary wall with some of the hottest IT companies in the city. Located in Electronic City ? the IT hub of Bangalore ? IFIM has the offices of Infosys, Siemens and Hewlett Packard for neighbours.

And such company has helped. IFIM director, Dr Vijay Sarthi, claims the institute has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years. It now boasts a 100-per-cent placement record, a unique ?mentoring concept? and a course curriculum that focuses on making students socially and philosophically conscious.

Modest start

The institute, however, started with modest beginnings in 1995. Its first batch of students didn?t even fill up the 40 seats it offered. And one didn?t need too much stamina to do a round trip of the small, 1.5-acre campus.

IFIM overcame the space crunch by growing vertically. The institute now has the mandatory infrastructure ? labs, library, auditorium, well-equipped classrooms, etc. ? to qualify as a quality management institute.

Admissions to IFIM are through the Common Admission Test, followed by group discussions and interviews. The institute has been recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). There are 120 students in each batch.

The institute offers a PGDM programme with specialisations in finance, marketing and human resources.

Sarthi says the ?Mentor B-school Concept? is one of the institute?s biggest strengths. A faculty member plays mentor and counsellor to a group of seven to eight students. ?He or she personally oversees their academic performance and placement prospects,? says Sarthi.

The right values

Next on the agenda was to build a value system for students. IFIM has signed an agreement with the Art of Living foundation, where first-semester students spend three days at the ashram and learn meditation, yoga and personality development. ?As a result, our students don?t hop, skip and jump jobs. They are committed professionals in the companies they work for,? claims Sarthi. Puneet Sabharwal, a first-year student at IFIM, says she spent a fulfilling three days in the ashram. ?I learnt to slow down and relax,? she says.

Social awareness

Building social awareness is also part of the time-table. The institute has a ?Social Involvement Project?, where it is mandatory for students to work with the under-privileged. ?It helps broaden their vision,? says Sarthi.

On a less serious side, the institute pushes extra-curricular activities as much as management fundas. IFIM holds regular cricket matches with Infosys. ?Our students are sent to every management festival,? says Sarthi.

Short-term courses such as the executive MBA, customer relationship management, managerial effectiveness and negotiation skills are also conducted at the institute. The IFIM has also signed a MoU with the government of Bhutan. Finance officers of the middle management level in the Bhutan government attend the three-month-long general management programme at IFIM.

Varuna Verma

Old memories

Amit Arora, marketing manager, Standard Chartered Bank, talks about his IFIM days

The best part of studying at IFIM was that the we didn’t have to concentrate totally on academics. Rather, the focus was on the corporate world, where we were all supposed to land up eventually. Students were members of marketing, finance and HR clubs and were encouraged to make presentations in companies. There were talks by corporate honchos from time to time.

I passed out of IFIM in 1998. There were a lot of B-schools mushrooming at that time. Although IFIM was barely two years old, I found the institute to be different from the rest. The institute was trying to give students a taste of what working life was going to be like. The course curriculum was not about mugging up books and management jargon. Focus was on developing the student’s complete personality. It came handy in our professional life.

As told to Varuna Verma