What defines the success of any organization? We all know employees play a significant role in determining the success of an organization. Apart from employees, managers are the key aspects to achieving its goals and shaping the organization in a way that integrates everyone towards growth.

Talking about managers, they bridge the gap between top-level, mid-level and lower-level management. In short, they act as a mediator in the entire organizational pyramid.

Moreover, they conglomerate the positive environment and also make all the necessary decisions to raise the net worth of an organization. Having said that, every organization looks for highly qualified persons who can manage their company. For that, they look at management students from renowned institutes.

As the prominent management institutes provide rigorous training and groom the students in an environment that helps them to become great leaders.

In retrospect to that, the Shri Vaishnav School of Management of Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya ensures excellence in management education and prepares aspiring managers who can meet the challenges of the corporate world. The institute gives priority to research. The Most Prominent Management Colleges of the Year 2022 based learning for the holistic development of the students.

While having a conversation with The Knowledge Review, Dr Upinder Dhar, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, shared his career achievements as well as the institute’s vision, mission and future strategies for the growth of SVVV.

The Blooming Bud of Management

Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, aims to encourage academic excellence through interdisciplinary applied research and to expand realms of knowledge through innovation.

Under the flagship of SVVV, Shri Vaishnav School of Management was established in 2016 with a view to promote excellence in management education and prepare future managers to meet the challenges of the corporate world. Shri Vaishnav School of Management is committed to providing quality education, thus, ensuring academic rigour.

As MBA is considered to be a highly rigorous program and B-schools have to ensure that the students are groomed to be capable of handling the difficulty of the program. The school consider candidates’ academic background during their admission to each of the MBA programs, which is provided on the basis of CAT/MAT/XAT/ CMAT/ ATMA/ SVET scores or any other equivalent entrance test.

SVSM also offers a scholarship scheme for meritorious students at the time of admission. Shri Vaishnav School of Management offers a variety of industry-ready management programs MBA (Dual Degree Program), MBA (Hospital and Health Care), MBA (Rural Management), MBA (Business Analytics) which inculcates employability skills among students. And research is one of the top-most priorities because it is believed that generation of knowledge enriches the future with freshness and empowers each individual to overcome obsolescence.

Apart from the Post Graduate programs, SVSM also offers BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) programs that groom young students for managerial roles. Shri Vaishnav School of Management follows unique teaching pedagogies, which enhances the holistic development of students. It includes case studies, Major Research projects at Under Graduate and Post Graduate level, Internships, workshops, Industrial visits, Live Projects, Conferences, and many more essential activities.

An Intellectual Genius Dr Upinder Dhar is Vice Chancellor of Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya (Indore). Earlier, he was group additional vice chancellor and pro-vice chancellor (Academics) in Amity University (Noida) and is also the founding vice chancellor of JK Lakshmipat University (Jaipur).

Moreover, he has been the dean, director, professor, reader, and guest lecturer in many universities and institutes. Dr Dhar has conducted more than 650 management and faculty development programs for the executives of major business houses and faculty members of academic institutions.

He has also been a guest faculty member at renowned universities like IIM Indore, IIM Trichy, IIM Calcutta, and IIT Roorkee. Besides all these consultancy assignments, he has authored/co-authored/edited more than 700 publications, and 36 PhDs have been awarded to intellects under his supervision.

Dr Dhar was conferred Ravi J Matthai National Fellow Award by the Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS) in 2018. Also, there are eight excellence centres’ have been established under his guidance. Being a prominent educational leader, he has achieved a lot in his career and also gaining more knowledge in the sector.

Apart from his own career, he guided many scholars under his leadership. He also encouraged the faculties of the SVVV to support the students when they started ‘Prayantayna’ NGO and focused on providing quality and technology-driven education to public schools’ students.

Foresights, Purpose, and Objectives of an Institute

When Dr Dhar communicates with us about the institute and about himself, he also provides a glimpse of the vision, mission, and core objectives of the institute and asserts the vision,

“To create an educational environment that engages deep intellectual, moral and spiritual stimulation, thereby nurturing leadership.”

After highlighting the vision, he explained his mission for the institute, saying, “To pioneer a ‘mentoring’ based education system with a culture of its own, rolled in Indian ethos and in tune with contemporary times. To impart learning through understanding knowledge enrichment, skill development and positive attitude formation. To encourage innovative thinking with self-discipline and social responsibility.”

Dr Dhar further divulges the core values of the institute and postulates that “Value-based education being at the helm, the University promotes endurance, excellence, fairness, honesty and transparency as its core values.”

Magnificent Benchmarks and its Attainments

The course objectives of various programmes focus on Skill development through innovative pedagogy, professional ethics, and sensitization towards equity and sustainability.

The expected learning outcomes are that after graduating in a particular course, the students should become employable, industry-ready and compassionate human beings with integrity who can contribute to the development of society.

E-Learning Nurtures Pedagogic Facility

Traditionally, e-learning was considered an alternative pathway that was well suited to adult learners seeking higher education opportunities. However, the emergence of the pandemic has forced educators and students across all levels of education to adopt virtual courses. Thus, the institute has come up with many initiatives to enhance the students’ leanings, and those initiatives are-

• E-Learning Management System- E-Learning encompasses research, learning and teaching in the digital environment, where students have access to courses offered online with instruction and course materials, instructor’s notes, course topics, and discussion forums.
• E-Library- The Campus enabled the Wi-fi facility for the students and faculty, and they can access the e-content freely through library software LIBMAN by Master soft Nagpur. The Library is equipped with 10 computer systems.
• E-Resources- The Central Library subscribes to the IEEE, Management collection of ejournals from Emerald, EBSCO and Sage Journals and statistical databases likeINDIASTAT.COM.
• Anti-Plagiarism Software- The anti-Plagiarism Software OURIGINAL is used for checking plagiarism in MRPs, and various thesis to maintain integrity in research work.

Proficiencies for Strengthening Pupil’s Future

The Shri Vaishnav School of Management provides facilities to enrich the students and prepare them for future challenges. With the concern of it, they incorporate certain arrangements like-

• Regular Training and Placement Classes, which include resume writing, cracking aptitude exams, etc., for students, are conducted for their holistic development.
• Pre – Placement Preparation like mock exercises and interviews are conducted for the students to make them industry ready.
• Summer Internships / MRPs – are incorporated into their schemes and syllabus, and accordingly, the students get evaluated.
• Extra tutorials are conducted for the weak students so that they can be able to compete with other students in the class. This also helps in developing confidence and clear final exams.

Non-Academic Activities

Shri Vaishnav School of Management has various department-wise clubs like Human Resource, Marketing, Finance, and Sustainability, and all these clubs are managed by the students. Apart from these clubs, students do organize various events equivalently do participation, in the whole process, the faculties act like a catalyst and facilitators in organizing all these events.

Six Centers of Excellence i.e., Center of Excellence In Plasma Research, Center of Excellence In Happiness Studies, Center of Excellence in Vocational Studies, Center of Excellence in Sustainable Development, Center of Excellence on Simulation and Gaming, Center of Excellence in Data Science have been established and are functional under his leadership.

Under his leadership, 44 padamvibhusan /padambhushan /padamshri awardees visited SVVV and shared their experience. Padma Vibhushan Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Padma Bhushan Dr Anil Prakash Joshi, Padma Bhushan Prof. Padmanabhan Balaram, Padma Bhushan M. S. Raghunathan, Padma Shri Dr (Mrs) Janak Palta McGilligan to name a few.

Besides aforesaid, there are various competitions like business plan competition, summer internship, MRP competition wherein students participate and showcase their talents. The school also organize AIMS week, where various activities like blood donation, community services, and orphanage visits have been organized. With all these activities, the students develop an empathetic attitude but also sensitize them towards gender diversity and sustainability.

While mentioning certain CSR activities of the institute, Dr Dhar also shared the student’s development programs and said, “SVVV make various associate members (Students) and organize skill development programs, guest lectures, student development programmes so that students are acquainted with recent trends and practices and make them more industry ready.”

Sliding down more activities, he said, “The institute also organizes various sports activities like West Zone, Interuniversity AIU (Association of Indian Universities) in 2019 – table tennis man tournament, wherein 55 teams from various states participated. Similarly, in 2020 women’s basketball tournament was organized.”

Further he added, “Other than these, the school also arrange industrial visits and guest lectures to bridge the gap between academic and industry. It also organizes role plays like Nukkad Natak. Moreover, to it, the institute came up with the ‘Happiness Club’ initiative to create a global network of people celebrating life. In this club, the institute does organize several programs like tug of war, sharing jokes, dancing, singing, and conference (Anand Amrit), which helps in engaging students meanwhile they also learn how to handle failures and success.”

Notable Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

• Shri Vaishnav School of management, Business World received the best B-schools award in 2020- 2021.
• According to The Knowledge Review, August 2021, Issue 05, Shri Vaishnav School of Management, SVVV was recognized Most Prominent Institutes of Management in India 2021.

Envisaging the Future

Along with academic endeavour, an Institute-industry interface is also promoted, with Guest lecturers being the regular feature. The holistic development of the students is the foremost priority of the Shri Vaishnav School of Management. Keeping this in mind SVSM has signed MoU with Hanyang University, South Korea and St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, the USA, to establish alliances related to the exchange of faculty and students.

For the Rural management course, SVSM signed an MoU with Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education, Department of Higher Education, and Ministry of Human Resource Development. Apart from all these, the school also have signed many MoUs for sharing a common desire to explore, extend, and strengthen mutual relationships, and it also helps the students to develop employability skills in the contemporary fields.

However, marking the significant steps towards the growth of the school along with the students, Dr Dhar cited that, “Successfully envisioning the future of the department is contingent on the inputs of all stakeholders – faculty, staff, students, and alumni. We have the feedback process from the aforesaid. Thus, our department adopts the approach of continuous improvement and learning, which will pave the way for taking the strategic action plan forward.”