Army ethos in MBA: AIM Kolkata offers dual specialisations, 100% placements

NEW DELHI: Early attendance calls, marching drills and physical training exercises are regular for an MBA student at the Army Institute of Management, Kolkata. The institute has a two-decade-long history of building management professionals and bringing the armed forces ethos together with business training.

Discipline, ethics and commitment to responsibilities are not just part of lessons in MBA classrooms but instilled in the everyday conduct of students in its residential campus. While the institute is mainly for the wards of serving or retired army personnel, especially for low-ranking soldiers, the institute admits 20% candidates from civilian backgrounds.

According to the institute’s director, retired Major General VS Ranade, AIM is creating a “level-playing field” for the disadvantaged students while continuing to “nurture the army way of life”.

“The institute was established with the aim to provide a level-playing field in this competitive corporate world. Army ethos is the bedrock of our institution. While it is not part of the university curriculum, it is carried out on the sidelines,” he said.

Dual specialisation, personality development, English communication training and other such efforts have helped the B-school place 100% of its students in blue-chip companies for over a decade. The institute is approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and affiliated to the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University, formerly known as West Bengal University of Technology.

Dual MBA specialisations

The institute’s dual specialisation programme allows students the flexibility of studying and specialising in two disciplines or fields while being enrolled in a single MBA programme. For instance, a business analytics MBA major can take finance as their minor programme. “Since business analytics is in demand, a lot of our students have opted for it as a minor subject,” said Abhishek Bhattacharjee, who teaches general management at AIM Kolkata. In the 2022 batch, 46 students have the subject as minor or major degree. The two-year programme is divided into 102 credit courses delivered over four semesters.

In their final year, students opt for electives. By the end of the full-time programme, they have earned a master’s degree in two subjects – a major and a minor – as well as value-added elective programmes.

“The institute is well-equipped with state-of-the art facilities that allow students to grasp concepts in an interactive manner. We offer specialisation in business analytics which enables management students to make strategic and data-driven decisions based on hands-on learning done in our computer labs. We teach students to use software. The classrooms are tech-enabled and aid students’ learning in a more interactive manner,” he added.

“The benefit is in the diversity of subjects. Considering the market is so volatile, the dual specialisation can be very handy in terms of job prospects. Someone with a dual specialisation in business analytics and marketing has the opportunity to function as a marketing manager, data analyst, or analyst. With more career options available, employability increases tremendously,” he further explained.

Ready for MBA jobs

Not restricted to just classroom learning, the students are groomed to develop professional capabilities and tutored to speak business English.

“Most of our students come from a vernacular background and all over the country. We have students from remote parts of Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and other states. Either they have weak English or have a mother tongue influence. We have specialists who offer 50-60 hours of English language teaching which is not common in B-Schools,” said Tamojit Ghosh Roy, head of placement and corporate relations.

Interactive sessions on communication and vocabulary, public speaking, extempore, group discussion and interviews make graduates ready for a corporate workplace. “The residential campus allows us to do longer hours of interventions to excel in corporate culture,” he added.

Major General VS Ranade, director, AIM Kolkata

According to Maj. Gen. (retd) Ranade, the institute’s MBA stands apart because of its unique personality development programme which is a “blend of military and business spirit”. “We offer a personality-development programme that strives to impart qualities of leadership, discipline and time management which is structured so that it does not affect regular studies.

The programme is 100 hours spread across a single semester. We nurture qualities of commitment, perseverance, and discipline that help students be successful in the corporate world,” he said.

The training programme includes interpersonal, leadership and decision-making skills, creative thinking, stress and time management, and a psychometric analysis. These are in addition to the discipline followed in military academies. Since most of the students are from an army background, they are open to army-like training. Apart from preparing them for corporate life, it also helps them appear for Staff Selection Board recruitment drives. However this group is a minority.

“At 5.30 in the morning, students attend a ‘fall-in’ – a regular attendance in military training – and again at the end of the day at 10.30. Someone who has 100% attendance in these fall-ins is bound to have a sense of discipline and commitment, in other words, virtues that make a management professional worth hiring,” said Roy.

CAT 2023, army background

Students are admitted on the basis of the Common Admission Test (CAT) scores, a personal interview and a group discussion. The key criterion, however, is the army background, said Ranade. Children of serving or retired army personnel, army widows, adopted children and step children are eligible.

Tamojit Ghosh Roy, head of placement and corporate relations.

Most students in a batch have or had parents in the lower ranks of the army. “80% of the students come from families of the soldiers and children of army officers is about 20%. The whole idea is to help this 80% to improve their economic position,” said Roy.

Typically, AIM’s students are children of junior commissioned officers or from other ranks. The phrase “junior commissioned officer” (JCO) refers to a series of military ranks that are below lieutenant (a commissioned officer) and above havildar (a non-commissioned officer).

“It is a mandate from the Indian army to give professional education and alleviate economic status. The idea is welfare of JCOs and ORs [Junior Commissioned Officers / Other Ranks] who belong to economically-challenged backgrounds or belong to families with low literacy rates. We try to match the return on investment and help them get jobs [at salaries] at least Rs 7 lakh and above,” he added.

While it may be a challenge for the minority civilian students, they eventually adapt, said Ranade. “The students, in my experience, eventually enjoy the sense of discipline that helps them in the longer run,” he added.

AIM Kolkata placements

According to the 2021-2023 batch profile, 77% of the class comprises students with no work experience and only 3% students came with an experience of more than three years. Only 10% of the batch had experience of less than a year.

To make up for the lack of experience, summer internships are mandatory. Every student has to undergo six-eight weeks of summer internship during June – July after completing the second semester. In the 2022-24 MBA batch of 115 students, the institute recorded 100% summer placements with stipends. More than 60 domestic and international companies took part in the summer placement process, as per an official statement. More recruiters are visiting the campus every year.

“There are 40-odd companies that regularly recruit from our campus and there are new-age companies that have joined over the time,” said Roy. Companies like ITC Limited, PNB MetLife, Pantaloons and other Indian firms like Eveready Industries, Coal India, Kotak Mahindra, Hyphen Inc. and others made offers. According to the latest summer internship placement report, while most offers – 32% – were made by the banking and financial sector, FMCG companies and analytics are also recruiting from the campus.

The institute has also reported 100% placements in the last decade but the challenge is in finding better pay packages. Despite market turbulence, the placement cell has managed to increase the salary packages of the students, especially in the last two years.

“In the batches of 2022 and 2023, the average salary has gone up by 65%. Prior to that, the average salary was Rs. 2.5 lakh. We have just closed the placements for the 2023 batch and it is almost Rs. 8 lakh,” said Roy. “The highest package is comparatively low at Rs. 15 lakh when other B-schools’ packages are Rs. 20-25 lakh,” Roy admitted adding, “we are trying to build up but it is a slow process, finding high-paying offers. I am confident that the packages will reach Rs. 30-35 lakh in a couple of years.”

Unlike the common practice of eliminating students from the placement cycle once they are offered a job, the institute allows students to apply for a better package. “For instance, if a student has got a category-1 offer of Rs. 5 lakh, we give students two-three chances to apply for higher-category jobs where the salary package is Rs. 9 lakh or more,” explained Roy. “The institute is dedicated to helping them raise their income level. If the student spends Rs. 8-9 lakh for admission, we try to help them leave with a package which helps them recover it.”