IIM Calcutta’s law programmes help build skills in business, corporate law

NEW DELHI: Raqshanda Niazi, already qualified as a lawyer, joined Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta’s executive programme in business and corporate law, or EPBCL, in 2018, the first year of its launch. One of the top business schools in the country, IIM Calcutta is also training senior executives and officers in laws relevant to their work.

“What I had learnt so far during my education and as a lawyer was entirely different from what I recently learnt during my study at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta. The teaching style and the content were very impressive,” said Niazi. She is the legal and compliance counsel at a Canadian pension fund company with large investments in India.

Niazi earned her LLB degree in 2015 from Meerut University. “I had joined the programme in IIM C to refresh my basics but I learnt much more than what I expected,” she added.

IIM Calcutta has been offering a number of programmes – leadership and general management, functional, sectoral, strategy and entrepreneurship, analytics and data science – with a specialisation in law. While law as a topic is already an integral part of MBA or master of business administration programmes offered across institutions, a few also offer specialised short-term executive management development programmes on various topics including corporate law.

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IIM Calcutta customised programmes

The programme sees regular requests from the government – most recently from the ministry of defence – from public-sector units and from corporate houses who send their employees to upskill.

“The capacity building commission has identified contract management as one of the core areas for upskilling of all the government entities. Because India is at the rock bottom when it comes to contract management, we have been approached to train the executives and officers,” said Ravindran Rajesh Babu, professor, public policy and management group, IIM Calcutta.

The programmes are customised according to the needs of the company. As part of an agreement with Coal India, IIM Calcutta has trained 210 of its officers on contract management till now. The institute has also trained officers working with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC); National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) and Food Corporation of India (FCI). Ravindran Rajesh Babu, Professor, IIM Calcutta

The institute has developed a programme for training defence officials and this was done for those officials in defence acquisition and procurement. “This programme was asked for by the director general of defence acquisitions. Under him this programme was carried out,” added Babu.

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Law and management

The modules of the EPBCL are developed or modified as per the evolving dynamics of the economies in India and also from a global perspective.

Resources from the teachers and business practitioners from across the globe are referred to and the course is delivered online with the learners required to visit the campus only for a short period.

“It is for working executives and the classes are held on a Sunday and then they will have to visit the campus for four days and make the presentations of whatever projects were given. They will attend workshops etc. We have students from abroad also because it is online. Also, everyone visits the campus for four days irrespective of the country they are from,” said VK Unni, professor, public policy and management, IIM Calcutta.

Niazi, whose work profile also demands that she manages the legal aspect of business, works also in Singapore and Shanghai. The six-month programme helped her expand her outlook in finding a solution to more complex issues.

These programmes are usually taken by executives for enhancing their mid-career growth by upskilling themselves.

Ajay Neb also completed the EPBCL programme in 2018 and is a senior vice president, corporate affairs, Edelweiss Financial.

VK Unni, Professor, IIM Calcutta

“The course was quite exhaustive and it is very well designed. In a snapshot, it gives you the flexibility of doing the programme at your own pace as you don’t have to be on campus, we had a residency for a week. It gave me the material that I required,” said Neb. He had earlier completed his master’s in public policy from the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad.

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Law for lawyers

The LLB degree programme gives a broad basic understanding of the legal aspects of a subject, explained Babu. “What the institute focuses on is the corporate regulatory part of it, the international regulatory part of it, which would be much closer to an executive’s job profile.”

Management is also about networking and knowing each other from diverse backgrounds, Babu added. The programmes were on hold in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic and resumed again in 2022. There are 50 to 52 participants enrolled in a batch. On completion of the programme, the students travel to Calcutta for the seven-day in-campus participation which is mandatory.

Ajay Neb, Participant, EPBCL, IIM Calcutta

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“We end up having at least 20 law graduates in the programme and this is because the way law is taught here is not the way it is taught in law schools. Also many of the subjects that are taught in this programme are not available in an LLB programme,” said Babu.

Babu further said that since the evolving situation demands knowledge of all domains, it is necessary for all talented aspirants to have a broader knowledge of every domain, be it law, management or public policy which the students are well aware of and they are regularly keeping themselves updated. “90 percent of those who are admitted for MBA programmes are engineers. So learning and upskilling are very important,” he said.