SPJIMR leads with out-of-the-box thinking, driven by research and social impact

There is a wide grin on Varun Nagaraj’s face. “I complete three years as the dean,” he says. Helming SPJIMR is no easy task and Nagaraj brings to the table experience not only from the world of academia but from the professional world of Silicon Valley. It was especially relevant for India, which has a different terrain for everything and education is no exception.

Housed in a compact campus in Andheri, a suburb in western Mumbai, the institute is a beehive of activity as the summer placement process for the new batch gets underway.

The students came aboard just three months ago but this is a big deal as it sets the base for making many career decisions. For many years, the institute was known for its autumn placement or an internship about halfway into the second year. “It was difficult for many companies to make that adjustment just for us,” explains Nagaraj. That move appears to have paid off, with more companies showing interest to pick the finest minds. This is for the flagship two-year programme, which has a long list of achievers.

The campus also boasts of robust infrastructure. The classrooms are set in a modern environment that includes video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Cisco, Webex, and Google Meet—all used for online classes, hybrid meetings, and webinars.

Recruiters come from sectors as varied as consulting, FMCG, financial services, information technology, to name a few, apart from international ones. While a lot has been taking place at the institute, Nagaraj outlines two areas where significant progress has been made—research and social engagement.

Research is about innovation and mapping the domain to a faculty’s research interests. It also includes Management Practice Insights, a collection of journal articles picked from any part of the world and translated (made more relevant) for managers and business leaders worldwide. This comes out twice a year and addresses issues such as how companies should rotate their auditors or use virtual reality as a game changer in accurately predicting sales for new product launches. “It helps in influencing managerial practice and builds the SPJIMR brand,” Nagaraj says. A lot of attention is put not just on one’s work but also on what impact it has on society.

Apart from that, there are specific areas where the institute has been working to go beyond the classroom. Within this, SPJIMR has closely worked with the underprivileged sections of society. The institute works with nearly 600 NGOs and the objective is to churn out 100 managers with a focus on the development sector. Nagaraj calls this exercise “capability building in the NGO sector.”

This is a blended 12-month modular programme, which has six contact periods of two weeks each. The first, third, and last contacts are in-person and of a residential nature on campus, while the other three are online. Contact period refers to the time when classes or sessions are held.

The WISE Tech project, like the Y Combinator model in the US, is another interesting aspect, revolving around a technology start-up accelerator. This in-house project looks to address the challenge of scaling up businesses that, say, have secured one round of funding and need that little help to get into the next critical phase. “There is a network of 40 VCs and the institute plays the role of a conduit to facilitate that process,” says Nagaraj.

Investments for enhancing infrastructure include a new hostel building with more than 200 rooms, a new faculty accommodation block, adding over 65 faculty residences and a state-of-the-art recreation centre with indoor gaming facilities and food courts, among others.

The journey of studying at SPJIMR is filled with innovation, with a thrust on technology, making sure there are well-rounded students who can think smartly and are able to get the best out of the institute. Bagging a job is only one part of the story.

@krishnagopalan