When Biswajeet Pattanayak introduced the Bollywood film Lagaan in the curriculum at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore, in 2001, it caught the eye of every management guru in the country. It was a move that stood out in India for its inguenity.
Four years later, in 2005, Pattanayak, who is popularly known as the Lagaan Professor, established Asian School of Business Management (ASBM) in Bhubaneswar to achieve excellence in the area of management education and meet the market demand for management graduates with sectoral specialisation.
Recently, ASBM figured in the Top 20 business schools in a survey conducted by the Dainik Bhaskar Lakshya B-School Survey-2011 and bagged the ‘Top Institute of India’ award for 2011 by Competition Success Review.
Located near the Baranga-Khurda Road, the ASBM campus and its programmes are designed in such a manner that students receive personalised training as well as a robust campus atmosphere.
Programmes offered
ASBM offers postgraduate diploma programmes in management (PGDM), international business (PGDM-IB), retail management (PGDM-RM), banking insurance and financial services management (PGDM-BIFSM), logistics and supply chain management(PGDM-LSCM) and a host of other programmes in association with corporate houses.
“We are the only B-school to run a full-fledged centre for corporate studies, an advanced language lab to aid our international businesses and allied programmes, and a finishing school to help our graduates with business etiquette and corporate grooming,” says Pattanayak, the director of ASBM.
In addition to the postgraduate programmes, ASBM has started the ASBM Institute of BBA and the ASBM Junior College. The Indian government has granted permission to start the ASBM Centre for Distance Education that will offer management courses through various study centres across the country.
As with other top MBA institutes in the country, ASBM too believes in case-based simulation and action research. “We strictly adhere to the Harvard model and this has kept us ahead in terms of academic rigour and quality of learning,” says Pattanayak.
An interesting strategy of the institution is the use of movies to teach management principles. Movies like Well Done Abba, Corporate, Satta, Rocket Singh, Guru, Lagaan are used by lecturers to teach subjects like public policy management, retail management, entrepreneurship and leadership.
Infrastructure
The institution has a state-of-the-art campus with air-conditioned classrooms that are equipped with ultramodern audio-visual teaching aids. Also, there are separate hostels for boys and girls, an exclusive recreation hub consisting of a meditation hall, a gym, an entertainment annexe, a round-the-clock cafeteria and an ice-cream joint. The institute is also trying to rope in international expertise. “We recently signed an MoU with the California State University, San Bernardino, USA, to promote educational partnership in international business, international marketing, international finance and entrepreneurship,” adds Pattanayak.
In terms of ranking, insiders say that ASBM-Bhubaneswar is one of the most sought after choice for management studies in Bhubaneswar. “ASBM is a great brand name. They offer good courses and the faculty is excellent. The library is state-of-the art and new books are selected in consultation with the students. The courses are a perfect mix of theory and practice,” says Bikash Behera, a PGDM student. “What makes it even more special is the freedom to innovate and the ease with which we interact with our faculty. Even the director is easily accessible,” he adds.
Little wonder that they have industry heavyweights coming in for the campus placements — HCL, KARVY, GATI, Pantaloon Retail India Ltd, Reliance, Satyam Group, Lanco Dawnay Day, to name a few. “Since the college’s inception, we have maintained a 100 per cent placement trend as we have industry-linked programmes here,” informs the director. All the courses in both the campuses are approved and recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education.
— diana@newindianexpress.com