ISB looking to tie up with Indian MNCs to increase foreign enrolments

Higher number of international students must to become a globally recognised institute, says Dean Rajendra Srivastava

To attract a higher number of international student at its campuses, the Indian School of Business (ISB) is planning to enter into an agreement with Indian multinational companies to train their managers working overseas.

ISB is a premier business school with campuses at Hyderabad and Mohali.

“In order to become a globally recognised institute, ISB needs to have a higher enrolment of international students. A lower enrolment ratio of foreign students is an area of concern," said Professor Rajendra Srivastava, who took charge as the Dean at the beginning of this month. He is also Professor of Business in Marketing and the Novartis Chair Professor of Marketing Strategy and Innovation.

Srivastava added that the companies on the board of directors of ISB have an international presence and this can be leveraged to increase the number of students from different parts of the world.

“The Indian corporate sectors has vast manpower working in the overseas operations of the Indian companies. We would soon be working with the Indian multinationals for their manpower training requirements for the managers at global locations”, he said.

This will help ISB create a canvas for young management aspirants from diverse culture, nationalities and ethnic backgrounds.

In the 2016 batch of the post-graduate programme, the number of foreign students in a student body of 811 is insignificant, he pointed out.

ISB is also in the process of offering blended learning in which distant learning courses would be of provided online and discussion and dialogue that is imperative for analytical understanding would be imparted on campus.

The B-school has no plans to expand its footprint in other parts of the world but is scouting for partners in the premier international management schools for collaborative programs on learning.

Srivastava also hinted at collaborations with the government and corporate community. “We will try to get government and industry ranks to join our classroom and our faculty to have exchange programs with them."

The Munjal Institute at ISB Mohali is gearing up to participate in a big way in the NDA government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.

The ailing SME sector of Punjab can benefit from the research and innovation at ISB Mohali and Srivastava said that the school would try to add value to the languishing sector in the state.