Incepted with a vision to equip the would be managers with business acumen of world class standards, International Management Institute is the first Indian B-School to come up with corporate funding with companies such as RPG Enterprises, Williamson and Magor, Nestle, ITC and SAIL. The institute is ranked among the top 15 B-Schools in the country. Apart from the Postgraduate Diploma in Management and PGDM (HR), IMI conducts a number of programmes including the executive PGDM, three-year part time PGDM and Doctoral programmes. The B-School found itself caught in the global financial crisis recently, facing dreadful situations like prolonged placement process and severe drop in salaries. However, now when the situation is expected to improve the institute still remains a sought after destination for MBA aspirants. IMI’s Director, C.S. Venkataratnam talks about the institute, its admission process and more with Businessworld Online’s Chetna Mehra. Excerpts. 
 
What are the qualities that set IMI apart from other B-Schools?
It’s the name firstly. International Management Institute compliments its name completely. The B-School started focusing on international business a decade before Indian economy opened up. Over two-third of the IMI faculty have either studied or worked abroad. Not just that our curriculum is also internationally aligned. About 10 per cent of our students in the Executive Program come from six-eight different countries each year.

Second is Learning. The transformation or value addition that takes place at IMI is much higher than in most other institutions, the reasons for which are: (a) excellent faculty; (b) better students who should have got into IIMs but narrowly missed and therefore they take a leaf from the hare and tortoise story; (c) track record of IMI alumni who made it high and fast in several organisations despite an initial setback, as IMI is usually counted in the next 10 in most surveys.
 
Finance and marketing have been the students' favourite when it comes to MBA, where does HR stands in the current scenario?
We have two separate programmes: PGDM (marketing and finance) and PGDM HR. There is a huge scarcity when it comes to the supply of good quality HR students as compared to the demand. Therefore, within a period of three years, IMI’s HR students have been able to make a mark in the industry. However, the average cut off in admission and in average pay is relatively lower in HR, but in the coming years even this marginal gap will diminish.

Besides hiring, can you elaborate on the role of HR managers in an organisation? Do you think the role changes in different firms under changing economic conditions?
The role of HR varies with the various stages in an organisation’s life cycle. During the start-up period the focus is on setting policies and hiring. During the growth period system development becomes the main focus. At the maturity level, productivity is a major preoccupation. When there is a decline, retraining and redeployment, voluntary separations, etc. engage the maximum attention of an HR professional. Proactive HR managers ensure that the organisation delays maturity and avoid decline stages through creativity, innovation and deploying the organisational resources to introduce new products/services, new methods, materials and machinery/technology. Successful companies creatively destroy their own products before they reach maturity stage and replace them with new products.
 
What is your opinion of a role of HR in start ups? How vital is their role in entrepreneur-led firms?
It’s very critical, because that is where culture building starts. The alignment with business strategy, HR strategy and the various subsystems of HR is to be planned and executed dextrously from the very beginning. For instance, if the organisation wishes to compete on the basis of creativity and innovation, it should plan to hire people who are creative, flexible and agile. Its compensation should focus on team work as well as incentives for innovation rather than physical output based incentive schemes, be it for production or marketing. It is the early recruits who lead various departments, functions and divisions and set the tone and culture of an organisation. In entrepreneur lead firms, the fit between key people and entrepreneur is equally critical. Therefore, HR role is very vital in start ups and entrepreneur-lead firms.

Has the downturn affected the number of B-school students taking up HR as specialisation?
Not really. In any case HR specialisation is not popular in the regular PGDM where in a typical top B-school over 90 per cent students opt for either marketing or finance. The demand for PGDM HR programmes has not been affected. If you see over all the number of students applying for CAT 2010 has come down by 17 per cent. The effect on HR is lesser than that.
 
With a bleak job market (due to the financial crisis), has the role of HR manager diminished to an extent? How can an HR manager contribute in vitality to an organisation in such a scenario?
No. HR Roles vary as firms move across various stages in business cycle. If in the peak of BPO boom hiring was the main activity, during downturn, aligning with business, putting pressure on performance and preparing and counselling people for pink slips assumes the prime role of HR managers. With every down turn most successful companies think of doing things differently and get into newer areas. Therefore there is pressure to be creative and innovative.
 
What is the average CAT score cut-off for your institute?
It is 95 percentile for PGDM and 91 percentile for PGDM HR
 
What is the admission procedure at IMI? How much weightage is given to the various stages (GD, interview, CAT Score) during the evaluation process?
CAT score is used for screening purpose only. After screening the candidates’ academic performance and work experience is evaluated (with weightage improving upto 5 years and tapering off after 5 years). A group discussion and viva also takes place. We ask the candidates to write a one page essay and to speak extempore for two minutes (because CAT does not really test written and spoken communication skills; also group discussion skills of students from various parts of the country are different due to cultural differences. We ask them to speak extempore to see whether they can think on their feet and speak coherently, logically and convincingly)
 
How important is the work experience to get into IMI?
As mentioned earlier, upto a point it is important. People with two to three years of experience will be able to relate better with what is taught in the class.