“Post the 1971 Indo-Pak war, joining the Army was an irresistible draw. Admission offers to join several prestigious institutions including IIT Kanpur, and BITS Pilani did not sway my decision to join the Armed Forces. The journey from potentially being a technocrat to becoming a soldier in the icy heights of Himalayas and ultimately joining IIM-A has been more like a dream than reality.”
The Army equipped me with tremendous manpower and equipment management capabilities, often under most unthinkable and trying situations: be it in Kargil or as part of the IPKF in Sri Lanka. However, there was more to be learnt and challenges to be undertaken -- even at the age of 51. At IIM-A, it was not enough to burn the proverbial midnight oil. One had to be mentally agile, as a commando in the Army would like to be, physically strong and able. There was tremendous value in the coutse… it leveraged our experience, besides learning to use the best of tools in decision-making, financial analysis, organization behavior/culture, managing consumer values, communication, strategy and many other things.
Having been an instructor/trainer in the Army all along, I always felt that nothing can beat the Armed Forces in the way we train our men. This illusion lasted me less than a week at IIM A: there, the professors are not only internationally acclaimed but are the most dedicated lot. Despite looking at them critically, there was not even one professor (there were more than twenty for over 25 subjects) who one could find faults with. Rather, as the days went passed, there was more and more of respect for them. True nation building is done here, wealth of the country lies at the invaluable teachings of the faculty. Cognitive analyses, intuitive reasoning and strategizing corporate affairs were all inculcated through the special pedagogy of learning through case studies, role plays and interactive modeling sessions in and out of the class rooms.
Keeping in mind the experience gained in the Armed Forces, the syllabus was very well crafted to skip issues that would become repetitive and included what is needed for a smooth transition of Armed Forces officers to the corporate culture. There was exposure to all the sectors of industries globally… the ability to cull out the differentiating factors and predicting analyses was internalized through the learning process at IIM A. At the end of the day, one feels extremely confident to handle all issues in the corporate environment in a manner a seasoned corporate professional would do.
Undoubtedly IIM-A is one of the best MBA institutes on one could come across. Institutes like IIM-A have been cults in their own fields and one feels lucky to touch the portals of these institutions.
