JAGSoM offers a Unique AACSB Accredited UGC approved Dual-City ‘Liberal Professional MBA’ in Mumbai & Bangalore

Jagdish Sheth School of Management (JAGSoM), the AACSB Accredited and Globally Ranked B-School, has launched a unique ‘Liberal-Professional MBA’ program, which will be delivered in two prominent business centres of India – Mumbai and Bangalore. JAGSoM MBA is developed as an innovative MBA program designed for new age professional roles that require creativity, innovation, problem solving skills.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Report on Top skills required for 2025, while “Analytical thinking and innovation” tops the list; “Creativity, Originality and Initiative” is 5th in the list. In line with this finding, Dr Atish Chattopadhyay, Director JAGSoM, Bangalore and Vice Chancellor Vijaybhoomi University, Mumbai, says “Mainstream MBA programs groom their graduates for skills of Logic and Analysis. As the world shifted from Industrial Age to Knowledge Age and now moves towards Conceptual Age; Creativity, Empathy and Imagination are essential skills. Our unique MBA program will groom professionals who would complement the left-brain professionals, by bringing in sensory elements like design, storytelling, empathy, symphony, play and meaning.”

Globally acclaimed academics Padma Bhushan Prof. Jagdish Sheth (Chairman, JAGSoM Bangalore) and Prof. A Parasuraman (Pro-chancellor, Vijaybhoomi University Mumbai) are mentoring this JAGSoM MBA program. In addition to senior academics, leading Creative Industry Professionals with several decades of experience in Advertising, Media, Music, Films and Marketing Communication will share their experiences and skills with young MBA students.

In this article, we review JAGSoM’s MBA, its USPs, Faculty, Curriculum, Fees, Admission process and a lot more. Admissions are currently open for 2022 Batch. Apply Now. 

JAGSoM Journey – Key Milestones
Before we discuss JAGSoM’s MBA, here are the key milestones achieved by this fast growing institution:

• In 2018, JAGSoM (formerly IFIM Business School) became the sixth B-school in India after ISB, TAPMI, IIM Calcutta, IMT Ghaziabad and XLRI to be AACSB Accredited.
• In 2020, QS Masters in Marketing Ranking 2021 ranked JAGSoM amongst the Top 100 (51-100 band) in the world for its PGDM Marketing program and ranked Top 150 (101-150 band) for its PGDM Finance Program.
• On October 21, 2020, IFIM Business School Bangalore was rechristened as JAGSoM after globally respected management guru Padma Bhushan Dr Jagadish Sheth.
• On December 23, 2020, JAGSoM announced 100% completion of Placements 2021 with an Average Salary of Rs 10.21 Lakhs Per Annum.
• In July 2021, JAGSoM launched dual city MBA at VIJAYBHOOMI University

Considering that it is newly launched program, is JAGSoM MBA recognized by relevant Regulatory Bodies of Government of India? Let’s find out...

JAGSoM MBA Regulatory Approvals
Yes, JAGSoM MBA is recognized by relevant Regulatory Bodies. Here are the details:

• Accredited by: JAGSoM MBA is accredited by AACSB International.
• Approved by: Vijaybhoomi University, Raigad Act, 2018 (Maharashtra Act No. 77 of 2018)
• Ranked by: In 2020, QS Masters in Marketing Ranking 2021 ranked JAGSoM amongst the Top 100 such programs in 51-100 band (51+ Band) and 101-150 (101+ Band) Band Globally in the QS Masters in Finance Rankings.

So, we can say that JAGSoM MBA is an AACSB Accredited and UGC Recognized program. This is a good assurance to MBA applicants and their parents who are searching for authentic MBA program that are duly recognized.

JAGSoM MBA: Key differentiators
What are the differentiators of this new program? Let’s find out:

• Mentored by Prof. Jagdish Sheth and Prof. A Parasuraman: Prof. Jagdish Sheth (Chairman, JAGSoM) and Prof. A Parasuraman (Pro-chancellor, Vijaybhoomi University, and member of Governing body), are actively involved in the program design and architecture. Well known management academic Dr Atish Chattopadhyay leads the program.

• AACSB Accredited, UGC Approved MBA: Offered by JAGSoM, one of the Top AACSB accredited and globally Ranked B-schools in India. As shared, the program is UGC approved and the first year learning of the program is offered at UGC approved Vijaybhoomi University Mumbai

• Offered by JAGSoM, a Top AACSB accredited B-school: JAGSoM is the 6th Business School in India to receive the prestigious AACSB International accreditation. It was Globally Ranked in QS Masters Global Ranking 2021 in 51+ Band for PGDM Marketing and 101+ Band for PGDM Finance

• Dual City Exposure: JAGSoM MBA Program is offered at both VIJAYBHOOMI University near Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country, and JAGSoM Bangalore Campus. So, students can access internship and placement opportunities at both these business centres.

• Industry relevant Curriculum: JAGSoM MBA is Industry developed curriculum with Immersions and Internships for managerial roles in new age innovative and creative Industries.

• Faculty with Expertise in Creative Domains: The program is delivered by creative domain specialist faculty, with multi-decade experience in innovative problem solutions for commercial clients.

Let us explore some of these differentiators in detail.

1. Mentored by Prof. Jagdish Sheth & Prof. Parasuraman; Led by Dr Atish Chattopadhyay
Academic leadership makes all the difference to the delivery of a program, especially when it is a new program. JAGSoM MBA Program is mentored by a globally acclaimed academician and Padma Bhushan awardee, Prof. Jagdish Sheth as Chairman of JAGSoM and Prof. A Parasuraman as Pro-chancellor of Vijaybhoomi University.

Prof Jagdish Sheth is globally known for his scholarly contributions in the marketing, competitive strategy, and geopolitical analysis. Professor Sheth has over 50 years of combined experience in teaching and research at the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Columbia University, MIT, and Emory University. Prof Sheth he has been advisor to numerous companies including Whirlpool, Motorola, AT&T, WIPRO, Aditya Birla Group, E&Y and many others. Recognizing his achievements, Government of India conferred him with the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award in 2020.

Dr Chattopadhyay, Director, JAGSoM, is well-known management academician in India and who has previously served as the Director of IMT Ghaziabad and was part of the leadership team at leading B-schools SPJIMR Mumbai and MICA Ahmedabad before joining JAGSoM Bangalore as its Director in May 2018.

2. AACSB Accredited, UGC Approved MBA: JAGSoM MBA is UGC approved and AACSB accredited program under the Vijaybhoomi University which is a private state university notified by the Govt of Maharashtra. JAGSoM Bangalore, which was formerly known as IFIM Business School, is the 6th B-school in India after ISB, TAPMI, IIM Calcutta, IMT Ghaziabad and XLRI to get AACSB Accreditation.

3. Offered by JAGSoM, one of the Top AACSB accredited B-schools in India
AACSB Accredited & Globally Ranked: As said earlier, JAGSoM is the 6th Business School in India to receive the prestigious AACSB International accreditation. It was Globally Ranked in QS Masters Global Ranking 2021 in 51+ Band for PGDM Marketing and 101+ Band for PGDM Finance. This puts JAGSoM in the league of 8-10 top B-schools in India who have an international profile.

4. Unique Specializations
Apart from the regular specializations in the areas of Marketing, Finance, Digital Business & Analytics and HR, the program also offers unique specializations in Interdisciplinary Majors in ‘Music & Entertainment’ in collaboration with True School of Music. Interdisciplinary Majors in ‘Design Management” with a focus on Communication Design in collaboration with Vijaybhoomi School of Design and legal studies in collaboration with Vijaybhoomi School of Law.

5. Career Track Focus
Curriculum 4.0 has integrated a number of innovative Pedagogical Interventions which ensure the learning success of students. Learning by Solving through industry-grade Request For Problems (RFP), deep immersion through Career Track Focus in MarTech / FinTech – Banking – Leadership Lab ensure that students are transformed into T-Shaped Professionals with wide exposure to a diverse curriculum and building depth through specialization programs.

6. India’s Top Faculty to teach and mentor
JAGSoM’s faculty are an eclectic mix of academic scholars and industry practitioners. The faculty are ‘Domain Specialists and not ‘Functional Area Generalists’. Within each functional area- Marketing, Finance, HR and Analytics & Digital Business- JAGSoM has faculty specializing in specific subjects and domains. This helps its students acquire in-depth knowledge and skills.The faculty have expertise and experience in their respective domains, either through rich industry experience or programmatic research and knowledge creation. Brief details & profiles of some of the faculty members at JAGSoM are as below

Dr. Shalini Kalia, Dean, JAGSoM (VU Mumbai Campus)
Dr Shalini Kalia is an academician, author, and institution builder with more than 18 years of experience in leading Business schools like NMIMS Global, S P Jain School of Global Management, and IMT Ghaziabad. Dr Shalini is passionate about driving new initiatives and has played key roles as Chief Academic Officer at NMIMS Global; Deputy Director, EMBA (Mumbai), S P Jain School of Global Management; and Admissions Chairperson, IMT Ghaziabad. Dr Shalini has co-authored nine books with reputed publishers like Wiley, Pearson, and IGI Global in addition to several interdisciplinary case studies and research papers.

Faculty members who will teach at JAGSoM MBA program include:

Prof Pravin Mishra: Pravin is a communication designer, an award-winning filmmaker and an accomplished painter. His numerous accolades include ‘National Critics Award’ at the prestigious Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF’04) and 'Best Documentary Film Award' at Ahmedabad International Film Festival (AIFF’09). An alumnus of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Prof. Mishra has been a weekly columnist with TOI’s ‘Ahmedabad Mirror’ for over 5 years. Prof Mishra has conducted courses, workshops or screenings at some of the top institutes in India including IIMA, NID, MICA and CEPT. In 2017, he delivered lectures on 'Storytelling' and 'Visual Communication' at University of Southern California (USC) and Michigan State University (MSU). At present, Prof Mishra is serving as Dean, School of Design, Vijaybhoomi University.

Prof. Nilesh Thomas: Prof. Nilesh, an alumnus of the University of Newcastle, Australia, is a sound engineer and music technologist with nearly two decades of experience in designing and delivering higher education programmes and Occupational Standards aligned to the Malaysian Qualifications Framework, UK’s QAA and India’s National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF). Nilesh is an MESC certified Master Trainer (Sound Engineering), an Apple Distinguished Educator, and an Avid Certified Instructor for Pro Tools Digital Audio Workstations.

Prof. Ashutosh Phatak: Ashu, as he is better known, is an alumnus of the Wharton School of Business and an award-winning multi-instrumental music composer and producer, who has released over 15 contemporary music albums in the past two decades. He is one of the most sought-after composers in advertising and films, having composed music for over 3,000 television commercials and soundtracks for 10 feature films. Ashu is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded India’s premier live music venue chain, Blue Frog and The True School of Music, among several other ventures that serve music, entertainment and hospitality industries.

Prof Rajan Nair: Rajan's creative work covers virtually all categories of products and services an advertising professional would love to be associated with. Although an Economics and Law graduate, he's always been a writer by passion. He has worked in some of the (arguably) most creative agencies in the country: Contract, Enterprise, Nexus-Equity (as Founder-Director), Ambience and TBWA Anthem. In over 30 years in the advertising industry, he has worked on some of the best known brands, and created some of the most memorable and long-lasting campaigns in the country including Raymond’s 'The Complete Man', The Economic Times 'The Power of Knowledge' and NECC Eggs 'Sunday ho ya Monday'. Prof Rajan Nair has won over 150 awards, including finalist at CLIO Awards, the London International Advertising Awards, ABBY and CAG Awards, awards from Pioneer, Mid-Day, and A&M, Tops International (Copywriter Of The Year).

Prof Subhash Tendle: Prof. Subhash Tendle, has over 35 years of relevant hands-on experience in creating advertising and brand communication. As Creative Director for FCB-Ulka for more than two decades, Prof. Tendle has worked on brand communication campaigns both in print and TV medium for several well-known brands including Godrej, Ceat Tyres, Ciba Geigy, Crompton Greaves, ITC Hotels, Captain Cook (Atta and Salt), Santoor Soap and Nerolac Paints to name a few. He was responsible for creating the famous mascot, 'Goody' the tiger, for Nerolac Paints. During his stint with FCB, he was also involved in training the people from the creative department to be more effective in their idea generation work. After retiring from FCB-Ulka, he joined MICA as an associate Professor in 2001. In 2006, He became a Professor and Director of ‘Crafting Creative Communication’ (CCC), a specially designed programme for budding art-directors, copywriters and ad-film makers. From August 2015 till March 2021, he taught as an Adjunct Professor at MICA. Prof. Tendle is an alumnus of Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai, graduated in 1966.

5. Industry developed curriculum with Immersions and Internships
The curriculum and learning outcomes are based on inputs by experts and are tailored to go beyond the standard MBA. The coursework is augmented through ‘Learning by Solving’ with long-duration Industry Internship and live industry projects, in partnership with companies from the creative domains. The pedagogy is focused on ‘Experiential Learning’.

6. Students will also benefit from JAGSoM’s unique practice initiatives such as:

• Personality Enhancement Program: A life-skill and lifestyle-oriented program, this course addresses issues of wellness and essential skills like communication, negotiation, cross-cultural orientation to groom a holistic individual.

• Design Thinking and Innovation Incubation: This program empowers the participants to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and enables them to tackle business problems & challenges through creativity and innovation.

• Social Immersion Program: Students undertake immersion with NGOs in rural areas. Students learn to design solutions for social problems through a Techno-Economic Viability (TEV) study, thereby enabling sustainable, socially positive, and measurable impact on UN SDGs.

• Industry Internship Program: Designed for providing an opportunity to the students to apply their learnings in a real-life work environment

• Effective Execution: Providing an opportunity to students to own and work in small committees on issues that will help develop their own alma mater.

Learn at the State-of-the-Art Mumbai Campus
VIJAYBHOOMI University Campus near Mumbai is located in the lap of Mother Nature surrounded by the Sahyadri ranges. It is an environment that stimulates creative thinking and ideation, the design of this university mirrors the philosophy of the university itself. It has state of art sporting facilities like trekking, swimming, squash, gym, tennis, basketball, badminton, football, cricket and shooting range. It also has experiential laboratories like the Music room, design lab, moot court.

JAGSoM MBA Fees
JAGSoM MBA programme fees is Rs. 14.40 lakhs for two years. This includes boarding and lodging in hostel

Admissions 2022 Open: Admission Process
JAGSoM looks at innovation potential, solution orientation and value-fit of the candidates, besides their consistent academic performance and work experience for admission into its PGDM/MBA program. All short-listed candidates for the two-year full-time PGDM/MBA programme at JAGSoM are required to appear for the selection process, which comprises the following components:

• JAGSoM Management Aptitude Test (JAGMAT): JAGMAT is an aptitude test and comprises of 3 sections, which are English Language Proficiency (ELP), Quantitative Aptitude (QA) and Logical Reasoning (LR). Each section will be of 25 marks summing to 75 marks. There will not be any negative marking. Duration of the test will be 90 minutes.

• Group Exercise (GE): A 30-minute group exercise in groups of six to eight candidates each for assessing the solution orientation of the candidates in the presence of a panel comprising of a Sr. Faculty member of JAGSoM, an Industry expert and an alumni representative.

• Personal Interview (PI-1): A personal interview for assessing the value fit of the candidate with the institute. It will be an interview with the shoulder batchmates.

• Personal Interview (PI-2): A personal interview for assessing the value fit of the candidate with the institute. The interview panel will have 3 panelists (1 Faculty Member, 1 Industry Expert, 1 Alumni)

Here are some other key elements:

• Graduates in any discipline and inclined towards a career in the Creative Industries can apply.

• Apart from JAGMAT, JAGSoM will accept score in CAT/MAT/XAT/NMAT/CMAT/ GMAT/ MAHCET exams

• JAGSoM follows a rolling admission selection process, and the final offers are made based on the value fit and the performance in the above parameters.

• The applicants are informed about their selection or rejection after the evaluation of the process within 24 to 48 hours after the completion of the process.

So, if you fancy yourself being an independent thinker and joining new age companies and sectors, you should consider applying to JAGSoM MBA program. Applications are now open. Apply Now. 

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on MBA Admissions.

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Think Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos! JAGSoM launches ‘The Right Brain MBA’ at Vijaybhoomi University Mumbai