School of Business and Economics: Unique Aspects

On 29 July 2020, the Government of India, through its renamed Education Ministry (erstwhile MHRD), launched the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), the first education policy of the 21st century, based on the foundational pillars of access, affordability, equity, quality, and accountability, and aligned to the aspirations of the citizens of the era. For Adamas University, this path-breaking policy presents the perfect setting of its cherished aims and objectives. Since its inception, Adamas University, through the general notion of academic freedom, benchmarking with the best of the world, unshackling the quality framework, has been nurturing all its constituent schools and helping them realize the aspirations of the millennial population they serve as students and scholars.

In spite of the raging pandemic, the School of Business and Economics (SOBE), is well poised with its robust work practices, frameworks, strategies and tools to understand and manage the challenges of building a modern, international, relevant centre of excellence, catering to the unique needs of the students and the corporates that it considers as primary stakeholders. The School rests on three strong unique pillars (USPs, if one may call them):

1. Deep connect with the corporate:

In the most canonical way, business is a practice-driven field, so the deep connectivity with the corporate world is imperative, and a real differentiator in this red-ocean of management or business schools, the vast multitude of institutions operating with essentially no difference, leading to commoditization of business education in India. At SOBE, we believe that business is going to transform the world for the good of all by facilitating more and deeper communication between management professionals, scholars, and students. SOBE with most of the faculty either having substantial corporate experience or having worked as consultants to the corporate world, try to mimic through modern online teaching methodologies how the real world works to ensure employability of its students.

Ever alert to the dichotomy between what is taught and what is needed in the job place, SOBE bridges the perceptual gap between the corporate world and the world of academia collaboratively. A few programs, in cutting-edge sunrise sectors like logistics, analytics, and entrepreneurship, offered by the School are actually conducted in tandem with industry partners. The proverbial parallel worlds of the academics and the practitioners are not only divergent, but also mired in deep mutual suspicions. In these and other programs offered by SOBE, corporates are involved not just delivery of content, but in almost every facet of the scholastic activity – curriculum design, planning of evaluation methods, internship design and execution, student assessment, apart from the usual delivery of content through industry speaker series, guest lectures, best practice or case study discussions by corporate professionals.

2. International curriculum:

One clear area that the prevalent situation has brought to the fore, and compelled humanity to take note of is the fundamental assumptions behind much of our business practices. Business is integrated, supply chains cover the entire globe and borders do not restrict exchange of ideas, products and people, just like they have not been able to do with the virus! Globally, corporates are waking up to the wasteful nature of business processes, a general lack of concern for human values (echoing the maxim of end justifying the means), apathy towards the environmental and climate issues, considering any goal other than profit (and the few other variants of the notion with sugar-coated nomenclatures) as tick-in-the-box items to have to look good, rather than to be good, and many such ways in which business have been running for quite some time now.

SOBE, in tandem with its partner institutions and universities across the globe, notably from Europe, USA and South East Asia, exposes its students to the imperatives and challenges of global business with all its covenant human and world issues. 

3.Digitally enabled:

The pandemic time is perhaps an opportunity to once again revisit the question of what we teach, why we teach, who must teach, how we teach, and where we teach the future business and management professionals. But the physical restrictions that it brought about forced academia to shift from the conventional classroom lectures pedagogies to digital online learning systems and processes. SOBE, along with the other constituent schools of Adamas University, made an effective move, which was endorsed and vindicated by none other than QS, and we were awarded the QS e-Lead certification, one among the early few to get it in the entire East and NE India.

Developing a scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform among students in the digital environment, though challenging, is the mainstay of SOBE faculty. Gravity of the pandemics on people will humanize business schools by bringing society in their cross-hairs when it comes to research agenda, teaching curricula and outreach. With the entire World Wide Web at one’s disposal as teaching-learning tool, creativity and ingenuousness of faculty members enable multi-faceted learning among students. Unique digital pedagogies, like flipped classrooms, are being constantly developed by the faculty members to enhance student engagement and learning.

SOBE believes that education is a transformative process. How to we transform ourselves? Essentially, it is a matter of mindset and courage to buck the trend. While the rest of the business schools keep zigging the way they have been for some time now, few torchbearers need to zag and stand the ground at least for a reasonable amount of time for the business school environment as a whole to go through this transition by unlearning the old way, and relearning the new. SOBE wants to be among the pioneers to shed the image of an also-ran, easy-going, mostly local, average-placement oriented program to a unique, rigorous, global, good placement oriented force to reckon with. The best part of this is that as a nation, we know what needs to be done. It is in execution that we fail. The National Education Policy, NEP 2020, as a whole, urges us to take the plunge into this new world of excellence.

Business Education for the New World in the New Era!

Business is not a new subject or a profession. But, perspectives of business has changed dramatically in the last 10 to 20 years. Anyone who engages with business as an entrepreneur, manager, analyst or consultant soon realizes that what they had learnt in business schools no longer hold true for the new era in a world transformed beyond the normal.

21st century world needs evolved working models harnessing the power of data and technology with optimization and synergy across functions. Holistic professionals equipped with the right knowledge, skill, attitude, a global perspective and entrepreneurial mind-set, are needed for this transformational journey. The global pandemic Covid 19 has just exposed how narrow our perspectives of business had become of late. Is there an Institute that recognizes this changed scenario and grooms professionals for the new world in the new era?

The School of Business & Economics, a constituent school of the Adamas University, located at Barasat in a lush green 135 acres campus, strives to do just this and more! The School houses three departments, namely Management, Economics and Commerce, each with an illustrious faculty, who are intellectual leaders, straddling rigour of research and relevance of practice, and alert to demands of millennial workforce, mentors students and provides them with latest knowledge tools like AI, IoT, Machine Learning, Data Analytics, Block-chain, etc. in a socially embedded value system, and cross-cultural sensitivity. The full range of its offering includes undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral level programs, aimed at students who have just passed their Plus 2 exams, fresh graduates or even working professionals with substantial experience who want to upgrade their knowledge and skills to enhance their employability.   

Management: One of the fastest growing professional fields of study, management is the choice of students who want to build a career in the corporate or social sector as an administrator or manager. Understanding of business fundamentals like finance, human resource management, marketing, operations is crucial and are important areas of specializations in management. Apart from the traditional courses like BBA or MBA, Adamas University’s School of Business and Economics also has a few new programs in the domain of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Digital Marketing, Business Analytics, Entrepreneurship and Family Managed Business, etc. which groom students for the growing new sectors.

Economics:  This discipline of study has always been the favourite of those who want to work as economic analysts or consultants, and equip students with the right skills and knowledge to steer companies and even nations to higher economic growth. Apart from the traditional BA, BSc, MA, MSc in Economics and Quantitative Finance, new high-demand Post-Graduate Diplomas in various disciplines like Economic Analysis, Finance and Banking, Public Policy have been introduced to cater to the BFSI sector and public think-tanks. 

Commerce: Commerce is as old as business, and therefore has a market-pull which has a history of almost a century. Every company needs professionals who are trained in book-keeping, accounting, audit, taxation and such domains of expertise. The BCom and MCom programs from this department caters to the need of trained professionals who essentially manage the life-blood of any business – funds. These programs are also well-suited for those who are aspiring to get into roles like corporate lawyer, company secretary, etc.

Recruiters complain that though India produces a large number of educated graduates and post-graduates in business domains, their employability is not high. Adamas University addresses this with programs which are integrated with the Industry in the form of deep partnerships with companies like SAS India, AIFMB, Safex, etc. so that students not only get good placement but also can be productive to their recruiters from Day 1. No doubt, Adamas University is the chosen destination for students who want to make a career in business and economics fields. Going beyond the syllabus, each student is mentored by a professor or a corporate guide, classroom teaching is augmented with rigorous field projects on real-life issues, lecture method is substituted with more student-centric methods like case teaching, action-learning, etc.

Prof. Dr. Naveen Das, Dean of The School of Business & Economics, Adamas University, sums up: “The world will not remain the same post-COVID, so why not get educated for the new world and a new era. Welcome to Adamas to know how we create professionals who are humanistic yet analytical – all ready to face the challenges of a global, networked, competitive world with confidence and wisdom!”

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