FAST FACTS
Location: Nungambakkam, Chennai
Director: Dr. G Balasubramanian
Approval/Accreditation: AICTE approved
Flagship programme: PGDM
Student intake: 60
Fees (full course): Rs. 600,000
Board & lodging (two years): Rs. 60,000
Admission test cut-offs: CAT: 85; XAT: 85
Full-time faculty: 20 (Professors: 5; Associate Professors: 6; Asst Professors: 4; Lecturers: 4)
Faculty with industry experience (over 10 years): 6
Average placement salary: Rs. 5 lakhs
Top recruiters: Accenture, Cairn Energy, Deloitte consulting, ITC, Pepsico
Student activities: ABHYUDAYA (management festival)
Web site: www.ifmr.ac.in
Other programme: PGDM (Financial Engineering): 24 months; PGDM (Development & Sustainable Finance): 24 months; PGDM (Part-time): 36 months
LOCATED in the bustling Nugambakkam area of Chennai, the school is almost hidden by residential colonies. It oozes an old world charm, I inform the President, Dr. Bobby Srinivasan. “You mean it’s run down,” he shoots back. This ability to be disarmingly honest, but with no rancour is what characteriaes quite a few of my interactions across the stakeholders.
Set up as a financial management research institution, IFMR is still considered a fine school for finance, a view they are trying to correct, without much success. “We have a very fine marketing faculty, too,” says Director Dr. Balasubramanian. Academic prowess is taken quite seriously at IFMR. “We teach them the latest and what’s most relevant,” I am told. The course has been revised thoroughly about two years back; three new electives were launched in the last academic year.
The financial and moral support of ICICI Bank does make a lots of things easier. Quiz Dr. Nachiket Mor, Chairman of the Board of Governors, IFMR and President, ICICI Foundation, about their commitment to research, and he announces, “Our commitment is characterised by the fact that we are launching a PhD programme where students would get a stipend of Rs. 50,000 per month. We want the best scholars to come to us and not be unduly worried about their basic quality of living.” Research must be respected and paid well. Or else bright individuals will not move in that direction, he says.
The course is quite a load, and very skewed towards numbers. “We all think of balance sheets by default, a student tells me. The breakfast tables of many a student have The Economic Times for company. The number of courses have been reduced so as enable students to reflect and absorb better, a faculty member tells us.
Seven focused research centres, especially in the financial domain are a specialty of IFMR. All of them focus on research and outreach activities in different aspects of finance. The research centres acutely characterise the diversity of concerns at the school. While the Centre for Advanced Studies looks at issues such as futures and options and commodity trading, the one for microfinance examines lending to people with no collateral.
The campus is bursting at the seams, and the infrastructure urgently needs upgradation. “We are developing a hi-tech 20 acre campus at Chingelpet,” Prof. Srinivasan informs us. That would have no legacy issues which the current location has, though it would mean a compromise in terms of location. Quiz students on this factor, they would any day prefer the Nugambakkam campus. Branding is a huge issue with students. Whether there’s substance in it, is a question IFMR will need to reflect and respond to.