B-school review: Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies

Earlier this month Careers360 issued the top 50 B-school rankings in the country. The magazine also reviewed 25 top institutes in India, along with vital information students should be aware of when choosing their B-school.

Today we feature Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune.

Located at Khadki, the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS) is among the 19 constituent institutions of the Symbiosis International University. It offers a two-year MBA programme largely to the dependents of armed forces personnel and industry-sponsored students.

"The admission criteria is defined under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Defence," says Director, Brigadier Rajiv Divekar.

The course is divided into four semesters, and students can opt for any two papers as per their specialisation. The fourth semester emphasises on case studies and the students also need to write a dissertation. There are six specialisations in all: Marketing, Human Resource Management, Operations, Finance, Information Systems and International Business. In the fourth semester, case study based learning dominates. Keeping in view the nature of intake, much emphasis is given on study groups. The class learns the intricacies of group dynamism, teamwork and skills of delegation.

Industry interaction is frequent as students go for industrial visits, and also visit the campus to give guest lectures. A unique feature at SIMS is the annual Deloitte Human Capital Case Study competition where senior Deloitte officials from both India and abroad judge the students for their consulting skills, primarily related to issuess on mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and change management.

Other reviews:

• Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad
• Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore
• Amity Business School, Noida
• Acharya Institute of Management and Sciences, Bangalore

The small campus has residential quarters for the faculty, hostel, gymnasium, swimming pool and a small canteen; the academic block has a well-stocked library (over 17,000 books and e-resources comprising PROWESS, EBSCO, DELNET, OPAC etc), a women's entrepreneurship cell, and a centre for corporate governance.

The students are the soul of the campus and they take a lot of initiative. "Pranay -- the first B-school NGO support social group -- is very active where we organise events like medical camps, literary festivals etc," adds a student.

"The system of placements at SIMS is entirely automated and since we are 'green' we even have our placement brochure on a flash drive," says Alokeparna Bhattacharya, placement coordinator. Students also engage them in activities of the clubs. The events in these clubs are Smark for marketing enthusiasts, People Tree for those interested in HR and inFINite for finance whizkids. Besides SIMS has music, dance and dramatics club.

In placements 2009, students with a marketing major drew the maximum average remuneration at Rs 6.57 lakhs per annum. Students specialising in finance and HR had an average cost to company (CTC) of Rs 6.54 lakhs and Rs 6.44 lakhs, respectively.