Earlier known as the Post Graduate Program for Executives (PGPEX), it was recently renamed as MBAEx. It follows the decision of the IIM’s Board of Directors to grant degree certificates instead of diplomas to students of its one-year and two-year full-time management education courses.

IIM Calcutta MBAEx Class of 2020

The Class comprises 63 students with an average age of 31 years. They come from diverse backgrounds, including 15 industries, innumerable functional areas and 51 organizations.

The cohort has an average work experience of 8.75 years. About 17% of the batch has prior international work experience with an average international work experience of one year. The batch has a median GMAT score of 690 and a maximum of 750. Engineers form 90% of the class and 10% of the students have Post Graduate degree.

The current batch has greater gender diversity compared to the previous batch. Last year, the female candidates’ strength was 9% of the batch strength which has increased to 11% this year.

MBAEx Class Industry background

While 41% of the students have IT / ITES industry background, 17% come from Manufacturing, followed by 11% Energy / Oil / Gas, 9% Financial Services, 6% Consulting, 3% each in Analytics and Infrastructure, 2% each in Shipping, Aerospace, Defence, FMCG and Healthcare.

MBAEx Class Work Experience

The majority of the students, 51%, come with 5-8 years of full-time work experience followed by 33% with 8-11 years, 13% with 11-14 years and 3% with 14-17 years.

MBAEx Program Chairman’s Comments

Amit Dhiman, Chairperson, MBAEx said the program, since its inception in 2006, has undergone several changes to a stage where the world has started taking note of it.

He said IIMC started participating from the year 2017 onwards in the annual FT MBA Global ranking. the MBAEx ranking improved from 95th in the year 2017 to 78th in 2018  and jumped to 49^th rank in 2019.

Over the years, the batch strength of around 39 in the first batch has gone up to 66. “We have calibrated this increase very carefully with our experience in being able to fulfill various objectives of the program.

“The composition of the class itself has undergone significant change. The diversity in the batches has been increasing in the last couple of years and that is a positive sign of a maturing academic program,” he said.

“We have had in recent years students with a background as diverse as lawyers, dentists, architects and defense, apart from usual suspects- IT / ITES! The current batch has students from Oil and Gas, Biopharmaceuticals, Defence, IT / ITES, Manufacturing, automobile among others,” he added.

The academic structure of the program has undergone a transformation over recent years. The teaching load was reduced from 810 contact hours to 690 hours a few years back. In the revised structure, more experiential sessions, workshops, seminars, talks by senior executives and so on were included.

The curriculum was restructured to make it more sharply focused on the experienced participants. The number of elective courses in proportion to the compulsory courses was increased significantly.

“We offered a wide array of electives courses numbering around 44 last year for students to choose from. This is among the largest bouquet of electives offered anywhere in India for a similar program,” he said.

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I have written this post especially for engineering graduates who have been extraordinary in their academics and are working with good companies at mid-level positions. In the post, I have used the word Type 1 & Type 2 many times that deserve an explanation.

Broadly there are two types of engineering graduates in India who look for an MBA:

Type 1 – These are students who start their preparation for a management programme from 2nd year of engineering and join the two-year PGP/ PGDM immediately after college or maybe after 2-3 years. The market is flooded with such kind of guys as the two-year programme has been in existence from a long time. These programmes are considered MBA equivalent as per Indian accreditation norms, but are accredited as a pre-experience courses for freshers called Masters in Business Management, by top global accreditation agencies. 

Type 2 – These are students who have already worked around for 3-4 years and then give a thought to acquiring an MBA. It takes around 1-2 years of preparation and then they get entry into an MBA college with around 4-6 years of work experience. (Sometimes work experience can go up to 8-10 years). Since the 2 year programme is not economically viable (or often irrelevant at their work experience level), such students prefer to go in for a one-year MBA program.

The opportunity cost (lost salary during the period of study) for a one year programme is almost half to that of a two-year programme for these people as they are already drawing a good salary.

When Indian engineering graduates join as GET (Graduate Engineer Trainee) in any good organization they are at the peak of their energy level. They generally enjoy this period as they leave behind college life and start earning money on their own. They don’t have much responsibility as they are bachelors and in a learning phase.

Companies also spend a lot of money and time on nurturing them. The problem comes when they complete 4-5 years on the job. They start thinking:

a) Are they meant for this engineering job only?

b) How much of engineering knowledge are they using?

c) Where will they reach if they continue working like this?

These people are usually doing well in their present organization but are always thinking what could further boost their growth.

This is the point when they start thinking about their next move and the most sought after career option which comes to their mind is an MBA. Without having much clarity most of them join the rat race and start their preparation to get entry in an MBA college.

But I suggest these types 2 guys to consider three important points before taking a final call:

1. Job Profile

Be clear about the sector or companies you are targeting after a one-year MBA in manufacturing. Some companies in India still have an old mindset and prefer to hire freshers with relatively less (0-3 years) or negligible experience whom they can mold into their work culture. They find it difficult to absorb the guys with 6-8 years of work experience at higher role (which is standard for an MBA, globally!). 

ALSO READ: Rs 25.51 Lakh Highest, Rs 16.93 Lakh Average Salary: 2015 Placements for IIM C’s MBA in Manufacturing

For manufacturing roles specifically, it becomes even more difficult for students as age and number of years of work experience play a major role in deciding hierarchy. For students pursuing a middle level role in manufactring, a role with consulting companies often becomes a more viable option. Since consulting companies charge their clients very high rates, they can afford to pay high salaries. Although, most of the companies recruit for the projects of foreign clients where salary in INR looks higher.

The irony is that many consulting companies project their young consultants as SME (subject matter expert) even without having any relevant practical exposure!

So please try to have clarity of role which you would like to target after your MBA. Better still, establish connects with the alumni of the college you are targeting and get a clear picture of roles which you are aiming for or which you should aim for.

2. Education loan

Most of the guys who get selected for a one-year MBA in prestigious colleges opt for an educational loan because most of them belong to middle class families.

In India, the rate of interest on education loans is on the higher side. It’s higher than the rate for a home loan, car loan and sometimes even higher than the rate on personal loans.

MBA grads are under tremendous pressure to work at any role which can earn them higher salaries irrespective of their area of interest because they are under pressure to pay off the loan.

The fat packages offered by companies generally comprise many long term benefits and in hand salaries aren’t nearly as spectacular. It takes a lot of effort to pay the loan EMI from your hard earned money.

So don’t expect much gain in your net in hand salary immediately after getting a job as major chunk of it will go into paying your loan EMIs.

3. Sacrifice of personal life

Type 2 guys are either recently married or about to get married. They sacrifice a lot on personal front as well.

a) Those who opt for one-year MBA without getting married are under tremendous pressure from their family/girl friend to tie the knot at the earliest after completing the course.

b) Those who recently got married rush through the time after marriage. Many of my batch mates (PGPEX-VLM 6th Batch) could not even plan their honeymoon and directly joined the program after marriage. Some of them were even forced to postpone their marriage.

c) Those who just became fathers missed the early days of their newborn baby. One of the guys of our batch could not attend the birth of his child. 

As shared, after completion of the PGPEX-VLM program, most of the people join consulting companies because only they can afford to pay salaries commensurate with their experience. But in consulting, it becomes difficult to manage the work life balance as one has to be on continuous travel and people hardly get any time to spend with their family.

Then they miss the luxury which they used to have with their previous employer!

Conclusion

The best thing about a one-year MBA in manufacturing is that you again get a chance to re-enter your college life. Those who are married enjoy the opportunity to lead a bachelor life again, though they hardly get time to enjoy. You also enjoy company of like minded people charting the next chapter in their careers.

At present, manufacturing companies in India fail to attract the best talent mainly due to relatively low salaries offered by them compared to service industry.

Several companies in India are still trying to figure out how to best utilize the experienced talent coming out of the one-year full time MBA at the IIMs and are establishing new frameworks for absorbing these people at senior positions.

But there are many initiatives going on for ‘Make in India’ under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership where we can expect a lot of investment in manufacturing in the coming days.

Japan has already committed billions of dollars investments in India, including a $12 Billion loan at a negligible interest for the much touted ‘Bullet train’ and another $12 Billion for the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

For the first time, Japan has planned to import cars from India. Maruti Suzuki India Limited has planned to import its newly launched Baleno hatchback to Japan.

So the future seems to be bright for manufacturing in India. MBA graduates can hope for the better opportunities in the management cadre in manufacturing in the coming days.

I hope my post will help the engineering graduates of India in taking their final call with a knowledge of all pros and cons around the course. If any of you have any query, feel free to get in touch with me – post your questions in the comments section below and I will do my best to answer them.

Santosh Kumar Sharma, an Engineering graduate from HBTI Kanpur- 2004 (Chemical Technology-Paint) and MBA: PGPEX-VLM one year MBA program , has 11 + years of experience in Production, Project management, Operations Consulting & Technical Service with leading auto OEMs & tier 1 and tier 2. He is at present heading Technical Service after Sales at Spectrum Filtration.

Consulting firms offered summer internships to 23 per cent students at IIM Calcutta for the class of 2016 of the two-year Masters in Business Management (PGP) course. The two-year PGP at IIM C is an AMBA accredited Masters in Business Management programme meant for recent graduates with minimal work experience.

The highest number of offers came from The Boston Consulting Group, India, with 20 offers, followed by Bain and Co (13), McKinsey (12) and AT Kearney (eight).

Accenture Strategy made 15 offers. Some consulting firms visited IIM Calcutta for the first time — notable ones among them being Deloitte US S&O, Auctus and Arete Advisors.

More than a fourth of the batch secured offers in the banking and financial services domain. Banks such as Citi, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Avendus Capital and Deutsche Bank together offered about 20 front-end investment banking and markets roles.

Haitong SA, a Portuguese Bank, hired for the first time, while UBS and Citi recruited exclusively from IIM Calcutta for their investment banking roles. Also corporate banking and MNC coverage roles were offered to students by Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas and Citi. PE/VC firms like Altico Capital, I-squared Capital and SeaLink Capital also chose to visit IIM Calcutta for recruitment.

Food and Beverage majors like PepsiCo, Coke, Mondelez and Nestle were among the primary recruiters for sales and marketing and corporate finance positions. Belgian beverages giant Anheuser-Busch InBev was a first-time recruiter and hired two students.

Thirty-one students were hired for leadership roles by TAS, Aditya Birla Group, Mahindra, Alshaya and a few others. CESC visited exclusively and hired 4 interns for their first batch of management trainee program.

The e-commerce sector saw 67 students choosing to intern in firms like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ebay, Quikr, Sulekha and AskMe. Major internet based companies like Uber, Ola and Cardekho recruited students for strategy and operations – giving them the opportunity to work in unconventional roles and challenging start-up environment.

Rocket Internet hired for its business strategy roles with locations in Europe, Africa and Middle East.

Some diverse roles offered this year were from financial technology firms like Altisource, Ocwen, Transerv and Senteio. Samsung R&D Bangalore (SRIB), visited campus for the first time and hired an intern to work with the CTO.

Disney recruited for the first time for its strategy division thus opening up new opportunities in the entertainment and media industry along with other media houses like Star India and Bennett Coleman & Co.

Some students chose to work with start-ups that have been incubated by the IIMC Innovation Park, the incubator.

Management consulting firms led the way in terms of the total number of offers made to the candidates followed by automotive, e-commerce, manufacturing, operations, supply chain and real estate –ensuring 100% placement for the batch of 38 students (of which three were sponsored, three on study leave, one opted out of placements) with total 40 offers.

Among the recruiters this year Flipkart made the largest number of offers for their supply chain function. Accenture, Atos Origin, CGN, L&T, Daimler, Outotec, Ford, Snapdeal, Hero Motocorp, TCS, ACC, TVS Motors, KPMG, Wheels India and Marvel Realtors also recruited students in healthy numbers.

Average CTC salary for the Class of 2015 is Rs 16.93 lakh and the highest CTC salary is Rs 25.51 lakh this year. Compared to last year’s average salary of Rs 14.75L p.a, there has been a significant increase of 13%.

This year PGPEX-VLM students received interest from global majors such as Rolls Royce & Airbus

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Prof. Partha Priya Datta, chairperson, PGPEX-VLM, said, “Placement performance of PGPEX-VLM for the graduating batch of 2015 has been excellent. Average salary has increased 13% over last year. In fact, this year we saw increased interest in our programme from global majors such as Rolls Royce, Airbus through offer of internships to our students. The programme is unique in Indian context considering the multidisciplinary academic curriculum delivered at three prestigious institutes (IIM Calcutta, IITs at Kanpur and Madras) in three parts of India. Apart from classroom lectures, students also get the chance of interacting with industry leaders collaboration with JICA. And it is this combination of academics and real world practice makes our PGPEX-VLM graduates succeed in securing placement in world renowned companies.” (With inputs from Hindustan Times