Business schools are having a tough time managing within the restrictions of the English language. Management studies includes everything from the jigging of stock prices to the basics of handshaking. B-schools themselves are doing a fair amount of handshaking when it comes to their names. Institute names include at least one word from Indian, institute, school, business and management and institutes sometimes also have the same initials. Students have to sip this alphabet soup to make sense of things.

The Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (ISB) needs no introduction and has even been ranked among the top 20 b-schools in the world. Well, theres an International School of Business, Calcutta which started functioning in 2002 and the institute obviously refers to itself as ISB. A Google search for ISB also has ISB Kolkata close on the heels of ISB Hyderabad. The initials ISBM seem to quite popular among institutes and a Google search for ISBM throws up four different institutes with these initials.

Even the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are a party to this situation. There is obviously no confusion between the IIMs and everyone is familiar with how the IIMs are referred to along with their location. Things do need to be considered when Indira Institute of Management, Pune refers to itself as IIM-P. This will not cause problems right now because we all know where the various IIMs are located. Eight new IIMs are being set up in various parts of the country and students should know where such overlap of names is happening so that they don’t get confused.

Then there are cases in which the full name of the institute isnt as well known as say an ISB. Theres an NIILM Center for Management Studies and an NIILM School of Business. IILM is another common set of initials and there are quite a few institutes which use this abbreviation and this causes doubts to come up. The Post Graduate Program in Management (PGPM) program is offered at Alliance Business School, Bangalore while Alliance Business Academy has an MBA program in operation. These two institutes are different units of the same body but aspirants do encounter problems in differentiating between the two.

Institutes obviously differ in terms of the nature and quality of programs they offer. Students should definitely find out the details of an institute and not just be attracted to it because it has a well known name. India currently has nearly 2,000 business schools and most institutes are referred to by their initials. Common initials certainly contribute towards confusion among aspirants and students will have to be a lot more careful when it comes to picking out schools. A student will not join a school purely on the basis of its name but the name definitely plays a role in a school’s perception and its brand image.

Whats in a name? Quite a bit actually and students will have to dig a bit deeper in order to zero in on the school that they really should go for. I know someone who once boarded the wrong Rajdhani Express and nearly set off to Guwahati instead of Delhi! If students slip up when it comes to institute names then they too might have to change tracks or platforms abruptly. The number of b-schools in India will only increase in the coming years and some out-of-the-box thinking is required if institutes want students to refer to them easily.