In 2014, Great Lakes received the Association of MBAs (AMBA) – UK, accreditation for its flagship Post Graduate Program in Management (PGPM) and Post Graduate executive Program in Management (PGXPM). Great Lakes is the youngest and the 7th only institute in India to be AMBA accredited. Within a year of receiving the AMBA accreditation, Great Lakes, Chennai has recently received the international SAQS accreditation from AMDISA.

Among the 4000 plus B-Schools in India, less than 25 colleges only have received Global accreditations so far and Great Lakes is one among the few premier institutes to have received not just one, but two international accreditations. 

On receiving the SAQS accreditation last week, Dr. Bala V Balachandran, Dean and Founder, Great Lakes Institute of Management said, “It is heartening to receive an official communication from SAQS accreditation body granting us full SAQS accreditation. With these two international accreditations – AMBA and SAQS, Great Lakes is now geared to work towards receiving the AACSB accreditation.”

SAQS (South Asian Quality Assurance System) is an international system of strategic audit and accreditation designed for the assessment of Institution in widely different national contexts. Awarded by The Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia (AMDISA), an international not-for-profit association, and a “SAARC Recognized Body”, SAQS international quality assurance label for B-Schools is awarded only to institutes that have in place continuous quality improvement system benchmarked with the leading global B- schools in the world.

The accreditation process for SAQS involves rigorous peer review and apex committee evaluation and has been earned only by a handful of B-Schools in India.

Last year, Great Lakes received the prestigious AMBA accreditation, thereby joining the league of some of the world’s renowned Institutes such as London Business School, HEC Paris, INSEAD, to name a few, institutes which have received this accreditation in the past.

AMBA accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement in postgraduate business education and is earned only by the best programmes in the world. This accreditation is the global standard for all MBA, DBA and MBM programmes. Among the 15,000 plus B-Schools in the world, AMBA accreditation has been earned by only 210 B-Schools across 85 countries so far. AMBA looks at significant contribution by the Institute in three vital areas – Research, Consultancy and Scholarships.