A unique program with special focus on emerging economies

Great Lakes Institute of Management is offering the Two Year Post Graduate Management Program (PGDM) in its Chennai campus. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approved program has got an intake of 120 seats. The programs curriculum will have a special focus on the emerging economies and will be delivered by the best of industry leaders and faculty from around the world.

The Great Lakes PGDM will equip students to closely understand the unique growth patterns of new age countries like Brazil, Russia, South Africa, China and of course India. Several Indian companies, who are setting up their operations abroad, are realizing that the availability of key manpower to run business in the emerging economies is a critical challenge. The program aims at creating manpower who understands the nuances of the new world economy. As we are all aware, come 2016, the combined GDP of the BRICS countries will be on par or above the US GDP of that day. Despite the recession, most of the BRICS countries are growing at a rate of 6-8% annual growth rate. The developed economies (Read USA and Europe) are struggling to maintain a semblance of growth. Thus the axis of economic power, trade and international commerce is slowly, yet surely moving eastwards. It is this shift in trade focus be it in mercantile trade or services that has made Great Lakes create a new program with a clear emerging economy thrust. The program will aim at creating business ready managers who understand the supply chain dynamics, market structures and demand variances of the new age world.

Great Lakes, as you are all aware, has been a pioneer in the fast track, one year management education model since 2004. In the one year curriculum, we had introduced certain unique learning elements like Karma Yoga and Empirical Studies. The former focusses on connecting students with the realities of grass root India, thereby enabling them to experientially learn transformational leadership. The latter is a fully mentored academic activity which involves the identification of a core business problem and finding out ways and means of solving the same. The two year format also blends into its curriculum the unique propositions of Karma Yoga and Empirical Studies. In addition, PGDM has a summer internship, which like other traditional B-Schools is a rigorous 8-10 weeks onsite, hands on industry exposure. Together, these three tools will give a rigorous out-of-class edge to the student.

The PGDM program also envisages a fairly good international exposure for the student. We are planning an optional semester abroad program for interested students and are currently in talks with international universities in China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy, Brazil, South Africa, Korea etc, to name a few countries. Some of our professors have recently travelled to some of these countries to meet reputed international schools and look for MOUs. Along with a full semester abroad, we are also contemplating short term international immersions for our students in emerging countries. This will go a long way in imbibing transnational cultures, understanding global similarities Vs. differences in business and differentiating between what will work as a click & drag strategy and what will not. As Pankaj Ghemawat, Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE, Spain, has mentioned in the context of global businesses, there are only three approaches to internationalizing business Aggregation, Adaptation or Arbitrage. Students will get to know through this program the value proposition of each approach- what will work and where.

Students graduating in 2012 are also eligible for applying for this program. We have kept an upper cap of 24 work experience for the PGDM program to ensure that there is fairly good age homogeneity in the classroom. As a qualifier, GMAT, CAT, XAT, MAT and CMAT scores are accepted. The admissions will close in two cycles in Feb end and March end. The respective interviews for admissions will be held in key cities all over India in March 2012 and April 2012.

The first cycle admissions deadline is the 29^th of February 2012.

Prof S Sriram

Executive Director

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai

Note: This is a sponsored article and has NOT been written by the PaGaLGuY Editorial Team. It is intended from an informational perspective only and it is upto the readers to research and verify the claims and judgements in the article before reaching a conclusion.