IIM Trichy, celebrated its first foundation day on January 4 this year. The event was marked by the presence of corporate honchos like Srikant Gathoo, director, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director, Cognizant Technology Solutions and Xavier L’Official, chief executive officer (CEO), Societe Generale Global Solutions Centre. There was a discussion on “Expectations of the industry from the management graduates”, where the panelists discussed the industry’s expectations from b-school graduates. Understanding of different industries, ability to handle customer relationships, entrepreneurial and consulting skills and the quality of being innovative were some of the qualities listed by R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director, Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) as essential for management graduates. A few other skill sets that graduates are expected to be armed with, according to faculty members and India Inc alike, are an ability to learn fast, to be a team player, to have an out-of-the-box thinking, are committed and whether the company’s goals aligned with the candidate among other things.

IIM Trichy, a part of the new batch of IIMs that includes IIM Ranchi, IIM Rohtak, IIM Raipur, IIM Kashipur and IIM Udaipur, has several plans in the pipeline. As part of its future objectives, the IIM has begun work on its 192-acre permanent campus on the Trichy-Podukattai road with state-of-the-art facilities. There will be changes with respect to the curriculum as well as where the he institute will be offering Fellowship Programme in Management (FPM) from the academic year 2012-2013. The institute is also in talks with universities in the US, Europe and South-East Asia for faculty exchange, student exchange and conducting joint research. The management school will soon start retail Management Development Programmes (MDPs) to cater to the need of the industry. In-house MDPs are already part of the course structure. IIM Trichy will soon be launching Faculty Development Programmes (FDP) to cater to the needs of educational institutes in Tamil Nadu in particular and the rest of India in general. Faculty expansion is due to happen, taking the total number of full-time faculty members from 16 to 20, the highest among the new IIMs. All full-time faculty members are Fellows/PhDs from reputed institutes like the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) or foreign universities of repute. The institute plans to have at least 20 lectures in the Insight guest lecture series, which will host eminent personalities from industry and academia.