Life's numerous obstacles are best dealt by a combination of knowledge and experience - so is management. Management education is all about preparing the students to face the real world problems. TAPMI recognizes the need for success stories to be narrated by the protagonists themselves! In addition, it is always exciting for the students when teachers share their experiences and connect it with what is being taught in class. As the sixth term in the Post Graduate Diploma in Management Program at T.A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) approaches, this level of excitement is always on high among the marketing students, as the subject called 'Integrated Marketing Communication' would be taught by Prof. Malavika Harita, CEO at Saatchi & Saatchi Focus Network. With the dreams of themselves being in the CEO's chairs the students find it extremely motivating to see a CEO herself teach!

For TAPMI students, Prof. Malavika's classes are not the sole motivation. A similar situation can be seen when Prof. Nishith Mohanty, Senior Global Vice President - Human Resources, Manipal Group provides the students with knowledge of what skills and knowledge should prospective employees possess. Both Prof. Malavika and Prof. Nishith Mohanthy have been able to bring practicality into the classroom based on their expertise in dealing with the real world business problems on a daily basis and this has been extremely valuable to the students. Concurrently, the students have been able to grasp the knowledge with ease when professors like Dr. Gururaj Kidiyoor, Dr. Simon George and Dr. Vishwanathan Iyer began teaching their classes utilizing the case method of teaching and learning, which the professors have been trained for at the Harvard Business School."We ensure that our students get the best of the academics and industry as we would like them to possess world class knowledge and skills in order to work for the best and become the best," says Dr. R.C. Natarajan, Director.

While the institute is able to get senior executives of top companies to boost the knowledge possessed by the students, it has made certain that the faculty members it hires are the finest and thus employs a rigorous process in evaluating the applicants. "We ensure that the faculty members we hire for subjects with high theory-content possess a PhD in their field and are of top quality. We consider ourselves lucky when we are able to select 3 to 4 top faculty members out of the 1200 applications we receive while recruiting," says Dr. Natarajan. As TAPMI is an AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) accredited school, the institute ensures to hire faculty members who are able to present research work, which is acceptable to its own quality standards and that of AACSB.

The institute provides around Rs. 1.25 Lakh to each faculty member as an encouragement to participate in more research activities. "When a faculty member who can think on his/her own contribute to knowledge and bring that to the class room in a relevant manner, it is a great asset, which is very rare to find now," says Dr. Natarajan. The faculty members are also encouraged to use the Finance lab, which houses 16 Bloomberg terminals, the most in any B-School in the country. By utilizing these terminals, the faculty members can do more research with real data.

Enhancing Knowledge through Experiential Learning