ASBEX: The Rising Star in Management Education Date:   Friday , February 27, 2015 According to an All India Council for Technical Education, India currently has 3,217 institutes offering Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degrees, compared to 3,541 such institutions in 2011-2012. However, between 2012 and 2015, more than 300 business schools have shut down due to various reasons like lack of placements, inadequate infrastructure, poor quality faculties and no interaction with the industry. Surviving this harsh reality is Agni School of Business and Excellence (ASBEX), which has ensured to capitalize on the large number of interactions it has with the industry. \"Our institution has maintained a constant interaction with the industry in order to develop the skills that our students possess and ensure that they are employable at the end of two years,\" says Dr. P.Kanniappan, Chairman of Agni Knowledge Foundation and Former Vice-Chancellor of Alagappa University, Karaikudi and B. S. Abdur Rahman University, Chennai. Located in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu the institute invites practicing managers from various industries for interacting with the students in order for them to be updated on the trends of the corporate world. \"In order to prepare our students to become job ready candidates, we have scheduled presentations during late-evening hours on business personalities, industry analysis, magazine analysis, debate and others,\" says Dr. Kanniappan. ASBEX offers value added programs such as Marketing of Financial Products, Training for Diploma in Banking and Finance course offered by IIBF, Mumbai, Business Analytics Course offered by IBM Career Education and Business Analysis course offered by IIBA, Canada. By offering such courses the institute hopes to enhance the skills of the students which further provide them opportunities to get well paying jobs. The institute has also tied-up with local industries in Dindigul, like Naga Industries Ltd, Anil Industries Ltd, Heritage Ltd, Savourit Ltd for the industrial visits and further interaction. \"Apart from Dindigul we send our students to the big cities like Chennai, Madurai and Bangalore for industrial visits for their learning benefit,\" says Dr. Kanniappan. Through the significant number of tie-ups with the industry, the students have been able to do their summer internships and final project, which eventually helping them in grabbing good placements. \"The feedback from the industry has been positive as our students are performing their duties with a lot of zeal and dedication,\" says Dr. Kanniappan. Some of the companies that have recruited ASBEX students are IDBI Federal Life Insurance, Jaro Education, TTK Services, TVSTS and others. While most MBA graduates in the present job market are only able to acquire below par annual packages, the average pay package at ASBEX was Rs. 4.2 lakhs. While the institution has ensured in maintaining good relations with the industry, it has managed to acquire a good set of faculty members who are a rich blend of corporate and academic experience. \"The minimum expectation that we have from candidates who wish to be a teaching faculty in our institute is \'Passion & Commitment for Teaching\'. We have also introduced peer evaluation system where each faculty is evaluated by the peers and is given feedback on how to improve their delivery and classroom handling strategies,\" says Dr. Kanniappan. Infrastructure as an Asset To facilitate the activities, which are revolving around faculties and inclined to the latest trends in the industry, the institute has ensured its students have a good quality environment to learn in. The classrooms of ABSEX are well equipped with a LCD projector display and audio. The institute has a computer lab containing more than 135 computers with high capacity Network Storage facility that is integrated with an automated data backup and recovery system caters to the data storage requirement of all the users. They have fully air-conditioned halls, which serve as an excellent setting for student meetings & faculty meetings. These rooms can accommodate up to 20 people, and are used for activities like group discussions and mock interviews. The Library of the institution, which is the centre of acquiring, processing and spread information to the students possess a wide range of academic resources such as books, periodicals, online periodicals, databases, CDs/DVDs, project reports, audio / video cassettes, and question banks. \"The library has an impressive collection of books that cover all contemporary management literature and has annual subscriptions to 12 national and international journals and magazines,\" says Dr. Kanniappan. ASBEX is planning exclusively to start and offer programs for BFSI Sector and launch MDPs for mid-level managers. They are also charting to offer a marketing metrics course and various value added programs like business analytics, financial engineering, behavioral finance, organization dynamics and others. With ample interactions between the industries, the 2007 established Agni Knowledge Foundations(AKF) now acts as a key to multiple doors, which will provide its students with many opportunities to become managers of tomorrow. Dr. P. Kanniappan He is the Founder Chairman of the Agni Knowledge Foundations and Chairman of Agni School Of Business Excellence who is Former Vice-Chancellor of Alagappa University, Karaikudi and B. S. Abdur Rahman University, Chennai. He has created a Centre for Rural Development, Ramanujam Centre for Higher Mathematics and a Centre for Nano Science and Technology at Alagappa University. Dr. Kanniappan has received the Outstanding Young Person Award for the outstanding contribution to Mathematics widely recognized worldwide as \"Kanniappan\'s Lemma.\" Dr.P.Kanniappan with more than four decades of Academic and Administrative Experience in Higher Education is promoting this institution.