CULTIVATING INTEGRATIVE CAPABILITIES

International Management Institute, India uses SAS to foster global leadership competencies

International Management Institute (IMI), India established in 1981 was launched in collaboration with IMI Geneva (currently IMD Lausanne). Strategically aligning itself with the needs of global industry, the Institute has benefitted from international alliances with Manchester Business School, U.K, Rennes International School of Business, France and the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.

International Management Institute (IMI), India has the belief that management programmes should be designed to enable young professionals with high potential, to reach landmark positions in their career. To achieve this, the programme needs to revolve around the notion that world-class business leaders are not mass-produced; they are customized and developed in an action-oriented environment. The curriculum therefore designed at IMI, India with a strong international perspective, prepares the participant to manage, lead and succeed in an increasingly competitive global business environment. This has led to budding global entrepreneurs undergo a programme that aligns academic theory with management practice.

Inculcating learning through ‘Cultivating Integrative Capabilities’ has been the key driver in fostering global leadership competencies. These has led to participants developing skills through a case-based approach and, are encouraged to analyse issues from several often conflicting viewpoints before deciding on a course of action.

With key goals of establishing IMI, India as a thought leader through management research and innovation in education, to be a national think tank and to be a center of excellence for building executive competence, internationally acclaimed tools, methods and programmes have been introduced at the International Management Institute.

To help students manage, lead and succeed in an increasingly competitive global business environment, SAS was introduced at International Management Institute, India.

According to Dr. Himadri Das, Professor, International Management Institute, India, “We were looking for a business intelligence solution that could be used to teach MBA students applications of data mining on large amounts of historical business data. SAS fit the bill very well in terms of functionality offered in the data mining space.” The introduction of SAS in the curriculum was made to equip MBA students with a strong grounding in not only the theory of business intelligence but also its applications. Explaining the rationale behind the SAS implementation, Dr. Himadri Das said, “SAS is a time tested business intelligence solution that gives students thorough hands-on experience in model building and solution to become successful business intelligence practitioners in the future.” Stating the functional goals associated with the introduction of SAS at the International Management Institute, India, Dr. Himadri Das said, “It was important for us to provide our students with hands on experience on specific techniques, namely neural networks, decision trees, clustering and association analysis as applied to business intelligence.”

With SAS , students at International Management Institute, India have been able to implement projects and look at numbers, giving confidence levels associated with their findings, for example, accuracy, support and lift for association rules.

Highlighting the key benefits derived by students at the International Management Institute, India,
Dr. Himadri Das said, “Students have been able to implement projects that have given findings that were counter-intuitive to what they might have normally believed. This has helped them move away from the traditional cause and effect way of thinking.”