BITS launches management school

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New Delhi: Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani on January 28 announced the launch of BITS School of Management (BITSoM) with an investment of around Rs 1,500 crore over the next five to seven years.

BITSoM will offer a two-year residential MBA degree programme with faculties drawn from the top business schools globally and a course fee of Rs 24 lakh.

Addressing a virtual press conference, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, who is the Chancellor of BITS Pilani, said over the past three decades there have been a lot of changes across the globe with the advent of new technologies and various events, the latest being the coronavirus pandemic, which have changed the business landscape thereby necessitating the way future business leaders are groomed.

“There is a need to redefine content and format and delivery of an MBA programme. This is a time to introduce a new approach to management education to understand how business models are reshaped by technology, how consumer needs are solved by design thinking, how data science is becoming an indispensable tool to accelerate growth and how growth with inclusivity is a pre-requisite for creating values over time,” he added.

Building on the legacy of BITS Pilani, he said BITSoM has been envisioned to mould “visionary game-changers through a new age MBA degree programme, that goes beyond management studies alone”.

“The endeavour is not just to redefine management education, but also help articulate the role of business in society. BITSoM will, in its unique way, advance the cumulative wisdom of management thinking in India,” Birla said adding it would bring a new set of ideas, principles and frameworks and collaborate with existing institutions to make India a potential global hub for management education.

When asked about investment, Birla said: “The investment in the B-School will be about Rs 1,500 crore…it is not an investment by me but by BITS Pilani, the institution…There is only BITS, who will be investing. It is an investment over five to seven years.” The first session will start in July this year with a batch of 120 students at an interim campus in Powai, Mumbai and BITSoM will move to a permanent campus, which is being developed across 60 acres in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, by 2024.

Faculty of BITSoM will include globally renowned professors from top B-Schools such as NYU Stern School of Business, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Singapore Management University and Kellogg School of Management, in addition to leading industry practitioners, BITS Pilani said.

The multidisciplinary curriculum of the MBA programme will address the needs of an evolving business landscape and offer students an immersive, engaging, and holistic experience to excel in all aspects of their lives.

It will also be providing students with global and contextual perspectives with courses such as Ethics in Business, the Origin of Management in India, and Indian Philosophy and Leadership, it added.