LAST YEAR, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) did something few management schools would dare to do: it disbanded its placement cell. Instead, the institution created a Corporate Access Readiness and Engagement (CARE) office where the IIMK faculty, along with outside specialists and experts, groom students to enhance their employability quotient.

“There are no jobs out there, only customers for your talent. At CARE, we hone your talent and enhance your employability. It is not an employment centre. Companies offer placements, not us,” says Debashis Chatterjee, director, IIMK.

The logic behind the decision was simple. Placements were increasingly becoming a competitive rat race among institutions, and within institutions, among students. IIMK wanted to break free. “We did it last year, and this year it started delivering value. We saw 30 new companies coming (for campus hiring) because of CARE. In addition, we had, as usual, all the recruiters who go to other IIMs coming, too,” says Chatterjee.

Nestled on a hillock on the outskirts of Kozhikode in North Kerala, IIMK always had to fight the perception that unlike other IIMs, it had a geographical disadvantage since it was cut off from the major industrial belts and urban centres. What helped was a 3D — digitisation, diversification, and disruption — approach, says Chatterjee, who considers the decision to dismantle the 29-year-old institution’s placement cell as just another ‘D’ or disruptive idea that has worked well.

In fact, one of the very first ‘disruptive’ approaches IIMK took more than a decade ago was to stop comparing itself with other IIMs, and carve a distinctive niche in management education. IIMK’s vision for Indian Education@2047 aspires to ‘globalise Indian thought’.

“Our hostels are named after music ragas. People ask me why music and management? The first and the most obvious non-serious answer is that if you don’t perform, you face the music. However, the real connection is music opens your mind to rhythms of life, and businesses are about rhythms, not just about spreadsheets. A balance sheet is only the symbolic end-result of business. Businesses follow cycles and you have to understand rhythms if you want to be a good manager,” says Chatterjee.

IIMK was one of the first IIMs to go digital, much before Covid-19, in terms of programme offerings, corporate linkages, etc. “Our first onsite learning programme, the hybrid executive PGP (postgraduate programme) in management, has the largest enrollment in India. This is the first ‘D’ (digital),” says Chatterjee. The institute also pioneered the second ‘D’ , i.e., diversification of the programme beyond what other legacy IIMs were looking at when it started five different PGPs — in liberal studies and management, MBA in finance, one-year MBA on business leadership, PhD for practice track professionals, and PhD for classical scholars. It also started offering undergraduate programmes, much before others. “We are getting 82,000 expressions of interest for our undergraduate programme. Out of them, 4,000 were shortlisted, and 112 offers made. This is our brand,” adds Chatterjee. The undergraduate programme is offered at the institute’s Kochi campus.

Gender diversity is another focus area. In some programmes, 60% of the students are women. Additionally, 30% of the faculty comprises women. The institution has two global accreditations — AMBA and EQUIS — and has cleared all formalities for the third, AACSB.

IIMK’s new campus is coming up on 15 acres in Kochi, and will host 1,000 students, offering a good number of programmes, entrepreneurship support, and an incubation centre. “We create our own firsts, we do not follow others,” says Chatterjee.