ITS Engineering College, Greater Noida, HOD - School of Management Studies: Dr. Akhilesh Kumar Misra Interview

Dr. Akhilesh Kumar Misra has been working as the Professor and Head of Department for School of Management Studies at ITS Engineering College, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. He has done Doctor of Philosophy from Allahabad University and is a management professional with rich postdoctoral experiences of 20+ years as a Teacher, Researcher, Administrator, Consultant and Trainer for top corporate houses and reputed B-schools in India. He also possesses extensive experience and versatile knowledge of conducting bilingual FDP, MDP and SDP for academia as well as corporate. And his professional mission for the academic and corporate sector is to harvest and harness talent of the students and managers to make them perform independently till the task touches the finishing point and hallmarks a success story at the workplace.

He has been teaching courses on organizational behavior, human resource development and management in post-graduate management professional programs. Dr. Misra's teaching pedagogy is focused on inculcating managerial competency and he has supervised many PhD scholars. Apart from this, at ITS, he regularly conducts workshops and seminars for students, teachers and management professionals to popularize current trends in management practices. 

He is also dedicated towards developing and publishing management cases, chapters on management issues, corporate psychological tools, and technical reports on training and research activities. He has 54 research papers published to his academic credit in peer reviewed journals, chapters on management practices in books and management cases in business magazines. 

What is your leadership style and how do you apply it to head the MBA Department effectively?

I believe in the collaborative way of working to learn and lead my amazing team of faculty members. Because when we all work together, each team member is empowered, participates and get the opportunity to present their suggestions and feedback with others on how we as an educational institution can grow. 

Apart from this, unified approach also helps faculty members to work mutually on a topic to find creative solutions for real world problems, time to review the work to readily accept the decisions for faster execution and last but not the least make them capable of utilizing their full potential.

How do you enhance the quality of an MBA program and keep it industry relevant at the same time?

For the purpose of upgrading the quality of our MBA program, we have enhanced the academia industry interface and introduced the culture of having industry professionals as “Professor of Practice”, who will come and deliver expert sessions on contemporary business practices. 

Also, we give emphasis on organizing events such as workshops and training programs on topics like modern business software, tools and techniques in order to give the best possible hands-on experience to our students.

Last but not the least, we have established the Institute Innovation Council (which comes under the Ministry of Education) on campus and regularly motivate students to enhance their Entrepreneurship skills and become Job Providers.

What kinds of internship opportunities does your institute provide to its MBA students?

Our MBA students undergo a compulsory summer training of 6-8 weeks in renowned industries and we have also set up a dedicated Corporate Resource Centre for ensuring they get such opportunities from time to time. In addition to this, we have strong tie-ups with several reputed brands including IBM, Flipkart, Lava, HCL, ITC, Samsung, Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank etc. and these companies have helped us in the past with the training and development of students by offering them better projects to work on.

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How do you promote research activities and publications among the students?

At SOMS, our students undertake 2 mini projects during the first year and 2 full projects in the final year of their course. Also, for the purpose of making our young minds capable of handling the large chunk of data effectively and driving amazing results out of it, we provide them in-depth knowledge of recent research tools such as SPSS, Advanced Excel and PowerBI etc. Along with all this, special training sessions are arranged for them so that they can learn how to write good business plans, proposals and reports using their unique ideas and analytical skills while working with reputed industries.

What kinds of training programs and workshops are conducted by your college to make MBA students placement ready?

We have a dedicated training department to conduct soft skills enhancement and technical training programs for our MBA students. Also, the training team of our institution stays in regular contact with leading industries to figure out about their latest trends, developments, requirements and technologies being used by them. And post a detailed discussion with corporate experts and leaders, they draft and develop training modules and schedules to keep students informed about the latest happenings of the dynamic and cut-throat competitive business world.

How do you foster a collaborative and innovative learning environment for both faculty and MBA students?

We, being an educational institution, firmly believe in a collaborative way of working and managing people to generate creative solutions and facilitate the ambiance for continuous learning among both faculty members and MBA students. Additionally, we follow a mentor-mentee system to develop an open and collective learning space to arrive at acceptable decisions. 

Another benefit of developing this system is that we can easily arrange short-term weekend internships programs and live projects for our students to give practical exposure to them. 

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What is your vision for the advancement of the MBA Department in the coming 5 years?

We aspire to expand our program offerings, recruit more PhD qualified faculty members and admit meritorious students with diversified backgrounds in our college in coming years. Apart from this, we are working on enhancing our relationship with our industry partners, increasing the engagement of our Alumni and leveraging emerging technologies into the curriculum to ensure innovative teaching-learning practices. 

Last but not the least, our focus for next 5 years would be on strengthening the brand image of our MBA Department and collaboration with leading MBA institutions and stay compliant with changing needs of industries in order to remain competitive in the business education landscape.