Mr. Debasis Mallik is the Senior Director (Charge of PG, UG, and Law campuses of PIMR, Indore) at PIMR. He has over 19 years of work experience in Academics. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Economics from the University of Burdwan, West Bengal. His areas of interest include Quantitative Modeling, Project Risk Management, and Family Managed Business. He has published 13 papers in national and international journals and published over 50 original articles in The Analyst, the flagship magazine of ICFAI.

Prestige Institute of Management

What keeps you connected with the education sector and how has your experience been so far with the institute?

I have always been connected with my students because my first passion is teaching. So, I have been teaching for close to 25 years. They often remember me and many times when they are stuck with their career or some quantitative modeling, as I teach quantitative modeling, quantitative methods, multivariate techniques, research methodology, and so on. It is the passion and the link that you establish with your students that keeps you going. I have my students, even 20-25-year-old students who are still connected. But of course, you can’t expect that from all students. A bunch of students with whom you match your vibrations, are connected with you all the time. This happens only when you care for your students as much as they expect you to. So, for students, it is very important to understand what they look like in their life when they join an MBA program. They seek some help, some passion, some kindness. Sometimes when they are stuck, even for that matter, career counseling or sometimes even emotional counseling. So, that is how we connect and remain connected with all our students across decades.

What is your philosophy of leadership?

First and foremost, I strongly believe that leadership cannot be taught in class just like you cannot teach swimming in the class. But of course, you can learn leadership as to what they do’s and don’ts, what you should be careful about, and things like that. It is a trait that is reflected sometimes in your character and your behavior. I believe leadership is to be grounded and to be humble, to be willing to learn all the time, and to genuinely think and do good for people. So, if you are always there to help your people grow, you create very deep roots of leadership because then you have a pool of people all around you who will always be connected with you. And they will be your true friends, they will be your true companions throughout your career path. And then when you take up a leadership role, you should have your vision very clear about What you want to achieve in life. 

How does the curriculum of your college ensure best practices?

It has to be very much in line with what the students at Prestige, how they are and how they can be nurtured, and so on. Another challenge that I saw in our institute is the number of students. It is close to 1,000 students' intake per batch. It is a huge number. And then you don’t have any power in selecting the students. We had to do a lot of juggling and a lot of changes in our syllabus to help them groom as good potential employees of our recruiters. For that, we started a lot of courses and programs which are hands-on. For example, as far as evaluation is concerned, we introduced the process of having a presentation in every course. That was one step. Then we provide a lot of learning by doing programs. For example, we have something called learning management through practice. So, all the students are divided into some committees, some groups where they have meetings every week. They design their strategies on how to implement, what to do, and so on. There are different committees taking care of academic administration, placements, cultural events, and sports. All these committees report to faculty coordinators. And this is a course which has even evaluation. Similarly, we have something called Samvedna, which is a kind of social internship for the students, where they are required to go out into the market and work with NGOs for 15 days. They work with NGOs and work on some real-life problems of NGOs. And then they come back and then they submit a report. There is a test, quiz, and presentation. Then we have something called a Personality Growth Lab. A lot of courses are there which are non-classroom activities. Through these non-classroom activities, we have tried to motivate our students to bring the best out of them. So, these are the things we are doing very differently so that we can help our students to grow as a human being, as an individual, and develop their personality.

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What were the challenges faced by you as the Director?

In my role as the Director of this esteemed management college, I’ve encountered challenges that have allowed us to continually enhance our institution. These challenges often revolve around the need to adapt to an ever-evolving educational landscape. We’ve actively worked on improving faculty development, modernizing our infrastructure, and fostering stronger industry connections. Some of the key areas we’ve focused on include enhancing faculty-student engagement, streamlining curriculum updates to stay current with industry trends, and fostering a more inclusive learning environment by proactively addressing these challenges, we’ve transformed them into opportunities for growth, and as a result, our college has maintained its reputation for excellence and innovation in management education. 

What are some of the achievements that your department has experienced under your tenure?

The first achievement is, of course, with the help of my faculty, with the help of the support that we get from DAVV University, we have been able to change the curriculum and include some new courses which are non-classroom courses. These non-classroom courses help students build their personality and character. In this year’s placement, we are already getting very high-level recruitment from quite a few very good companies and we can already see that it is showing results. Apart from that, we have already established collaboration with three international universities of very high ranking all at Triple Crown. One in the US, one in Europe, and one in the UK. We have tied up with Brandeis University in Boston. We have tied up with the ESSEC School of Management in Paris. And we have tied up with Loughborough University in London. And these are not just exchange partnerships. 

Having held an important position in your college, you must have had some important lessons to give to the students. Would you like to share some of such lessons?

One of the very important lessons is to be flexible in learning. Many times, you may be going through a course and you say that I have taken an MBA in marketing specialization, so I don’t need to learn financial accounting. It is a wrong approach. If the institution has decided to impart education on a bunch of courses, certain activities, and so on, the institute has wisdom that is much larger and it is a collective wisdom. It is much more than the wisdom of a particular student. So, as an institution, when we offer certain courses, not only prestige but any institution on earth. I think students should trust it because the whole purpose of spending two years with us is to learn and for many of them, once they graduate from an MBA program, they will not be studying ever in their life full time. So, this is the opportunity for you to learn and spend your full-time heart, mind, body, and spirit devoted to learning and grab as much as possible from what the institution has to give to you. Last but not least is to always have a belief in mind that the institution will become your alma mater once you graduate. So, it is not your enemy. It works with you for your good. So, you are always a part of it. It’s a larger family that we talk about. And throughout your life, you will remain an alumni.