Prof. Arpan Kar is a Professor of Information Systems at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, where he holds the AS Gupta Endowed Chair Professorship. He has a joint appointment in the Department of Management Studies and the School of Artificial Intelligence. Administratively, he chairs Corporate Affairs and is a member of the Board of Academic Programme, Senate, and Institute of Eminence Committee, among others. He also supports multiple government ministries and other universities in different boards/advisory committees. He has authored over 200 publications and edited 11 books, of which over 65 publications are in ABDC A, ABS 3, and WoS Q1 level journals, and 14 are A* publications. His publications have been cited over 10,000 times, and his H index is 48. He is also the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Information Management Data Insights, which is a Q1 journal published by Elsevier. He has been a Guest Editor for reputed journals like the Journal of the Association for Information Systems (ABDC A*), Decision Support Systems (ABDC A*), Industrial Marketing Management (ABDC A*), International Journal of Information Management (ABDC A*), Information Systems Frontiers (ABDC A), etc. Furthermore, he is an Associate Editor in three and an editorial board member in eight reputed journals. He has undertaken over 40 sponsored research, advocacy, and training projects funded by national and international organisations. He has received over 20 national and international awards, like those from Clarivate Analytics, Elsevier, Ivey/Harvard Business Publishing, BK Birla, TCS, PMI, AIMS, IFIP, and ACM.

DMS,IIT Delhi

What inspired you and drew you towards information systems?

When I decided on this course of study during my Bachelor's in Engineering, I was still meddling with computers at Jadavpur University. Thereafter, I moved towards management. During those days, when I was in XLRI and I started venturing into the area of management, a natural fit was in information systems. Moreover, as I did my undergraduate studies in IT, my interest in information systems grew. Based on the teachers that I got in XLRI, who were fantastic mentors, my natural fit was towards information systems as a discipline.

What are your primary responsibilities now as a professor in Information Systems in the Department of Management Studies IIT Delhi?

As a professor in information systems, my predominant responsibilities are in two areas, teaching and research. I teach courses related to digital marketing, social media, digital payments, analytics and data science, and information systems management. The courses that I teach are at the interface of business analytics, data science, and Web 3.0 ecosystems. As a researcher, I also need to supervise a lot of scholars, and I have around eight scholars who are completing their PhDs with me. A dozen have completed their PhD with me. Moreover, I also take care of student placements in the business school and handle the position of chair of the placements and corporate relations. I also handle administrative responsibilities, like being a member of the Board of Academic Programs, High Performance Computing and a few other committees as well. At IIT Delhi, I'm also a joint professor in the School of Artificial Intelligence. 

How does the whole program of information systems at DMS ensure that the students are ready for the future in the real world?

In DMS, we have a portfolio of electives that cover diverse and up-to-date topics. There are multiple functional areas like finance, operations, information systems, marketing, strategy, OB/HR, entrepreneurship and economics. If you look at the elective portfolio of information systems, we have courses on digital payments, data analytics, machine learning, web 3.0 and social media. When we started teaching Digital Marketing, we developed focus areas like metaverse and social media. We also have multiple courses in Analytics like Predictive Analytics and Advanced Data Mining for Business, Data Visualisation, Enterprise AI/ML Management. We are more technologically focused and geared towards research. All functional areas have very cutting edge electives that are driven by the research undertaken by the faculty members. 

How did you tend to build an industry connection for this program? 

All functional areas have a good industry connect. For the information systems courses, we are involved in a lot of projects that are sponsored by different organizations. We have also done sponsored projects with EY, Facebook, Google, and BASF. Right now, we are discussing a potential MoU with Genpact. We have also done a lot of government projects, like with the Department of Science and Technology, Digital India, the Ministry of Electronics and IT, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, and the Ministry of Textiles. Essentially, what we learn from the project is brought into the class, and students can discuss and take away the main learnings and apply them to other areas.

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What are the main types of projects that the students are working through? 

Our first year students complete summer internships in the industry, where they work in different functional areas like Marketing, Finance, Sales, Analytics and Consulting. We encourage them to work in different departments so that they can learn how an organisation functions. In Analytics, the students are trained in different analytical procedures and methods. Similarly, for information systems, they work on projects that are related to digital transformation or analytics. Companies like Bain, Accenture, Synergy, and P&G are the top recruiters for our students for these projects and internships.

What are the primary challenges the department has faced in inculcating these projects in the curriculum? 

We do not have many challenges in terms of projects, corporate connect and curriculum but sometimes feel challenged in terms of how IIT systems operate in a semester model. In a semester model, typically there is more time to complete a full courses, which is in total of 42 hours. Now, most of the new requirements have a shorter duration of around 20 to 25 hours for a course but recruiters prefer more number of courses in the CV of the students. Most of the students undertake courses that are three credits, which span the entire semester, but in doing so, the number of courses sometimes reduce. The students need to complete 72 credits, and each credit is roughly 14 hours. So those 72 credits could easily be fulfilled by 24 courses for full courses or more, if some of these courses are broken into half courses (21 hours). For Information Systems, we have broken down each course into 1.5 credit courses, which is basically a half a semester course. It becomes easier for the students to get a diverse number of courses on their mark sheet, which further helps them in placements.

What one piece of advice would you like to give to aspiring students? 

For students who aspire to be in DMS, I think the first thing is to have a good academic background throughout your career. We like students who have done their under graduation at good universities. From a future career point of view, recruiters look for students who are consistent throughout their academic journey. It is not only about what knowledge or skills you have, but whether you are able to go out and get the job done consistently. You need to demonstrate perseverance to get the work done beyond your skills and knowledge. Perseverance, punctuality and passion matters.