Engaging with the Industry - Industrial Visits at IIM Indore

The industrial visit program was started for the batch of year 2012-14 where the students in the first year had to visit an organization in an around Indore once a day, each week. Currently in its second year, the program has evolved to be a great source of learning for the participants.

As a part of the program the entire batch is divided into groups. These groups are so divided that the students have the right mix of fresher and experienced candidates. A point of contact is also selected from each group who is normally the most experienced participant among the lot. These groups are then allotted a domain and the students have to study different activities involved with that specific domain. The institute arranges the logistics for the participants. But interfacing with the organization about their regular visits is usually done by the participants themselves.

The initial rounds of the visit comprises of having a round of the organization, understanding their implementation set up and value chain. Followed by which each company gives the students a problem statement/objective. The participants are then supposed to do a critical analysis and come up their understanding of the problem. They then give feasible solutions and recommendations to the same.

Some of the companies where the participants make the visit:-

Name of the Company	Domain over which they have to work
Anik Industries Dewas	Operations, Marketing
Bombay Hospital	Operations
CIL Textiles Pvt. Ltd.	Marketing, General Management, HR, Strategy
Gabriel India Limited	Operations
Hotel Radisson Blu	Operations
Idea Cellular	Operations, Marketing
Indore Development Authority	Operations
Kirloskar Industries*	Operations
Kores India Limited	Operations
Neo Corp International - Operations (Finishing)	Operations, Marketing
NVIS Technologies	Operations
Patrika News Paper	Marketing
Sayaji Hotels G1	Marketing
SRF Limited	Operations
Vippy Industries Limited (Vippy Spinpro)	Operations
Webduniya Limited	Marketing, Strategy
Indore Police	Operations
Kriti Industries	Operations
Tata International Limited	Operations
Dainik Bhaskar	Operations, Marketing
IPCA Laboratories	Operations
Case New Holland Construction Equipments (India) Pvt. Ltd.	Operations
Atal Indore City Transport Ltd. (iBus)	Operations
VE Commercial Vehicles Limited	Operations
Pratibha Syntex Limted	Marketing, Research

 

Some of the project works that the students are doing are as follows:-

- Feasibility study of launching a product in the market
- How to improve the efficiency of processes on job floor
- Researching about tourism in and around city
- Conducting survey to know consumer preference of a product and then accordingly make business development strategy

Learning’s for the students

The participants gain the following from this series of Industrial visits:-

- Learn more about a career and its shades in action
- Make a solid network
- Receive a real world experience. For instance the participants get an experience to learn how to organize a “Bandobast” with the officers of Indore Police
- These visits prove to be of great help when the students are asked by professors to work on some field research
- The industries mentor the students with their experiences

Benefits for the organization

The organization gets an outsider's perspective. The SMEs get to know about the new innovations that can be infused into their business and how they can improve their problems. They learn about the new practices and benefit from the experiences of the group.

 

-Barleen Kaur

Pictures Source: DNA

Barleen Kaur is currently pursuing her first year PGDM at IIM Indore (Class of 2015). She did her B.Tech degree from GGS Indraprastha University in Computer Science and Engineering and worked as a training manager at a consulting company and also started a coaching center. She has a strong affinity for writing and is an avid orator.

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