Prof. Vasudevan is a Venture Launching expert with skills in Industry Research, Business Promotion, Technology Analysis, and Entrepreneurship Development. He possesses excellent business consulting skills to train, coach, and advise senior management teams with winning strategies to realize their visions. He has formulated and executed several multibillion INR investment projects and is an EDI-I & NEN accredited Trainer, Mentor, and Educator in Entrepreneurship Development.

He has more than 3 decades of experience in the industry and about 7 years of experience in academics. He has published business research reports on Medical Electronics, Embedded Systems, Animation & Multimedia, and Semiconductor industries. He is an SAP ERP FI-CO Consultant and was part of the KPMG team implementing SAP ERP at ICICI Bank, Mumbai. He has implemented quality management systems for educational institutions and is currently Professor & Head-Research at HBS. He teaches finance and entrepreneurship at HBS.

Hallmark Business School

What is one of the “best practices” that you have evolved over time in delivering the MBA program?

"The inclusive TLP is the outcome of decades of our Director’s experience in teaching management programs"

Majority of the students who study at Hallmark Business School hail from a non-urban background and lack the skills needed to pick up advanced inputs taught in the MBA program. To overcome this hurdle, the Director of HBS evolved an ‘inclusive’ teaching-learning pedagogy (I-TLP), that is aimed at enabling disadvantaged students to come up to speed, on par with city-bred students. The inclusive TLP is the outcome of decades of our Director’s experience in teaching management programs to students from marginalized sections of society.

How does the I-TLP ensure that both fast and slow learners are provided a commensurate learning experience simultaneously in the same class?

"An in-class assessment is done at the end of each and every class"

In fact, that is the unique feature of Hallmark’s I-TLP. First-of-all, we increased the duration of each session to 90 minutes to make it long enough for the class to open up a particular management concept, for all students to engage in an animated discussion and for the faculty to provide intended inputs and conclude. Secondly, every faculty develops a worksheet for each session he/she teaches, which becomes the ‘connecting hub’ between the students, the faculty, the blackboard, the PPT, and the syllabus. This 360-degree support within the class helps slow learners to visualize what is being discussed and how and where it fits in the big-picture. Lastly, an in-class assessment is done at the end of each and every class, where the concepts taught are reinforced through MCQs, fill-in-the-blanks, or short-answer questions. To our dismay, this methodology is working for both fasts as well as slow learners with equal efficacy!

What were the challenges that you faced while inculcating this program into your curriculum?

"Difficulties faced by faculty were discussed during faculty meetings with the Director and solutions were arrived at by consensus"

The biggest challenge was to develop worksheets for 25 sessions for each course with a variety of engaging content. Each worksheet will have a pre-class activity, an expert’s quote relevant to the topic being handled, notes on the topic, in-class exercise, in-class assessment, tidbits on business and industry trends, ‘beyond syllabus’ internet links, key terms of the topic, post-class assignment, etc. Preparing this was quite a humongous task for the faculty. Secondly, faculty members need to be trained on how to administer the I-TLP. Difficulties faced by faculty were discussed during faculty meetings with the Director and solutions were arrived at by consensus. 

What are the benefits of pursuing this new TLP?

"Transformation in the students, when perceived in the class in real-time, is a very heartening and fulfilling experience"

All students, whether well-accomplished or indolent, actively get involved in the class discussions and the class becomes lively and more engaged. Slow learners, particularly, don’t feel like they are left behind as they can participate equally well by getting cues from reading the handouts within the class. Over time a semblance of homogeneity is perceived in the class, despite inherent knowledge disparities. This transformation in the students, when perceived in the class in real-time, is a very heartening and fulfilling experience for the faculty members who become motivated to do more, and this ‘virtuous cycle’ goes on.

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How do you tend to establish healthy relations with the students and fellow faculty?

"One can very often find students engaging in animated arguments"

We at Hallmark consider our students as peers. That, only in an environment of openness would the ideas of students blossom and incubate, is a strong belief on which the Hallmark value system is built. Consequently, one can very often find students engaging in animated arguments on business topics even while faculty members are in their midst. It is also very common to find students unhesitatingly accosting a team of faculty members in the discussion in the corridors and joining the deliberations without any dissuasion or deterrence.

How do you strategize the curriculum and how often does it get updated to make it befitting for the students?

"Students Know Better What They Need"

Every year we revisit our curriculum during the annual Strategy Meet that is held for a couple of days at a calm and serene resort away from the college environment. The curriculum is reviewed based on the pros and cons expressed by the faculty members based on their previous year’s experience of working under the curriculum. The decision criterion for making any change is based on Hallmark’s epithet ‘Students Know Better What They Need’.

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What do you see as the college’s greatest strengths and how it can be enhanced?

"Hallmark’s philosophy is that if you are willing to reinvent yourself, reform the system and rejuvenate"

Being able to take in students of ‘ordinary’ caliber and transform them into professionals of ‘extraordinary’ caliber is the strength of Hallmark. With every passing year, we enhance this strength by lending a sensitive ear to the ‘voice of our students’. Hallmark’s philosophy is that if you are willing to reinvent yourself, reform the system and rejuvenate the learning environment in response to the changing dynamics of the industry/society at large, this continual improvement process will crystallize into a ‘core competence’ that will become the inimitable strength of Hallmark over the years

What valuable advice would you like to give the students for them to have a prosperous career ahead?

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go’ –William Feather. If you really want it, if the intent is genuine and strong, it WILL COME!