Interview by Pratyasha

S. K. Patel Institute

Dr. Bhavin Pandya is currently designated as the Director of S.K. Patel Institute of Management and Computer Studies. He is a man with an exceptionally brilliant academic career with a masters’ degree in business administration. With 17 years of experience, he has published various research papers in both national and international journals. 

Apart from this, he has also authored a book, namely “Advanced Marketing Management.” Dr. Pandya has been awarded ‘Outstanding Young Person Award-2014 of the Yea’r. He is member of the advisory board of EDII- project on Social Entrepreneurship initiated by University of East London and British Council.

Experience and Reasons to serve in the education sector

Talking specifically about the education sector, earlier it was believed to be a “mission,” not a “profession.” From an early age, I was very desperate to contribute and be responsible for fostering the youth in a better way. I started working in this sector as a lecturer in Sarva Vidyalaya Kelavani Mandal. My passion for teaching never ended, even when I was working in the corporate sector. The prime reason for joining this sector is the inclination for research and contributing to society.

Views on Indian Educational System

The sectors in India are broadly classified as product-based and service-based. The service sector is growing exponentially and contributing 72-78% in GDP in terms of services. It is a sign of development in India. We have many great institutions like IISC, IITs, IIM among the top educational institutions. However, India needs a lot of improvisation and transformation because we are following the same kind of patent for many years. 

With the changing trends, we have now entered the era of 4D Al, Machine Learning, IoT Genetics Modification. We are complacent about adopting these kinds of changes and producing the best brains. Big brands like ISRO, Google, Microsoft, Oracle have great software engineers from India working for them. This has led to the problem of Brain Drain in our country, and this is why the Indian education sector requires transformation. 

Challenges faced being the Director of SKPIMCS

When you are working at this position, you feel proud, but at the same time, you will also be condemned. People will either criticize or appreciate you according to the situation. It is, therefore, always challenging to manage a B-School. 

Students, nowadays, expect a lot from a B-School, especially in terms of placement opportunities. However, they lack basic skill sets in terms of manners, verbal skills, etiquette, and protocols. With the increasing competition, it has become challenging to provide the right opportunities and produce competent learners.

To manage all of this, one needs much revenue to manage an educational institution. We are a self-financed institution; the only challenging task is to rank among the top B-School category. As a Director, I and my faculty are trying to train and groom the students in a full-fledged manner to help them in their growth. 

Holistic curriculum at S.K. Patel Institute 

S.K. Patel Institute of Management and Computer Studies is a first self-financed MBA college in Gujarat. We have never compromised our cultural legacy. We are a little bit stringent in terms of attendance, and every student needs to attend class. 

The Institute organizes sessions on case studies, pre-lecture reading topics, personality, and soft skill classes, analytical and logical reasoning. With all this, we are not only focused on imparting management knowledge but also on enhancing the co-curricular development of our students. 

Read about S. K. Patel Institute of Management & Computer Studies Courses & Fee

What all must an Ideal school deliver to an aspirant

In a B-School, one cannot be restricted only to academics and classrooms. In here, we look at the overall development of our students. It is essential to make them understand about the changing environment.

Alvin Toffler used to say that "If you are going to sleep at night and wake up the next morning, you do not know how the world is changed and believe me, it is changing like anything."

Today, we are witnessing rapid changes all around us be it industrial or academic changes. In a business institute, the emergence of start-ups is at a high rate. 

Example: Zomato was the only online food ordering portal a couple of years back. With the advent of new technology, new startups such as UberEats and Swiggy emerged and wiped out the market like anything. Therefore, nothing is stable in this world. Today’s youth is carrying high energy and technology exposure, we believe as a B-School, we need to leverage the abilities of our graduates for the betterment of society.

Upcoming goals for S.K. Patel Institute

Whenever we are on a seat, we have aspirations, and presently, I am working to help reach the Institution in Tier 2. Apart from this, we also need to improvise our rankings because it is the parameters of our performance. Being a management institute, we want to improve our student quality input as well. For this, we are planning to introduce research activities for the students as well as faculty members. There is a database of journals like National and International Impact Factor Service. We want our faculty to publish their research papers in good publications.

Placement opportunities at the Institute

Currently, our average placement is 3-3.5 LPA, and the highest package is 6.5-7 LPA. We are trying to improve this every year and want our maximum package to reach at least 11-12 LPA. We are doing our best to boost the numbers. 

The institute is providing international exposure to the students by collaborating with some of the reputed universities like California State University, North America University, and few Canadian universities. We have also inked some MOUs with the Canadian Government and Gujarat Technological University. It is so because we did want to leverage international relations from Lincoln University, Malaysia. 

Click here S. K. Patel Institute of Management & Computer Studies Placement

Message to the Millennials

Management aspirants must have a proper exposure of the real market. With experience on hand, they can easily understand the corporate world. In foreign universities, it is mandatory to have 2-3 years of job experience in corporate or any services before taking admission. 

Since MBA is one of the prestigious degrees, students need to prepare themselves accordingly. They must work hard, re-diversified things, get exposure to new technologies before venturing into the MBA.