In early June, SIBM launched a 3.5-acre campus in Bangalore’s Electronics City. “The campus is virtually the replica of SIBM Pune,” says Mudbidri. He also has plans to open a campus in Hyderabad, probably by 2010. These expansions will be driven by corporate collaborations rather than academic ones.
“I would prefer to go with a top corporate to new cities,” he adds. SIBM is also talking to B-schools in France and the UK to induct foreign students and also send SIBM’s students there. “We will soon have multi-cultural classes,” says Ameeta Shiroor, Deputy Director at SIBM.
The school is laying a special emphasis on beefing up international placements. “We cannot match IIM-A on this count,” admits Mudbidri. To start with, he has Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai on his radar. “We are likely to launch an executive MBA programme with a state university in Dubai by the end of this year,” he says, adding that SIBM is also in negotiations with global corporations based in these three countries.
SIBM is progressing systematically on its plans to challenge the supremacy of the IIMs and IIM-A in particular. Mudbidri has identified aspirational value as one of his focus areas. “That’s one area where aspiring MBAs place the IIMs way ahead of Symbiosis,” he admits, while doling out what he calls “encouraging statistics”. Of the 108,000 students who appeared for the all-India entrance test for SIBM last year, 98,000 opted for SIBM as their first choice (for the available 180 seats).
“The competition to get into SIBM is very tough,” he says, but admits that SIBM still has to go some distance before it can hope to challenge the top three IIMs on this count. “The first choice for any student is clearly the IIMs, but Symbiosis is clearly the next best choice,” says Aditya Sihmar, a second-year student at the institute. Mudbidri feels the lack of infrastructure, and particularly residential facilities, was a major reason for this. “But I’m sure we will be able to change that perception in the near future,” he adds.

Multi-cultural classrooms are in the offing
SIBM is also focussing on a module for entrepreneurship development this year. “Symbiosis has really transformed me as a leader,” says Vineet Nerurkar, from the class of 1993, who worked in Parle and Nivea for a decade before setting up his own media valuation company in early 2000. Mudbidri wants to institutionalise this and turn SIBM into a breeding ground for entrepreneurs. “There are thousands of opportunities to turn entrepreneur in today’s liberalised and globalised business environment,” says Mudbidri.
Indian B-schools have attained international fame for turning out good managers. If SIBM can take that forward and institutionalise a system of turning out entrepreneurs, Mudbidri might yet fulfill his ambition of pipping the IIMs to the top rank in future BT surveys.