Great Lakes Institute of Management

Great Lakes Institute of Management
Motto	Global Mindset. Indian Roots
Established	2004
Type	Private business school
Dean	Dr Bala V Balachandran
Postgraduates	300 (2009-10)
Location	Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India 12.573471°N 80.139862°E / 12.573471; 80.139862
Website	Greatlakes.edu.in

Great Lakes Institute of Management (also known as Great Lakes) is a business school located in the South Indian city of Chennai (formerly Madras). It offers a one year 'Post Graduate Program in Management' which is an AICTE approved program in management, a 2 year part-time Executive MBA program 'Post-Graduate Global Executive Program in Management (PGXPM)',2 year Post Graduate Working Professional Program In Management (PGWPM) and Global Energy Executive MBA (GEMBA).

The institution, a brain-child of the US-based management guru,Dr Bala V. Balachandran, aims to fill the vacuum for a top- flight business school in Tamil Nadu and put it on par with the three other southern States that boast of top-rung management institutions - Indian Institutes of Management in Bangalore and Kozhikode and Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.

The institute was founded by Dr Bala V Balachandran( he is also the co-founder of two very reputed B-schools,ISB hyderabad and MDI Gurgaon) in the year 2004. Great Lakes Institute of Management has an MoU with Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA. The Yale-Great Lakes Research Center has been established with the objective of pursuing advanced research in management in partnership with Yale University of USA. The Institute has entered into a MoU with the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia, Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, and IIT Madras for academic exchange programs. Great Lakes has recently earned the accredition by AICTE and is the only 1 yr management course in India to be approved by the council. The average work experience of the students is more than 3 years and the institute considers GMAT score(average of around 690) or CAT score(average 96 percentile) for admissions.

Great Lakes has recently announced its strategic partnership with Educomp, a leader in the e-Learning industry in India, on May 6, 2011. Great Lakes in association with Institute of Energy Management of Research (IEMR) launched its Gurgaon Campus.

The Institution

Chennai Campus

Great Lakes inaugurated its new campus in April 2009 at Manamai Village, on East Coast Road.

Great Lakes campus

Great Lakes Institute of Management’s new green campus is situated very close to the famous shore temple of Mamallapuram, 50 km from the city of Chennai. The sprawling new campus is erected on 18 acres (73,000 m²) of land, the first phase that has been completed has a built-up area of 165,000 sq ft (15,300 m²).. Great Lakes will be creating history, as the state-of-the- art campus houses environment friendly and a green buildings. There are different blocks dedicated to research, faculty offices and housing, administrative, student residences, recreation centers. Great Lakes is planning to establish campuses in other parts of India also in the near future.

Great Lakes campus has been awarded "Platinum" rating by Indian Green Building Council, the institute’s design concept derives itself from the tag line of the institute “Global mindset – Indian roots”. It aims to generate in students a sense of social responsibility. The design reflects the basic essence of simplicity, humbleness and clarity of thought.

Recognizing the importance of introspection for self development, the Green Campus provides for an introspective Zen garden around which facilities like the library and Alumni Alcov are arranged. A variety of garden spaces like the garden of activity and garden of tranquility provide the much needed lung space. The campus recycles all its water and waste and uses a lot of reused and recycled products as some of the measures towards making a sustainable and green campus.

Gurgaon Campus

As part of its plans to expand its presence across India, Great Lakes Institute of Management (Great Lakes) got into a strategic partnership with Educomp Solutions, a leader in the eLearning space in India, on May 6, 2011. Educomp has announced a investment of Rs. 150 Crores over a period of five years. Post this announcement, Great Lakes has launched its campus in Gurgaon, Haryana in collaboration with the Institute of Energy Management of Research (IEMR) which will now be known as Great Lakes Institute of Energy Management and Research (GLIEMR). GLIEMR now offers a course in Energy Management Executive MBA program

Academic programs

The one year full time Post Graduate Program in Management (PGPM) is uniquely designed to deliver Customer-Centricity, Meritocracy and Corporate Ethics in one year. It facilitates students to understand the interactions between the various functional areas of a business system and thereby appreciate the need for developing cross-functional perspectives in business.Great Lakes Institute of Management works in close partnership with the industry in shaping the curriculum. The curriculum is reviewed periodically to keep it in sync with the needs of an ever-changing and evolving market place. Some of the highlights of PGPM:

• Students are required to do a Chinese language (Mandarin) course during the first four terms. Along with the language, students are made aware of Chinese culture, personal and business etiquettes.
• Students are motivated to learn the inner truth of Corporate Social Responsibility by experiencing the pleasure of giving back to society. Student groups identify various social organizations in and around the city and spend a minimum of 3 hours every week during the first four terms, working along with these organizations to bring about enduring changes in their lives.
• Every student is required to do a real-life study under a faculty member's guidance. This empirical study is an individual project spanning the entire year, and is worth 6 credits. The coordination with respect to this empirical study is handled by the Yale-Great Lakes Center for Management Research.

The Post Graduate Global Executive Program in Management (PGXPM) for Executives is Great Lakes' answer to unfolding global changes in business perspectives. It helps to lift one's career beyond expectations with an international life-changing experience. This six-term, rigorous, fully mentored program takes the work experience of the participants into consideration and focuses on sets of core courses in Finance, Marketing, Operations, Technology and Human Resource Management. The Institute looks for high performance middle / senior / manager with strong leadership potential for PGXPM. Some of the highlights of PGXPM:

• Rigorous 1500 hrs learning time over 7 terms. Each term is about 1.5 months.
• Top faculty from US, Asian and Indian B-schools
• Rich peer environment
• Course content tailored to suit global business environment
• Internantional study tour.
• Empirical research, a unique approach towards management education
• Diverse class cohort with immense peer learning opportunities

Events and conferences

• The Yale-Great Lakes International Conference aims to promote, facilitate, and advance India-centric management related research. The Centre also comes out with its own publication Great Lakes Herald a half-yearly journal of research articles.

Dr. Bala,Dean with Ms. Anu Aga,Ex CEO-Thermax at SWIM '08

• Successful Women In Management (SWIM), an initiative by the students of Great Lakes which aims to identify and recognize successful women from various walks of life. The highlight of the endeavour is the SWIM event consisting of talks by eminent guests, panel discussions, quiz competitions and the release of the SWIM magazine. Over the past years, SWIM event has been presided over by eminent women leaders including Ms. Kiran Bedi and Ms. Anu Agha.
• L’attitude 13° 05’, the flagship event of Great Lakes, is a national level inter-collegiate festival with events like paper presentations, business plan presentations, panel discussions etc., in which teams from various B-Schools all over the country converge and present their ideas. It also builds a platform for them to network with future leaders from other premier business schools. In 2007 L'attitude saw speakers like Dr. Y. V. Reddy, Ex-Governor, Reserve Bank of India and Mr. Shailesh Rao, Country Head and MD, Google. For the 2011 version of L'Attitude former Indian predident Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam will be the guest of honour.

Dr. Bala,Dean and Prof Sriram, Executive Director with Mr. B. Muthuraman at HR Conclave '08

• Human Resource Conclave was an event initiated in 2008. It brings together stalwarts of HR field who discuss and share industry specific perspectives on the theme of the event. Great Lakes HR Conclave 2008 had speakers like Shri Prem Chand Gupta, Honorable Union Minister for Corporate Affairs, Mr. B. Muthuraman, Managing Director - Tata Steel and Mr. Chandrasekaran, President & MD - Cognizant Technology Solutions amongst others.
• An International Study Tour is organized every year to go with the Institute's motto of ‘Global Mindset ,Indian roots’. The Class of 2009 visited Singapore and Malaysia where they interacted with international B schools, industry and government.

Rankings

• Was placed at rank 16th at par with JBIMS and MICA by Careers .360-CNN-IBN Survey.
• Has been placed in cluster 3 colleges along with IIT-B, IIT-D, MDI (HR), IMT (Ghaziabad), SCMHRD, SIBM, TAPMI, IMI, XIM, NMIMS, GIM,SIBM by Career Launcher ranking.
• Careers360 magazine has considered it to be mini ISB in one of its articles"Is it a miniature ISB?".
• Business World magazine has ranked Great lakes 15th in Intellectual capital and 18th in overall rankings in its 2010 B-School rankings published on 28th June 2010.
• India today in an article Indian Versus Foreign( ISSUE OCTOBER 10, 2005) stated "The umbilical cords for both GLIM and ISB bond them to elite US institutions like Kellogg and Yale. Their curriculums are modelled after those of top global B-schools".
• Business India best B-schools surveys 2010 ranks great lakes at the 19th position amongst Indian B-schools.

Administration

Dr.Ratan Tata at Great Lakes Institute of Management

Ms.Indra Nooyi at Great Lakes Institute of Management

Dr.Philip Kotler with Dr. Bala, Dean at Great Lakes Institute of Management

The Dean of Great Lakes Institute of Management is Dr Bala V Balachandran,handles Managerial Accounting course. Even during his professional commitments in US, he tries to remain connected with the students by his weekly e-mails. The Executive Director is Prof. Sriram who is supervised by the Dr. Bala.

Though owned by Dr. Bala, Great Lakes is a section 25 company run along professional lines with a board consisting of majority of independent directors. Great Lakes has managed to get the consent of many leading personalities of the corporate world for their name in Business Advisory Council. These corporate leaders, who facilitate a strong connection and interface with the industry promote the institution by permitting the management to use their image in a fitting manner in their advertisements. The objective is to ensure that the course curriculum appear to reflect the changes in the business environment and equips students to meet emerging challenges. The list of Business Advisory Council members is on the Institute's website.

The Academic Advisory Council develops a solid foundation for management thought. Its objective is to ensure that there is a sound academic base that students can constantly draw from during the course of their careers and establish a core foundation for decision making. The list of Business Advisory Council members is on the Institute's website.

External links

• Official website
• Great Lakes academic alliance with Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology
• About Great Lakes