Dr. Vivek Ranga is the Director of IBS at ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad. He is a graduate of Physics with a postgraduate degree in Management. He completed his PhD in advertising effectiveness and FDPM at IIM-Ahmedabad. With over 19 years of teaching experience as a marketing faculty member, his teaching interests are in B2B marketing, Retail Management, and Marketing Communication.

Dr. Ranga is also a visiting faculty member at University of Paderborn, Germany, and the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. His research interests include media and consumer behaviour and educational methodology, where he has participated in national and international seminars and conferences. He has conducted Faculty Development Programs and case workshops at various institutes in India and abroad. Furthermore, he has been part of the curriculum review on marketing subjects for the IBS/PG program and on the advisory board of the Case Centre of Gujarat Technological University.

ICFAI Business School

What is that one thing that made you excited and be a part of IBS and share your experience of 20+ journey in IBS?

Constant learning is one thing that makes me excited about my journey of 22 years with IBS. A teacher must always be a learner. IBS invests in faculty training, and when I look back, I have had numerous opportunities to be part of various trainings that have helped me evolve as a teacher and thus influence my teaching style. As Director, one of my key priorities today is faculty development, as faculty impact students for a lifetime. Over the years, business paradigms have changed a lot, and our endeavour has always been to prepare our students to meet industry expectations. My journey of more than two decades has been spent doing different things and gaining rich experience.

What motivated you take a leap from the corporate industry to pursue a career in academia and leadership in management?

I shifted to academics at the age of 26 in 2001, which was early at that point in time. Today, many youngsters start their careers in academia. The intellectual pursuit of academics has always attracted me. Since my management studies, I have been interested in learning about different industries and how businesses evolve. The curiosity to understand the business world around me was the key factor. In particular, I was fascinated by the world of advertising and marketing. My earlier exposure to consumer-centric industries helped me develop a customer orientation and service attitude. In my career in academics, I had the opportunity to handle multiple things apart from teaching, like placements, alumni relations, media relations, and events. Having been exposed to all that, I was able to guide my young colleagues to take up the responsibilities I handled.

As the Director of - IBS School of Business, what do you feel is the USP or what are the differentiating factors that make IBS stand out from other Business schools?

Since its inception, IBS has had a distinct focus on industry. It all centers around the philosophy of teaching, which is relevant to the industry's needs. There is a systematic process for course offerings and curriculum design. The faculty's focus is on making the students learn about and appreciate the world of business. We always focus on nurturing the right attitudes with knowledge and skills. As a result, we constantly receive feedback from the industry that our students are adaptable and are prepared to take on challenges at the workplace. Our sharp focus on industry needs is our USP and what makes IBS stand out from other business schools.

What steps would you take to ensure that the business school's curriculum remains relevant, aligns with industry demands, and prepares students for successful careers?

For a business school, it is imperative to be in tandem with the changes happening in the industry. IBS’s philosophy is to offer courses as per the needs of the industry and to achieve this, we have created mechanisms in our courses that facilitate industry interaction. For instance, we have our recruiters participate in the admission process, and we have an advisory board at each campus that contributes to the overall vision of the institute. Apart from this, we have unique initiatives like practising managers, practising sessions, and guest lectures that bring industry people into the classrooms.

Our Summer Internship Program enables students and faculty to interact with the industry, and the duration of 14 weeks gives the students the opportunity to be immersive and gain experience. For student preparations, we have an innovative concept called “IMPACT,” which is IBS Mentorship for Placement, Advisory Counselling, and Training” that runs across four semesters. These initiatives facilitate the transition of students into corporate executives.

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How would you engage with faculty to promote research excellence, encourage innovation in teaching, and support their professional development?

IBS's focus is always on faculty development and training, and I say this with a lot of conviction as I had the opportunity to undergo many training and development programmes in the last two decades. At each campus, we have subscriptions to the best research databases like EBSCO, JSTOR, Emerald, and Marketline, which faculty can access and read. We support our faculty members to write papers and present at national and international conferences for which financial support is extended. Apart from this, we also send faculty to various training programmes, industry seminars, and conferences. We also reward faculties for their efforts in teaching, research, and institutional building by giving awards every year.

How do you plan to leverage technology and online platforms to enhance the delivery of business education and adapt to changing educational landscapes?

At ICFAI Business School, Ahmedabad, we have been leveraging technology to add value to our academic delivery. Our technology adoption initiatives are two-sided. One is constantly investing to upgrade state-of-the-art technical infrastructure at our campus. We subscribe to resource-intensive databases for financial and statistical analysis, for which we use high-end computing facilities. Also, we have invested in touch-enabled screens, or “Digital Boards,” which enhance the classroom learning experience. The digital boards also facilitated hybrid classroom delivery with our alumni nationally and internationally. We also subscribe to research databases to enable faculty to publish in peer-reviewed and industry publications.

What are the challenging part of being in the Director of business school role and how do you handle them?

The most challenging part of being a Director is keeping the institute in tandem with changes happening externally. In the last few years, the pace of change has been fast. On one side, technology infusion is creating disruption in the world of business, and it has impacted business schools as well. Furthermore, COVID has redefined the teaching and learning process. The impact of these disruptions is visible in the workplace as well.

At the institute level, our focus is always to be vigilant about these changes and to maintain constant touch with the industry. We encourage our faculty to visit the industry regularly to understand the changes happening there. We invest in training faculty to be adaptive to changes and to ensure that their teaching styles are in alignment with industry expectations.

Can you describe What is the significance and support IBS provides for entrepreneurship and innovation?

At IBS, we always encourage innovation and an entrepreneurial culture. Our pedagogy encourages a participatory culture, and thus students reflect upon and think about the applications of the theoretical concepts. The faculty, while teaching, facilitates critical thinking and encourages innovation by adopting the most effective teaching techniques. Many of our students have taken the route of entrepreneurship and created successful enterprises. We support entrepreneurial culture through intellectual and networking support.

We offer courses on entrepreneurship and regularly conduct workshops, boot camps, and conferences to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Additionally, our students organise and take part in business plan competitions, hackathons, and startup competitions.

How do you envision the role of the Director in shaping the strategic direction and growth of IBS Business School?

As Director, I set clear priorities for the institute that are in alignment with the institute's philosophy. At present, the institute's priorities are teaching, research, and student experience with a global focus. We believe that keeping knowledge relevant to the changing industry is important for all management graduates. Hence, we actively engage with industry to bring in best practises in the classroom.

Another priority is to enable faculty to be engaged in high-quality research and case writing. The Indian Business Scenario offers ample opportunities for faculty to write cases suitable for the Indian context. Student experience inside and outside is critical in managing the transition of students to an executive role. Clubs and other activities create intellectually stimulating environments that foster healthy peer learning spaces