Siva Sivani Institute Of Management, Director: Dr. S. V. Ramana Rao Interview

Dr. S. V. Ramana Rao currently serves as the Director at the Siva Sivani Institute of Management, Secunderabad. He holds a postgraduate degree in Management and completed M.Phil. His doctoral studies were pursued at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), specializing in Financial Derivatives. With an extensive career spanning over 28 years, Dr. Rao worked across various educational institutions both in India and internationally. Before transitioning to academia, he gained experience as a Marketing in several companies.

Dr. Rao worked in various colleges and institutions like PB Siddhartha College, Vijayawada, RVR and JC College of Engineering, Guntur, and T.A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal. Since 2007, he has been associated with the Siva Sivani Institute of Management in Hyderabad.

During the period of 2008-2011, Dr. Rao took a three-year leave to serve as a Faculty Member in the Business Studies department at Shinas College of Technology, Oman, where he eventually assumed the role of Head of the Department. Following his tenure abroad, he resumed his position at SSIM as a Professor and Head of the Department of Finance.

You have held a key position at the Educational Institute throughout your professional career. What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector? 

Being experienced and holding key position(s) one must be watchful with the market trends, especially in the education sector, industry and community as we are serving industry and societal needs. The business environment is dynamic, hence business school administrators must follow the trends and also students changing aspirations. 

Being the director of Siva Sivani Institute of Management. What is your philosophy of leadership? How do you describe your leadership style? 

Being the director of the Siva Sivani Institute of Management, I follow the principle of being fair and transparent. With this motto, all the things will fall into place, and administration will become smooth. Also, we can preach the same thing to the students to follow for a productive life. They can be straight, simple, and transparent that helps to foresee any kind of problem and work towards solving it.

How do you strategize about key programs and plans of the marketing and administration of your college? 

The market is a driving force for all of our programs and they are designed at the Institute to serve industry and societal needs. All courses we teach to students are embedded with the latest market trends that enable students to acquire skills required to be competent to serve in industry and society. We collect input from the market on a periodic basis and integrate it in our courses, curriculum, and syllabus.

The education system in India and other foreign countries are structured very differently. In your experience, what can be the inbound gain for a student studying here in your institute? 

Siva Sivani Institute of Management has a unique feature for our inbound students that We follow a thematic structure and modules to build managerial competencies in addition to the core courses. This basically helps the students to pick up the required skills and learn additional ones. They can sharpen their skills further and make themselves ready for the industry. That's the reason today Siva Sivani stands tall in terms of the placements that we are providing for the students; close to 98% of the students have been placed over the last decade or so.

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How does the curriculum of Siva Sivani Institute of Management ensure the best practices of the industry? 

The unique feature of the Siva Sivani Institute of Management is its curriculum as its is designed to suit the industry requirements. The governance structure like academic advisory board and board of studies have more than 50% of their members from the industry. Every year, the members of these boards get together at the board meetings and submit their input and suggestions to make changes to the syllabus in addition to inputs collected from industry, students and alumni. This helps us fine-tune our programs each year and makes the students market-ready and market-driven.

What do you think your roles and responsibilities for the college and the students are? 

As a business school Director, my job is quite simple and straight. Students come to the institute for learning purposes, and as an institute, we must provide them a quality education. The eco system, helps students learn as much as they can while they are in campus. This way, they can enjoy the benefits of learning even post-completion of the program.

What do you think should be the top priority for the college over five years? 

Keeping in view the industry for the moment, we are preparing ourselves to meet market trends in the coming five to ten years. It's going to be technology driven. Technology especially AI is going to penetrate all sectors including education. We are planning to prepare our students to be ready for this kind of challenge and equipping our students with the required skills set. This will help them use these technologies immediately once they start their careers.

When you joined Siva Sivani Institute of Management, what was your vision for the college? 

We wanted to make the Siva Sivani Institute of Management a premier management institute in the country. We are striving and working towards that. I'm sure that over a period of time we will come to the stage where we can proudly claim that Siva Sivani is at the top of the list. As of now, we are ranked very well at the national level and at the regional level. However, we want to be in the top 30 in the coming five years.

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What would you like people to know about your college that they may not know? 

I want people to know about the kind of learning system that is in place, our program structure, the intellectual capital of the institute, and the kind of efforts that go into preparing the students for their careers. The only thing the students need to do, is come to the campus with an open mind and have a different educational experience.

What do you see as the college's greatest strength? 

The institute's greatest strength is the faculty and the kind of effort that they put in addition to long standing in the marketplace. They actively work towards owning and sharpening the student's skills and the kind of attention that they pay to them.

What are some of the biggest challenges you see, both for the higher education in general and for your college specifically? 

In general, the biggest challenge is the students' learning abilities. There is no issue when attending classes and learning skills, but their attention spans have reduced drastically. As an institute, we are working very closely with the students to improve their attention spans by using alternative pedagogical tools. 

Any suggestion you would like to give to the current youth and aspiring students? 

I strongly recommend that the students collect accurate information according to their goals and requirements. The Internet has enormous amounts of information, and you will find a host of it at the click of a button. But unfortunately, many of them fail to choose the right information for their goal, which is key to learning effectively. I strongly recommend that the students look for the right information and make the right decision.