Here's what makes S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research the best private B-school in India

For Varun Nagaraj, the goal for his institute is simple. “We want to be the best private B-school in India,” says the Dean of S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai. After spending over three decades in the US as a top-level executive, most notably for Silicon Valley firms, he came back to India in September 2021.

That kind of background has stood him in good stead when it comes to helming one of the top B-schools in the country. “I think it has given me the freedom to be willing to take more chances and develop a fairly optimistic approach about work,” he explains. One of the biggest attractions for SPJIMR is its location, though Nagaraj is clear that “We have not taken enough advantage of being in Mumbai”.

Management education in India is at a fascinating stage, given the proliferation of institutes, courses, and the varied job opportunities it opens up after graduating from one of them. Nagaraj, who graduated from IIT Bombay in 1986 before heading to the US for a masters in computer engineering followed by an MBA and Ph.D., believes his experience of working in senior management roles has helped him bring a new approach to teaching at SPJIMR.

A word that Nagaraj often uses in conversation is innovation, and it is one of the courses he teaches at SPJIMR, where he encourages students to treat it like a liberal arts class. “We cannot have a limited view of education, and what drives it is curiosity. It is important to have a wide funnel,” says Nagaraj. That said, the obsession to get the most lucrative job offers on campus is what really drives the students, right? Nagaraj says that balancing that tendency is important to ensuring holistic learning outcomes. “It cannot always be job-driven; one needs to bring a lot of joy into the process. We must go beyond the aspect of job-readiness.”

Further, he talks about the disruptive nature of companies in the Silicon Valley and how SPJIMR is inculcating these emerging themes in its teaching. “There is a dark side to innovation. Often, innovators have not thought of the implications, and now there is a lot of emphasis on it,” he says. To him, the appropriate use of innovation is the bigger issue. With that kind of an approach, the discussions in the classroom inevitably get a lot richer, with students being unbridled in what they think or say. SPJIMR is clearly doing the little things well and differently, a big requirement in today’s dynamic world.