J K Business School

Dr. Sanjeev Marwaha, is the Director of JK Business School has held leadership positions in academics and corporate for the last three decades. He is an expert in the area of Strategic Management and Customer Retention. With remarkable work experience in the field of research and management, he has been associated with various international universities as a speaker and renowned professor. By holding the great skill of leadership, Sanjiv Marwah has also been the recipient of Rashtriya Gaurav Sammaan- 2015, Academic Leader of the Year -2016 & Leader in Asia with Global Vision & Outlook-2019. 

What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector?

“The idea of being able to motivate others”

From the year 1998, for a decade I worked in corporate and after the experience, I started visiting the college for the position of a guest lecturer. I became head of CRC at the Ape jay group. The god has been graceful because I became a director at the young age of 39, it’s been almost 14 years as a head of an institution and it has given me a lot of experience, exposure, also allowed me to change the life of young students. As a teacher, you can influence the lives of many students, as an education leader your opportunities are much wider as there are certain policy initiatives you can take. You get a much wider role, you get much more opportunities to influence the life of youngsters and also to service the industry at large because I strongly believe that we prepare students for a corporate career. 

Being the Director of JK Business School, what is your philosophy of leadership? How would you describe your leadership style?

“Participative Leadership is the style”

I believe Leadership needs assurance and self-reliance. There are decisions when you have to be authoritative because you are confident about the decision and must be implemented, it might not be appreciated for the short term but will be fruitful in the longer run. In the Education industry, with well-experienced faculty, the democratic leadership with most of the participation from each member of faculty works much better. So we have meetings, interactions and decision making are much more cohesive as compare to the corporate sector.

Being the Director of JK BUSINESS SCHOOL, how do you strategize about the key programs and plans for the marketing and administration of your school?

“Business schools are already settled to be having a strategy”

I believe there should not be a strategy but a case because business school is a very well structured education system already in place. Innovations don’t stop, the continuation of business schools follow, most of the time they build a theoretical base, sometimes the faculty members also take initiatives like balanced scorecard, companies, countries, and the business schools benchmark their performances based on the balanced scorecard. We analyzed ourselves that how are we teaching, what are we teaching and how are we grading, and after that, we found out that Bloom's taxonomy is best for us. We have been focusing on activity-based learning as our only strategy.

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How does the curriculum of JK Business School ensure the best practice of the industry?

“Scope of the companies and career streams”

We focus on the streams and careers that have been gaining importance in the Economy. AI, Robotics, and other industries like IoT, Cloud computing, Big data analytics, etc. are the new technologies from which most of the jobs are emerging. As business school leaders we have a responsibility to keep a close tab on emerging technologies and how they are influencing the business and our curriculum should also reflect the change as it happens and we try to do the same. We also look at the kind of jobs which will appear 3-5 years from now so my course needs to address not only the potential of the job one year from now but also has to look at the kind of jobs that are likely to emerge a few years from now.

Any insights into how you’re Institute could be more welcoming to students of different races or economic backgrounds?

“Promotes Anti-racism”

For a business school like JK coming out sponsored by JK organization and managed by JK education trust, the heterogeneity is extremely important, we work on a diversity of students, few years back we took a resolve that we will look at gender participation and then we achieved almost 50% gender participation in previous batches. We also look at heterogeneity of the national character of a business school and we have students from 20 states of the country in our batch so we travel to different parts of the country, take interviews from different parts of the country, and ensure the diversity of the school is maintained. We also have a quota system to ensure that diversity is maintained in our school. Talking about economic diversity, we don’t work on that specifically but our fees are generally very value-driven and we have maintained lower fees than the comparable b schools so that it shouldn’t become a hurdle for potential talent. 

 What do you think would be the institute’s top priority over the next 10 Years?

“The strategy for the coming decade has been prepared”

The primary objective remains the participation of each in decision making. As far as students are concerned, we have student committees so that our institute becomes like the one which is managed more by student bodies and less by general administration. Outcome-based education has been started keeping the future in mind. In terms of ranking, we are not very happy but we know the kind of model we have which is very student focused. The ranking sometimes might not be truly reflected, we are still in the top 50 but we would like a better rank for ourselves. 

How do you tend to establish a healthy relation and environment in your institute?

“Open Communication and the office environment”

A healthy environment has only one basic premise. There have to be no appointments to discuss the problems with me. I shall be available for every concern. Mutual respect is the second reason. Between the staff and the students, they must maintain dignity for one another. People are addressed with their first names so we have a very open and communicable environment and I am very happy about that. 

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What are some of the biggest challenges you see, both for higher education in general and for JK Business School specifically?

“The requirement of evolving with the industry”

  • The biggest challenge this country faces is the delay in terms of the NEP and I am glad it has come out now and we decided to work on this outcome-based education last year only and we are about a decade late both generally and in b school as well. 
  • Technology has suddenly catapulted as a very important growth driver and will likely remain so in the coming years for the industry. That is where the challenge is, now when we look at it as a responsible business school, we have to ensure that our students who get placed in 2021 and 2022 are prepared well for the new industry norms as they get placed. 
  • The recruitment challenge is not only for JKB, it is for the entire education system. Our education system has been accused of not being connected with the industrial requirements. There have been surveys which say that not more than 25% of engineers are employable so this doesn’t give a good message and the same goes for business schools as well. 

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

“Hard work should never stop”

My suggestion to a prospective student who is going to join any b school for that matter, that business school is a journey that sets you up for your life span to the next 30 years. The school with your hard work would groom you with better interpersonal skills than you require. Prepare case studies, there is so much that you can do on your own, you don’t need anybody for this, and it’s you who have to improve so you have to work hard for it. Read newspapers and summarize it and explain it to a family member or a glass, as it improves your communication skills, analyzing skills so I suggested this to most of the students that arrive at my B school.