Meet Dr Biswajeet Pattanaik, founder of Bhubaneshwar's Asian School of Business Management that provides world-class business education

Dr Biswajeet Pattanayak's dream back in the day was to start a B-School which doesn't just churn out a large number of students every year, like a manufacturing company. With over 27 years of experience in academic and administrative fields, where he has held positions ranging from the Vice-Chancellor of KIIT University to Group Head, HRD of the Essar Group, Dr Pattanayak knew that the need of the hour is sector-focused specialisations. "I just wanted to bridge the gap between education and industry, which was huge back then," says Dr Pattanayak. 

Dr Pattanayak conducted a CE workshop titled Lagaan Workshop on team-building and leadership at the 62nd Annual Convention of International Council of Psychologists at Jinan, China

With this intention, he started the Asian School of Business Management (ASBM) which, back in 2006, became one of the first institutes to offer an industry tie-up programme. Their Retail Management Programme was in collaboration with the Future Group. While they jointly selected students, after the completion of the course, students were absorbed into the Future Group in managerial positions. They replicated the same model in the same year in their Logistics and Supply Chain Management Programme, collaborating this time with courier major Gati. "We groomed students, gave them the degree and the industry gave them jobs," explains the Founder and Group Director, ASBM. 

All smiles: Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik recently released Dr Pattanayak’s book Human Resource Management

They also went on to formulate their flagship programme - PG in Management which offered a combination of domain and sectoral specialisation. And the rest, as they say, is history. ASBM today is a business school globally accredited by the Accreditation Council of Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), USA. Much of its credit goes to Dr Pattanayak, who is fondly known as the 'Lagaan Professor'. Yes, by Lagaan, we mean the Oscar-nominated, Aamir Khan-starrer movie. He earned this title after teaching a course based on this this movie at IIM Indore. 

Talking about the prerequisites one must identify in themselves before enrolling for a business programme, Dr Pattanayak says that they must have an inquisitive mind and a tendency to think out of the box. "You must have the ability to spot an opportunity and utilise it to the best of your ability. And this ability is a must-have irrespective of whether you are an employer or an employee," he explains. (Incidentally, he also tells us that he is an ardent reader of Edex and doesn't miss out on grabbing a copy on Mondays!) 

He is the recipient of several awards and accolades like Dewang Mehta Award for Best Professor, Srujani Creativity Award of SAIL and many more

When it comes to his view on education itself, he shares that the regulatory systems leave very less scope for private institutions to innovate. "We are quite conservative when it comes to accepting new things,"  Dr Pattanayak observes. He feels that policymakers and policymaking bodies should keep their mind open so that new innovations can be leveraged for the betterment of the students. "We cannot excel and aspire to become top ranking universities of the world while having a myopic view," he concludes.

For more, click on asbm.ac.in