students – PGDBA Blog

Prospects of PGDBA – The Million Dollar Question

One of the most common questions that we have come across in the past few days is – How would placements/internships be?

Well, to be very honest, even we don’t know it. We can just anticipate and hope that it turns out to be better than our expectations. I will share my experience so far, which makes me believe that placements and internships are going to be no less than PGDM (of IIM C) or any other Masters course at any of the three institutes. The companies who are expected to recruit PGDBA students are going to be same bunch of companies who recruit MBA students. There are lots of companies who hire MBAs for analytics role. Now, since PGDBA program aims at bridging this gap, I feel that packages offered would be similar to the ones offered to PGDM students.

So far, the companies that have interacted with us are Microsoft, SAS, SBI, Deloitte, TCS, IBM, Flipkart, Reliance, American Express, BPCL, Latent View and few other start-ups. (I might be missing out few names). All the companies mentioned here have shown interest in hiring students for internships. Moreover, as per my discussion with the Chairman of this program, there are few other companies which have shown keen interest in hiring students (not disclosing the names, but these are the biggest e-commerce, I-Banks and Consulting firms). It is expected that few of these companies might teach us few courses in the upcoming semesters.
Considering the uptake of analytics in companies and PGDBA being the only full-time residential program (of such stature), demand is going to be very high. So, the hopes are very high and I am quite confident that these are going to be met.

P.S. – All the views expressed on this blog are made by students and have nothing to do with any faculty, college or any official involved in the program.

What is PGDBA?

PGDBA stands for Post Graduate Diploma in Business Analytics (PGDBA website), probably the first two year full time course in India, jointly offered by Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. PGDBA has been started with the philosophy that data is the new oil in this century. With an abundance of data, driving a business successfully and effectively is becoming a tricky aspect. Recent surveys suggest that big data could create $300 billion in value in healthcare alone each year; clever use of location data across industries could capture $600 billion in consumer surplus. Conversely, poor data management can cost up to 35% of a business’s operating revenue. While the possibility and ability to capture and store the ocean of data has grown up to overwhelming levels, but the right use of techniques to extract ‘information’ from these data sets has not been keeping pace with the demands of the industry, and there continues to be a worrying skill shortage across all sectors. More specifically saying, crunching data to generate necessary business insights requires a strong hold on Statistics, Technology and Business simultaneously. The requirement is so rare that the industry hardly sees individuals having the amalgamation of all of these three crucial skills in the domain of Business Analytics.

To cater to this need, PGDBA has been built based on three pillars: Math and Statistics, Technology and Business, as clear from the expertise of the parenting institutes. This course offers four semester with an introductory pre-semester. It is true that two years is not adequate enough to generate data scientists and one can hardly scratch the surface of Machine learning and Data mining, but the unique combination of this course gives it a distinct identity which unravels endless opportunities to the participants: Financial analysis, Consultancy, PhD in Machine Learning, R&D, entrepreneurship to build data-driven startups…you name it!