Great Lakes is an AMBA, UK and AACSB Accredited, and AICTE Approved institute with a custom designed MBA Course curriculum for experienced professionals, backed by exceptional global faculty and world class infrastructure. The curriculum is updated as per industry trends in consultation with the Academic Advisory Council comprising of management doyens from across the top Management Institutes of the world.
Great Lakes – PGPM Course Curriculum
Core Courses
The first 3 terms at Great Lakes are dedicated to creating a solid foundation for the students to bring the whole cohort on the same page. Since the batch is highly diverse, it is consequential that the students have different level of understanding for different management related topics. For example, a student coming from architecture background may not be aware of financial aspects of management. Similarly, a student coming with 5 years of work experience in financial auditing may not be aware of the analytics that go into filtering and using data to drive useful insights. However, it is important for an MBA student to be acquainted with all such topics. Hence, during the first three terms, the students go through a rigorous curriculum covering all foundational topic from Financial accounting and corporate finance to statistical analysis and using analytical tools. They learn to read and interpret balance sheets, P&L statements, STP, Channels, Regression, Strategy frameworks, Time Series Forecasting, GDP, Repo rate and many similar concepts from all domains.
The focus of the MBA Course curriculum during these 3 terms is to impart knowledge and skills to the students to make them able to participate and contribute to strategic decision making in their future organisations irrespective of the domain they work in. The goal is not just to make them efficient managers and contributors in their individual roles but an able leader.
Workshops at Great Lakes
As the students develop their foundation for the MBA Curriculum, they also get to learn interpersonal and managerial skills on the go, through highly interactive skill building workshops. These workshops cover ethics & leadership, Negotiations & Bargaining and Entrepreneurial Thinking. Along with these workshops, students also work on their communication and presentation skills during the MBA Course.
Business Communication – As future managers, the students learn the valuable skill of communication through a three-term long workshop. This workshop covers various techniques including effective presentation, persuasion, effective reading, and report & summary formation. The goal of this workshop is to help the students maximize their efficiency through communication and become better leaders by developing their ability to persuade and influence others through these skills.
Negotiations and Bargaining – Students learn skills to win negotiations, bargain terms and maximize value of opportunities while keeping interests of all stake holders. They learn not just to benefit themselves, but also to maintain healthy relationships for perpetual profitability. They form groups and compete with each other on mock scenarios from real life situations.
Ethics and Leadership – The focus of Great Lakes’ MBA Curriculum is to make business ready leaders with moral and ethical virtues who can contribute positively to the society. Hence, ethics and leadership skills go hand in hand with academics at Great Lakes. The students understand the motive behind ethical leadership and associate them with Indian philosophy for better understanding.
Entrepreneurship Mind-set and Business Analytics – Through this workshop as part of their MBA course, the students learn how to excel in their individual contributions and set a positive example for others in their team and organization by using entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial thinking skills and mastering the use of data to make the best possible decisions. They are prepared to succeed from the first day on the job as they learn to identify and overcome barriers.
Experiential Learning Projects
The Experiential Learning projects are designed to give the students a real life experience into business problems and helping them overcome those, while having an impact on many nearby villages. This is done to inculcate a sense of ownership and empathy towards the society as they learn business management through a world class MBA Course Curriculum.
Karma Yoga – Karma Yoga is a Leadership Experiential Action Program (LEAP), which enables students to go through real life problems of 27 partnered villages and come up with solutions to enhance their livelihood, make their living conditions better, all while incurring minimum expenses. It involves leadership, empathy and acquired business skills by the participants to ace the course which not only helps them experience and solve real life business scenarios but also to understand the cause and need of giving back to society.
Empirical Studies – ES is a mandatory capstone research project done by the students in groups which involves taking up actual business problems in the industry and solving them through different analytical techniques and business frameworks learnt during the MBA Course. It starts at the end of term one and goes on till term six with several checkpoints to measure your progress.
Integrated case study – It is an internal case study competition where the students are provided with a real life business problem from the industry and asked to come up with a business plan/solution to the same. The students are supposed to employ all possible frameworks and techniques to come up with a solution. They are encouraged not to remain confined to their core academics and explore beyond the boundaries, and to come up with new frameworks and products/solutions if needed. The participants present their cases in front of a panel comprising of industry experts and senior professors from all domains. The winners are awarded by the end of the course with a cash prize.
Elective Courses
Great Lakes offers 52 unique elective courses spread across 5 different MBA Course Specializations.
Marketing – In this specialization, students learn to identify and target the right set of customers through optimal channels, curating right set of communications through various branding techniques. They also learn various analytical techniques and form better insights to back up and optimise their marketing decisions. The course covers everything you need to be a successful marketer and more.
AI/ML, Analytics and Blockchain – Analytics, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, etc., are no longer topics of the future. Great Lakes were pioneers in Analytics in India, way before it was so famous, and have been continuously leading the front ever since. Through this MBA Course elective, students master data and the above mentioned technologies, and learn to apply them in their organizations. These are among the most demanded and valued skills in the industry and go hand in hand with any other domain, irrespective of background of individuals working in those domain. Students are taught
Finance – In the finance specialisation, the students get to know various financial and accounting techniques to enhance profitability of their organizations. They also learn about financial laws and practices, mergers & acquisitions, risk management, etc. The course also covers knowledge about personal finance and trading. The Finance specialisation is meant to enable students become successful finance managers personally as well as professionally.
Operations and technology – Students learn to optimize and plan resources, forecast demand and supply, identify bottlenecks and minimize errors and wastage in their organization’s supply chain while maintaining quality. They also learn about various existing technologies and tools to empower themselves with the required skill set. A lot of students from the PGPM Program go on to become successful Project Managers and lead operations for some of the world’s biggest organizations.
OB, HR, Strategy and General Management – Through these electives student learn to make strategic decision making through set frameworks and case studies. The aim behind this course is to make the students better decision makers and leaders in their organizations, backed by knowledge of use cases, strategic frameworks and ability to analyse industry level changes and trends to tackle the same. This is not a specialisation course since it is not domain specific, rather it is gives them an opportunity to experience strategic decision making even before they embark on the path to become successful leaders.
Learn More about courses in electives here.
Infrastructure at Great Lakes
Great Lakes Institute of Management has a secluded lush green LEED Platinum Rated Campus near the beaches of Mahabs, just an hour of drive away from the heart of Chennai. The campus is as enriching as it can be to provide a healthy atmosphere for an accelerated MBA Course. The Campus is loaded with premium facilities like the Single seater hostels, Gym, Sports, a world class library, a dedicated Trading Centre and a NITI Aayog, GoI backed Atal Great Lakes Balachandran Incubator (AGBI).
The AGB Incubator is a NITI Aayog backed Incubator giving students, access to world class infrastructure enabling them to work on their entrepreneurial ideas. It aims at encouraging entrepreneurs to use emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, machine learning, algorithmic analytics, and blockchain to drive technological disruptions. Learn More.
Great Lakes MBA Course Curriculum is meant to nurture potential students and develop them into business ready leaders. They are taught not just to manage their work, but to take ownerships and initiatives, be as effective as they can be and lead others, while having an impact on the society.
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Written by-
Rishabh Srivastava
Manager, Great Lakes Institute of Management
