Located in India’s IT capital, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), was the third institute to be set up under the IIM brand after Calcutta and Ahmedabad. The first two IIMs catered mostly to the private sector and there was a need to also address the growing needs of public sector for management graduates. Hence, IIMB was set up with the sole purpose of catering to public sector enterprises.

Like the other IIMs, it also offers a range of courses such as Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP), the Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM), the Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy and Management (PGPPM), the one year full-time residential Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (EPGP), and the Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) which is a doctoral programme. There are courses for entrepreneurs and owners of family business. The Institute was established in 1973 and it started functioning in St. Joseph’s College of Commerce. The current campus in south Bangalore on Bannerghatta Road was completed in 1983.

Today, IIMB is known as a major hub of innovation. IIMB set up the N.S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) where it has management courses for entrepreneurs and owners of family businesses. NSRCEL’s mission is to take ideas to implementation through a structured mentoring programme that helps create successful business entities out of excellent ideas. Students of IIMB have opportunities to do short projects with the start-ups as part of their course and gain experience before they graduate from the Institute.

In the last few years, IIMB’s thrust has been to become internationally recognized for excellence in teaching and research programmes. IIMB has established a number of initiatives to provide international exposure to its students through a mix of curricular and non-curricular activities. For example, IIMB has partnerships with over 112 top B-schools in the world. Through these exchange programmes, IIMB students have the option of spending one term/ semester, during the second year, at the partner school and receive full academic credit. This exchange network also results in a large cohort of international students spending a term on the IIMB campus.

IIMB is the only Indian B-school to belong to the Global Network of Advanced Management (GNAM). The main objective of the network is to prepare students to be better managers in a global world through access to courses and short programmes with participants from member schools and through joint development and exchange of cases and course material. Students of IIMB can choose to use the GNAM network to take courses in prestigious partner schools through distance programmes. The network also provides opportunities for working in teams with students at partner schools. Similarly, IIMB has collaboration with Indian Institute of Science (IISc) which offers IIMB’s PGP students access to IISc’s courses in technology and innovation.

The International Masters Program in Practising Management (IMPM), an international collaborative executive education program jointly offered by IIMB with McGill University, Canada, Lancaster University, UK, Renmin Univeristy, China and FGV/EBAPE, Rio de Janerio is globally recognized as a major innovation in executive education.

In March 2014, IIMB and Toulouse Business School, France signed an agreement to set up India’s first Executive General Management Programme in Aerospace and Aviation Management as a first step towards collaborating in teaching and research. Airbus is supporting programme to develop and nurture local talent in the field of aerospace.

Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw created history when she took over as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors at IIMB from Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani in February 2014. Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon Limited, has been a member of the IIMB Board for the past several years. She is the first woman Chairperson of any IIM Board.

IIMB has partnerships with Harvard Publishing and Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, to co-brand and distribute IIMB-authored cases globally. A recent Stanford study of Indian colleges and universities puts IIMB on top in Business and Management Research category. The study by Professor Sharique Hasan of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business has ranked Indian universities and institutes based on productivity in social science research. In July 2012, IIMB joined MRN (Management Research Network) Business School Research Paper Series at SSRN (Social Science Research Network). IIMB scholars have so far published 445 working papers through SSRN, which is dedicated towards active dissemination of scholarly research and encourages early distribution of research results through its specialized networks and e-bulletins.

IIMB has a European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) accreditation, introduced by the European Foundation for Management Education (EFMD). The accreditation is an indication that recognized institutions satisfy international standards.

IIMB is ranked fifth in the Asia-Pacific region in the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report 2012 published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).