Prof. Abhinandan K Jain was associated with IIMA for 50 years in various capacities and was felicitated by former students in 2019, as described on this link, where a book titled The Book About You, in his honour was also released.

BIO:

Fellow (IIMA), PGDM (IIMA) BE (Mech.: MBM Engg College Jodhpur)

Major interests in customer based business strategy, marketing research for decision making, strategic marketing, and case method of learning. Have minor interests in marketing strategy, product policy, and advertising media planning.

Awards: Four best teacher awards; life time contribution awards to management education by IIMA Alumni and the International Conference on Research in Marketing (2013, organised by IIT Delhi, XLRI Jamshedpur, and Curtin University Australia); best paper award by ISTD (1987), and Festschrift by IIMA Alumni (2018).

Served: At IIMA: Research Associate (1970-74), Faculty (1974-2010) Adjunct faculty (Jan 2011-Mar 2019). At Other institutions As Visiting Faculty: including: IIM Udaipur, IIM Shillong, SMVD Katra, IPMI (Jakarta, Indonesia), Multi Media University (Malaysia) and Pokhara and Tribhuvan Universities (Nepal).

Guidance and Exams: Doctoral Dissertations: Dissertation Committees: Chaired a couple and member of few for FPMs at IIMA. Dissertation Examination Committees: Chair/ member of examination committees of doctoral dissertations at IIMA and several other Institutions.

Teaching: Offered broad array of graduate and post graduate courses customer based business strategy, marketing research, product policy and new product development, sales and distribution management, retailing, international marketing, internet marketing and e-commerce and basic courses in marketing. Co-designed and taught in a large number of open registration and customised executive development programmes in the areas of marketing strategy, marketing management, and general management for middle, senior and top tier executives. Some of the international locations where the programmes were offered included: Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Workshops for Management Faculty: Co-designed and taught in open registration workshops on case method of learning (IIMA and HBSP) to participation from India, Commonwealth countries, and Nepal. Co-designed and offered customized workshops varying from 1 to 6 days for addressing specific needs of the faculty in Institutions in India and Ghana.

Learning Methods: Have always used participant centered learning methods, primarily case discussion and field projects. My basic philosophy is that participants are co-learners and need to be sensitized about their own responsibility to learn to get the maximum from the courses for achieving their own purposes of joining any programme/ course.

Research and Publications: Three major research projects; four books/ monographs, eighteen articles/ chapters in journals/ conferences/ books; nineteen cases in books; and more than 75 learning materials including cases and technical notes at IIMA Case Centre.

Consulting Experience: Provided consulting help in business strategy, marketing strategy, and marketing management to a large number of Indian and multinational organizations across varied sectors including textiles, automobiles (commercial vehicles, passenger cars, two wheelers), fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, engineering, petroleum retailing, FMCG, banks, insurance, advertising, IT, and Telecom.

Academic Administration: Member, Board of Governors, IIM Ahmedabad (1998-99 to 2000-01). Chair Alumni Relations (1988-90), Chair Marketing Area (four terms of two years each) and member of a large number committees at IIMA including committes for charting out Future Direction of IIMA and Review of Academic Programmes (PGP and FDP).

Contribution to Profession: At IIMA Case Center helped in setting up the center, the website and a system of reviewing learning material for uploading on the IIMA Case Centre website as well as for distribution by HBSP and other case clearing houses. Member Academic Advisory Board/ Council at other institutions including IIM, Sirmaur; Bharathidasan Institute of Management; Ahmedabad Management Association; and Operations Research Group. Member Board of Editors of several professional journals including Vikalpa, International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Asian Journal of Marketing. Member boards of director of several business organisations.

My Key Learnings:

-Transfer the Onus of learning to Participants: A participant learns and sustains only those parts which are of interest and value to him/ her.
-Help Develop Listening Ability for Better Appreciate and Comprehend New Learning: This helps in development of interest in new topics.
-Help Participants Get Own Feedback on the Usefulness of Learning: A project component is always useful for this purpose, particularly in elective courses where multiple meetings during the project phase could be quite useful.
-Application Oriented Research: Research with focus on situations faced by managers should be a priority for improving application orientation of faculty.
-Consultancy projects with organisations would help develop application orientation of faculty in both research and teaching.
-Exposure of Faculty to Managerial Experiences: This would help faculty in appreciating organizational realities and improving both teaching and research.
-Design Cross Discipline Courses for Applied Integrative Learning and Research: Many significant and strategic organizational Issues require cross discipline approaches for their resolution. Such courses could go a long way in providing requisite learning to participants and ideas for applied research to faculty.

Innovations in Learning Methods: Two simple innovations are worth sharing.

-Aids for Participant Learning: Of the three stages of learning through case method (pre-class preparation, class discussion, and after class reflection), faculty and participants usually sharply focus on the first two. However, the third (after class reflection) is not adequately taken care of. My colleagues and I have designed two simple formats to fill this gap: Decision Sheet and Learning Diary. A one page Decision Sheet which summarizes (with justification) diagnosis of the situation, decisions made, and their implementation is used as a tool by participants to check adequacy of their preparation before class as well as to reflect on the class discussion. A Learning Sheet is a record of learning (KASH: Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, and Habits). An individual sheet can be used to record pre and post session KASH. Consolidation of sheets over sessions could provide an account of KASH earned across module/ course/ programme.

-Three Phase Programme Design: For improving learning of executives, particularly in customized programmes for organisations, a three phase method is best suited. In the first phase the participants go through class room learning on identified topics. In the second phase, one or group of participants choose and undertake a live field projects on issues facing the organisation which utilize key learnings from first phase. In third phase they share the learning from the projects undertaken in phase 2 and get exposure to integrative learning through in class sessions. The methodology can has the potential to assess the contribution of implementation of results of projects and thus help assess the value addition of the programme.

(Bio provided by Abhinandan K Jain in 2019)

Date of Birth: December 07, 1945