The Hindu Business Line : Industrial consultancy, key revenue earner for XLRI Jamshedpur

INDUSTRIAL consultancy is increasingly emerging as a major source of revenue for XLRI Jamshedpur. The leading B-School, whose strength lies in personnel management & industrial relations and business management education, takes up between 85 and 90 consultancy projects every year, according to Father Thomas P.D., Director of XLRI Jamshedpur.

Speaking to Business Line, Father Thomas said that, at any given point in time, work on around a dozen projects is on. The average duration of a project is between two and six months. "We do not take up very small consultancy projects. The projects we take up must benefit XLRI and be a learning experience for the faculty as well. Besides, the consultancy work must also translate into written or teaching content for our students," Father Thomas said.

Last fiscal, XLRI Jamshedpur earned Rs 1.5 crore from industrial consultancy. Earnings from consultancy are expected to double in the current fiscal and, subsequently, double every year thereafter as well. Sixty per cent of the earnings from consultancy go to the faculty while the balance is retained by the institute.

According to Father Thomas, XLRI Jamshedpur's strengths in consultancy lie in specialised areas such as organisational restructuring, finance, marketing and operations management. Regular interaction with industry is facilitated by the fact that the members of the governing board of the institute include several eminent people from industry - such as the Chairmen of ITC Ltd, State Bank of India and Nicco group, the Managing Directors of Tata Steel and Tinplate Co. and the CEO of the Boston Consulting Group, among others.

Among the major consultancy projects on hand at XLRI include one on human resources for the provident fund department, a blueprint action plant for the Government of Jharkhand and one on the human resources policies of the State Electricity Board of Chhattisgarh.

Father Thomas said that, besides focusing on consultancy for augmenting revenue generation, the institute had formed several tie-ups with prominent companies, including some IT majors. Navision India has set up a Centre of Excellence wherein a course on Integrated Business Solutions would be part of the XLRI curriculum. Microsoft India, Novell and Pramati Technologies have unfolded plans veering round their association with XLRI Jamshedpur.

Empower Works, founded in 1999 as a strategic business unit of Polaris Software Lab, is geared to set up a `XLRI Adrenalin Centre of Excellence'. The Centre will provide students of XLRI, faculty and administrative staff high-value functional software for strategic and functional human resources, self-service, analytical reports and university work process automation.

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