Big Three gear up for biz analytics course

KOLKATA: The two-year fulltime diploma programme in business analytics will begin from June 22. This year, the course will start with an orientation programme. The first batch of 53 students, who were selected out of 1,600 applicants, will have their first class on June 29.
The course, jointly offered by IIM-Calcutta, IIT-Kharagpur and Indian Statistical Institute-Kolkata, aims to help shape the emerging profession of business analytics by delivering a cutting edge inter-disciplinary educational experience to graduate applicants with an ambition of building a career in this field.
Before the programme was launched in March 2015, the three institutes had jointly organized an Industry Conclave on Business Analytics and sought feedback from senior leaders of the industry about the programme design and incorporated their suggestions in it. It was the first time industry brains were involved while charting out a course.
In the first month of the programme, classes will be held at IIM-Calcutta followed by five months at the ISI. The next five month will be at IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Calcutta will have the following five months. The final six months have been kept to give students first-hand industry training.
During the two-day orientation programme, executives from the industry will interact with the students. Representatives from Deloitte, Amex, Microsoft, SAS (Statistical Analytic Software), State Bank of India, Latent View and TCS will address students.
“We want to take on board industry representatives so that they can meet the students and discuss internship opportunities,” said PGDBA chairperson Indranil Bose.
According to an IDC forecast, the global spending on business analytics services is expected to rise from $51.6 billion in 2014 to $89.6 billion in 2018. In India, the analytics market is expected to double to $2.3 billion by 2018, according to a report published by Nasscom and Blueocean Market Intelligence.