When education becomes a form of worship, then your life becomes an ode to the supremely wisdom-full universal being, believes Ayush Kumar, Managing Director, New Delhi Institute of Management (NDIM).
‘A 35 Under 35’ as identified by Entrepreneur India, and ‘spotlighted in the business league of 40 under 40’ by Enterprise Review, Ayush’s path is a mix of business sense and creative enthusiasm.
Ayush is a renowned alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur and nurtured his strategic abilities in management consultancy at KPMG India, where he accumulated knowledge across the whole value chain.
Outside of the boardroom, he is an Amazon best-selling author of Hastinapur Crumbling. With a track record of national case competition wins and a love of public speaking, he is a contemporary leader who integrates strategic thinking with a profound commitment to excellence and innovation.
In an exclusive interview, Ayush spoke on many things, the highlights of which are given herein.
Sir, as an inspirational leader in the education industry, could you take us back to the beginning of your journey? What motivated you to step into this dynamic ecosystem?
I have grown up very cognizant of the centrality of education in our lives – not just as a necessary step in our journey, but as a tool of transformation. New Delhi Institute of Management was established back in 1992 by my grandfather, Sh. J.R. Bansal, when he was close to 70. He had retired as Member, UPSC, and before that, he’d been Chairman, Punjab Public Service Commission. To start a massive undertaking like an educational institute, that too at close to the age of 70, is a truly Herculean effort.
There was a sense of worship in the way things were done. I grew up with that atmosphere, with that vision – the art of imparting and receiving education is an act of worship, and must be treated as such. Plus, in a country like India, where education more often than not acts as an agent of social change and social upliftment, there is enormous value to the act of doing it right.
These were the values I grew up with. My journey, right from my undergrad in the US, to my MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, to my management consulting journey at KPMG, has only validated what I know about the world.
Education, more than anything else, is the biggest agent of change in the world.
NDIM has emerged as the business world’s leading transformational company in its niche. Could you share the guiding philosophy that has propelled your organization’s success?
The guiding philosophy for NDIM has always been a student-first approach. In an age where educational institutions rise and fall frequently, and the average life of an institution is around a decade, for NDIM to flourish consistently for 3 decades has only been because the welfare of the student has been front and centre. From infrastructure design to faculty selection to placements to value-added courses, everything is designed to give our students the best possible chance to succeed.
The industrial landscape is continually evolving. Please brief our audience about NDIM’s USPs and how you are currently positioned as one of the best transformational institutions in your sector.
The history and trends in education can be bifurcated very neatly into pre-COVID and post-COVID. What we learned during COVID was the following:
- There is a market for imparting education online – geography stops being a bottleneck when students and teachers can sit in different places and engage. Use of technology suddenly became a lot more critical. Fortunately, NDIM was well-placed to not only survive Covid, but also ensure we were able to provide value to the student without a dip in our standards. Whether through the use of online tools such as Menti or engaging use of smart boards, we were able to seamlessly integrate technology into our work. This also opened doors to things like virtual value-added courses and MOOCs.
- The other key thing we learned at NDIM is that there are limits to what online learning can do. Offline engagement is still the primary way to impart education. Our infrastructure, our classroom design, everything has been designed to world-class standards with this in mind.
The essence of future transformation lies in innovation, disruptions, and enhancing the end-user experience. How does NDIM strike a balance between operational efficiency and student satisfaction?
At a fundamental level, education is the same as it has been for thousands of years – someone with more knowledge and experience, ideally credentialed, imparting information and knowledge to someone less experienced. Arjun learned from Guru Drona, and Abhimanyu learned from Arjun. What has evolved over the years has been the structure of learning – adaptive infrastructure, modern teaching techniques like differentiated learning, classroom tools like smart boards, and most importantly, perhaps, industry linkage.
To provide better, closer integration to the industry, NDIM identified 100+ industry mentors and tagged them to batches of 10 students. Each student thus has access to an industry mentor, someone who can guide them along their professional journey from their first year to graduation and beyond. Parents in particular have been extremely effusive in their praise for this, because they know their child always has access to a wealth of wisdom.
Digitalization and technological advancements are crucial aspects of the modern industrial ecosystem. How does NDIM integrate these principles into its core functioning and contribute to a technovative future?
Education and technology have always gone hand in hand – as the global uptake of modern technology grows, the industry adopts accordingly, and educational institutions have to ensure they develop the capability internally, and then ensure that students are made future-ready.
NDIM has established systemic pathways for technological adoption and dissemination to ensure our students always stay a step ahead. This means a sharp, focused, and firm grasp on emerging technologies like IoT, cloud computing, and LLMs. When AI models like ChatGPT took the world by storm, our students were learning and working on Large Language Models through certification courses. Now, as AI has become a tangible competitive advantage, NDIM students are finding increasingly novel ways to engage with it, and some have gone ahead and created entire, profitable businesses around it.
Our faculty has been a big driver of this growth, keeping up with the latest technologies through their research.
As a leader in the educational sector, NDIM has likely faced its share of challenges. Could you share an instance where your team’s resilience and ingenuity triumphed over adversity?
I think, as with many educational institutions, Covid-19 was the biggest challenge we faced. Everything changed in a heartbeat – classes were being held online, companies reduced hiring as they faced uncertainty, and it became important at that point, particularly during the lethal delta wave, to do everything with empathy.
The operational part wasn’t as challenging – our faculty and the students adapted quickly to Zoom as a platform. They were already comfortable with the use of technology as an additional learning tool, with their MOOCs and certification programmes, so online classes were comprehensible. NDIM’s long-term placement tie-ups meant that our students still got the placements and internships they desired. Companies, in fact, reached out to us at an early stage, simply because they knew our students were more technologically adaptive and future-ready for an uncertain world.
We had to ensure each student and each faculty member was taken care of – whether through offering oxygen cylinders to our students, wherever they might be, or donating to the PM Cares Fund, or through creating biosecurity bubbles for out-of-town students.
It was a challenging time, but I’m proud of how the NDIM team coped.
For more information, call 9811113340 or email: ayushkumar@ndimdelhi.in.