The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) advertising controversy

In October 2005, The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) was involved in a controversy regarding the veracity of its claims in print advertisements.

Sequence of Events

In 2005, An article written by Arjun Ravi titled "IIPM: The Truth about IIPM Tall Claims" was printed in a youth magazine named JAM, exposing some of the claims made by IIPM. (JAM is edited by Rashmi Bansal, an IIM Ahmedabad alumni, who also runs a blog named Youth Curry)

The JAM article said that IIPM's print advertisements were "tall claims": IIPM's rankings were suspect as the rankers (Outlook) had removed IIPM from the rankings; IIPM's Mumbai and Delhi campuses were just buildings with no landscaping or swimming pools as claimed; IIPM's fees were so high that the "FREE" in their ads made little sense; Faculty, degree and placement information on the advertisements was suspect. Additionally, JAM said that IIPM has not been accredited by any Indian accredition agency or University such as AICTE, UGC or under other state acts.

JAM further mentioned that all IIPM students do not get placed by IIPM, contradicting the information provided by its Dean, Arindam Chaudhuri to the Times News Network. JAM claims to have spoken to various companies featured in the IIPM website's Placements section, and allegedly many of these companies have never hired from the IIPM campus or branches. Some, JAM claims, did admit to hiring IIPM students off-campus.

Gaurav Sabnis, an Indian blogger, and an Indian Institute of Management Lucknow alumnus, linked that article. Three months later, IIPM threatened to sue Sabnis for libel if the postings were not removed from his blog. Sabnis refused to remove his postings, and further stated that IIPM contacted his employer, IBM, and allegedly threatened to publicly burn the IBM Laptop Computers they had purchased from IBM unless the posts were removed. IBM is yet to confirm this threat. Sabnis stated that IBM did not pressure him to remove the blog post, but he decided to quit his job as he did not want IBM to suffer bad publicity through his actions. This action generated spontaneous support for Sabnis from bloggers. On 11 October, 2005, IIPM became the highest ranked search term on Technorati.

Many Indian bloggers stood by Bansal and Sabnis arguing that it is a litmus test for freedom of speech in India. On 12 October 2005, Hindustan Times reported that "All India Dean" A. Sandeep was indeed planning to "take legal action against the blogger for defamation". However, on 13 October, 2005 Indian Express reported A.Sandeep as saying that he had no idea of any legal notices, though from the article it is not clear if he was referring to just the legal notice to Sriraman or to Sabnis and Bansal as well.

BusinessWorld, a business magazine in India, conducted an independent verification of the claims made by IIPM in its print advertisements, and concluded that many of the claims made by IIPM are questionable.

(Also reported in News Today (Chennai).)

Controversial elements in IIPM Advertisements

The controversial elements in the IIPM Print Advertisements are:

  • Infrastructure: IIPM claims on its print advertisements and on its web site that its campuses have infrastructure like swimming facilities, 1000 seat auditoriums. Detractors claim such infrastructure is only available in its New Delhi Campus. IIPM allegedly maintains that New Delhi is the only campus, the rest are branches. But this contradicts with what is on the IIPM web page on infrastructure. (All branches are referred to as campuses)
  • IIPM's branches in Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad do not have swimming pools, or 1000 seat auditoriums.
  • Placements: Placement information on the IIPM advertisements and web site mention that a number of companies have recruited its students. JAM magazine and other detractors claim to have spoken to the companies mentioned, and these companies, they claim, have either denied going to the IIPM campus or branches, or having recruited anyone from IIPM before they finished the IIPM course.
  • Not Accredited: IIPM is not accredited with The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), but in its print advertisements this is mentioned in very small print.
  • Non-Indian MBA Degree: IIPM does not offer any degrees in India. The MBA degree is conferred by IMI, Belgium. AICTE says that it is illegal for IIPM to offer foreign degrees without AICTE approval, which has not been granted.
  • Right to Name': The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said that IIPM does not have the right to use the words "Indian Institute" in its name without central government approval.
  • Rankings: IIPM continues to use Outlook C-Fore B-School survey where the IIPM Delhi campus was ranked in the top 10, but Outlook has withdrawn these rankings, and has published two caution notices in 2005 warning students about such withdrawal. On the outlook site (requires free registration) Outlook says:

Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) doesn't disclose facts truly and correctly. Under notice to them, we are withdrawing all the rankings given to IIPM forthwith.

  • Further, Outlook mentions: IIPM doesn’t figure in any of the Outlook – C Fore Business School rankings for the year 2004.
  • Free Laptops: IIPM offers Free Laptops to students. The cost of the courses, at Rs. 5.26 Lakh for the MBA course and Rs. 8.85 Lakh for the BBA, is one of the highest in India making the laptops anything but free.
  • Faculty: Most of the faculty is IIPM alumni, and the average age is 27. No verifiable data was found by Businessworld on any research conducted by IIPM faculty.
  • Taught by world class faculty: From the Businessworld article:

Faculty from the names that IIPM advertises so heavily - Harvard, Columbia, Wharton, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford et al - do not actually 'teach' at IIPM. Instead of picking a subject and teaching it over some weeks, as is the practice at the Indian School of Business, they just collect students at an auditorium and give a one-time lecture.

Coverage of the allegations in the Indian Media

IIPM's official responseto the controversy was to claim that the controversy was motivated by jealousy of IIPM on the part of IIM alumni and professors. It issued the following statement:

"We are stunned as to how the people from IIMs, who are the most pampered people of India, suffer from so much inferiority complex from IIPM that, given the first opportunity to pen something (be it the so-called IIM L professor Amit Kapoor, or ex-IIM students like Rashmi or Gaurav and all the other IIM students on the net and other media), they stoop down so low as to write relentless lies about us and spread baseless rumours about IIPM. But beyond a point, IIPM cannot allow this kind of shallow rumour mongering to go on and had to take an action. IIPM always believed in intellectual debating and not in false allegations with defamatory ulterior motives. Therefore, in the general interest of our existing students, as a policy decision we have decided that we will take legal action against any form of media trying to spread baseless lies and rumours about us with malicious intent. For the rest, our law firms will decide on how best to proceed and bring such liars to justice. About Gaurav Sabnis, all we have to add is that yes, we approached IBM and asked them to take proper action against someone spreading baseless lies against a reputed institution. They did what they must have deemed fit after their internal examinations and procedures."

Following this statement being made public on certain blogs and mailing-lists, several journalists started coming out with stories - Sruthijit KK's large piece in Mumbai daily DNA being the first .

Businessworld came out with an article in its 31 October 2005 issue titled "When the Chickens come home" . In addition to reporting on the controversy, it investigated the claims made by IIPM in its advertisements. It found IIPM less than forthcoming with information. (Rashmi Bansal is mentioned in that article as a contributing editor of Businessworld, though she did not write this particular article)

Outlook Magazine's October 31, 2005 edition carried an article called "Bite in The Blog Bark", using the controversy to wonder: "The war has raised a flurry of questions — are blogs personal diaries in the public domain or can they be legislated?".

CNBC TV18 carried a story on The Tech Show highlighting "Indian Blog Wars" which included an interview with Rashmi Bansal. The channel subsequently carried two exclusive news reports: 1. The Indian University Grants Commission (UGC) was unhappy with IIPM for claiming to award Bachelors and Masters degrees which only UGC - affiliated institutions have the right to confer. 2. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said that IIPM does not have the right to use the words "Indian Institute" in its name without central government approval.

Infrastructure

IIPM's claims that its infrastructure is [...] edge. Students, it claims, learn the very latest in management techniques using the very best in equipment and teaching. According to the institute, its infrastructure including classrooms, teaching aids, libraries, electronic libraries, IT equipment like Wi-fi and laptops, and leisure equipment like gymnasiums and swimming pools measure up to world class standards.

Detractors complain of non-existent infrastructure and misrepresentation in promotional messages. Most of these criticisms relate to the infrastructure in centres other than its New Delhi campus.

A Jam Magazine investigation claimed that contrary to the impressions put out by IIPM's advertisements, the institute's Mumbai centre is only a four storey building (which IIPM refers to as "tower" in its advertisements) with a parking lot. It also claimed that IIPM was advertising its free laptops and Wi-Fi much before they actually started providing them to students. It also pointed out that the fees paid by students is very high by Indian standards and cover the price for the laptops many times over. Businessworld confirmed that, "According to an admission counsellor, IIPM charges its students Rs 5.26 lakh for its MBA course and Rs 8.85 lakh for its BBA +MBA integrated course, making it one of the most expensive management courses in the country."

The Businessworld article pointed out the discrepancy between IIPM's use of the words "campus" and "branch". IIPM's advertisements never make it clear that many of the facilities advertised, like swimming pools and gymnasiums, are available only in its New Delhi campus and not in its other branches though students at all centres pay the same fees.

Position in Indian B-School Rankings

  • The Business Barons B-School Study 2004 (Source: BUSINESS BARONS. January 31, 2005; pg 65) has ranked the Indian Institute of Planning & Management (IIPM) 8th overall in India. Five parameters were used for the qualitative rankings - infrastructure, placement salaries commanded, depth of industry interface, quality of course contents and quality of students.
  • Business Today-ACNielsen ORG-Marg's 2004 listing of India's top 30 B-schools (Source: Business Today. October 10, 2004; pg 96) ranked IIPM Mumbai at 23rd and IIPM Delhi the 30th. The schools were ranked using ACNielsen's Winning Brands model.
  • Respondents were asked to rank 30 shortlisted B-schools on eight parameters - reputation, success of placement, quality of placement, infrastructure, faculty, teaching methodology and specialisation and admission eligibility. Based on the scores on different parameters, the model calculates the Brand Equity Index (BEI) for each school.
Report from October 1, 2005 edition of Hindustan Times on IIPM's suspension from Outlook's B-school survey by C-Fore
  • The Outlook C-Fore B-School survey had ranked IIPM's Delhi campus in the top 10 among several parameters in 2003, but IIPM advertisements generalised these rankings for all IIPM campuses. After complaints made by IIPM students and alumni, C-Fore issued a clarification removing IIPM from its survey, stating that it had "received serious complaints about the veracity of information given by them". IIPM continued to advertise rankings even after C-Fore had removed it from its survey. Link (requires free registration)
  • Outlook Magazine has twice published caution notices in 2005 informing students and all related parties about the withdrawal of the rankings. Outlook also stated that they have also "come across instances, where the institute doesn't disclose facts truly and correctly".

Advertising Strategy

IIPM is reputed to be one of the largest spenders on advertising in India. According to the Economic Times, the institute was the seventh highest print advertiser for the month of September 2005 spending Rs. 3 crore (30 million). It buys full-page print ads in The Times of India as well as the Hindustan Times, the Telegraph and the Hindu. It increases the frequency of advertising in the May to July period when universities begin admissions for their academic programs. In May 2005, the institute had an ad spend of Rs. 5 crore (Rs. 50 million), making it the largest advertiser in the print media for that month.

It usually runs full-page advertisements. These advertisements are notable for:

  1. Large amounts of detailed text: IIPM advertisements typically include a large amount of text and many tables. Some advertisements also include an essay by Arindam Chaudhuri or Dr. Malay Chaudhuri on economic or social topics. These essays have covered topics such as the existence of an 'MBA Mafia', corruption among politicians, and prescriptions for economic and social reform. See this link.
  2. Rankings: Mentions IIPM's rankings on various parameters of various B-school ranking surveys. In the fine print of its advertisements, it mentions that the institute believes that it is #1 in India in terms of course content, global linkages and industry interface but that this has not been acknowledged by official rankings because of the 'inferiority complex' and the 'intellectually dwarfed unquestioning attitudes' that the industry and media in India have developed towards the IIMs.

Bloggers have alleged that the mainstream media does not investigate the claims made by IIPM for fear of losing advertising revenue.

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