Specialisations for PGDM-C/PGDM for the Academic Year 2022 - 2023
Advertising & Brand Management,
Digital Communication Management,
Data Science and Business Analytics,
Media & Entertainment Management,
Sales & Customer Relationship Management (Minor)
The strength of these programmes lies in their strong and contemporary curriculum, the knowledge and experience of the core and visiting faculty, the exposure to the industry and the diverse profiles of the students. The PGDM-C/PGDM curriculum is flexible and is updated annually in consultation with practicing managers, to ensure the inclusion of current practices and cases. The students are thus, exposed to the latest domain knowledge in the relevant areas. The constant revision of the PGDM-C/PGDM course matter is the key to ensuring that MICA remains the best Strategic Marketing and Communication school in India. MICA is ranked favourably amongst the top management institutes in India. Those considering PGDM programmes should invariably consider MICA's PGDM-C/PGDM.
MICA also maintains industry interaction through various activities like training, consultancy and joint research with its student bodies such as MICAMINDS, MICANVAS and the MICA Lecture Series (MLS). The individual research and consultancy that faculty undertake, contribute to the depth of learning in the PGDM-C/PGDM. The intellectual capital available at MICA provides a challenging environment for the students in terms of the rigour and conceptualisation required to successfully complete the programme.
The students are equipped to manage the entire Strategic Marketing and Communication processes of a business, including:
- Commissioning research
- Seeking consumer insights
- Formulating brand and marketing strategies
- Evaluating media options
- Analysing sales and distribution channels
- Advertising
- Data and information analytics
Duration
The PGDM-C/PGDM is a two-year residential programme. Each academic year begins in July and ends in March, in the following year. An academic year is divided into three terms of 12 weeks each. The summer vacation at the end of the first year is devoted to industry internship.
Orientation Programme
MICA's PGDM-C/PGDM students go through a one-week pre-coursework orientation programme. The objectives of the orientation programme are:
- To bring all the students to a common minimum level of understanding and appreciation of the basics of social sciences, since they come from diverse academic backgrounds.
- To reduce the load of basic management education in the two-year programme, allowing greater concentration on Strategic Marketing and Communication
All students are required to attend the modules of the orientation programme, irrespective of their academic backgrounds.
Core and Foundation Courses
These are compulsory courses in the first year and are largely based on foundation and perspective-building approaches. The foundation courses are intended to provide a broad-based perspective in Marketing, General Management, Communication, Digital, Media and Advertising domains. Core courses help students develop an integrated view of managerial problems and perspectives. They are designed to help them comprehend and apply various concepts and techniques.
Specialisation courses
The concentration courses are based on a career-building approach, keeping in mind the industry's need for professionals with clear career interests. These intend to enable the students to develop specific skills and perspectives in their chosen career paths, within the field of Strategic Marketing and Communication i.e. Brand Management (BM), Marketing Research and Analytics (MRA), Digital Communication Management (DCM), Advertising Management (AM) and Media Management (MM).
Elective Courses
The elective courses are extensions of the core as well as concentration courses and are intended to provide advanced learning opportunities to the students, to sharpen their perspectives and skills. These electives broaden the student's horizons and help in the development of a well-rounded character. Students are required to study a minimum of five electives in each academic year.
Summer Internship
The internship provides the students with an opportunity to gain work experience in an area of concentration or interest, while receiving credit towards their diploma. The summer internship is organised for 8-10 weeks in top organisations spread across various industries, during the summer break at the end of the first year of the programme. No student is admitted to the second year without completing the summer internship.
Rural Immersion
MICA is proud of its initiative to have introduced a component of rural immersion as an integral part of the course on rural communication and marketing. The objective of the rural immersion experience is to expose students to rural realities with emphasis on understanding communication needs of rural people and market development. In this exercise students will seek to address the challenge of development / participatory communication to bring social change and in turn sustainable development. With regard to rural markets students will analyse the communication inputs which are used by marketers to gain competitive advantage in rural markets. Further, students will explore opportunities to re-design communication interventions of national/local brands to improve marketing productivity and management.
In the 7 day rural immersion program student groups will travel to rural areas to work on live projects and ethnographic case studies in collaboration with select host organizations (NGOs, Corporates & GOs) in areas mentioned above. Each student will be assigned a faculty mentor who will work in collaboration with the host field organization supervisor. Prof. L K Vaswani & Prof. Manisha Pathak-Shelat are leading the programme which is initiated through the Centre for Development Management and Communication - CDMC.
Download Rural Immersion brochure
MI-IMPACT
The MI-IMPACT is designed as a six-month long project where learners collaborate to develop and implement. Through the MI-IMPACT we give MICANs an opportunity to leave an ‘impact’ on the eco-system they interact with during the two years on campus. They can work for corporates, government organizations, non-profit organizations or on their own ideas which have a commercial and/or social impact.
The MI-IMPACTis the differentiator for the PGDM program vis a vis PGDM-C and is mandatory for the PGDM students. It will be scheduled in term 2 and 3 of the academic year of PGP1. MI-IMPACT will be offered with six credits, which will include workshops and field projects. PGDM-C students can also opt for the MI-IMPACT by an expression of interest through a defined process and voluntarily opt for extra credits. However, if they opt for MI-IMPACT they will be exempted to take Communication for social impact in term 3. Other courses which are optional for PGDM students remain compulsory for PGDM-C.
A solution to a real world problem Customer Watch
This is intended as a learning opportunity with all its immediacy and unpredictability. The student will spend 5-7 days at a retail site as an observer. During this period, the student will keep a diary to make observations on aspects of consumer behaviour, complaint handling procedures, bargaining and other aspects, as well as details such as gender, age and group size of visitors, brands asked for, brands bought and so on.
Communication in Urban Situations and Contexts
This module has been introduced post the incorporation of and the experience gained from MICA's rural project, so as to enable the student to gain a deeper perspective of the urban segment too. Therefore, this activity focuses on the study of select urban situations and contexts, apart from the projects done during the regular coursework and internship. The methodology is a combination of different data collection instruments including observation, live-in ethnography, focus group discussions and surveys. It spreads over the second and third terms and the summer break. The urban locations would be in Ahmedabad, places of internship and hometowns in urban India.
Seminars and Workshops
Numerous workshops and seminars are organised in different course areas. Students can attend these based on their interests. These form the non-credit components of the course.
Admission to the Post-graduate Programmes (PGP) both, PGDM (C) and PGDM require a Bachelor's degree (10 + 2 + 3 system) or an equivalent qualification in any discipline recognized by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU).
Candidates appearing for final examinations towards a Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) are also eligible to apply.
Candidates who demonstrate aptitude for expressing, assessing, and /or conceiving ideas that move people to action and achieve business results tend to stand a better chance of being shortlisted.
