Introduction
December stands out for us for multiple reasons – we are planning for 2016 & reflecting back on the fabulous year 2015 has been. It is also the time of the year, when we release our rankings for analytics programs in India. We published our rankings on Top Analytics Programs in India in 2014-15. It’s time to revise our ranking according to the progress & growth of analytics programs in India in 2015. But before that, let us look at the changes, which happened in the landscape of Analytics Programs in India.
2015 – The year of new programs
Since we did our last round of rankings, there are some notable changes in landscape of analytics programs. Some of the best institutes in the country have come up with their analytics programs – most notable being the nexus between IIT Kharagpur, ISI Kolkata and IIM Calcutta, S.P. Jain Institue of Management & MISB Bocconi.
Institutes have tried creating different programs in different formats (ranging from 6 month full time course to 2 year full time courses) focusing on needs of different audience.
On the other hand, we have seen industry become more open to candidates from these programs as well. We have seen transitions happening through these programs and the placements across the programs (either officially supported or not) have gone up.
So, here are the rankings for long duration courses on the parameters we chose (explained below). We hope that these rankings will help our audience make better career decisions.
Which programs are covered in these rankings?
In these rankings, we have covered business analytics programs with duration more than 1 year. We haven’t covered the short term courses & training certifications here. We shall release those rankings soon.
Further, we have ranked these programs in two categories: Programs for Working Professional (with experience) & Program for Freshers (less experience).
Please see that these rankings are based on our interactions with various stakeholders from these institutes. We have done a comprehensive study and included all the institutes in India offering long term programs as part of our study.
Also, the purpose behind releasing these rankings is to help our audience with their queries. This is by no means a judgement on the courses run by these institutes. Each program has its own set of pros and cons and you should look at the fit before taking an important career decision.
Rankings (Executives / Experienced Professionals)
1. Indian School of Business (ISB) , Hyderabad
ISB retains the No. 1 Ranking this year as well (from the last 2 years). This program accepts candidates with 4-6 years of work experience. Interestingly, freshers are also welcome, if someone turns out to be extraordinary (analytical thinking, business knowledge). This course comprises of alternate month classroom session. In other half, the classes are held online. There is ample industry interaction and a 3 – 6 month project at the end of the course.
The only downside of this program is expense in a part time program through the year (especially so, if you are a Non-Hyderabad resident). For an additional payment, you can also get a SAS certification from this program.
Fees: INR 600,000 + taxes
2. Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon / Chennai / Pune / Bangalore
On the surface, it might look like Great Lakes retained its position at No. 2. But, the actual story is much more than that. Great Lakes is fast catching up on the gap between them and ISB. They have launched two new campus at Bangalore and Pune.
With this expansion, they are now available in 4 cities in India including Delhi NCR (Gurgaon) and Chennai. This program is well supported by industry leaders and leading companies. The enrollments in this program happens through a written test followed by personal interview.
It would be interesting to see how this program from Great Lakes will fair in 2016.
Fees: INR 355,000 (Gurgaon, Pune, Bangalore) / INR 425,000 ( Chennai ) + taxes
3. Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore
As compared to last year, IIM Bangalore has secured its position in our list. With a renowned brand name and wide coverage of analytics tools & techniques, this is one of the favorite courses in business analytics in India. This is a 1 year program. It course curriculum covers EMiner, SPSS, R, Qlikview, SAS etc. Needless to say, students passed out of this program have managed to do well.
This program is yet to introduce Big Data related technologies in their curriculum.
Fees: INR 425,000 + taxes
4. MISB Bocconi, Mumbai
This program is jointly delivered by SDA Boconni and Jigsaw Academy. Their faculty team is supported by international faculties from Bocconi. This program requires minimum 2 years of work experience. It is a blend of online and offline learning which help working professionals in routine adjustments. Their endless effortless on ensuring placements and industry exposure, have helped many students securing a successful career.
We think that the program is supported by high quality faculty and it is only a matter of time before brand Bocconi becomes a more familiar name among Indian corporate.
Fees: INR 390,000 + taxes
5. SP Jain School of Global Management, Mumbai
This is a 1 year executive program. Classes are held on weekends. The program is designed such that students receive in depth knowledge of data science & analytics related concepts. This institute has a well established international presence. Students in the program are being taught by international faculties. Their enrollment process includes a written test and personal interview.
The first batch of this program will roll out this year. It would be interesting to see the actual placement statistics and success stories.
Fees: INR 620,000 + taxes
Rankings (For Less Experienced)
These programs are best suited for people looking for full time program in business analytics. The programs ranked below provide comprehensive knowledge in analytics and data science, with an exceptional focus on practical learning.
1. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur
This program is being offered jointly by top 3 institutions of India namely IIT Kharapur, IIM Calcutta and ISI Kolkata. You can expect abundance of knowledge sharing in this 2 year course. This is a full time program. If you manage to get into this course, consider your future secured (assuming you’d work hard).
This course in being taught in all these three campuses. You get to learn management from IIM, technology from IIT and data science from ISI. What better could you ask ? To enroll in this program, you written test and personal interview needs to be cleared.
Fees: INR 1,600,000
2. Praxis Business School, Kolkata
This is a 1 year Full Time program. This institute has delivered exemplary results in terms of placements & quality of knowledge delivered. With over 500 hours of classes, this institute is known for depth of analytics topics (tools & techniques) covered in the program. It covers tools such as SAS, R, Python, Big Data, Data Visualization and intensive industry projects. For people new to analytics, this could be a great place to start your career.
It is indeed a value for money program. With their brand growth over time, this program could become the top choice for people determined to build a successful career in analytics & data science.
Fees: INR 425,000
3. SP Jain School of Global Management, Mumbai
This is 6 months Full Time Program. It is suited for freshers and people with less than 5 years of experience. Over 400 hours of study, this program covers a wide range of subjects such as big data, machine learning, Python, R, SQL, data visualization and many other related expertise. It’s first batch started in October 2015 of 30 students.
Fees: INR 620,000 + taxes
4. Narsee Monjee School of Management (NMIMS), Bangalore
With their exceptional placement figures, this program has ensured that students’ learning is in sync with industry skills demand. This is a Full Time Course. This course has lowest fee structure. The duration of this course is 1 year. With 390+ hours of class lectures, the program is designed to provide analytics knowledge pertaining to various domains (Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, HR).
This could become one of the best program, if they emphasized equally on in detail machine learning algorithms and data visualization.
Fees: INR 250,000 + taxes
5. Aegis School of Data Science, Mumbai
This is a 1 year Full Time program in association with IBM. This program MTNL’s world class campus with state of art “IBM Business Analytics Lab” and “IBM Cloud Computing Lab” at Powai in Mumbai. This course would introduce you with various tools such as SAS, R, Tableau, Spark, IBM Cognos, Hadoop etc. The course is designed to provide comprehensive knowledge on business analytics and big data. The pedagogy involves 5 days classroom session and weekend online sessions.
It would be interesting to see the placement statistics of this course once the batch passes out. If they continue to gain momentum, this program could help many companies with well educated candidates.
Fees: INR 350,000 + taxes
What is the criteria used for ranking these programs?
We’ve ranked these business analytics programs based on the course offerings, brand recognition, value for money, course curriculum. Precisely, we’ve considered the following (below) parameters to rank these programs. Then, weights were assigned to these parameters. Thus, ensuring an output with most appropriate rankings:
- Coverage Score (0.2) – This score represents the wide range of topics covered in the course. This includes data mining, data visualization, big data, machine learning, tools and domain expertise.
- Quality Score (0.4) – This score represents the analysis of industry interaction (no. of hours), faculty profiles (experience & qualification) and depth of topic taught in the program.
- Brand Score (0.2) – This score represents recognition and recall the brand has in analytics industry. This score is necessary because companies mostly look for candidates from well known colleges.
- Value Score (0.2) – This is value for money.
End Notes
These rankings would help you in deciding the best college suited to your needs. As mentioned above, this list is genuine and unbiased. These institutes have been ranked on the basis of their course offerings and keeping in mind the benefit a student would reap.
Have you decided to join any college ? Are you an alma mater of any of these college ? Do share you experience / suggestions in the comments section below.
Disclaimer: Some of these institutes use Analytics Vidhya as their marketing channel. Also, I teach as a guest faculty at some of these colleges. These ranking are purely independent of AV’s collaboration with these institutes.
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Kunal is a post graduate from IIT Bombay in Aerospace Engineering. He has spent more than 10 years in field of Data Science. His work experience ranges from mature markets like UK to a developing market like India. During this period he has lead teams of various sizes and has worked on various tools like SAS, SPSS, Qlikview, R, Python and Matlab.
