Imarticus: A Leader in Finance and Analytics Education

Having educated over 30,000 students, we understand the learning needs of aspirants and design our curriculum and courses accordingly, says Nikhil Barshikar, MD, Imarticus Learning, in an interview with Elets News Network (ENN).

Please describe about Imarticus in brief.

Nikhil Barshikar, MD, Imarticus Learning
Nikhil Barshikar, MD, Imarticus Learning

Imarticus Learning is India’s leading professional education firm, providing aspiring students and professionals with a wide range of industry relevant skills necessary to succeed in the rapidly growing fields of Finance and Business Analytics. Imarticus Learning has so far trained over 30,000 learners and placed over 26,000 aspirants across its extensive corporate network of 300+ global and domestic clients. The firm’s key competency is its broad range of Learning and Development (L&D) solutions, designed to assist firms meet their evolving skillset requirements. Headquartered in Mumbai, Imarticus possesses both classroom and online delivery capabilities, with dedicated centres located at Mumbai, Thane, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Jaipur, and Delhi NCR.

What are the different certification, prodegrees, and postgraduate programmes offered by Imarticus?

At Imarticus Learning, we empower students and professionals to enhance their career prospects by upskilling/re-skilling, and thereby, enable them to achieve growth in their respective roles and fields. Also, unlike most traditional educational institutions, our highly proactive and technology-driven approach to providing professional education ensures that aspirants reap the benefits of a tailored learning experience that is not limited to a physical environment. Our philosophy is built around developing domain expertise and job relevant skills to prepare aspirants to become tomorrow’s business leaders. With a strong emphasis on ‘learning by doing’, our programs are developed with the goal of creating well-rounded, job-ready professionals who can add significant value to an organisation in the competitive world of banking, financial services, and analytics. The programs, while rigorous, are extremely practical and hands-on, and go beyond traditional rote learning through their use of live case studies and real-life business problems. This ensures that learners are equipped with the right skill sets to master job responsibilities from day one itself.

Imarticus Learning is the only educational institute that incorporates a variety of delivery methodologies, including text, audio, live webinars, video lectures, and group discussions. Learning at Imarticus is centralised through a state-of-the-art, online Learning Management System (LMS). The LMS underscores our experiential learning philosophy, which helps learners improve constantly by ‘doing’ and ‘reviewing’ and managing their performance throughout the duration of the program. The LMS also enables our faculty and students at various locations to connect, collaborate, and share information on a real-time basis.

Our Certification programs include:

  • Certified Investment Banking Operations Professional (CIBOP): The internationally-accredited Certified Investment Banking Operations Professional (CIBOP) program is designed for careers in the Capital Market Operations division within an investment bank. This 180-hour program, with placement assurance, provides learners with an in-depth understanding of complex financial products and their Trade Lifecycles, along with Operational Risk and Regulation.
  • Certification in SAS: The Certification in SAS program is a comprehensive, short-term program providing learners with a thorough understanding of SAS, the world’s leading analytics technology platform. The program comes with a rigorous industry-aligned curriculum and is available in three delivery formats to prepare learners for Base and Advanced SAS certification exams.
  • Predictive Analytics Using SAS: The Certification in Predictive Analytics program is a comprehensive, short-term program providing learners with a thorough understanding of Predictive Analytics using SAS. The case-study driven program comes with a rigorous industry-aligned curriculum and is available in three delivery formats for maximum learning effectiveness.
  • Certification in Business Analysis: The Certification in Business Analysis program is a comprehensive IIBA-endorsed program that provides aspirants with in-depth exposure to business analysis, techniques, and frameworks as prescribed by latest BABOK 3.0. After completing the skill-building certification, learners will be equipped to handle the multi-skilled roles and responsibilities of the modern professional Business Analyst, along with 35 Professional Development hours from IIBA.

The key Prodegree programmes we offer include:

  • Financial Analysis with EY as the Knowledge Partner: The Financial Analysis Prodegree, with EY as the Knowledge Provider, is a skill-building program which covers subjects such as accounting, financial modelling, valuation, and equity research. Through a rigorous project-based methodology, participants acquire powerful competencies that help them build careers across a wide variety of roles in investment banking, corporate finance, and private equity.
  • Data Science with Genpact as the Knowledge Partner: The Data Science Prodegree, with Genpact as the Knowledge Partner, is a 180-hour program covering foundational concepts and hands-on learning of leading analytical tools, such as SAS, R, Python, and Tableau through industry case studies and project work. Over the course of the 4 semesters, candidates will not only gain theoretical knowledge of data science tools, but also gain exposure to business perspectives and industry best practices through guest lectures and multiple project submissions.
  • FinTech with Rise Mumbai as the Knowledge Partner (Co-Created by Barclays): The FinTech Prodegree, in association with Rise Mumbai as the Knowledge Partner, is a first-of-its kind 180-hour online program providing in-depth exposure to four key FinTech domains through a rigorous industry-aligned curriculum. The program also features capstone projects, case studies, and periodic interaction with industry leaders and entrepreneurs in the FinTech space.
  • Global Markets with MCX as the Knowledge Partner: The Global Markets Prodegree is a comprehensive, short-term program that provides aspirants with a thorough understanding of Global Financial Markets, Financial Instruments, Trading Strategies, and Risk Management, delivered via interactive simulated trading platforms and live instructor-led webinars.
  • Foreign Exchange & International Trade Prodegree with HDFC Bank: The Foreign Exchange and International Trade Prodegree, in collaboration with HDFC Bank, gives aspirants an opportunity to start a career in FX with India’s No. 1 Private Bank. Imarticus Learning works with HDFC Bank for the selection and training for this role. Candidates go through a selection process, after which they are issued a confirmation from HDFC Bank.

The Post Graduate Programmes include:

  • PG Program in Data Analytics: The Post Graduate Program in Data Analytics is a 500+ hour program covering foundational concepts and hands-on learning of leading analytical tools, such as SAS, R, Python, Hive, Spark, and Tableau, as well as functional analytics across many domains. Over the course of three semesters, candidates will not only gain theoretical knowledge of data science tools, but also gain exposure to business perspectives and industry best practices through guest lectures and project submissions.
  • PG Program in Banking & Wealth Management: The Post Graduate Program in Banking and Wealth Management is a comprehensive 370-hour program with placement-assurance, providing aspirants with an in-depth exposure to finance basics, corporate & retail banking, and wealth management. The exposure that learners gain through this program enables them to take on Operations and Sales roles at leading Banks and Wealth Management advisory firms.

All of our programmes, therefore, enable candidates to become career-ready after completing their education and explore vast career opportunities in a thriving Financial Services, Technology & Analytics ecosystem.

How the curriculum of different courses is developed to make the training in line with the industry demands? How the corporate network of Imarticus helps in this?

Imarticus Learning’s programs are modelled around the Bloom Taxonomy method, and incorporate feedback from industry experts within our network of 200 companies to ensure relevance and industrial applicability. Our key goal is to equip trainees with pertinent skills that ensure employability or help with dramatic career shifts upon completion. Imarticus offers its Prodegree programs in association with top Fortune 500 companies such as EY, Genpact, IBM, SAP, and Barclays to plug the skills gap among students and professionals, and to ensure the most relevant learning for them.

Our faculty comprises specialists and professionals from renowned financial services and analytics firms such as JP Morgan, Nomura, Genpact, Accenture, Citibank and Barclays and possess over 150 years of combined domain expertise. Considering their own successful careers, our faculty is perfectly positioned to combine technical concepts with topical real-life examples to ensure a candidate’s job readiness.Additionally, Imarticus has created an unparalleled ecosystem that fosters leadership and encourages futuristic practices in professional education. We have achieved this by using technology to empower learning, ensuring comprehensive coverage by covering all student touch points, creating an industry knowledge database, as well as platforms for industry connect, and focusing on placements through our corporate network and internship programs.

Digital India and Skill India are two most ambitious projects of the Government of India, how the organisation is training candidates to make them skilful, employable and tech-savvy?

The ever-widening skill gap between academia and industry in India is further deepened by the lack of a relevant curriculum and an understanding of new-age job roles within our traditional learning paradigms. Reports state that while nearly 15 million candidates enter the domestic workforce each year, almost 75% do not possess the requisite skills for these jobs. NSDC (National Skill Development Corporation) has said in a report that India will need 700 million skilled workers by 2022 to meet the demands of our rapidly growing economy. The biggest challenge for IT companies, however, will be to re-engineer their 3.9 million-strong human resource base to meet the demands of a fast-transforming marketplace.

Imarticus Learning is helping bridge the prevalent and widening skill gap in the country through revolutionary learning paradigms that emphasise on:

  • Practical, application-based, and relevant curricula
  • Technology-driven and scalable learning systems to improve the quality and access of education
  • Developing an ecosystem to promote lifelong learning
  • Incorporation of new-age technologies

Our programs are geared towards analytics and technology for both traditional banking and finance, as well as emerging fintech sectors, and encompass new-age trends such as automation, analytics, AI, and Big Data. All of these programs, with their industry-centric curricula, ensure that candidates, through the latest technical skills, are well-equipped to easily blend with changing market dynamics and enhance their employability.

What is your mission and vision for upcoming years?

Our mission is to improve the quality of human skill capital to meet the skillset requirements of the country.Our vision is to be a global leader in professional education focused on Financial Services and Analytics sectors.

Empowermentof the learner is at the core of Imarticus Learning’smission and vision. We believe that it is only by enabling students to skill up and grow as individual professionals that we can truly fulfil our mission to be India’s number one professional education firm in the future.

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