The Hot Mommas Project Case Study Competition - Women in Business Balancing Work and Life

Dr.Madhu Chitkara & Chitkara University
“If You Believe, You Can”

Dr Madhu Chitkara started her career with humble beginnings. She wanted to become an engineer but capacity constraints in Indian engineering colleges prevented her from fulfilling her ambitions. She was frustrated and joined an undergraduate programme with mathematics as majors. She got her bachelor’s degree in 1975 and then took up studies leading to Bachelor of Education (B.Ed). As per the prevailing customs in India at that time she got married to settle down in life as a school teacher. Her husband, her classmate in B.Ed, had also become a school teacher. Simultaneously, they continued their studies leading first to M.Ed and later M.Sc (Mathematics). She went on to acquire a Ph.D degree associated with Education and got a job as a lecturer in a college. Her husband also joined the faculty in a university after acquiring his Ph.D. To exploit their talent she and her husband started Chitkara Institute of Competitions (CIC) to prepare students for various competitive examinations. Their stature as good educators was noticed by the students and the reputation of CIC grew. Madhu realized that while her husband possessed tremendous intellectual capital to teach she also had the entrepreneurial skills to match. She had a desire to do something noticeable in the formal segment of higher education. Indian laws require that only a registered Trust or a Society can establish a formal educational institution. Thus, in 1998 she established Chitkara Educational Trust. Thereafter, in 2002 she took a calculated risk and both, she and her husband, resigned from their respective jobs to establish Chitkara Institute of Engineering and Technology (CIET) and it was affiliated to Punjab Technical University. It was a big risk because both her children had still not completed their education. While her husband concentrated on strengthening the CIC she got busy with CIET. Establishing her own engineering institution proved to be her ‘aha’ moment. In the meanwhile, her son returned from the USA after obtaining his MBA and joined her to help in marketing and brand building. As an ethical practice she ensured that all admissions to CIET were based strictly on merit. Further, she paid due attention to the needs of girls and underprivileged sections of society.

In 2003 she started with Chitkara College of Education for Women which became immensely popular. Her success emboldened her to diversify further and in 2004 she launched Chitkara School of Planning and Architecture. She did not forget the school level education and in the same year Chitkara International School commenced its operations. Chitkara School of Pharmacy and Chitkara School of Hospitality (CSH) came up in 2005. While her husband was concentrating on CIC she was busy with setting up and running the higher educational institutions. Very soon, Chitkara morphed from a family name to a brand name.

Year 2008 was a major milestone in the saga of Chitkara. CIET was ranked amongst the top 50 engineering institutions in the country and CSH was accorded the status of Institute of Hospitality Management by National Council of Hospitality Management and Catering Technology. But she was not satisfied because all her educational institutions were affiliated to different universities and she had no control over the curriculum design, academic innovations, pedagogy and that prevented her from adopting a learning-centric approach.

Yet another ‘aha’ moment came in 2008 when she was able to establish Chitkara University in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. With the University she got the autonomy to adopt means to provide quality education. Soon she established Chitkara School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Chitkara Business School and Chitkara School of Healthcare Sciences.

However, she wanted to do more A number of her educational institutions in the state of Punjab were still affiliated to different universities. In 2010, she was able to set up Chitkara University, Punjab. It was no mean achievement to rise from a school teacher to create two universities!

Today between the two campuses of Chitkara University there are about 10,000 students, 500 members of the faculty and more than 1,200 support staff. From an employee she has turned an employer. She has been honoured with numerous awards.

Today she has collaborations with a number of foreign universities where the foreign universities accept credits earned by students at Chitkara University. The industry has recognized her quality standards and almost 100% eligible Chitkara students get job-offers. A number of reputed MNCs like nVIDIA, Texas Instruments, and NXP Semiconductors have set up laboratories in the Chitkara campus and the curricula of different courses are tailored to meet the demands of these industries. Similarly, the healthcare giant FORTIS collaborates with Chitkara to train students. Chitkara is the Regional Centre for Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) that helps train the faculty. A leading MNC, Hewlitt Packard (HP) has given a grant of US $ 160,000 to Chitkara institutions to conduct research.

Professional Challenges

All her life she had been concentrating on teaching alone. She had no knowledge of the complex web of rules and regulations woven by education regulatory agencies at the central and state government levels which were very archaic. She also had to deal with officials of land revenue department, building bye-laws, environment and pollution control and numerous labour laws.

Indian construction industry is poorly unregulated especially for the quality of manpower employed in the sector. Higher education institutions require safe, functional and sophisticated structures that meet the aspirations of various stake holders. Moreover, the agencies involved in construction of buildings are notorious for time and cost over-runs. She had to meet the timelines laid down by the regulators. Thus, timely, economic and good quality constructions were the major challenges she faced.

She wanted that her educational institutions should be known for quality education. Thus, hiring of good faculty, drawing up the curricula for different courses and equipping the laboratories were major challenges. Being a mathematician she was not familiar with the nuances of other disciplines and it was a herculean task to get that done. She had to ensure that the equipment for laboratories was of good quality and was procured at competitive rates.

She was a new entrant in the field of education-entrepreneurship and had to compete for students and faculty with some of the well established names in the sector. All she could promise to her potential students was that she will not compromise on quality education. Similarly, she had to go in for massive efforts to run faculty development programmes.

Arranging financial support was another challenge that she faced. She had to approach banks and other financial institutions that were reluctant to invest in the ventures of a new and inexperienced entrepreneur.

Personal Challenges

In 1998, India was still a very conservative society where women entrepreneurs had not yet made their mark. She had to struggle to prove her credentials and convince the bureaucracy and the financial institutions that she would be able to achieve her goals. Moreover, she had to deal with semi-literate workforce of the construction industry.

Her children had still not completed their education when she took up her first challenge in 1998. Setting up and managing a new institutions was a full time job and without any family support she had to muster all her skills to arrive at work-life balance.

Question 1	Madhu has risen from a school teacher to set up an enterprise that controls two universities and an international school. Comment on her process of goal setting and her appetite for risk-taking.
Question 2	View the following websites: http://www.ugc.ac.in/ http://www.aicte-india.org/ http://www.aicte.org http://www.ncert.nic.in/ http://www.coa.gov.in/ http://www.nchmct.org/ http://www.pci.nic.in/ http://www.indiannursingcouncil.org/ http://www.dpipunjab.org http://www.educationhp.org/ http://himachal.nic.in/perc/ Also see the articles on the following links: - http://www.skillscommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IndianEducationSystem.pdf http://www.icrier.org/pdf/wp_179.pdf Given the environment in the higher education sector in India and the role played by the regulatory bodies, how do you think Madhu should have gone about making her plans to ensure that she abides by the laid down norms and still achieves her goals?
Question 3	View the links: http://www.oecd.org/edu/educationeconomyandsociety/36010882.pdf http://www.oecd.org/edu/educationeconomyandsociety/38168377.pdf Madhu had no past experience in developing infrastructure for an educational institution. Given the fact that construction industry in India is not very well regulated, how do you suggest Madhu should have approached the challenge of development of infrastructure in different campuses of Chitkara institutions?
Question 4	Q4. Considering the fact that she was a new entrant in the field of providing higher education and that she had to compete with some well established institutions, what marketing strategy should Madhu have adopted?
Question 5	Madhu was basically a teacher of mathematics. Even her husband was from the same discipline. However, she had to establish higher educational institutions in such diverse disciplines like engineering and technology, architecture, pharmaceuticals, hotel management and catering technology, business management, and healthcare management. How do you think that she should have gone about to ensure that her institutions provide quality education but still remain financially viable?

Notes

Links to sites relevant to your case

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Your typical daily schedule

From	To	Doing What	Business/Personal
9:00am	9:00am	looking after operational matters and finanace managament	Business
2:00pm	2:00pm	visit to institution,meetings,interviews,meeting with government officials	Business
7:00pm	7:00pm	buisness meetings abd review of the days work	Business
8:00pm	8:00pm	family interaction and attending household chores	Personal

Question 1	Madhu has risen from a school teacher to set up an enterprise that controls two universities and an international school. Comment on her process of goal setting and her appetite for risk-taking.
Note 1	Madhu ensured that not only does she have aspirations and ambitions but also works hard and to a plan to achieve those. That turned out to be an important factor in her being able to realize her goals. She set her goals and kept revising these periodically as she progressed in life. By raising the bar after achieving the previous goal she was able to proceed methodically and systematically to the next. This also gave her time to ponder over, study the market and gradually build her plans. It also enabled her to spread out her financial liabilities over a period of time. She was able to plough back the funds generated to start new institutions within the same organization. She took a big risk when both, she and her husband, resigned from their secure jobs. But she had a ‘Plan B’ to cater for the contingency if things did not work out the way she wanted. CIC was a big support.
Question 2	View the following websites: http://www.ugc.ac.in/ http://www.aicte-india.org/ http://www.aicte.org http://www.ncert.nic.in/ http://www.coa.gov.in/ http://www.nchmct.org/ http://www.pci.nic.in/ http://www.indiannursingcouncil.org/ http://www.dpipunjab.org http://www.educationhp.org/ http://himachal.nic.in/perc/ Also see the articles on the following links: - http://www.skillscommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IndianEducationSystem.pdf http://www.icrier.org/pdf/wp_179.pdf Given the environment in the higher education sector in India and the role played by the regulatory bodies, how do you think Madhu should have gone about making her plans to ensure that she abides by the laid down norms and still achieves her goals?
Note 2	There is a plethora of Regulatory Bodies in India operating at the level of Central Government and the State Government resulting in numerous, and often conflicting, rules and regulations. She had the following options to deal with the situation: - (a) Study all the rules and regulations herself. It was easier said than done because when she initially started her maiden venture the Internet was in its stage of infancy and relevant information was difficult to come by. However, she did whatever was possible. (b) Visit existing higher educational institutions and meet the senior management people and enquire about the rules and regulations. It was a difficult task because she was their competitor and not everyone was willing to part with information. However, there were some who obliged. (c) Meet retired academicians with relevant experience and also retired bureaucrats, revenue officials, environmental experts and seek their advice. This was an important source of information. (d) Within her organization make small groups of faculty members and administrative staff who could study and deliberate on challenges faced and come up with solutions. (e) Hire a consultant who could render advice and also prepare the necessary documentation. But, this was an expensive proposition. She also faced a serious challenge since she was a lady and the bureaucrats did not show much confidence in her and had a tendency to take her for granted. However, she persisted and by her dedication and commitment to her organization made people realize that she was more than capable and could stand up to the difficult challenges ahead. It was easier said than done but her persistence paid. She had to work long hours and affected her family life. But, her husband stood by her to supported her fully.
Question 3	View the links: http://www.oecd.org/edu/educationeconomyandsociety/36010882.pdf http://www.oecd.org/edu/educationeconomyandsociety/38168377.pdf Madhu had no past experience in developing infrastructure for an educational institution. Given the fact that construction industry in India is not very well regulated, how do you suggest Madhu should have approached the challenge of development of infrastructure in different campuses of Chitkara institutions?
Note 3	Infrastructure in an educational institution is needed to meet different requirements namely: - (a) Academic buildings to include classrooms, tutorial rooms, seminar halls, laboratories, workshop buildings, faculty rooms, libraries etc. (b) Administrative buildings like offices and conference halls, estate management set up etc. (c) Open spaces like playgrounds and parks etc. (d) Equipment for laboratories, workshops, offices etc. (e) Common facilities like hostels, dining halls, restaurants, gymnasiums, recreation rooms, reading rooms. (f) Utilities like electricity, water supply, sewage disposal, roads, street lighting and arrangements for arboriculture and landscaping. (g) Furniture for classrooms, offices, and other common facilities. (h) ICT infrastructure. (i) Transport facilities. (j) Environment protection measures like rain water harvesting, green buildings, use of non-conventional as well as renewal energy resources, While certain categories of infrastructure, like buildings and roads have a longer life there are other assets like ICT infrastructure that need to be periodically upgraded. Similarly, there are assets like library that require continuous augmentation. This aspect needs to be kept in mind while committing financial resources. A thorough knowledge is required of the expected use of each and every type of infrastructure and project specific requirements as a user to the architect and planners. Madhu went for study trips to different institutions and took advice from senior academicians and administrators to arrive at her own user-requirements. In addition, she studied from books and other publications to ensure that the infrastructure created met the requirements and were economical. She did not hesitate to meet even junior functionaries like laboratory assistants to learn from their past experience to ensure that the equipment procured was of the type required and purchased at competitive rates. In short she mastered the art of conveying in precise terms the user’s requirements to the architects and planners. Hiring of an experienced architect and her own supervisory staff in different categories and at different levels was of critical importance. Since she had no past experience in the field of infrastructure development she faced number of challenges that she met with advice from some experts and also while continuing with her projects. The managerial and supervisory staff were hired for different domains of infrastructure development. Madhu prepared perspective plans for the development of her campuses and also had CPM/PERT charts to monitor the ongoing works. Though, these require specialized training, with her intelligence and quick pick-up she realized that these were also a matter of common sense. Over a period of time she developed the capability to analyse the nuances of advice rendered to her by various sources. She fixed milestones to be achieved and built a check list to monitor progress at periodic intervals. She worked on check-lists that told her what to check, when to check and how to check. She also learnt how to carry out quality assurance checks for different domains (like laying of foundations, putting damp proof coating, casting of RCC slabs and beams, carpentry and joinery involved in the wood work, plumbing, painting of buildings, electric supply and numerous other aspects) of the infrastructure being developed. Madhu was dealing with semi-skilled workers who had had no access to education and were not very particular about quality assurance and ethical aspects related to infrastructure development. She needed to draw upon her motivation and people-skills to the maximum to get the desired output from such workers. Being a lady was simultaneously a handicap and an advantage. It was a handicap because the workers tended not to take her seriously and were lax. But, it was also an advantage because the workers being from conservative background were wary of being pulled up by a lady. She also took pains to learn the nuances of various trades in building construction and interior designing so that she could contribute in a positive manner to the whole venture.
Question 4	Q4. Considering the fact that she was a new entrant in the field of providing higher education and that she had to compete with some well established institutions, what marketing strategy should Madhu have adopted?
Note 4	Madhu was new to the game of entrepreneurship and, perforce, her marketing strategy had to rely on great deal of common-sense since she was dealing with a limited number of factors, in an environment of imperfect information and limited resources complicated by uncertainty and tight timelines. Due to her limited past experience of managing the CIC she had to rely on intuition and gut reaction to establish and expand her venture. However, having been a teacher, she had good knowledge of the customers – her potential students and their parents. She capitalized on one basic principle that was to ensure ‘quality of education’ and promised to her customers that they can be rest assured that she would provide them with the best possible education and would not compromise on that. Her motto was ‘You give me hard work and I will give you knowledge’. Madhu had no past experience of dealing with Industry and their expectations from the students. However, she was confident that given the quality of education that she would be able to provide, her students would not be found wanting. Moreover, before the first batch of students passed out of CIET – her maiden venture – her son had returned from the USA after completing his Masters in Business Administration. She took his help for all aspects dealing with Industry-Academia collaborations and the results showed in job offers received by her students. She also set up a separate Department of External Affairs to boost industry collaborations and a Department of International Affairs to tie up collaborations with foreign universities. She also paid attention to aspects related to diversity – gender diversity, rural-urban diversity - and also addressed the issues related to accessibility of quality education to underprivileged sections of society by emphasizing merit as the criteria for admissions. This ensured that the stake holders realised that meritocracy prevailed in her institutions. Customer engagement was another aspect that she kept in mind by ensuring that the faculty and the administrative staff gave personal attention to the students and all queries and concerns of parents were addressed promptly.
Question 5	Madhu was basically a teacher of mathematics. Even her husband was from the same discipline. However, she had to establish higher educational institutions in such diverse disciplines like engineering and technology, architecture, pharmaceuticals, hotel management and catering technology, business management, and healthcare management. How do you think that she should have gone about to ensure that her institutions provide quality education but still remain financially viable?
Note 5	Having been a teacher Madhu was aware that Indian education system was teacher and examination centric and it needed a thorough overhaul. She engaged experienced faculty and also ensured that experts from reputed academic institutions, research establishments and industry were incorporated in to different Boards of Studies and the Academic Councils of the two universities. These experts helped her to draw up curricula that were contemporary and industry relevant. She also visited the websites of various reputed universities, foreign as well as Indian, to borrow the good practices from there. She went for a study tour of different universities in the USA to learn more about curriculum development, academic delivery and pedagogy. CIET of Chitkara University became a consortium college of IUCEE which is an organization devoted to enhancing the skills of Indian faculty. Later Chitkara also became regional centre of IUCEE. This proved to be a boon in running faculty development programmes. A well thought of and systematic plan was developed to enhance the pedagogical standards and faculty members were deputed to attend training programmes at national and international levels. A Centre of Excellence was established in Chitkara University to conduct regular faculty development programmes. Faculty exchange programmes were tied up with foreign universities. Research supervisors were hired from reputed foreign universities to guide junior faculty members. Use of ICT was encouraged and faculty members attended webinars delivered by organizations like NMEICT. Tie ups with industry were encouraged and reputed MNCs established laboratories in chitkara campuses and the curricula for various courses were tailored to meet the needs of the industry. Use of ICT, pooling of resources between her institutions and collaborations with likeminded organizations in the Industry who were ready to work for the betterment of the country helped her in limiting the financial out flow.

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