ELearning - XLRI

Currently, agriculture value chain is driven by technical expertise. However, there is a lack of adequate Management knowledge and skills amongst the professionals. Therefore, Ikisan and XLRI, Jamshedpur have jointly developed an Agri Business Management Program for Agri-professionals and students. Ikisan provides the domain expertise while XLRI provides pedagogy. This program is a combination of virtual learning and campus based module at XLRI, Jamshedpur. This program has been highly appreciated.

"XLRI Jamshedpur and Ikisan" conducts a joint on-line, self learning Certificate Programme in Agri-Business Management. The objective of the programme is to supplement agricultural knowledge with business skills to enhance effectiveness.

XLRI Jamshedpur

XLRI was founded in 1949 by Fr Quinn Enright, S.J. in the Steel City of Jamshedpur. Fr. Enright visualized XLRI to be a partner in the liberation and development journey of the independent India with a vision of "renewing the face of the earth". Over many years XLRI has developed its own identity. The hall mark of this identity is, not to walk on the beaten path but to strike new routes; not to benchmark but to be benchmarked, to be second to none but to be the first to respond to the needs of the people and the nation, by taking up the tasks which are bold but necessary which nobody has hitherto taken up.

With this aim, XLRI Jamshedpur has contributed its best to the professional growth and management of innumerable institutions that's serve the public especially organized industry, labour, service agencies engaged in rural development, education, health and other public systems.

Programmes are broadly classified as follows:

Full time programmes

Personnel Management & Industrial Relations (PM & IR)
Business Management (BM)
General Management Programme (GMP)
Fellow Programme in Management (FPM)

Part time programmes

Executive Management Program for Defence Officers
Executive Postgraduate Programme (Exec-PGP)
Executive Fellow Programme in Management (Exec-FPM)
Satellite based Programmes
Management Development Programmes
Agri-Business Management

Nagarjuna Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd (NFCL)

One of the most recognized agricultural brands in India which is dedicated to providing customers with solutions in plant nutrition, irrigation, farm services and plant management.

NFCL plays a proactive role in the development of society. It is indebted to the society that not only accepted it but also provided an opportunity to grow and flourish.

The company is committed to the physical, academic and economic well-being of the community by actively pursuing the cause of education, social, culture, health and welfare.

Ikisan

Ikisan is a comprehensive Agri Portal promoted by NFCL to provide Information, Knowledge and Business requirements to various players in the Agri arena viz., Farmers, Trade channel partners and Agri Input / Output companies. Leveraging Information Technology and extensive field presence, Ikisan is positioned as an Information / Knowledge exchange.

Ikisan - XLRI Certificate Programme

The programme is designed to allow the participant to learn at his/her own pace on a self learning basis. The course content developed by XLRI and Ikisan would be available on www.Ikisan.com. Candidate would be provided a password to download the material from the site.

Design of the course

A. The programme would consist of courses covering managerial skills, technical skills and professional skills. Each course requires about sixty (60) hours of effort.

B. An Independent project wherein the candidate identifies an issue in agribusiness and studies it in detail and gives recommendations after analyzing the problem using the concepts learnt during the programme. The study should involve field study and should reflect at least sixty (60) hours effort. For this candidate needs to identify a guide, who could be a faculty or an executive from the industry.

Students are encouraged to interact with the faculty of XLRI/ Ikisan through email or other means as suggested by the faculty.

Courses would have on-line exercises. Personal involvement in the exercises is essential to enhance knowledge and skills.

Courses would also have a written end term exam. The dates of which would be communicated to you separately.

Courses would also have a written end term exam. The dates of which would be communicated to separately.

The courses would be offered across in three modules, a campus component and an individual project.

Module 1

Managerial Skills:

Management Part I (Being an Effective Manager),
Principles of Marketing,
Agricultural Finance Technical skills:
Agronomy

Module 2

Managerial Skills:

Sales and Distribution Management,
Rural retailing

Technical Skills:

Pest Management
Agricultural Input Marketing
Finance for Non Finance

Professional Skills:

Computer applications

Module 3

Managerial Skills:

Rural Retailing,
Management Part II

Technical Skills:

Contemporary Agriculture

Duration

Students are encouraged to complete all the requirements (including the project) within a period of six months. However, student would be given a maximum time of 1 year (after registration) to complete all the requirements.

Qualifying Standards

A student completing all the requirements as detailed below will be eligible for the certificate: a) Complete all the exams and the project within a period of a year. b) Should not have got any failure grades. c) Student who has obtained a failure grade has an option of taking the exam the next time the exam is conducted. Similarly a student who missed an exam can also appear for the exam offered for the next batch. d) A student would not be allowed more than one option for repetition. e) If a student gets a failure grade the second time also he/ she has to withdraw or re-register as a new student and complete all the requirements as any other student registering for that batch.

Certificate

A certificate jointly signed by XLRI and NFCL would be issued on successful completion of the programme during the graduation ceremony held at XLRI Jamshedpur.

Application Process

Eligibility

Working professionals in Agri-Business sector
Students who are pursuing final year of B. Sc./ M. Sc. (Agriculture or Allied subjects) may apply.
Graduates from other streams of science with at least two years of experience in agri-business can also apply.

To fill the application Click Here

Top

Software as a Service

Services Overview

The key services offered by Ikisan are:

System study, design and development of IT enabled solutions and services for the agri sector.

Execution of rural IT enabled projects on BOT/BOOT/Turnkey basis.

Development, Customization and Deployment of Ikisan's IPR protected software applications.

Providing support services and best management practices for augmenting the marketing development efforts of the groups agricultural input companies (NFCL and NACL).

Development and Dissemination of best practice and information though a unique multi lingual knowledge website for the agri sector.

Some of the key customers/partners that benefit significantly from our work include are Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, State Agricultural Marketing Boards, Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Tamil Nadu, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Motorola Mobility (GOOGLE) etc.

As highlighted earlier Ikisan provides significant support to the market development and marketing efforts of NFCL and NACL by providing best practices and information across the agricultural input value chain - weather, soil, seeds, fertilizers, water, pesticides, output prices etc. that have enabled the companies to develop deep customer relationships and in turn enable them to grow above market growth rates. Recently example in fertilizers includes the development of Customized Fertilizer Grades (for NFCL across India that are crop and location specific have not only reduced the current consumption of fertilizers of farmers but have significantly enhanced crop yields and farmer incomes) that are expected to add significant revenues to the company.

Intellectual Property Rights for many software applications such as Field Manager, Vyapar, Mandi, Quick Solutions Systems, Management Time Table, Agri Information System and Agrecommerz belong to Ikisan. A significant recent development in this area is the introduction of Weather Based Crop Insurance. This entails setting up of Automatic Weather Stations, which provide dynamic village-level data essential for settlement of weather based insurance claims.