N. Ravichandran

Professor N. Ravichandran earned his Ph. D in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1980, specializing in Applied Probability. He joined the core faculty of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad in June 1980. His teaching interests are in the areas of Decision science, Operations Management, Strategy and Leadership. His consulting and research portfolio are majorly in operations, supply chain strategy, and good governance.

Dr. Ravichandran served as the Director of IIM Indore for five years from 2008 to 2014. His leadership at IIM Indore was transformational; he was instrumental in enhancing the stature, reputation, and rankings of IIM Indore on par with the top few management schools of India and abroad. He contributed to the overall development of IIM Indore in terms of reputation, faculty strength. Student strength, infrastructure development, Domestic and global expansion, sustainable measures, innovative courses and building a strong corpus. He played an important role in drafting the new IIM Act and transformed management education in the context of liberal arts and social sciences. He was awarded Life time achievement award for his contributions in institution building by the Indian affiliate of Academy of management (an American based professional body) in Jan 2025.

He retired from the services of IIMA in October 2018after serving the institute close to four decades. Soon after retirement, he was consulting (until September 2022) with the Manipal group to spearhead their Executive Education programs and to lead and launch their Integrated Program in Management (IPM).

Between 2022-24, he served as Distinguished Professor of management in IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh to establish a green field management school. He was instrumental in launching the first ever MBA in data analytics and also the technology-based version of the IPM course.

Dr. Ravichandran is the founder of Case Research Society of India (CSRI), a not- for-profit organization created to promote case based teaching in Indian business schools and Management Research Foundation (MRF) with the purpose of capacity building in Indian management education.

Dr. Ravichandran is widely recognized for his expertise in Case pedagogy in management education. His forte is enterprise in academic administration, nurturing peoples’ strengths and enabling institutional growth, all backed by a strong value system. In recent times, Dr. Ravichandran is passionately exploring the relevance of ancient Indian literature to modern management thought.

• 12 Books (Edited, co-edited and authored)
• 107 Research papers presented in National and International Conferences
• 92 Research publications in peer reviewed journals, Indore Management Journal and others
• 60 Management cases based on real life situations

Academic Expertise, Teaching (Post Graduate and Ph.D. Level) and areas of expertise are –
Applied Probability, Business Process Reengineering, Competitive Strategy, Decision Analysis, Entrepreneurship, Industry Analysis and Corporate Strategy, Information Technology for Competitive Advantage, Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Operations Strategy, Quantitative Methods in Management, Simulation, and Stochastic Modelling

Executive Education
- Designed 8 new executive courses at IIMA
-Coordinated 3 major executive courses at IIMA
-Designed customized courses to 24 organizations
-Member, Faculty team of executive courses to 58 organizations

• Consultant to 21 organizations
• Contribution to PGP Program - 7 elective courses in PGP II @ IIMA
• Trained 300 teachers on case method of teaching under CRSI

• Ex-Director, Indian Institute of Management, Indore
• Executive Director, Manipal Centre for Business Practice (MCBP), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal