THE IMS: Today's leading school for entrepreneurship
By Maya M. Padillo -
In the past, tourism, hospitality and HRM mainly focused on skills. Through the years, skills alone are not enough to become competitive in the global market.
That is why JIB Group of Schools opens THE IMS (Tourism Hospitality Entrepreneurship International Management School) this August to develop students to become global leaders in entrepreneurship and innovation.
THE IMS will be the leading school for academically talented inpiduals who are preparing for entrepreneurship and top management careers. The school aims to develop students to become well-rounded inpiduals, empowered thinkers, effective communicators and global entrepreneurs.
“We have programs that are purely innovation and entrepreneurship. One is entrepreneurship as embedded in tourism and hospitality. There’s really a trend to move towards management entrepreneurship,” said Joji Ilagan Bian, JIB Group of Schools chair, in an interview.
The school uses an integrated, action-based learning format that prepares them to meet the challenges of life; connecting the gap between theory and practice, and between knowing what to do and knowing how, when, and why to do it.
“There are some people who just want to look at the technical skills of HRM. But there should also be an opportunity for people who want to occupy management positions or even put up their own business- a school where they can go to. That is why we thought of this entrepreneurship and innovation Tourism Hospitality Entrepreneurship,” Bian said.
THE IMS’ strength is the use of Blended Learning wherein classroom and online engagements, concepts and methods studied in the program are delivered through face-to-face interactions with professional teachers. Online lessons and training will be done in partnership with the London School of Business and Finance, American Hospitality Academy (AHA), Workskills Australia, and other leading international educational partners.
“The trend now is outsourcing. You have to off-source what you do not have. Now you can do online, (there’s) Skype, there’s so many technologies that you can bring in. We have to capitalize on that trend to be able to bring the technology. We have teachers, yes, but we would want other minds from other experiences particularly in communications and business programs. It’s really experiential learning that we are providing,” Bian said.
Other advantages in studying at THE IMS: students come face to face with successful entrepreneurs, they build entrepreneurship and business skills while in school and have hands-on experiences through case discussions, global and local internships, incubation of business innovations and actual business operations. Graduates of THE IMS will also receive international education and global certifications from education partners.
THE IMS is offering Two-Year Diploma Programs wherein student entrepreneurs will be prepared to meet the challenges of starting a sustainable business through the application of their creative and analytical skills.
Graduates of the Grand Diploma in Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be given options to choose the business models they would want to pursue namely franchising, retail and wholesale, direct marketing, export and import, services, manufacturing, and e-commerce.
The course is a comprehensive management and leadership program designed to develop hospitality and tourism business endeavors. This program is for students who want to start their own business in the hospitality or tourism industry.
Good news for those into events-organizing is that THE IMS is offering a Master Certificate in Events Entrepreneurship that provides both the management and technical skills to learn management skills from conception, planning and staging perse range of events.
“We would want to bring in successful entrepreneurs and provide an environment that will bring out creativity so we provide a facility that will enable us to really bring out the highest level of innovation from our students,” Bian said.
THE IMS also boasts of its space components inspired from a conglomerate: Alliance Suites, Conglomerate Alcoves. Cynosure Clusters, Enterprise Hub.
“If you look at our rooms they’re big enough but they are really supposed to provide students enough space to talk to themselves. We don’t have traditional classroom chairs and tables. What we have is boardroom, rectangular tables, etc,” Bian said.
The teachers are now also prepared in terms of competence as they have undergone training.
“Davao is always ready for anything new and the Davao market is resilient and its people are globally attuned. When we introduce something new to them they don’t get surprised; they just know it is part of development,” Bian said.
For inquiries visit THE IMS at De Jesus St or contact mobile number 09089656415.