Bharathidasan Institute of Management, a two-decade old business school based in the campus of BHEL at Tiruchirapalli, has struck a strategic partnership with HCL Technologies, by signing a MoU in Chennai on Saturday.

Although the memorandum of understanding includes all aspects of an industry-academia relationship, the tie-up aims to incorporate a range of other collaborations.

The IT company will provide sabbaticals for BIM faculty at HCL campuses, where they would be expected to be involved in knowledge sharing. Both the faculty and student research relevant to HCL would receive sponsorship and support from the company.

In turn, BIM would offer training to employees from HCL as and when the need arises. The college would also incorporate industry requirements into its study curriculum.

Under the agreement, HCL Technologies will hold the first slot in recruitment of students from the college. This will benefit the students of the BIM in a major way.

HCL will also offer an elective on enterprise resource planning (ERP) to the students of BIM, by providing the course curriculum and guidelines, which will in turn be targeted towards the Microsoft Dynamics ERP license programme. Direct lectures by the faculty from the company will be provided to the students as well.

Various plans to conduct joint technical and cultural events under the BIM-HCL banner are also underway, according to company sources.