IIMB was established by the Government of India (GoI) as an institute of excellence[6] for education, training, research, and consulting in the field of management, and allied areas of knowledge.

[9][10] The new IIM was to be set up at Bangalore, and for the proposed institute, the Government of Karnataka offered 105 acres (42 ha) of land (free of cost), and a contribution of INR 3 million (~US$ 390,000 in 1972).

The institute held its first convocation on 10 July 1976 with a total of 48 graduating students, and on the same day the board also announced the appointment of architects for designing the official campus.

Moreover, the employee union had co-opted external political leadership unconcerned with the institute's vision leading to severe dysfunction, and then resignation of the Director in mid-1983.

[40] The design of IIMB campus was led by the famous architect B.V. Doshi, FRIBA, the 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, RIBA 2022 Royal Gold Medal recipient and Padma Bhushan awardee.

The notable architectural elements include the multi-storeys-high passageways, trellises, open quadrangles with ample area for greenery, sunlight streaming in through the pergolas, semi-open corridors, geometrical roofs, rough texture finish, and Kota-stone flooring.

It also has E-ShodhSindhu (eSS) Consortium's various subscriptions[64] like J-Gate Plus (JCCC), Project Muse, Oxford Journals, ISID Database, NDLI eBooks/Archive, CaPD-PDS software (under ShodhShuddhi[65] programme), etc.

It provides access to 110+ e-Databases, and professional data services like the Bloomberg Terminal, Refinitiv Eikon, Thomson SDC-M&A, LSEG D&A Datastream, Statista, NielsenIQ, CEIC, etc.

[69][70] In 2019, the institute signed an MoU with the MSDE (GoI) to train 'Fellows' for a PG Certificate in Public Policy and Management under the Phase-I (pilot) of the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship programme[71] as part of the World Bank funded SANKALP[72] scheme.

The wide-range provides ample flexibility in: IIMB was stuck with the 'PSU' image till the late 1980s, since it was initially steered as an indigenous Indian Licence Raj era effort to serve the government entities.

This was in contrast to IIMC and IIMA which were set up in the early 1960s as full-fledged management institutes with active collaboration from the prestigious American B-Schools like MIT Sloan[84] and HBS[85] respectively.

The first conference was held on 27 November 2009, and is now organised annually by the IMRDC Secretariat, which consists of members from the IMR (IIMB journal), and the institute's Research & Publication (R&P) Committee.

[103] In 1999-00, Mr. Nadathur S. Raghavan, the Co-Founder and then Joint Managing Director of Infosys Technologies, in association with Global Internet Ventures, donated a generous amount of INR 130 million[104] to aid the activities of the then Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies at IIMB.

[105] It operates out of the 18,000 sq-ft[106] NSR-GIV Centre building in the IIMB campus, and acts as a not-for-profit incubator for new business ventures as well as social causes.

[109] Apart from general mentoring, NSRCEL caters to differing needs by offering special funds and customised programs depending on: stage of venture, product category, founder demographic, tech-focus, etc.

[110] Many of these programs are/were in partnership[111] with organisations like Maruti Suzuki, Capgemini, Alstom, Texas Instruments, Infineon Technologies, FICCI, Pernod Ricard (India), DailyRounds, SIDBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank, etc.

[116][117] In late 2018, Goldman Sachs built on WSP to expand[118] their (since 2008)[119] initiative 10,000 Women in India, and in 2023, the GS 10KW alumni were further offered the Finance For Growth program to help them raise capital.

The institute's courses are also used to educate Indian civil servants via the iGOT-Karmayogi e-learning platform[127] of the govt-owned non-profit SPV Karmayogi Bharat.

The latter was established in 2022[128] for implementing a key pillar of the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) - Mission Karmayogi[129] of the DoP&T (GoI).

In 2021, IIMBx also facilitated the IIMB partnership with NCW and India SME Forum to provide the six-weeks MOOC-based Do Your Venture program to five thousand aspiring women entrepreneurs.

The most coveted clubs responsible for major events are: Forum for Industrial Interaction (FII), Cultural Committee (CulCom), Sports Council, and Entrepreneurship & Innovation Cell (EnI).

The other student-bodies can be categories based on their primary function: FII annually organises Vista, the international business summit hosted by IIM Bangalore.

The three-day conclave brings together leaders from various fields of management and firms from multiple industries to a platform that lets students learn from professionals through events, competitions and case studies.

Vista also incorporates guest speaker sessions, having previously invited Devi Shetty, Mukesh Ambani, Prahlad Kakkar, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Kamal Haasan, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Gurucharan Das, Santosh Hegde, Arun Shourie, Gul Panag, M J Akbar, Nandita Das, Narain Karthikeyan, and Shobhaa De.

The event makes use of interactions with successful female personalities like Vinita Bali, Malavika Harita, Sneha Priya, Lakshmi Ishwar, Wilma Rodrigues, Nirmala Sankaran, Neeta Revankar, Dr. Gita Sen, Gauri Jayaram, Sanjaya Sharma, etc.

Unmaad features performances in music, drama, and dance, apart from events like quizzes, debates, street plays, professional concerts, fashion shows, etc.

The event has hosted performances by prominent artistes including Farhan Akhtar, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy,[138] KK, Kailash Kher, Lucky Ali, Strings, Jethro Tull,[139] Indian Ocean, etc.

An annual gathering event called Anusmaran (in Sanskrit, meaning 'reminiscence') is organised by all chapters for the alumni to meet their fellows, and relive their old memories.

[148] In 2023, IIMBAA launched the IIMB Alumni Club based in the historic lush-green premises of the heritage luxury hotel Taj West End.

The club is a 12,000 sq-ft of exclusive physical space in the landmark 20-acre 5-star hotel on the Race Course Road in the western part of the Bangalore Central Business District.