B-schools across the country may be boasting of top class infrastructure and strong industry-academia interface but most of the Tier-II B-schools are struggling on the placements front and manage to achieve placements for only 20-40 per cent of their students.
Besides, the final placement process at these B-schools bags jobs for most of the students in insurance and sales and that too in the salary range of Rs 12000-22000 per month.
The lacklustre performance of these B-schools on the placements front is due to lack of practical sales training, says a research by Little Extra, a Kolkata-based sales training and research institute.
The research was conducted across 60 MBA institutes across the country with the owners, directors, training placement officers and faculty members of these institutes involved in the survey.
The survey also covered the HR heads and chief executive officers of 40 companies across sectors and 800 MBA students.
According to the survey, more than 80 per cent of the students are offered sales jobs but these students are not trained on sales concepts and its applications as the syllabus lacks practical sales training.
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The survey states that the MBA/BBA syllabus of Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) and Fakir Mohan University, both based out of Orissa and some other MBA institutes do not have practical oriented training.
As per a report by leading global consultancy firm Gartner, various companies spent Rs 1500 crore on sales training for their employees in 2008-09. Though there are many sales trainers for the employers, there are not enough for the management institutes.
To ensure successful sales training at the B-schools, the faculty members must have worked at the managerial level and trained subordinates in sales function.
Sales is about how you talk to your prospect, how you present yourself and not just mention the facts about your product. To sell you need to have confidence in yourself, present your solution enthusiastically”, said Subrato Samddar, director, Little Extra.
Since sales is not just about selling, the research by Little Extra has suggested a two-pronged action- practical sales module and faculties with sales exposure.
Besides, the research has stressed on targeted, customized and holistic employability training focusing on Attitude or Emotional Intelligence (EI). Research says that EI can contribute to 90 per cent of success in life whereas IQ (Intelligence Quotient) contributes only 25 per cent.
The study reports that placements require a combination of corporate interaction through guest lectures and Management Development Programmes as well as employability training but most of the B-schools are deficient in these two aspects.
Apart from placements, the other area of concern is the inability of the second and third rung B-schools to fill up their capacity despite investing Rs 6-15 crore on college infrastructure and start-up costs.
Consequently, these institutes start admitting almost every one who applies, starting a vicious cycle of poor input, leading to poor placements.
The top 50 B-schools in India select just about three per cent of the total aspirants compared to management institutes of international repute like Harvard and Stanford which have a selection rate of 10 per cent.
The inability to attract good students, Samaddar feels is because of the failure to follow the basic rules of marketing like creating a niche brand equity and leveraging word of mouth publicity.
There are more than 1900 B-schools across the country producing over 95,000 management graduates annually.
Little Extra's research suggests that quality dips significantly beyond the top 50 B-schools in all key parameters like student input in communication skills, teaching quality, corporate interaction and final placements.