Is the management education system in India equipped to handle the new set of challenges? Are we producing leaders who can look beyond best practices and trigger change? Read on...
Last year, Eric Schmidt , CEO of Google, shot off a letter to the Washington Post with a warning, “the US has an Innovation Deficit”. Can India afford to ignore the warning? More specifically, can our management education system ignore it?
While it is not always easy to disentangle the causes and effects of globalisation, one thing has stood out over the last one decade as we move towards a world of more open and more interconnected economies: That we need more dynamic leaders, more responsible corporations and therefore an education system that is developed for the creation and use of knowledge, and for converting challenges into opportunities. Governments the world over are urging their education systems to develop modules that produce more skilled, performance-driven, and versatile employees.
Indeed, the pressure to perform is relentless and all-pervasive. Is the management education system in India equipped to handle the new set of challenges? Are we producing leaders who can look beyond best practices and trigger change? It is easy to be ambitious but difficult to keep the momentum and act. Is there a will to identify competitive advantages through strategies that foster employee motivation and build capacity for organisational improvement?
The answer is yes and no. The biggest asset for India is its demography — a young workforce, which is fluent in English and raring to go. The spread of information technology has also opened up newer possibilities — and spurred innovation in many spheres. There is a caveat. As Jeffrey R Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, said during one of his many visits to India: “What I found about India is that the market is promising, but is one that never quite reaches that promise. But anytime we have invested in the people, we have done exceptionally well.” Perhaps what is needed is that one catalyst to help make the final cut, says a senior executive of a Delhi-based FMCG company, an FMS alumni.
And that is where the management schools of India can step in — create an education system that will spur economic growth, produce thought leaders who can stimulate the whole process of innovation.
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The wish list of what one might want from B-Schools may be endless. But that’s just one part of the story. The other, and the brighter, part of the story was brought forth during the recession of the late 2000s. Sorry, that was “slowdown” time for India, not recession. Triggered by a liquidity shortfall in the United States banking system that has resulted in the collapse of large financial institutions, the world was gripped by what many economists labeled as the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s”. India remained largely sheltered being the only economy in Asia driven primarily by domestic demand. (A McKinsey Global Institute study forecasts that by 2025 India’s consumer class will swell tenfold, making it the fifth largest market on the planet.)
GDP grew at a steady clip and despite a few hiccups here and a few recruitment freezes there, corporate India was back on a hiring spree even while the rest of the world was still trying to put the pieces back together. Reports suggest, the placement scene this year looks good for the B-schools and engineering colleges. More companies are visiting campuses across the nation this year, offering higher packages than previous years. Chennai-based Great Lakes institute of Management, for instance, placed its 2011 batch into 121 companies, with IT and consulting companies being the highest recruiters. Interestingly, a large number of government and public sector companies have offered summer internships to the first batch of IIM Raipur.
All this is just to prove that India has what it takes. Which is why big transnational corporations are flocking to India; so are students from other countries looking to get into the hallowed precincts of India’s best business schools. Indeed, attracting students from abroad is one of the many things high on the agenda of many business schools. Study trips, service-learning trips, and international exchange opportunities will definitely help students fill the gap in their management ‘tool kit’.
Last year, the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, tied up with three other B-schools from Asia to devise a way to attract students from the US, Canada and Europe. These three are Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, China Europe International Business School and Nanyang Technological University. All four B-schools, including ISB, are among the Top 100 Business Schools in the world listing by the Financial Times (London).
Mind you, it’s not easy to get into any of the top-notch business schools of India. “Getting into one of our IIMs would be much more difficult than getting into Harvard or Stanford,” says Professor BS Sahay, founding director of IIM Raipur.
And with an eye to meet the new challenges, India’s top business schools are renewing their focus on curriculum design, faculty development, and the cultivation of strategic partnerships. It will not be an exaggeration to say business schools in India are at the threshold of unprecedented change in their bid to offer state-of-the-art learning and personality development facilities that are mission-appropriate and meaningful to the stakeholders. A new focus on ethics, stress on environmental sustainability and introduction of new off-campus learning initiatives are new things that B-schools have added to their MBA curricula this year.
XLRI, Jamshedpur, for instance, has revamped its course ‘Sustainable Development Of Corporate Strategy’ to focus on the environmental impact of corporate initiatives; Manipal is offering a ‘Strategic Financial Management’ elective; IMI has split its composite electives ‘Product and Brand Management’ and ‘Sales and Distribution’ into separate electives for each sub-area; Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad is offering a ‘Sports Management’ elective that focuses on the use of sports as a strategic platform to engage consumers.
These are just a few examples; the real change will come when India’s corporations must become true partners in building the management education programmes. Besides supplying ideas and knowledge, they can make valuable inputs in terms of financial investment and on-site experience for students, making them future ready and equipped to cope with real-world situations.