'B-schools are a few steps behind market realities'

WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT B-SCHOOL

Perhaps nothing you learn in B-school matters as much as what you learn about the B-school. That's because how you approach this two-year experience will largely determine what you take away from it. These takeaways could be knowledge, the networking, and finally a job that comes your way.

B-schools teach analytical skills that help in taking complicated business decisions. You learn how to define critical issues, apply analytical techniques, develop the criteria for decisions, and make decisions.

After two years at campus, you speak the language and know the tools of the trade. Alumni are a vital part of the B-school experience. They provide good guidance, especially useful during the time of placement.

B-school curriculum in India is a few steps behind market realities, especially in some rapidly-changing fields, such as systems, corporate strategy, operations and human resources. I'm not sure, for instance, whether B-schools focus on the current business challenges facing a chief technology officer, a vice-president for operations, or an HR director in real-life business.

Also, systems-related courses hardly expose students to contemporary issues in enterprise computing, mobile applications, and so on. Likewise, courses in operations management barely tackle India-relevant topics such as managing in large software firms or BPOs.

Students and B-schools are both responsible for the shortcomings. The purpose of leadership is to create leaders, not increase followers. Today, students tend to focus only on job-placements, as the only worthwhile outcome desired.

This is an important reason why many feel that their academic institutions did not help them cope with real-life business.

B-schools aid students with an understanding of business tools and theories to arm themselves with. The ultimate challenge lies within the individual: how he implements them in real life.

Srikant Sastri is co-founder and MD, Solutions Integrated Marketing Services. He graduated from IIM, Kolkata in 1985.