'We must continue to create a merit-driven talent pool'

IN CONVERSATION

With many companies now trying to address rural markets, are MBAs equipped to handle the task?

Companies, today, are searching for newer markets to keep afloat and avoid cut-throat competiton. The obvious untapped market is rural India. Future growth should come from here.

The second trend is the rise of the technology-driven industry which requires knowledge workers. Till such a time that companies start getting talent from rural areas, they will have to continue focussing on urban institutes to fill the need and train MBAs for the task.

Besides, with increasing competiton, the nature of exports has changed. For instance, software companies are now addressing external customers (the export market) and not the domestic market.

So is the case with industries that are primarily in the exports' arena. These companies may not have an urge to look at rural markets "" at least for now.

Is the move to have a "quota" system for institutes, such as yours, justified?

Our push towards rural markets can be served by a better educated rural India which can't be empowered only by poverty-alleviation and life-sustenance programs. I strongly welcome the government's move to empower rural India.

On the other hand, we can't afford to ignore resurgent (modern) India too where there is a dearth of knowledge workers. Hence, we must also continue to create a talent-based knowledge pool that is merit-driven. Both these moves can't be at the expense of each other nor can they substitute each other.

Empowerment of rural India must aim at skill-building (vocational programs). Besides, there can be additional reservation (where it already exists) at the degree level rather than in central institutions.

The IITs and IIMs of this country are among the few institutions that have achieved a high level of excellence in education. It takes ages to build such institutions. Instead of tinkering with them, we must strengthen our engineering colleges.

The government move to convert regional engineering colleges into IITs was one such move. Another solution is to encourage private entrepreneurs to build more such insititutions and create higher capacities.

Part-time MBAs Vs full-time MBAs and then online MBAs, executive education courses. Do they fulfill the education needs of executives?

Our nation demands more skilled managers. Everyone is groping for a suitable answer. One answer could lie in executive education programmes since re-education of the workforce is crucial.

The biggest worry in our country, however, is that a host of unprepared institutions are trying to take advantage of this trend. There's no point in regulating them. The market will finally decide.

How crucial is an understanding of technology for today's managers and leaders?

A graduate has to be able to deal with technological issues since technology is critical for organisations to create value. Unless we learn how to apply technology in our business environment, our impact in the world will be limited.

Top management commitment is a must to ensure that technology implementation is successful.