The Nouveau & the Niche

Premchand Palety, Director C fore

Like any other academic session, last year too Indian B-schools saw their usual mix of ups and downs.

On the positive side, the most important development has been the initiative of private institutes in critical areas such as research, entrepreneurship and MBA innovations. Although some are still behind the top IIMs in terms of overall scores, non-government schools are catching up fast. Don't be surprised if the IIMs do lose their top positions in our B-School rankings in the near future. It's now in the realm of possibilities.

For budding MBA students, the great news is the placement scenario. For the fourth consecutive year, B-schools saw spectacular placements; IIM-A, for instance, recorded a maximum domestic salary offer of Rs 60 lakh per annum which, with bonus and other perks, may go up to Rs 1 crore. In other top institutes, the average salary grew by 20-30 per cent. There are two main reasons for this: manpower shortage as the economy gallops ahead at a brisk rate and quality strides made by some institutes. This is probably the best time to go for an MBA degree from a top institute.

Our past surveys have always bemoaned the lack of emphasis on research in B-schools. Even now, the situation is not too impressive (see column Thinking is Working on page 96). A few private B-schools are working harder in this area, compared to their state-run counterparts. imt Ghaziabad and Narsee Monjee have made it mandatory for their faculty to write research papers. ICFAI Business School's (IBS) three-year teacher training programme has been a hit; it plans to train 200 teachers a year.

Like IIM-A, IBS has maintained its momentum to develop case studies. It is one of the largest contributors to the European case clearing house, and its cases studies are used by global publishers like McGraw Hill, John Wiley, Prentice Hall and Oxford University Press. The T.A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), which took the initiative in converting summer internships into output-based case development, has formalised over 600 cases in five years. Some second-rung B-schools are also trying to cultivate a research environment on their campuses. SIES College of Management Studies in Navi Mumbai has launched Idea Research, where students are motivated to take up original projects. These papers are published by the institute, which has decided to start a rolling trophy for the best 'idea research' project.

Another major concern has been that B-schools don't devote enough time to develop entrepreneurship. This special issue looks at the causal, enabling aspect in the relationship between management institutes and the entrepreneurial abilities displayed by its students. Slowly many colleges are focusing on this aspect. The Indian School of Business (ISB) and S.P. Jain Institute have emerged as the leaders in this area, but of the over 1,300 schools, less than a dozen have an effective incubation centre to cultivate enterprise. The Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM) does events to promote creativity, team spirit and entrepreneurship. In one of its events, first-year students are divided into teams and have to come up with new products that can be sold to their target market—the second year students. Last year, a shoe with replaceable soles was adjudged the best product. Two of its students were selected for the final round of the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition conducted by the University of Washington in Seattle. In another competition, BIM students won the first prize for their plan to employ visually challenged employees for customer care services.

XLRI has set up an entrepreneurship centre to enable budding businessmen to get financial assistance and give direction to their new ventures.

Industry interaction has always been one of the crucial aspects for a school's success. To overcome their disadvantageous location, some of them have found new ways to reach out to the industry. XLRI, for instance, has introduced a CEO forum; 18 CEOs, including six foreigners, visited XLRI last year. TAPMI set up an exclusive centre for executive education in Bangalore. This initiative is largely meant to provide avenues for faculty to interact with industry representatives.

While university departments continue to struggle with red tape to match their curriculum with industry trends, others have proactively updated theirs. Numerous upcoming areas of knowledge and contemporary practices were incorporated into S.P. Jain Institute's courses. Delhi-based IMI has opted for team teaching in courses like infrastructure project finance, where multi-disciplinary focus is necessary.

The Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), which recently introduced the first-ever executive programme in retail in partnership with Philadelphia University and Reliance World, has set up prototype malls and stores on the campus to simulate the fundamentals of retailing. bimtech has added cutting-edge courses which cater to the demands of emerging sectors such as MTB (management tools in business—this is being widely used by global companies based on a Bains Consulting report), cyber marketing, IT infrastructure management, and commodity derivatives and trading.

It's in the area of campus infrastructure that B-schools have shown maximum growth.IIMM, KIIT Bhubaneshwar, SCMS Cochin, IBS Hyderabad and Alliance have constructed world-class campuses. TAPMI is in the process of building a new campus of over 4 lakh sq ft for which it has acquired 40 acres in Manipal. XIMB is all set to start construction of a new campus on 100 acres in Bhubaneshwar. Now many B-schools have wi-fi campuses and modern amphitheatre classrooms equipped with LCD projectors.

A few B-schools like IMT Ghaziabad, XLRI, S.P. Jain have even established campuses abroad. IMT's Dubai campus has faculty from the US and Europe. The Punjab College of Technical Education (PCTE) in Ludhiana has linkages with B-schools in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, UK and several African countries. The institute has also been allocated 60 acres to set up a campus in Tanzania.

Those who find difficulty in setting up physical campuses have focused on interactive distance-learning programmes. IT firm Hughes India has successfully used technology to create an interface between students and B-schools separated by distance. Even institutes like IIM-B, IIM-C, IIM-K, XLRI, IIFT and Narsee Monjee are teaching students seated in specialised classrooms situated miles away through satellite. In the last two years, over 4,750 students have completed a management programme through this platform. With 50 classrooms in 34 cities, it suits the continuing education needs of executives. In fact, executive MBA is catching up. Inspired by ISB, IIM-A, IIM-B, S.P. Jain and IBS have started a one-year programme for students with work experience.

In a sense, different models are successful in different places. If the visiting faculty model has been found suitable in many schools in Mumbai and Pune, a one-man show is also working in some B-schools like IIMM, Pune.

Here, Colonel Balasubramanium personally supervises every aspect of his institute, from admissions to placement. The students do a course on self-discovery and personality development too. There are no holidays and students are made to work seven days a week. This, says Bala sir, as he is popularly known, is to instil the capacity to slog which would hold them in good stead when they join industry.

The bad news is that government interference is increasing in the functioning of B-schools

Our past rankings have bemoaned the lack of emphasis on research in B-schools. Sadly, the situation is still unimpressive.

The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the regulatory authority, has been accused of harassing institutes with its archaic laws. Some schools, that got overwhelming responses from the industry were issued notices and their directors were threatened with dire consequences

like derecognition and closure. Instead of facilitating the growth of quality education, AICTE seems to be in control-freak mode, which is a remnant of the licence-quota raj. It is also debatable whether management education can be considered technical education. Should it be governed by this body at all?

Even the IIMs have had their share of problems with the Union human resource development ministry, which has repeatedly encroached on their autonomy with salvos like reservations, control over their corpus of funds, and asserting their power to choose directors whose term will expire this year. The IIMs in Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode face another problem. They are struggling to get over their location disadvantages in attracting faculty and industry. IIM-L, therefore, has set up a new campus in Noida. IIM-K director Krishna Kumar feels his institute is ready to take off although he is pained by the lack of collaborative spirit between the various IIMs. A joint effort between them, he feels, will radically elevate the quality of research. As of now, the race is on among some of them to poach faculty from each other's turf.

In conclusion, as industry struggles to reach out to the growing number of consumers in emerging economies, the biggest challenge for B-schools perhaps is to catch up with the pace of changes in the professional world. Says Prof S. Singhvi, one of the top-rated marketing gurus: "The faculty in most of B-schools is getting outdated. It's a challenge to motivate and enable them to update themselves. We should have specialist-faculty, but due to a variety of reasons like heavy teaching load they turn out to be generalists like primary school teachers."

Sadly, faculty development is not a top priority in most B-schools. Our survey found that the spends on faculty development was less than 5 per cent of revenues in more than 80 per cent of the B-schools. Most of them lacked an environment that could give freedom for faculty members to experiment with new ideas. Professors' salaries are low and are a deterrent for competent minds to join this profession.As a result, the ratio of visiting faculty and teachers with a 'moonlighting' approach is on the rise. This is mirrored in the learning outcome of students. This is what leads to the situation where industry hires students at the graduate level, and then has to impart training to help them develop the required skillsets. This is a serious concern which can undermine the relevance of management education in the near future.

(The author heads C fore, a market research firm)

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