Management Education in India - Rudderless policy, Governance, and Teachers

There many kinds of management programs in India. World-wide the consensus is that it is more important where you studied than the program itself because education is mostly about learning, environment, experience, relationships, world-views  and not so much the name of the degree.

1. AICTE approved PGDM programs. These are autonomous programs approved by AICTE. There are less than 300 such institutes in India and many of the good ones have chosen to add the next variety rather than meet requirements of AICTE for larger student strength. When such a program has a equivalence certificate to MBA from the Association of Indian University ( AIU) it is the best of programs and accreditation.
2. University MBA programs offered by state/government universities outside their legal geographic territory ( the area of operation specified by the state) . These are actually distance programs but disguised as regular programs and classes are held for two years. This is the most common type of MBA offered for students who are searching nationally for a program. Does the AIMA PGDM come in this category? I think so, except that it is offered by AIMA and is approved by AICTE as a distance program
3. Same as above except that it is offered by a deemed university, many of whom are themselves running the universities based on a supreme court stay order, even as the government is convinced that these are not centers of excellence to be offered the status of universities. (University under sec3 of UGC act is all that is mentioned. How is the common man to know what this is?
4. PGDM program offered independently by the institute which has no government approval of any kind.
5. MBA programs offered by state/government university though departments in the university or through affiliated colleges within the authorized area of operation.

Many institutes these days also offer type 2 and 4 as a combination. Purely by the spirit of the laws of the land  type 1 and type 5 are legal. Some others are just legal ( as a distance course), and many are not recognized at all. I wonder if the education minister is aware of the structure of the management education market. The recent notification by AICTE  does not clarify things to the confused student not does it help improve the quality of programs in any way. Yes there are many problems with the industry including profiteering, however, in a free market, eventually competition will take care of many issues. Having said that, we should also be aware that the customers are unaware and a confused lot to be able to make logical decisions when bombarded with information and having constraints of both time and money. When the market is uninformed or unsuspecting, can we still call it a free market? that is another question altogether.

Best of luck to potential management students. There are many options and choice is a responsibility not similar to choosing  from the many flavors of ice-cream!

When I see the the videos of the NPTEL program or faculty from engineering colleges attending workshops at one of the IITs, I wonder why we have institutions of national importance in management which are state sponsored islands of  quality in a ocean of muck.

Having been teaching a new subject in  the university system like 'Retailing' - Have tried many times to attend a program in one of the IIM's . It costs more than 3 months of my salary and neither the government that sponsors these institutions nor the governing boards ( consisting of Industry leaders who want to hire good management graduates and ensure that students going to the SME sector do not get similar quality education for obvious reasons!) have thought about how to make quality management education easily accessible to teachers in lower rung institutes. There are less than 5 private management institute managements in India who will sponsor a teacher paying full fee to attend a program at a IIM.

Apart from a infrequent FDP there are no linkages between the great institutions and the aspiring ordinary . Faculty are very keen about doing consulting work, which is great, however what about the moral responsibility of creating a larger community of good management teachers? One reason these state sponsored high flyers dont want to get their hands dirty could be that those who are not in these top institutions are dumb. It must be true too, if one goes by qualifications and my own lack of ability to comprehend many of what to me are difficult concepts. I dont however, think that that is good reason.

 It would be easy to say that my students cannot understand, the difficult part of a teachers job is to accept the student however she/he is and try to add as much as possible to their understanding. This brings up another question...Does the syllabus for all management institutes have to be based on the very best, knowing that the abilities of students, teachers are different and their aspirations / job profiles are all so different. About that some other time.

Sadly for me, I want this blog to be about marketing and retail, however I have ended up writing mostly about the management education space. Hopefully, I will  return to my knitting soon. Do write in......come on....your comments will enrich me and other readers of this blog. 

Whether you find this cynical or 'bang on'...whatever do thump out your views for me and others to see

Will Networking kill Meritocracy?

Placements/Jobs happen with references. You get concessions in fee or charges if you know the right people. Even getting invited to an event is based on your network rather than if you are the most relevant audience for the event.
Is the world getting smaller because of improved networking and ideas like 'six degrees of separation' or is each individual's world getting smaller? Think about it and let me know.
Someone with obvious/proven merit maybe getting left out because he lacks the 'right' network.
Is this fair? To organizations/ institutions, the meritorious, and society at large?

Have I stopped using my network to advantage? Definitely  NO.............I have started to think of the guy who might be better and lacks friends in right places.    

Digital marketing communications - come on, please move to the next level

I made this slide using the blue-tooth messages received when one entered the forum mall in Bangalore. This was three years ago. Yes, three years. Sadly no one identifies me as the shopoholic 50 year old, size 46, who loves everything chocolate including colour, and sends me relevant messages. Technology is available and being used even in poorer European countries I hear. Recession, Comfortable lethargy among organised retailers who are having a whale of a time with no serious competition, or lack of marketing from technology companies, any guesses why the stagnation on this front?

Shopping bags and store positioning

I made this slide to explain how something that seems so innocuous as a shopping bag can tell a story about prices, fashion quotient, attitude of the store and products. All pics are downloaded from google images.

Retail is detail - Well said Sam Walton!

MBA/PGDM admissions beyond IIM's - Will policy changes sustain?

The picture is one I took outside the PGCET counselling centre Bangalore. There were 50-60 institutes pushing their brochures, conducting street-site counselling etc. Aggressive, cut-throat, mercenary...all will fit with marketing of management courses in India now.

The number of seats vacant in MBA/PGDM colleges for the year 2010 is a number that surely means that there are 30-40% more seats than there were students looking for admission last year. Perceived Quality matters. Obviously, the seats that were not filled were in institutes that were relatively unknown and/or those that dependent on government to fill in the seats.
 MBA @ around Rs.20,000 in AP and around Rs.50,000 in Karnataka (merit based govt admissions fee) and still no takers. Where will this go?
The recent policy on admission process, fee and maybe even syllabus announced by AICTE will surely keep the well known PGDM looking for ways to regain the freedom.
Admissions in 2011 will be interesting and consolidate the B school industry.....may even be the tipping point.
Do write in with your comments and watch this space for more on this.

Fresh look at a topic done to death - What does industry expect from B school graduates?

Purple leap and The Hindu had arranged a panel discussion about Business education and these are some of my jottings. My apologies for not adding the names of the speakers...believe me it was difficult to get and I can not make out who said what from my scribbling pad!

Prof Prakash Apte of the IIMB made the following points:
1. Among various competencies managers need, the two most important are a. Managing Decision Making Process and b. Managing Human Capital
2.Should we create 'Managers' or people with skill sets for jobs like 'analyst' or 'market researcher'?  Companies  are looking for technically competent 'analyst' or 'market researcher' which might mean a moving down of  HR and decision making skills.
3. Diversity is very important as a lot of the learning happens between peers. IIM's seem to lack this as many of the students are engineers with no work experience, good with numbers.
4. B Schools need to revisit the value of and weightage for various selection criteria like experience (is length the only thing?), quantitative abilities, personal interview etc.

How I considered his keynote  was that there needs to be a relationship between what kind of student is taken in and the course offered in terms of content/delivery/placement opportunity and every other aspect. There can not be a one size fits all kind of approach.  In short, we need to create "Managers"  ( strategy, HR, Leadership etc)  or Business Process Professionals ( finance/ CRM....analytical and dependent decision making)   based on kind of  intake and placements.

Various speakers from industry spoke about what they expect in terms of knowledge, skills, attitude etc. of students who graduate from B schools and join the industry. This is a randomly put together which hopefully still makes lot of sense.

• Institutes need to educate students about realities of careers and get them grounded before they leave school.Students need to know that they need to do their time in the trench. Students need to know it is not a 100meter race, it is a marathon.
• Bring fresh perspectives/new ideas eg: need to know about social media marketing which may be new to the senior manager 
• Persistence of purpose
• Should have a opinion. To have a opinion one needs to have understanding and  passion.
• Balance is a essential. Emotional intelligence is a prerequisite for success. Balance also between theory and practice.
• Need to understand the context of the organization. Learn to be in  listening mode initially!
• Customer centric. Communication skills and Change management abilities...the three C's
• Intellect, inter-personal skills and integrity ....the three I's

All speakers felt that MBA grads have great expectation and are unaware of realities. One speaker went to the extent of calling them "not real people. Well packaged surreal people"

Surely I have not been great at recording all the points..but I do hope you my dear reader gets the drift. Improved communication skills especially listening skills, being grounded, good people skills, and realistic expectation are what industry is looking for apart from analytical skills, can do attitude and knowledge of concepts and new stuff. Do write in.

Welingkar - only brands bring in the premium!

That Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai was raided by the IT dept for collecting large sums of money as capitation fee is just one part of the story. There is a more important lesson, and that is that such monies can be collected only when there is substantial brand equity.

I do not know who collected how much money, and, truly , during a season when scams are being highlighted as though things were wonderful before, it is just one more. Even though I worked for Welingkar in Bangalore, trust my views are objective, considering I got no where near the Director and had heart wrenching terrible feedback from students for the first time in all my career!

The point we need to see is that Welingkar was able to charge a premium on its price because it had built a brand name. Building a higher education brand calls for addressing various student/parent relevant touch points successfully. Impressions are formed online, in classrooms, through physical infrastructure, contact personnel, placements, subjects taught, and a long list of tangible and intangible things( that should suffice for a free list!). In the last few years, Welingkar has managed this very well and hence it was able to collect the donations in a year that has seen, across the world,  a significant drop in admissions to management programs.  Whether the premium was really worth it, I think we should believe that the customer is not a fool and understands value.

Today management schools that teach a small bit of management theory, provide survival skills, and are finishing schools, all at once are what customers in India want and there are jobs for young management graduate who walk out of these schools.

Let the Income Tax guys do their jobs, while we appreciate the brand building efforts of Welingkar. It is not that Welingkar is perfect on all counts. Which institution is? I think however with solid history, some great faculty, great infrastructure and  inevitable ( education brands take for ever otherwise!)  fluff a really nice brand was built and this tax issue is not a road block, only a small bump on the road.

'India' Track in B'Schools anyone?

Views/Perspectives about India the country from contemporary  Indian management thought leaders  is rarely discussed in business schools. 

There are a few books about doing business in India, however these do not offer insights into India the land and its people and mostly discuss some aspects of culture through a foreigner lens. 


In recent years there have been many thinkers/authors who have brought to fore the opportunities/challenges/ and way of doing business in India, however, these have not been presented together as a composite body of
knowledge.

I strongly feel the  need for an ‘India Track’ in the curriculum of business schools and this has not been systematically been addressed. Sadly the university system MBA institutes will need a direction from AICTE or the university to offer such obvious courses, however, am sure some private schools can offer such a track. Whether it is of value, do read just a little further and write in.

Many recent books about Indian business by Indian thought leaders have yet to be used by teachers in B schools. Management Schools need to interact with these authors to work on a how their books can find place in the syllabus of management programs.

 There is a need to present India from the point of view of a manager to enable her to succeed in India.

What subjects/authors am I thinking about?

• Indian Economics - past, present and future. There are plenty of books in this area, however, works of Bimal Jalan or YV Reddy and similar need a look
•  Indian Psyche for Managers – Sudhir Kakkar author of Indian Psyche or even Being India by Pavan Verma
• Indian Consumers – where to find them and what  they want.  Rama Bijapurkar author of ‘We are like that only’
•  Ancient Wisdom for Indian Managers – ‘Vidura Neethi’ , Prof. Subramanian, Chennai
• Imagining India –  Nandan Nilekani
• All the three books  – from discovering the India opportunity to offering the Dharma prerequisite to the world of business – Gurucharan Das
•  Indian Demography -  Interesting and little known slices of India would be really useful. I have read a book review about a recent book in the Times of India, sadly the title and author name have slipped from my 50 yr old brain.
• Indian Society – Plenty of good books available here
• Then there are books from Shombit Sengupta, Jessie Paul, Subroto Bagchi, Jagdeep Kapoor, and Santosh Desai et.al. which should be a must read for Indian business students to expose them to ideas, paradigms, and Indian examples that are closer home. Living in Bangalore one cannot miss out including books from Ramanujam Shridhar and Harish Bijoor, even if I have not had a look at at them.

With India being central in the worlds present and future, am sure there are foreign B schools who will be interested to send their students to attend a India track semester or like it is their style, first do the classes in the home country and then send informed students to India the land of opportunity. At the end of this thread, am hoping to have a list of subjects and reference books, so do write in and contribute your ideas.  More importantly let me know what you think of this. Will this add value?

GD - The Grand Deception

Group Discussion to help reject students seeking admission to management institutes are just that. Even the cynics get convinced when you provide a argument  about the 'need' for a way to pick a few from among many equals. Leave the top rung institutes, institutes are aplenty, and it is not like a IIT type situation for sure.  This post is about how in a market that breathes the 'shortage' mindset, you can increase aspirational value by creating a fallacious shortage. Even after at least two decades have passed since shortages are a thing of the past, this mind set is available to sellers of every ware.

Management institutes conduct GD's for selection of students. Many of them conduct several rounds, I think the idea is simply to create an impression, very successfully that  " what is difficult to get must be very good" and therefore the converse being considered true too. Thankfully IIM's have got rid of it, many good B schools  need it to push students of the 'management quota' into regular merit lists required by managements or regulators, and students, whether in intellectual Bangalore or wise Patna, still swear by it and prepare for it!
Another possible myth is that Faculty are well trained to make objective assessments.

Can you apply this ploy to your product or service? Do you already do it? Let me know. I am sure many will rubbish this post...that is because they need to. Am eager to get brickbats as much as I am to get bouquets, only then can I grow

Execution, Execution, Tenacity

At first I wanted to call this post Ideas, Execution, and Tenacity as the mantra for successful entrepreneurship.Ideas are now available everywhere as are opportunities. It all comes down to systematically executing business plans and sticking to the knitting till success comes calling. I have known businessmen who made it big in the second business cycle from start date..say 10 yrs. Many younger entrepreneurs may not agree about the tenacity needed, however in my experience I have seen tenacity pay rich dividends. What about Innovation? I do not know about this, most successful new ventures do not bring new to the world products or processes. I think it is overrated for now.