Beyond MBAs: Niche and interdisciplinary master’s courses finding more takers

Amith Kaushik Tanneru was not really surprised with his friends’ and family’s reaction when he told them he wanted to quit his job as a software engineer at Infosys, and study public policy. “You know how people look at social sciences in India. They said my future was uncertain,” says the 25-year-old who enrolled at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, near New Delhi, last year.

Tanneru is among a new breed of students who are doing their postgraduate studies in areas which a decade ago would have invited puzzled looks from most people in India. Public policy, for instance, as a stream has been a fixture in Western universities for over 50 years, with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs among the top schools worldwide.

In India, however, it is finding takers only now. Sudarshan Ramaswamy, Dean of the Jindal School, says the reason for that is equating governance with the government. “Public policy is no longer related to just what the government does,” he notes.

When Government is Not All
Talking of the multi-disciplinary nature of public policy, Ramaswamy adds: “It’s good to have journalists who understand, for instance, the Land Acquisition Bill and its implications, and a public policy programme helps in that.” Ishita Trivedi, a first-year student at the school, says the course structure is moulded according to the composition of the batch and what is pertinent then.

“Your idea of what you want to specialize in keeps evolving because you are constantly exposed to different things. I joined the programme wanting to work in the area of food security or maternal health,” says the economics graduate from Delhi’s Miranda House College. The Jindal School, part of OP Jindal Global University, set up by Navin Jindal, has 25 students in its first batch, and 18 in its second. Ramaswamy says the employment options for his students include, besides the government and think tanks, the CSR arms of companies engaged in development-related initiatives.

Tanneru wants to work in e-governance, particularly cash transfers through mobile banking. Besides the Jindal School, Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore offer public policy programmes. The Indian School of Business (ISB) is also thinking of introducing a postgraduate programme in public policy at its Bharti Institute of Public Policy, according to the latter’s Executive Director Rajesh Chakrabarti.

The Bharti Institute is located on the B-school’s Mohali campus and teaches public policy to its management students. Similar to the misconception that public policy is only for government servants is the view that public health is only for doctors. “Doctors take care of sick people while public health professionals ensure people don’t fall sick,” says Dileep Mavalankar, director, Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Gandhinagar. There are three other IIPH campuses in Delhi, Hyderabad and Bhubhaneshwar.

Global Appeal
Ziaul Haque, a student of the one-year PG diploma in public health management at IIPH, Delhi, says although he did apply to colleges overseas he is happy that IIPH’s syllabus is not very different from the foreign institutes he was considering. “Moroever, I’m paying just Rs. 250,000 a year, including hostel fees, which is much lower than for colleges abroad,” says Haq, who wants to work on HIV and mother and child health, and who is one of the few non-doctors in his class.

While the institute started with more government officers in its postgraduate diploma in public health management, Mavalankar says now it is equally divided between them and private candidates. “In the government, our students could end up working for the National Rural Health Mission or district public health programmes. In the private sector, companies could hire them for health initiatives as part of their CSR,” he adds.

Other employers include international agencies like the UNDP, WHO and Unicef. The starting salary for a public health professional could be between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 50,000. Besides postgraduate diplomas, IIPH has just started offering a master’s in public health through Hyderabad University.

It is awaiting the passage of the Universities for Research and Innovation Bill, 2012, in parliament, before it can offer master’s degrees on its own. One of the objectives of the Bill is “each university would focus on one area or problem of significance to India and build an ecosystem of research and teaching around different related disciplines and fields of study.” Other universities offering a master’s in public health include Manipal University and Lucknow University.

If civil services, medicine or engineering was what every other parent wanted their kid to study till the 1990s, the degree of honour has since been a Master of Business Administration, helped in no small measure by the storied success of IIM alumni. But the MBA is fast losing its lustre, with 160 of 4,500 management schools expected to shut down this year and 10-12% of graduates considered employable, according to a January report by Assocham.

These graduates spend Rs. 300,000-500,000 on their MBAs and earn only Rs. 10,000-15,000 a month, the report adds. While the likes of IIMs, ISB and XLRI, Jamshedpur, have retained their cachet, interest in low-ranked B-schools is clearly waning.

Urban Planning 2.0
Educationists have been calling for courses to be made interdisciplinary so students have a better understanding of their specialization and are better equipped for the job market. Urban planning is one such course. Though the School of Planning and Architecture in the capital and Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad have had urban planning for a while, it is only recently that academics seem to be waking up to the need to have students from multiple disciplines in urban planning.

The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) in Bangalore, which also comes under the Innovation Bill, hopes to have students from different streams in its master’s course. It has had IT professionals and social workers take part in its certificate course on urban planning. “We train 400 planners every year now and most of them go on to work in the real estate sector,” says Aromar Revi, Director, IIHS.

Ajit Kumar, director of infrastructure consultancy Frischmann Prabhu, says till a decade ago urban planners were synonymous with architects. “But now, only 50% of planners are architects. While architects visualize the structure of a building, planners visualize how a city will look and grow and what its needs will be in the future.” He adds that given projects like the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor, which has multiple townships, there will be a huge demand for planners. They command a 25% premium over architects and could start with Rs. 35,000-80,000,” says Kumar.

Adapting to Changing Climate
Interdisciplinary approach has also been key to courses offered by TISS, which has in recent years started offering master’s degrees in areas like climate change and disaster management. “Problem solution here involves inputs from different fields,” says T Jayaraman, who heads the School of Habitat Studies at TISS. The institute received 900 applications for an intake of 35 in disaster management and about 300 applications for an intake of 15 in climate change this year, according to Jayaraman.

While such new offerings are certainly a welcome move, the biggest hurdle to the growth of these courses is limited opportunities for some of their practitioners. “The market for public policy graduates is not so clearly defined as for MBAs. A government job is not very lucrative,” says ISB’s Chakrabarti. For public health graduates, the absence of an equivalent to the US Public Health Service means their options to work for the government are limited, according to Mavalankar of IIPH.

Jayaraman says money is not necessarily an overriding concern for those who study climate change and disaster management at Mumbai’s TISS. Money apart, there are some strong indicators that multidisciplinary courses will soon move away from the fringes of college education if not become the order of the day.
Source: The Economic Times, December 1, 2013

PSU executives queue up for MBAs

An MBA is no longer a cherished degree for only professionals from the private sector. An increasing number of employees from state-owned undertakings are enrolling for the degree to hone their managerial acumen, gain global exposure and fast track their career, which would have taken much longer in the public sector. In fact for most, it is a passport to move out of public sector undertakings (PSUs) to private corporations or consulting firms.

Top business schools like the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), Indian School of Business (ISB), SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS University), and IIT Bombay’s Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM), have been witnessing significant enrolment from students with work experience in PSUs or the government sector in MBA programmes in recent times.

Public sector professionals, with two to five years of work experience, usually have exposure to large-sized projects and an MBA degree opens up for them a wider array of options in the private sector or allied industries in consulting. IIM Bangalore’s flagship post-graduate programme has 38 professionals from the government sector in the class of 2012-14 with a batch size of 377, up from 28 in the class of 2011-13, with a batch size of 382.

“Predominantly, these professionals are coming here to come out of the sector,” says professor Sankarshan Basu, chairperson, career development services at the institute. The professionals usually join the government sector from engineering campuses, but in just a few years, get frustrated at the lack of growth opportunities, he explains. “They feel an MBA degree can fetch them more glamorous roles in the corporate world, and a better remuneration,” adds Basu.

ISB’s Class of 2014 has 33 students from PSUs or government organisations, compared with 20 in Class of 2013 and seven in the Class of 2012. At SPJMIR, the PGP class of 2012-14 has 14 students from PSU sector, compared with 11 in the class of 2011-13. On an average, 7% to 8% of the PGP class over the past three years has comprised professionals from the public sector. At NMIMS, the MBA class of 2012-14 has five students from the PSU sector, compared with four in 2011-13 and two in the previous batch. Prior to this, it was hardly a trend.

“A management degree changes their entire career path. It fast-tracks their career and in the long term, they can contribute much better. It gives them crossfunctional and global exposure and trains them for long-term leadership,” says Atish Chattopadhyay, professor of marketing and deputy director of the two-year PGDM programme at SPJIMR.

At IIM Lucknow, the class of 2012-14 has 45 professionals from the government sector in a batch size of 450, up from 40 in the class of 2011-13 with a batch size of 420. Most students attribute the reasons for opting for an MBA to the slow growth opportunities in PSUs, where reaching a manager level could take them more than five to six years. Kranthi Kumar Nukathoti, former assistant design engineer at MECON, is one of them.

Nukathoti cites the lack of growth and low remuneration as factors for pursuing an MBA. He hopes to get into supply chain operations at any of the big private manufacturing majors after completing his MBA. One of the key reasons for professionals from PSUs joining SPJIMR is because of its focused specialisation in operations management, according to Chattopadhyay.

A chunk of the students from PSUs want global exposure, which the institute makes possible through its tie-up with Michigan State University in supply chain management and Purdue University in manufacturing and operations. Institutes like SJMSOM have a significant number of engineering professionals from the core sector and heavy industry PSUs coming for an MBA.

According to VK Menon, senior director, career and admissions at ISB: “An MBA degree gives them agreater choice of options and quick learning. Professionals from PSUs or government who join our MBA course get an opportunity to utilise the skills they have learnt and explore new fields.”

It’s a win-win situation as these people bring in diversity to the class and a perspective of the government sector to the rest of the students. “The exposure these people get in PSU units is large-scale,” says Menon. Adds Varsha Parab, director administration and in-charge registrar at NMIMS: “These students bring in governmental perspective to other students, which is required when they go into the corporate sector.”

Moreover, when these professionals join the private sector or consulting firms, they bring with them the skill sets and depth of understanding gained from working on big projects – a gain from the company perspective as well.

Source: The Economic Times, May 31, 2013

Business schools such as ISB, IIM-A, TISS, Symbiosis line up courses in healthcare management

An increasing demand for doctors with business acumen is prompting business schools and top-ranking educational institutions to offer courses focused on healthcare and management, as more physicians opt for management degrees, post-MBBS.

ISB has recently partnered with Wharton School of Management to start a research centre on healthcare. A significant chunk of the students in this course are doctors aspiring for managerial roles. The course offers electives in healthcare along with a specialised management discipline such as strategy, marketing, finance and product management.

Premier business school – the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) – offers electives in health management and public health policy in its doctoral programme. “There was hardly any interest among students in healthcare management elective at PhD level until a few years ago. But in recent years, about 20 students from each batch of about 350 have been opting for the healthcare elective,” says Prof. Dileep Mavalankar, Director of Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar and former professor of Health Management at IIM-A.

Among other top institutes that provide specialised courses in healthcare and management are Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai; Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences, Pune; and Indian Institute of Health Management and Research. Interestingly, ISB has, from this year on, focused 50% of its total scholarships – thus far fully merit-based – on the diversity aspect, wherein people from sectors like healthcare and pharmaceuticals, among others, will be given preference.

“The demand for doctors trained in management far outstrips the supply,” says VK Menon, Senior Director – Careers, Admissions and Financial Aid at ISB. The requirement has grown manifold over the past four to five years, with industries such as pharmaceutical, biotech, medical equipment and healthcare growing rapidly. Domain knowledge in medicine as well as expertise in product management, brand safety, marketing and finance, besides knowledge of people skills, labour laws and strategies is providing an alternate career avenue for medical practitioners who want to branch out into other sectors.

“Companies in pharma, biotech and medical equipment now prefer to have doctors with business expertise. There is also a spurt in demand for this category of people with the rapid expansion of healthcare industry and setting up of hospital chains that are becoming more complex to run,” says Menon. “Today as an industry, we need a unique value proposition. An MBA degree gives a wider perspective and makes a doctor manager aware of the best practices across sectors that can be applied to healthcare apart from enhancing people skills,” says Vishal Beri, Chief Operating Officer, Hinduja Healthcare.

The healthcare sector in India is likely to grow to $100 billion by 2015 from $65 billion now, according to an estimate by rating agency Fitch. “The sector is at an inflection point and is poised for rapid growth in the medium term,” says a KPMG report.

As opportunities open up in the sector, doctors who are not able to do their masters after their MBBS due to limited seats or high capitation fees are seen branching out to managerial roles. The playing field is huge: Family-owned hospitals are becoming more complex, competitive and professionally-run, while pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are expanding at a fast clip. “Many of the IIM alumni have venture capital funds that are buying into hospitals. And with doctors realising that they need to delegate more management to professionals, there is an obvious spurt in demand for managers,” says Mavalankar.

Many doctors do not feel motivated enough to remain confined in medical courses and want to branch out into a different sector. “Some of them see parents struggling to manage their hospitals and hence realise the need for specialised managers who have knowledge of labour laws and people management expertise,” adds Mavalankar. There is also the view that management is an additional field doctors can explore. “An MBA gives a physician wider choice. A rapid-fire, one-year MBA helps them understand the nuances of management,” says Dr. Ramesh Padavala, Director – Brand Safety, Novartis.

Traditionally, most CEOs and top managers in the healthcare industry were either from the armed forces or the hospitality industry. However, with more corporates entering healthcare, there is need for a larger number of professionally-qualified managers who are familiar with the industry. Hinduja Healthcare has several doctor managers with management degree from ISB, TISS, Symbiosis – Pune and IIHMR, says Beri, an orthopedic surgeon, who graduated from ISB in 2008. “When I entered a medical school, I had not thought of doing an MBA, but now with increasing demand for medical professionals in managerial roles, there is more awareness among doctors, several of whom are going in for management specialisation after their MBBS,” he says.

Some like Dr Padavala say, “There is a wide gap between management people and doctors. Most times one does not understand the other side.” Only time will tell if a formal training in management will be able to bridge the gap.

Source: The Economic Times, October 12, 2012

ISB earns Rs. 600 million through executive education programmes

The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad earned Rs. 60 crore (Rs. 600 million) from executive education programmes during 2011-12. “We are now the largest provider of executive education in India, offering open enrolment programmes as well as customised programmes to suit the specific needs of corporates,’’ Mr Deepak Chandra, Deputy Dean, ISB told Business Line.

During the last year, the premier business school trained over 4,000 senior executives through 125 programmes. Apart from its 50-odd regular faculty members, ISB has empanelled 150 visiting faculty from industry and academic institutions across the globe. The duration of the programmes generally range from three days to about a month depending on the nature of the course.

Apart from corporates, ISB also offers programmes to officials in Government and public sector enterprises and even politicians. A group of legislatures drawn from different State assemblies were coached last year in leadership and other aspects of public policy. “The response for this was very good,” Mr Deepak Chandra said.

ISB also went global in executive education by entering into a memorandum of understanding with Karachi-based Institute of Business Admninistration (IBA) to commence programmes from June 2012. “We will also expand our international footprint to Bangladesh, Iran, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico and Nigeria,” the Deputy Dean added.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, April 20, 2012

Indian School of Business signs MoU with IBA in Karachi

The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi to provide executive education in Pakistan. The collaboration brings together the Centre for Executive Education (CEE) at ISB, one of the largest executive education providers in Asia and IBA, the oldest business school outside North America, to provide executive education courses to senior management executives looking to fast track their careers.

The MoU was signed by Deepak Chandra, Deputy Dean, ISB and Dr Ishrat Husain, Dean and Director, IBA, Karachi, at the ISB campus. Deepak Chandra said in a release, “We are confident that this partnership will help generate tremendous opportunities for cross-collaboration between the two schools and sets the tone for many more future associations aimed at nurturing business leaders and entrepreneurs who would contribute to the growth of business and industry in Pakistan.”

The course offerings will include ‘open programmes’ or short-duration programmes that are driven by research, ‘custom-designed programmes’ or specialised courses devised to cater to specific needs of a particular organisation as well as workshops and seminars. For starters, the proposed programmes would focus on family business, entrepreneurship, business leadership, strategy and related domains. This would later be expanded to include programmes on Public Private Partnership (PPP) as well.

While ISB will focus on the design and delivery of the programmes, IBA will be responsible for their marketing and promotion. The programmes will be conducted by ISB’s faculty. The first programme is slated to commence in June, 2012.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), April 13, 2012

ISB slips in FT rankings, IIM-A retains ground at 11th

The Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) has slipped seven places to rank at 20 from 13th position in the Global Top MBA Rankings 2012 released by Financial Times, London. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, (IIM-A), which debuted last year, with its one-year post graduate programme for executives (PGPX), has cling on to its 11th position in the FT rankings.

ISB and IIM-A are the only Indian business schools featured on the FT rankings, as B-Schools which participate in the rankings must be internationally accredited and the management programme must have run for at least four consecutive years. This year, 150 B-Schools participated.

While FT-ranked IIM-A, as the top business school in terms of career progression, ISB stood at 29th position for the same. The weighted salary of IIM Ahmedabad stands at $175,076 whereas the weighted salary for ISB is $129,512.

“While the rankings are based on multiple parameters, the one area where we were ranked number one in the whole world was in career progression of our students. It is because of this that we have been able to maintain our 11th rank in the global MBA list brought out by FT,” said Saral Mukherjee, chairperson of PGPX at IIM-A.

IIM-A’s weighted salary is marginally up this year by $636, closing to Harvard Business School whose weighted salary is $178,249. The weighted salary for ISB on the other hand is $129,512, down by 3.64 per cent.

In terms of value for money parameter, IIM-A is ranked at 29th and ISB stood at 52. The overall salary percentage increase at IIM-A is 140 per cent, down by 12 per cent, compared to last year’s increase. ISB on the other hand recorded salary percentage increase of 177 per cent this year.

One of the factors for ISB’s comparatively overall lower rank may be its lack of participation in the doctoral rank category in which IIM-A has scored 52nd rank. Also, the IIM-A’s research rank was 92 this year, 11 positions below ISB’s 70th rank.

US-based Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton are ranked first, second and third respectively. China’s Hong Kong UST Business School is ranked tenth and National University of Singapore’s School of Business is ranked 23rd.

“Movement in rankings is very common and year-to-year variation happens all the time. You will have to understand that there are a large number of factors and each school makes changes in each factor over a period of time. Also these factors are closely clubbed together. So, you will see some huge swings in rankings. We, however, look at specific things like research ranking, where we have moved up and would want to be in the top 50. Also, so long as we remain among the top schools, we are satisfied,” said Ajit Rangnekar, Dean ISB.

Source: Business Standard, January 31, 2012

The B-School Hall of Fame

Indian School of Business (ISB) lost seven places to finish at 20 and Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) retained the 11th rank in the Financial Times, London, Global MBA Rankings for 2012.

Stanford Graduate School of Business topped the rankings for the first time, dethroning London Business School. ISB is in august company, though, sharing its rank with Yale School of Management and University of Oxford.

“The drop of seven does not bother me. Rankings are based on parameters not in our control,” says ISB Dean Ajit Rangnekar. “These are world-class B-schools. You have to be in the top set.”

IIM-A graduates, three years after passing out, earned the fourth highest salary and enjoyed the best career progress among all B-schools even though it ranked 11th in the overall rankings. The FT rankings are based on data across 20 parameters.

Source: The Economic Times, January 31, 2012

ISB offers entrepreneurial initiative to non-ISB students

After incubating more than 15 entrepreneurial ventures by its students in the last three years, Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) is now opening up its Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (EDI) to non-ISB students also. For this, ISB is talking to industry chambers, NASSCOM and the Indian Angel Network to tap students with an entrepreneurial bent of mind.

As part of the EDI, ISB students who wish to take up entrepreneurship and set up their own ventures go through a four-month assessment programme to check the viability of the venture. Students of the selected venture get free stay at the ISB campus and a stipend of Rs. 25,000 for a period of one year, besides the incentive of deferred placements. In return, the successful ventures have to donate 3% of their equity to the campus.

ISB’s current incubation initiative is focused on its EDI which is under its Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED). Under this initiative, almost 17 ventures by ISB graduates have been incubated since May 2009 and five have graduated. “More than 40 companies have supported EDI in the last three years and now we are talking to the Confederation of Indian Industry and individual institutes which run business plan competitions to get non-ISB students participate in the EDI. Initially, we want only 5-6 students per year in the programme,” said Krishna Tanaku, Executive Director, WCED at ISB.

The institute plans to roll out the programme to non-ISB students in 2012. However, the non-ISB students will not get accommodation on campus but only access to infrastructural and intellectual property related facilities. ISB is also in talks with NASSCOM — the apex body of the IT industry — to identify a few ventures that have been filtered to some extent, besides winners of business plan competitions in the country.

Source: The Financial Express, January 9, 2012

ISB Hyderabad to set up incubator for entrepreneurs

Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) is all set to establish an entrepreneurship incubator for its students, alumni and even outsiders. The institute only has a virtual incubator, called K-Hub, at present, which supports the start-ups and growth of high technology ventures.

“With more than 20% of the students being involved in entrepreneurship in some way or the other, there is huge growth happening in this area. Hence, we are working on a physical incubator model,” said Prof. Kavil Ramachandran, professor of family business and entrepreneurship at ISB.

The incubator, which will take at least one year to come into being, will help those with an entrepreneurial bent of mind, those who run family businesses and others who want to set up their own ventures by mentoring them through the start-up and growth phases. Besides idea validation, the incubator will help in business plan preparation, strategy creation and business development support.

The current K-Hub is a hybrid business incubator created in collaboration with the Andhra Pradesh government. It provides virtual incubation support to new and emerging SMEs. Through specialised mentoring, the programme aims to accelerate growth and self-sufficiency of these enterprises. More than 100 SMEs have already benefitted from the programme.

“Setting up the physical incubator is a priority item for the institute and it will be based on the virtual incubator model,” said Ramachandran. The incubator will be initially set up at ISB’s Hyderabad campus and may be extended to its upcoming Mohali campus later.

Source: The Financial Express, September 27, 2011

ISB to extend one-year PGPM course by six months

Global economic meltdown of 2008 and changing needs of industry and business is forcing B-schools to review curriculum. Indian School of Business (ISB), known for its one-year residential Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM), is likely to extend the duration of the course by including six-month internship. The institute is also looking at removing/adding certain subjects as per the need of recruiters.

MBA education and B-schools came in for heavy criticism for failing to adapt to changing global economy, particularly after the sub-prime crisis in the US that raised a need for ethical business practices and leadership skills at corporations, more so at financial institutions. Harvard Business School was among the first to address these needs by putting more weightage on industry experience.

In India, IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Calcutta recently organised a two-day conference “MBA Education: The Road Ahead” where some 30 B-Schools and recruiters participated and started a process to prepare a curriculum that can produce industry ready graduates. Both the IIMs carried out a survey which suggested that many recruiters do not get expected skills in the recruits. The next conference will be organised at IIM-Calcutta in October.

Many B-Schools, including IIMs, are expected to use the outcome of the conference for curriculum change in the near future. SP Jain Institute of Management & Research changed its curriculum recently and Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) has kickstarted the process. Faculty at Harvard Business School Srikant Datar, who authored the book “Rethinking The MBA: Business Education at a Crossroad”, is going to organise similar conferences in the US, Europe, Latin America, China and Africa by April 2012.

ISB had reviewed its curriculum some five years ago. “It is necessary to review curriculum of MBA course every five years. We have seen that a large number of B-Schools have changed their curriculum after slowdown. We have also started the process in May this year,” said Dishan Kamdar, senior associate dean of ISB, who is also chairman of the curriculum review committee.

The committee consists faculty representatives from areas like finance, marketing, strategy, organisational behavior, operations, accounting and IT. They will get feedback from various stakeholders like recruiters, alumni and other B-Schools. According to Kamdar, the curriculum review usually takes two years but they plan to complete it in a year. “The review will help us to know whether there is a need for major reform or not. We have seen that large investment banks offer Pre-Placement Offers (PPOs) only to interns. Our PGP course does not have internship. After the review, we may include internship as well and to accommodate it, we may increase PGP course duration by six months,” Kamdar added. In the 2011 placement season, ISB received 33% offers in consulting, 21% in IT/ITes and only 12% in banking and financial services sector.

Currently, ISB offers Experiential Learning Programme (ELP) to the PGP students under which they work in teams with the industry. Students study areas like market positioning and entry strategies, new product development, developing growth strategies and talent management strategies in ELP. ISB may also add a subject on business ethics in the new curriculum. “Currently, students attend one-day conference about ethics, but in the MBA education, the subject has become important and we may add ethics as a subject,” he added.

ISB’s founding associate and associate schools like Wharton, Kellog School of Management, London Business School, MIT Sloan and The Fletcher School are also providing feedback for the curriculum change to ISB. Deepak Chandra, deputy dean of ISB, also said internships can be added in the new curriculum. “MBA schools have a challenge to prove that MBA education fulfils the new-age needs. India needs quality business leaders. The changing times demand that B-Schools create responsibility in students to take decisions,” he said. ISB will also think about relevance of subjects and cases in terms of needs of Indian economy. It will also review teaching pedagogies and may increase emphasis on learning through simulations.

Source: The Economic Times, August 22, 2011