By the end of this decade we can see two trends emerging—the true globalisation of Indian management education and much higher usage of technology.
For the past several decades, management education has been one of the most coveted disciplines globally. Applicants seek quality education that can fast-track their understanding of economies and business. Corporate firms are looking for job-ready individuals who can understand the bigger picture and contribute to their growth story. Business school graduates are driving change through leadership positions across industries and sectors.
Being a relatively recent discipline and the one that is
context-specific, management education must undergo frequent changes. Innovate
or die is the mantra that business schools have to adopt in order to stay
relevant. They must appreciate the changes in the way business is done and
accordingly review their curriculum, methodology and people. Business schools
that insist on following the traditional approach will be doing a disservice to
their students and to the recruiters as well.
The decade gone by saw two significant changes that
management schools went through. The first was in terms of student profile.
Diversity came into focus. Scholarship programmes were started for women
students. Students with work experience across industries were invited back to
the classroom—for this, the focus in the entrance criteria shifted from test
scores alone to the candidate’s experience and exposure. Several business
schools changed their entrance criteria and started giving credit to qualities
beyond a test score. For example, in 2009, the School of Inspired Leadership
introduced Caliper, a profiling tool that tests applicants for their leadership
potential. The intent was to strengthen the diversity in business school
classrooms.
The second change was industry involvement. Increasingly,
senior executives became more conscious of the importance of contributing to
education and were willing to make the time for this across business schools.
They came on board as mentors, visiting faculty, guest speakers and for research
collaborations, offering live projects—over and above industry
internships—which gave students the opportunity to learn in a real-world
setting under the guidance of seasoned professionals. Looking ahead, we can see
two trends emerging—one is the globalisation of management education and the
other is the increasing use of technology.
The world has definitely shrunk and business schools must
swim with this tide. More and more students today ask for global exposure.
While exchange programmes have long been part of the business school
curriculum, now joint degrees are being offered as well, which lead to a
diverse learning experience.
The time-honoured case study method of business schools is
also being augmented by global immersion experiences where students do a live
project overseas. This kind of real-world exposure in a different context and
setting can prepare students for global leadership roles—much needed in today’s
corporate context.
Increasingly, business schools are playing host to India
immersion programmes for senior executives of other nationalities. They partner
with other business schools and consulting firms to arrange a learning
experience for their executive education programme participants. Recently, we
met a delegation of women leaders from Chile to share with them our inspired
leadership model. Such dialogues increase awareness about the Indian education
system and deepen global partnerships, which, in turn, pave the way for
students to enhance their learning.
One of the biggest reasons for this kind of cross-cultural
exposure is the increased use of technology in the current business setting.
This, in itself, is another upcoming trend in higher education today. Till
recently, technology-related discussions may have been restricted to the MIS or
statistics classrooms. Soon, technology will make its way into every classroom.
Going forward, the acute shortage of credible faculty and
the resulting costs will lead to greater acceptance of online courseware. This
can be of two types—recorded videos of in-house faculty or MOOCs (massive open
online courses) by other schools. MOOCs are available freely across subject
areas. MOOCs also give an opportunity to students to add to their repertoire of
skills and improve the opportunities available to them after college. Today, a
hybrid model of online and offline learning is developing the world over to
maximise student learning potential.
In today’s digital era, an in-depth technical orientation is
critical in every branch of learning. Across the board, technology has seeped
into management subjects. Social media awareness in marketing, big data
analytics, tech-based innovation, knowledge management, e-commerce and HR
analytics are all gaining importance. Faculty and learners alike must be able
to dissect data and be conversant with technology.
Business schools are fast accepting this fact and
conversations are on about how to get the best faculty on board for this.
Superior learning can happen if faculty has first-hand exposure to these areas.
For this, the current trend of industry involvement as faculty is essential to
make students job-ready.
Further, tech-savvy professors are also starting
conversations through communities of practice on social media commons such as
LinkedIn, SlideShare and others. This enables them to learn about the best
practices from across the globe and selectively apply what is appropriate to
their context. The rate of change of curriculum has to keep up with this
tech-enabled speed of knowledge sharing and dissemination.
This invigorating combination of globalisation and
technology-orientation will make business schools the best place to learn and
grow. Those who keep pace with this transformation will emerge as winners in
the minds of their students and industry partners as well.
