Honouring Management Education Leaders

BW Businessworld recently organised its 2023 edition of the Future of Management Education Conclave. More than 50 directors, management education leaders, hiring managers and industry experts came together to discuss the evolving nature of business schools. Leaders discussed the challenges in management education today, preparing students for the competitive market and the importance of continuous learning and skilling for students and faculty alike.

The full-day event showcased panel discussions and fireside chats to exchange ideas and discuss trends and opportunities in education beyond the classroom. This knowledge-disseminating and networking conclave brought together the brightest minds and recognised some of the best performers in management education today.

Dr Pritam Singh Best Director of the Year Award

This year, as part of the Future of Management Education Conclave, BW Education, BW Businessworld launched the Dr Pritam Singh Best

Director/Institute Builder Award, named in honour of the late Padma Shri educationist, Dr Pritam Singh.

The Dr Pritam Singh Best Director of the Year Award is a flagship award named after Dr Pritam Singh, a distinguished and eminent Management School Director who made an exceptional contribution to the field of management education. Dr Pritam Singh was an extraordinary thought leader, he was an advisor to several national boards, wrote seven academic books, and published over 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. This award is in remembrance of his legacy and was awarded to Prof Janat Shah, former Director of IIM Udaipur for his contributions to the field of management research & education and for nurturing one of the youngest IIMs of the country into a prominent institute.

Award-winning B-schools

The award-winning B-schools were as follows:

· Best Use of Digital Technology: IIM Calcutta and Manav Rachana International Institute of Research and Studies

· Emerging B-school Award: Ramaiah Institute of Management

· Best B-school in Industrial Training: IIM Nagpur

· Best Distance Learning Institute: IMT Ghaziabad

· Best B-school in Leadership Excellence: Lexicon Management Institute of Leadership & Excellence

· Best International Immersion Award: SP Jain Institute of Management & Research

Highlights of FMEC Conclave

The new education policy aims to increase the enrolment ratio in Indian higher education from 27 per cent to 50 per cent by 2030, which is impossible with the current physical infrastructure, providing enough space for the whole online learning movement to occupy, said Anish Srikrishna, President & CEO, Times Pro, during a conversation with Annurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld Group and Founder, exchange4media, on the pivotal role Edtech can play in education management. He was speaking at Future of Management Education Conclave 2023, on the theme ‘Management Education – Pivotal Role That Edtech Can Play’.

About courses in vogue, Srikrishna added that there is massive uptake on technology-related courses as well as convergent courses like management technology.

A global management edu-hub

As B-schools prepare themselves to match the existing benchmark of global institutions, it’s also important to remember that they have given many prudent management professionals to the world who are leading big firms. In the panel discussion on ‘Making India the Global Management Education Hub’, Mohit Aggarwal, Founder of Doon Business School Group, Dehradun emphasised that the role of in-house institutions needs to be discussed in this context.

Mayank Daundiyal, Dean, Jindal Global Business School, said that it would be interesting to see how many B-schools and top management universities in the world would set up here in India.

Daundiyal also highlighted the expensive cost of admission in global B-schools that are going to be set up in India. “If one looks at the tuition fees a typical

student pays to the public or private institution in India, it is just a fraction of what top B-schools charge outside India, then we need to look up to its viability," he said.

In this regard, Madhu Chitkara, Pro-Chancellor, Chitkara University stated, “If the foreign institutes and universities are going to establish their campuses in the diverse countries like India, they will not compromise with their fee structure that they have in their country and people are not going to pay that.”

Subir Verma, Director of the Institute of Management, Nirma University called the entire movement of foreign universities coming to India part of the way the entire management education has grown over the world.

“We are noticing the emergence of a new category of students who are acquiring management education just on the basis of fees,” said Verma.

"Making India a hub of global management education is about enhancing the quality of management education in India to match the global benchmark," stressed Sanjeev Bansal, Dean - Faculty of Management Studies, Director, Amity Business School.

He stated, “As an educator, coming of foreign universities to India does not worry me but I am worried about how we have to make ourselves equipped with the standards that foreign universities are taking care of.”

Building Student Career Beyond Placements

"Business Schools in India are actually not focussing only on placements. Placement is just a process. All the skills that we are building in a B-school go much beyond placement in the corporate world, in business and in life in particular," said Anil Somani, Chairman, FOSTIIMA Business School, in the panel discussion on the above-mentioned theme.

Asit K. Barma, Director, Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli, opined that the business order around us is getting highly dynamic and we really can't predict what mix of candidates will come onboard.

Pawan Kumar Singh, Director, IIM Tiruchirappalli, stated that MBA is not meant for enabling students to become eligible for becoming management trainees or just to get placed. "MBA is a lifetime qualification."

"Living may be covered by placement but life cannot be covered by placement. Transcending from managing living to managing life is significant," he added.

Praveen Gupta, Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, concurred. "We are trapped into this thought process to some extent but the students, the faculty, the administration, everybody including parents should look at management education as the vehicle to get prepared for all kinds of adversities," he stated.

"All of us as business schools are trying to ingrain a lot of important values, different kinds of skill sets, holistic learning as well but when placement season comes - everything goes out of the window and then we are all measured on that one metric. But at IMT, we are focussed on entrepreneurship and innovation," shared Vishal Talwar, Director, IMT Ghaziabad.

Moderator Bhimaraya Metri, Director, IIM Nagpur said, "If we look at the top 50 Indian B-schools, the fee is extremely high. Students opt for loan and that's why they look for better placements."

Evolving Hiring Practices

The hiring process has transformed dramatically since the early 2000s. The processes are all so different that it’s difficult to imagine what seems common now (like LinkedIn, video messages and texting) didn’t exist in the same capacity only two decades ago. And this change is due to rapid technological advancements.

To add to the same, Dheeraj Modi, VP and Global HR Head, NLB Services stated, “There are many things and changes which are not in control of human

touch and one of it is technology. In November 2022, ChatGPT, the brainchild of Elon Musk was launched; creating a human assistant. Trust me, it has bypassed Google in terms of Artificial Intelligence.”

Amit Sharma, Chief People and Culture Officer, Volvo Group India, pointed out, “We are slowly getting back to the hiring where soft skills and behavioural aspects too were important factors in hiring any prospective candidate. Today, most employers are critical of hiring just basis technical skills, as now offices have become in-person again, and behavioural aspects too will play a pivotal role in hiring.”

Talking about firings and retrenchments, Yuvaraj Srivastava, Group CHRO, MakeMyTrip said, “If we see, layoffs aren’t something new. Churning out 250 people out of a lot of 10,000 or 20,000 employees is pretty normal. It’s just that now these numbers are being put into social media which is gaining hype.”

Sandeep Girotra, CHRO, DCM Shriram stressed that if employees are expecting a commitment from the employer that they won’t be retrenched, then “I suggest them to go to Banaras, kyonki professional world mein ye to hoga nahi (these things are bound to happen in the professional world).”

Among the other panel themes were Shaping Future Entrepreneurs, Bridging Industry-Academia Gap, Industry 5.0 and Diversity and Inclusion on campuses.