Business School degree’s applicability in Indian context.

A friend of mine pursuing PhD from IIT Powai keeps me on the toe most of the times. His views are thought provoking. The other day I was chatting with him and we started discussing applicability of management degree in Indian context. Though we couldn’t talk much, here are my views on the topic.

In my two years of grinding at one of the prestigious management school, I have studied and solved more than 100 case studies apart from the regular curriculum. Case study is best way of teaching as it gives insights to numerous factors integrated with each other. It is like practical examples getting solved in class rooms, hence giving exposure to real life scenario. If I retrospect, the case studies mostly dealt with American and European MNCs chasing and expanding at various geographies worldwide. It focused on issues that they faced while expanding overseas. How some xyz company has changed the landscape, or changed the face of an industry. From McDonald’s supply Chain issues, South-West Airlines game changing strategy to Wal-mart, Coca cola and Nestlé’s Maggi... mostly the cases were about developed countries and issues faced by such countries. The cases dealt with subject including strategies, stern labour laws, supply chain, merger and acquisitions, branding, positioning, managing working capital, capital budgeting, etc. The depth and breadth was very wide.

Yet it somewhere missed the Indian story. I am not able to recall all the cases, but I did study few cases which dealt with companies like the Unilever and P&G and few others, entering in Indian markets. I think Big Bazaar could be a great case study in itself. No one taught or thought of creating a hyper market with stuff arranged in chaotic manner to give it an “Indian bazaar” look, the way Indians like to shop. The success of Café Coffee Day is keeping world biggies like Starbucks at bay restricting its entry into the Indian markets. The positioning, location of the outlets and the youth appeal has seen the brand become stronger and stronger. The pricing is perfect; the management knows how much a college student’s pocket can afford. Haldiram’s is another case in point for strategies revolving around sales and distribution. You go to any place in India, on any railway station and you would find a Haldiram’s namkeen packet. Parle is another example for that matter. BCCI -the money minting machine dominating the world of Cricket, Indian railways, IPL, Chanakya neeti, Reliance Industries refinery plant, Tata Nano, the dabba walas, the networking of locals in Mumbai, etc. There are many many Indian examples which are worth studying giving great insights into various aspects.

I think we need to focus on how corporates of foreign origin deal with various issues when they try to expand in difficult geographies. They teach us how to handle language and cultural barriers, how to localize and keep pace with grow. Sitting in class room, we get to know challenges in growing business in countries like the US, France, Germany or Australia for that matter. It definitely gives exposure of world class and our thought process becomes much more informed. We become globalize and think as a global manager. We dissect strategies of Wal-mart, we find follies, think out of box and present the case to the class and submit our recommendations. We say that the company should have done these things and they could have saved these many million dollars additionally. I have my self submitted a research report comparing the strategies of Jack Welch, ex-CEO of General Electric and Jeff Immlet, the present CEO of GE. It was appreciated but it remained on papers. Had I studied JRD Tata’s vision and Mr. Ratan Tata’s vision and submitted it, possibility of its application would have increased. I work in an Indian MNC and I hardly apply what lessons I learnt during my management studies. Though the outlook is global. it is macro in nature. The skills developed are utilized but I see a huge gap between what is taught and what is applied.

The percentage exposure needs to shift a bit. If the proportion of content shifts from developed counties to developing nations the applicability would increase at work place. Our thoughts will be more realistic. We will think and innovate with some practicality in it. The second fastest growing economy is vast and diverse and a difficult market to operate in. It is religious by nature dominated by middle class psyche, divided into rural-semi urban and urban markets, the demography mix is unique. The consumer is cautious as information has empowered him and expects a lot from the manufacturers/ service providers. The youth is modern in outlook yet its core values are very much rooted. Somewhere that Indian heart beats loud. The number of Indian brands nurtured domestically knocking at the global level to get recognized; even the fastest growing economy cannot match.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: Every case study, irrespective of the geography, company or subject it deals with, hones the skills to match the corporate requirements. But if the curriculum increases share of case studies enumerating Indian scenario or scenarios from developing nations, may be from 15% of all case studies to 40%, the young guns would relate to it more. It will help in channelizing thoughts with lot more practicality and applicability.

Should engineers be stopped from joining IT companies?

A friend of mine uploaded a video which contained comparison of Indian and US education system. He posted his comment on the video. Another friend gave his thoughts and then I joined. In minutes few other friends joined and it became a serious, intellectually driven discussion.

Sarang is of the view that engineers should not join IT companies. The companies are bulling them, killing talent. We are working for US companies, increasing dependency. We need to step up and change our mentality from job seekers to Job creator. We are so much dependent on other countries for work, what will happen if they stop outsourcing? We should look for creating robust economy. He is of the opinion that India is an agri-economy. We should produce more farmers; help the poor condition of farmers. If a farmer’s child becomes engineer and joins MNC, who would do farming activity? Narendra agreed with Sarang’s most of the views.

Kalyan is of the opinion that IT industry has empowered the youth, the future. As compared to our father’s time, the salaries paid are lot better. He is of the opinion that job creators are always few in numbers as compared to seekers. The balance is always in this ratio. He also agrees that agriculture is taking second preference due to growing and lucrative corporate option.

Nikhil emphasized that education is not about jobs. Can Education make us a good citizen, well mannered person is important a question as whether it can give us means for living. Just realizing a fat pay cheque doesn’t serve the purpose.

I am of the opinion that IT companies have helped in strengthening Indian economy. Young, talented people are getting employed. The economy which was poor pre IT revolution is now called a developing economy. It might have increased the dependency on other countries for work, but then IT is always a support industry. It supports core business activities to function effectively. We should not be worrying regarding what if outsourcing is stopped for India. We are now a part of their successful business model. We are important entities and it might happen that we change the business model and leave the MNCs high and dry. IT is providing jobs to Bsc graduates, who had no option earlier.

The spending capacity of new, young breed has helped propel various industries to grow. Retail industry has seen exponential growth due to high spending, media and movie industry, housing industry – at the age of 26 years people are buying house taking loans, sale of automobiles is on the roll, banks are hugely benefited by confident young borrowers, government is spending on infrastructure like never before, high tax collections from working class is also the underlying reason.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: IT industry has helped the economy in many ways to grow than one. It is the backbone and the Indian economy is now rightly called as service based economy. It has created some world class institutions and leaders like NR Murthy, Pranav Mistry, to name a few. Do you still think engineers should be stopped from joining IT companies?

Dropouts are better than the finishers, aren’t they?

When you see the list of dropouts who made it to the top, you feel, oh really, isn’t the list impressive. Henry Ford –Ford Motors, Bill Gates-Microsoft, Larry Ellison-Oracle, Sheldon Adelson-Las Vegas Sands Corp, Larry Page-Google, Kirk Kerkorian-Tracinda, Michael Dell-Dell, Paul Allen-Microsoft, David Geffen-Geffen Records, Steve Jobs-Apple, Richard Branson-Virgin, Subhash Chandra-Zee TV, Jerry Yang-Yahoo, Mark Zuckerberg-Facebook, etc. It’s a long and a very impressive list. Almost every company is leader in its industry. An interesting fact, the age of people when they dropped out is between 12 to 21 and on an average it is 17 years. And the average age when they reached the pinnacle, is 32 years. When you are really young, new and naïve, hit it hard. That doesn’t mean you cannot do if you are grown up now. Just that you have more responsibilities now.

So what makes them so special? In my opinion, they were already graduates. They dropped out from the college indicating that they were capable enough to sail through in this dynamic world. They are beyond a degree, books and class rooms. They gave finest institutions to the world. They knew what they wanted to do. They knew where their heart was. They had courage to follow their guts. They had the capacity to risk their life. You don’t get chance to get into Stanford and Harvard schools every day. Yet they did what they did. Had they completed their designed courses and colleges, they would have been working in some company with a lot lower salary, lot lower satisfaction and killing their creativity and belief without feeding it enough.

Steve Jobs, among the most influential, biggest industry trend setter, dropped out because he didn’t find value in the class rooms. Schools should not be meant to train or discipline minds, it should encourage pushing limits of mind, exploring and traveling uncharted territory. Life should be made disciplined, not mind. A disciplined mind would always think lot of times before venturing into a risky preposition, resulting mostly in postponing the idea.

There are people who have dropped out but do not figure out in the list. I guess they really needed degrees to make it big, if at all they wanted to. They lacked in passion and vision. They lacked in energy and belief. People who are trained and made it to big, well they were supposed to. They were trained to make it big. People who are trained and yet to make big, well they need to do things differently now. They need to do things the way they never did, to achieve what they never have.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: Listen to your heart and do what you want. Don’t get bogged down because of society. At the same time be realistic. If you know that you are not a Steve Jobs, nor you have an idea, nor you have any clue what you want in life, follow the herd. Be in majority. Complete your degrees, make your parents proud and be satisfied, otherwise take risk and do what you want to do!

STUDYING = STUDENT + DYING!

My heart sinks when I read about students hanging themselves or jumping infront of a running train and kill themselves. Mostly the reason is studies and the pressure to score high in exams. Peer pressure. "99% marks laaoge to ghadi, varna chhadi..."
 

Not everyone can take same amount of pressure. If students are killing themselves, I believe it is the solely responsibility of parents more than teachers. No one knows a child better than parents. A mother know what her crying baby wants. So, when the kids grow up, it is the duty of the parents to push their kids only to an extent they can handle. I call it the baloon effect: there is always a pressure limit, when crossed, bursts! Tell them stories, to keep them motivated and make them fit for facing challenges boldly. Set achievable targets. Escapism is easy but thats really isnt what we want to do, when we take birth as human beings.


In the movie 3Idiots, it is shown that the character hung himself because he was denied of extension of time and another change to showcase his project. And Aamir khan does it within time, thinking outof box. But the by the time it was ready, the student has already quit from the world. He failed to believe in himself. And in that scene the audience realises that he should have kept on going , it was within the horizon. Ofcourse, it was movie and so aamir could do it, but in real life too, things arent out of control most of the times. It is the decision we take, decides the fate!

Life isnt easy. It brings difficulties of different variations for different people. Lot of times, we need to think from a macro perspective rather than looking at the issue constantly. Lot of times we need to take a break, indulge into something else and get back to our study/work afresh. We get only one life, we need to make most of it, almost everytime!


I think todays generation who are in schools, are unfit to handle pressure is:
they hardly go out to play on play grounds. We were lucky in this regards, I use to play for 2 hours daily after school in the evening. I skipped homeworks, I skipped assignment, but the mind was fit for handling the pressure. Todays generation is glued to internet as soon as they come home. I have seen my cousins discussing home work via scraping on orkut. They think joining "I dont like doing homework", "My class teacher is dumb", communities is cool. I started using it when I was in graduation. Orkut, Facebook and other social websites evolved much later. Twitter is the latest thing. Cell phone was given to me in graduation 2nd year, after lot of pleadings.


fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: The system is not to blame. Study course and material is never to blame. The environment and ecology is to be blamed. The parents are to be blamed that they are not allowing kids to play and choose their area of interest. Children should be feed with motivational stories. They should be shaped into a better and allround personality and not just class toppers or high achievers.