I have been very critical in my judgements recently about how MBA education in this country has largely become a business which is ruining the possibilities of young talent availability for the corporate world. Additionally, I am sure that a vast majority of the institutes present today in some form or the other are bound to close down if certain important and parallel trends are to be considered.
In the midst of all these, I have been closely following certain Universities for sometime now and it is actually great to see that some of these Universities are actually taking great strides in getting the neccessary internal processes in place to support the MBA program as it should be. They may not have an excellent past record (as some of them are new Universities) but with their current ways of work, they will probably find themselves as leading national brands in the next 2-3 years.
Some of the names that I am mentioning below are based on my understanding of how Universities may probably change the way management education is viewed in India and bring back the rigour and excellent back in the system.
The ones that have future potential and could be excellent places to study in the future are: (not in any order)
1. VIT Vellore - Institute of Business Studies
2. Amrita University
3. Saastra University
4. Karpagam University
5. Prist University
6. Vinayaka Missions University - MBA
7. Veltech University
I have had close interactions with their Deans, faculty, and the administration to understand the ways they would want to go ahead with their programs and the ways they feel MBA should be taught in India. The answers have been commendable and thats really a good thing. It gives me, after my stint of understanding the filth in the system, a feeling of calmness that all is not lost and there will always be Universities and Business Schools like these who will take on responsibility and do the good work.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
12 Things that Indian Business Schools will have to Stop Talking about
In the last decade, there are quite many things that B-schools in India have showcased to lure/attract students into their programs. Due to the excessive usage of these so called "Unique Selling proposition" or at times the "Unique factors" by almost every b-school, these terms have now become irrelevant and are not associated with the way aspirants choose their Business school or programs.
The following things will probably be done away with:
1. Approvals - of the program (mostly AICTE). This no longer has any significance as the majority of the ones with the approvals are the ones sulking and possible are the worst examples of how a b-school shouldn't be.
2. AC Campus - How does it matter?
3. Well Stocked Library - Isn't this the bare minimum of a good MBA/PG program?
4. Free Laptop - Sounds like some Free Lunch being distributed at some temple and therefore will attract people to join. Heck! Why would someone who is paying Rs.5,00,000 as a course fee and additional expenses along with that have pains to buy a laptop worth Rs.25,000? And more so, how can this be a salient feature of a program?
5. Placement (100%) - A closer look with say how much of this is true. Some in the industry speak of horrific stories of how HR departments are paid money by a bschool to get the student an offer for 3 months and then probably chuck him out. If this is true, then thats a big scandal in itself. The important question is - Do I want to join an Educational institute or a Placement Agency to find me a job?
6. Additional Program of SAP - This is actually laughable stock. I mean, there are so many credits available for students in some of the best institutes that something like this is hillarious.
7. Hostel Facility - Why does anyone have to mention this as one of the key features?
8. Visiting Faculty from XYZ Institutes - Which means that full-time faculty strength is low or absent and therefore academic rigour is absent. visiting faculty is always a way of saving cost for any b-school.
9. Hygenic Canteen - As if food in other campuses kill aspirants.
10. Wi-fi Campus - If I belong to the 1990s and have slept after that to be woken up to do an MBA, I may say "wow" to that. People who understand the way technology has evolved and the requirements to be provided to MBA students, they will find this mention amusing.
11. Scholarships - At the counseling stage, this becomes "Discount". Education becomes some kind of bargainable commodity. This factor has been overused and aspirants have no respect for something like this anymore, therefore this too is avoidable in communications to aspirants.
12. International Curriculum - Some even go the distance of saying that their curriculum reflects those of Harvard's or Wharton's. For the unknown, this might be an attraction, but for the larger section of aspirants who are aware of facts and do their research, this is a LIE. You cannot ever replicate the curriculum of those Universities because the kind of credits available and the amount of teaching hours and number of Professors teaching there is not possible to be replicated by even some of the best in India.
If B-schools avoid these and get into properly identifying themselves with the aspirants, it will be better for the bschools in every possible way. The question is - do they have anything substantial to talk about if they choose to omit these from their Advertisements?
The following things will probably be done away with:
1. Approvals - of the program (mostly AICTE). This no longer has any significance as the majority of the ones with the approvals are the ones sulking and possible are the worst examples of how a b-school shouldn't be.
2. AC Campus - How does it matter?
3. Well Stocked Library - Isn't this the bare minimum of a good MBA/PG program?
4. Free Laptop - Sounds like some Free Lunch being distributed at some temple and therefore will attract people to join. Heck! Why would someone who is paying Rs.5,00,000 as a course fee and additional expenses along with that have pains to buy a laptop worth Rs.25,000? And more so, how can this be a salient feature of a program?
5. Placement (100%) - A closer look with say how much of this is true. Some in the industry speak of horrific stories of how HR departments are paid money by a bschool to get the student an offer for 3 months and then probably chuck him out. If this is true, then thats a big scandal in itself. The important question is - Do I want to join an Educational institute or a Placement Agency to find me a job?
6. Additional Program of SAP - This is actually laughable stock. I mean, there are so many credits available for students in some of the best institutes that something like this is hillarious.
7. Hostel Facility - Why does anyone have to mention this as one of the key features?
8. Visiting Faculty from XYZ Institutes - Which means that full-time faculty strength is low or absent and therefore academic rigour is absent. visiting faculty is always a way of saving cost for any b-school.
9. Hygenic Canteen - As if food in other campuses kill aspirants.
10. Wi-fi Campus - If I belong to the 1990s and have slept after that to be woken up to do an MBA, I may say "wow" to that. People who understand the way technology has evolved and the requirements to be provided to MBA students, they will find this mention amusing.
11. Scholarships - At the counseling stage, this becomes "Discount". Education becomes some kind of bargainable commodity. This factor has been overused and aspirants have no respect for something like this anymore, therefore this too is avoidable in communications to aspirants.
12. International Curriculum - Some even go the distance of saying that their curriculum reflects those of Harvard's or Wharton's. For the unknown, this might be an attraction, but for the larger section of aspirants who are aware of facts and do their research, this is a LIE. You cannot ever replicate the curriculum of those Universities because the kind of credits available and the amount of teaching hours and number of Professors teaching there is not possible to be replicated by even some of the best in India.
If B-schools avoid these and get into properly identifying themselves with the aspirants, it will be better for the bschools in every possible way. The question is - do they have anything substantial to talk about if they choose to omit these from their Advertisements?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
[Fiction] - The conspiracy theory behind 2nd rung B-schools failing in India
Story:
Some years back, when management education was just accepted as the most important thing to happen for India and people started participating in entrance tests with a lot of interest, there was a growth story that tickled many educators to start their own management schools and programs.
The biggest and the best names were definitely the IIMs (at that time, there were only 5 of them). Therefore most of the new business schools replicated what worked for the IIM.: curriculum, project work, case studies, etc. Some even went to the extent of creating illusionary cut-offs so that they are perceived in the same league as the best institutions.
What did this mean?
Ans: This meant the following:
1. If the IIM was charging a fee of Rs.4,00,000 for the entire program, these bschools too charged same or a bit less to maintain parity
2. If the IIM was showing certain trends in placements, these bschools too tried to get similar companies for their own placements.
3. If IIM was saying that an X-factor is important in the GD-PI or industry interaction was done in a "Y" way, then these bschools also tried to do the same.
So what transpired is that for every move the IIM made, there were about 1000 business schools who followed the same and talked the same language. Everyone talked about infrastructure in hostels, classrooms, library, industry interaction (Heck ! some even got themselves ranked as the ones who are the best in Industry interaction), PLACEMENTS, etc.
Anyone with a little analysis and common sense would now understand that whatever the IIM did, these bschools were certain to replicate that.
Things like these (replication i.e.) work for sometime and it did for a lot of these bschools.
Now, all of a sudden, the IIMs raised their tuition fee to about Rs.8-9 lakhs. This was interpreted by the other bschools as - "Students will now feel that with lesser fee, our bschools are providing lesser quality education. So let us increase our fee as well."
And they did!
The point missed by them was - the parity between the fee paid and the placement achieved along with the brand-value of an IIM is unbeatable and that IIMs will always have that leverage in the mindshare of aspirants.
They will never get there because they didnt have the number of years as a proof of quality educator and they also dont have the intellectual property that an IIM commands. We should also remember here that the IIM is a body thats supported by the Ministry of HRD itself.
Add to the this entire situation the current trend of aspirants profiling wherein about 60% of the entrance test takers are with prior work experience. these are people who are wary about the ROI equation and brand leveraging in their careers.
Almost every other business school has increased its tuition fee and therefore cannot back-track and work out any reduction in prices in the coming years. Which means that they now face a challenge of answering very tough questions -
Q1. Are they in the same league as of the IIMs with similar fee structures? So is it worth going for them vis-a-vis the IIMs who are now coming up with new branches? (they already have 6 campuses).
Q2. Given that placement figures from these other b-schools cannot provide anything similar to the IIMs, how will they ever explain the ROI of investing so much money as fees?
Q3. Most of the 2nd rung b-schools are run on leased premises and have high advertising costs and operations expenses. How will they manage the mathematics of survival given that admission rates will drop?
As of now, the future game looks like this:
-> IIMs and some other top-Business schools will open multiple campuses across India.
-> Their intakes will increase - it is a trend already and they can support such intakes with their infrastructure and Govt backing.
-> Placements will continue to be good at the IIMs due to their brand equity and also due to their Alumni base in India Inc.
-> IIMs will probably set the work-experience barrier and convince India Inc about the advantages of the same. This will lead to further narrowing down chances of survival of other 2nd rung business schools.
What does this mean for 2nd Rung Business Schools?
- End of the way: they will not be able to survive if IIMs increase their capacities and campuses and provide more choices to the students.
- These institutes may then get into super-specialized programs providing inexpensive solutions to certain domains.
It seems unlikely that the best minds in the IIMs were not aware of the trends that would happen after every action of theirs. They knew that every action they would have taken, things would have changed in the domain. And it really did. Thats the power of controlling the mindshare of lakhs of aspirants in India.
Some years back, when management education was just accepted as the most important thing to happen for India and people started participating in entrance tests with a lot of interest, there was a growth story that tickled many educators to start their own management schools and programs.
The biggest and the best names were definitely the IIMs (at that time, there were only 5 of them). Therefore most of the new business schools replicated what worked for the IIM.: curriculum, project work, case studies, etc. Some even went to the extent of creating illusionary cut-offs so that they are perceived in the same league as the best institutions.
What did this mean?
Ans: This meant the following:
1. If the IIM was charging a fee of Rs.4,00,000 for the entire program, these bschools too charged same or a bit less to maintain parity
2. If the IIM was showing certain trends in placements, these bschools too tried to get similar companies for their own placements.
3. If IIM was saying that an X-factor is important in the GD-PI or industry interaction was done in a "Y" way, then these bschools also tried to do the same.
So what transpired is that for every move the IIM made, there were about 1000 business schools who followed the same and talked the same language. Everyone talked about infrastructure in hostels, classrooms, library, industry interaction (Heck ! some even got themselves ranked as the ones who are the best in Industry interaction), PLACEMENTS, etc.
Anyone with a little analysis and common sense would now understand that whatever the IIM did, these bschools were certain to replicate that.
Things like these (replication i.e.) work for sometime and it did for a lot of these bschools.
Now, all of a sudden, the IIMs raised their tuition fee to about Rs.8-9 lakhs. This was interpreted by the other bschools as - "Students will now feel that with lesser fee, our bschools are providing lesser quality education. So let us increase our fee as well."
And they did!
The point missed by them was - the parity between the fee paid and the placement achieved along with the brand-value of an IIM is unbeatable and that IIMs will always have that leverage in the mindshare of aspirants.
They will never get there because they didnt have the number of years as a proof of quality educator and they also dont have the intellectual property that an IIM commands. We should also remember here that the IIM is a body thats supported by the Ministry of HRD itself.
Add to the this entire situation the current trend of aspirants profiling wherein about 60% of the entrance test takers are with prior work experience. these are people who are wary about the ROI equation and brand leveraging in their careers.
Almost every other business school has increased its tuition fee and therefore cannot back-track and work out any reduction in prices in the coming years. Which means that they now face a challenge of answering very tough questions -
Q1. Are they in the same league as of the IIMs with similar fee structures? So is it worth going for them vis-a-vis the IIMs who are now coming up with new branches? (they already have 6 campuses).
Q2. Given that placement figures from these other b-schools cannot provide anything similar to the IIMs, how will they ever explain the ROI of investing so much money as fees?
Q3. Most of the 2nd rung b-schools are run on leased premises and have high advertising costs and operations expenses. How will they manage the mathematics of survival given that admission rates will drop?
As of now, the future game looks like this:
-> IIMs and some other top-Business schools will open multiple campuses across India.
-> Their intakes will increase - it is a trend already and they can support such intakes with their infrastructure and Govt backing.
-> Placements will continue to be good at the IIMs due to their brand equity and also due to their Alumni base in India Inc.
-> IIMs will probably set the work-experience barrier and convince India Inc about the advantages of the same. This will lead to further narrowing down chances of survival of other 2nd rung business schools.
What does this mean for 2nd Rung Business Schools?
- End of the way: they will not be able to survive if IIMs increase their capacities and campuses and provide more choices to the students.
- These institutes may then get into super-specialized programs providing inexpensive solutions to certain domains.
It seems unlikely that the best minds in the IIMs were not aware of the trends that would happen after every action of theirs. They knew that every action they would have taken, things would have changed in the domain. And it really did. Thats the power of controlling the mindshare of lakhs of aspirants in India.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
How can over 1500 Bschools in India Shutdown in 2 years
Yes. It is highly possible.
Imagine this:
There are over 2217 B-schools which comprises of about 1817 AICTE approved institutions and 400 un-approved private b-schools.
Together, they have over 1,99,000 seats for about 2,50,000 CAT Takers (if we consider CAT 2008 or CAT 2009).
If we hypothetically consider that Average fees charged by these bschools is Rs.2,00,000 for the program, then the total potential revenue for B-schools in India = Rs.3,990 Crores.
As there are less seats than the total supply of students, there should be no worries for these b-schools to get the required number of students for their batches to begin, right?
WRONG. Every year, from the last 2-3 years, more b-schools are finding it difficult to fill their batches when they begin in the month of June every year.
I am not talking about the Top-50 b-schools here. They have enough pull effect to attract excellent numbers and thereby have the privilege of even providing a waiting-list for candidates.
The worry is with the second and third category of b-schools. Most of them are run privately and are not funded. They were probably set-up with the right intentions to provide Management education to students in India who could not get through to the best b-schools due to some or the other reason. Some were also set up to provide education to a special section of the society.
However, Death looms large on these bschools. Primary reason is that they have never figured out the changing dynamics of the market and also the way aspirants choose bschools in the past few years.
Take so data for example - in the year 2003, out of the 95000 students who took CAT, the percentage of freshers was 60% and 40% were with work exp. Cut to 2009 CAT - 2,50,000 takers and 40% freshers with 60% work-ex junta.
We will all probably agree that in 2003, freshers chose higher education due to the fact that economy then promised them something really big if they were out in the next two years in the market. People who were working were already happy and never bothered much then with a 2 yr full time program. Filling seats for bschools therefore was never an issue.
Seeing these trends in 2003, many bschools mushroomed since then.
In the last couple of years, things have been really bad for most of these b-schools. They have found it tough to fill their batches with quality candidates. They have found that responses to their communication messages through marketing and branding are appalling. Overall, things have looked very bad.
A deeper look into the trends will give us a better idea - since there has been about 60% of the total CAT takers who had prior work-ex, we can safely assume that these people will not settle for a b-schools thats not in the top 50. This is due to the fact that they are very sure of the time they will spend (2 years) and also the return on investment that they will realize after the 2 yr period.
This means that 60% of the crowd now doesnt consider the remaining 2000 odd institutes as the ones they will want to join for this year. Thats a huge blow.
The freshers are always the confused lot. If they get into a top50 bschool, they will take that immediately. If not, then they look out for the best options (mostly understanding what kind of placements are available with other bschools). This means a very slow decision process. With bschools who would have generated leads from websites or other sources, most of these freshers will be called atleast 30 times for following up if they have made any decision. That produces frustrations on both ends. Aspirants feel that - this college doesnt get applications and are therefore following up. For them it doesnt mean anything that the bschool is looking for genuine candidates to apply to them.
Which means that the spending on Print media (almost 20% of the total revenue) and other spending (like seminars, education fair) is now giving almost no result whatsoever.
If this is the trend, very soon these bschools will have to shutdown. Already, they have optimized in operational expenditures through - visiting faculty, class schedules, etc. They have already stretched it too thin. If they dont take the right steps right now, then they will surely be heading for a sad end. There is still hope. These bschools will need to look inward and ask themselves some very important questions:
1. What is lacking in us that we dont have the pull effect like others?
2. What are the right things that bschools like Glakes, ISB, etc have done that they are doing good today?
3. Do I have a Marketing+Admission team that has more people than my Full-time faculty members?
4. Whats my status in connection to important parameters on which the best forums dissect bschools on? (In most cases its not tables/chairs/food/computers/hostels/etc).
5. How will I reorganize the entire spending pattern for my bschool so that I make the right decisions in branding and consciously move into the Top Bracket?
I have answers to all the above questions. the trouble is that with the kind of sweatshop way of working that these bschools have, it is difficult to make them see the light. However, extinction is a big threat and I guess it will have them thinking on this. It is high time that these bschools make the right decisions.
Imagine this:
There are over 2217 B-schools which comprises of about 1817 AICTE approved institutions and 400 un-approved private b-schools.
Together, they have over 1,99,000 seats for about 2,50,000 CAT Takers (if we consider CAT 2008 or CAT 2009).
If we hypothetically consider that Average fees charged by these bschools is Rs.2,00,000 for the program, then the total potential revenue for B-schools in India = Rs.3,990 Crores.
As there are less seats than the total supply of students, there should be no worries for these b-schools to get the required number of students for their batches to begin, right?
WRONG. Every year, from the last 2-3 years, more b-schools are finding it difficult to fill their batches when they begin in the month of June every year.
I am not talking about the Top-50 b-schools here. They have enough pull effect to attract excellent numbers and thereby have the privilege of even providing a waiting-list for candidates.
The worry is with the second and third category of b-schools. Most of them are run privately and are not funded. They were probably set-up with the right intentions to provide Management education to students in India who could not get through to the best b-schools due to some or the other reason. Some were also set up to provide education to a special section of the society.
However, Death looms large on these bschools. Primary reason is that they have never figured out the changing dynamics of the market and also the way aspirants choose bschools in the past few years.
Take so data for example - in the year 2003, out of the 95000 students who took CAT, the percentage of freshers was 60% and 40% were with work exp. Cut to 2009 CAT - 2,50,000 takers and 40% freshers with 60% work-ex junta.
We will all probably agree that in 2003, freshers chose higher education due to the fact that economy then promised them something really big if they were out in the next two years in the market. People who were working were already happy and never bothered much then with a 2 yr full time program. Filling seats for bschools therefore was never an issue.
Seeing these trends in 2003, many bschools mushroomed since then.
In the last couple of years, things have been really bad for most of these b-schools. They have found it tough to fill their batches with quality candidates. They have found that responses to their communication messages through marketing and branding are appalling. Overall, things have looked very bad.
A deeper look into the trends will give us a better idea - since there has been about 60% of the total CAT takers who had prior work-ex, we can safely assume that these people will not settle for a b-schools thats not in the top 50. This is due to the fact that they are very sure of the time they will spend (2 years) and also the return on investment that they will realize after the 2 yr period.
This means that 60% of the crowd now doesnt consider the remaining 2000 odd institutes as the ones they will want to join for this year. Thats a huge blow.
The freshers are always the confused lot. If they get into a top50 bschool, they will take that immediately. If not, then they look out for the best options (mostly understanding what kind of placements are available with other bschools). This means a very slow decision process. With bschools who would have generated leads from websites or other sources, most of these freshers will be called atleast 30 times for following up if they have made any decision. That produces frustrations on both ends. Aspirants feel that - this college doesnt get applications and are therefore following up. For them it doesnt mean anything that the bschool is looking for genuine candidates to apply to them.
Which means that the spending on Print media (almost 20% of the total revenue) and other spending (like seminars, education fair) is now giving almost no result whatsoever.
If this is the trend, very soon these bschools will have to shutdown. Already, they have optimized in operational expenditures through - visiting faculty, class schedules, etc. They have already stretched it too thin. If they dont take the right steps right now, then they will surely be heading for a sad end. There is still hope. These bschools will need to look inward and ask themselves some very important questions:
1. What is lacking in us that we dont have the pull effect like others?
2. What are the right things that bschools like Glakes, ISB, etc have done that they are doing good today?
3. Do I have a Marketing+Admission team that has more people than my Full-time faculty members?
4. Whats my status in connection to important parameters on which the best forums dissect bschools on? (In most cases its not tables/chairs/food/computers/hostels/etc).
5. How will I reorganize the entire spending pattern for my bschool so that I make the right decisions in branding and consciously move into the Top Bracket?
I have answers to all the above questions. the trouble is that with the kind of sweatshop way of working that these bschools have, it is difficult to make them see the light. However, extinction is a big threat and I guess it will have them thinking on this. It is high time that these bschools make the right decisions.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
How Indian Bschools are missing the point: Experiential Learnings from the economic downturn and leadership in times of change
One of most frustrating things to have noticed in my interactions with the bschools in the last year in India has been the total lack ot foresight in providing radical changes in curriculum or training to prepare their passing out batches about the ways to lead in time of change and also in times of economic downturn.
When I read reviews of how bschools abroad (US/UK/EU etc) have been very active with researched data and updated credits on these areas, it is sad that almost no bschool worth its salt in India has been able to figure these out and provide its students with the advantage that other will surely lack.
Going beyond the syllabus and the curriculum is very tough for any Indian educational setup because thats where performance of faculty members are looked into and no one pays for research or study beyond the scope of books.
Interviewing Bschool freshers (with or without pre-MBA experience) has been an eye-opener for me and probably others as well w.r.t how off-track these guys are to the real-time scenarios. Reading habits and other thigs helping in knowing more than the syllabus books are never practised. I will be happy to be proved wrong by any bschool that goes beyond motivating students to read the Eco-Times or other such journals as per their individual interest levels.
No research for Faculty members, no work on proprietary areas, and total lack ot foresight will hammer home one single point - India does not have Bschools that will grow and help the average post-MBA-intelligence to grow to a level wherein start-ups or SMEs or even good companies can look at excellent talent bases.
In one of my analysis that I am currently working on, I am trying to establish the possibility for an Indian Bschool to achieve the status of some of the IVY Leage colleges and the best of EU Bschools. What is startling is that I started with some 10 factors but in the second iteration I ended up with 5 more factors. (talk about things getting complicated). Any multiple-regression analysis will be able to give some graph that will provide insights into the way these various factors (put-together) will behave if tweaked against relative scales.
The truth is that things are not so cool for the Indian Bschools and they will have to do a lot of catching-up if they indeed wish to make some dent. But that means we are talking about vision statements that are logical and achievable. Any "About Us" statement should tell you about that. But sadly, I havent come across many that are clear in the things that they wish to achieve.
The Solution is a tedious process and will take enormous efforts. But what the heck. We Indians are good in copying others isnt it? I can just hope that some BSchools can start on some changes and others will be able to copy them and probably become better. :)
When I read reviews of how bschools abroad (US/UK/EU etc) have been very active with researched data and updated credits on these areas, it is sad that almost no bschool worth its salt in India has been able to figure these out and provide its students with the advantage that other will surely lack.
Going beyond the syllabus and the curriculum is very tough for any Indian educational setup because thats where performance of faculty members are looked into and no one pays for research or study beyond the scope of books.
Interviewing Bschool freshers (with or without pre-MBA experience) has been an eye-opener for me and probably others as well w.r.t how off-track these guys are to the real-time scenarios. Reading habits and other thigs helping in knowing more than the syllabus books are never practised. I will be happy to be proved wrong by any bschool that goes beyond motivating students to read the Eco-Times or other such journals as per their individual interest levels.
No research for Faculty members, no work on proprietary areas, and total lack ot foresight will hammer home one single point - India does not have Bschools that will grow and help the average post-MBA-intelligence to grow to a level wherein start-ups or SMEs or even good companies can look at excellent talent bases.
In one of my analysis that I am currently working on, I am trying to establish the possibility for an Indian Bschool to achieve the status of some of the IVY Leage colleges and the best of EU Bschools. What is startling is that I started with some 10 factors but in the second iteration I ended up with 5 more factors. (talk about things getting complicated). Any multiple-regression analysis will be able to give some graph that will provide insights into the way these various factors (put-together) will behave if tweaked against relative scales.
The truth is that things are not so cool for the Indian Bschools and they will have to do a lot of catching-up if they indeed wish to make some dent. But that means we are talking about vision statements that are logical and achievable. Any "About Us" statement should tell you about that. But sadly, I havent come across many that are clear in the things that they wish to achieve.
The Solution is a tedious process and will take enormous efforts. But what the heck. We Indians are good in copying others isnt it? I can just hope that some BSchools can start on some changes and others will be able to copy them and probably become better. :)
Thursday, February 4, 2010
How to lose money and your mind if you are an upcoming Indian Bschool?
A few years back, I was a core-team member of the Marketing and Admissions department of a bschool that was testing waters in terms of introducing new programs and starting to look at enrolling good number of students from across India.
I had enough interactions with the media (all forms of media, for the record) during these times wherein we were planning to go ahead with the admissions season activities. Since, most activities are related to BTL things that a bschool can do to optimize cost and probably reach out to maximum number of candidates, there was money that we needed to spend carefully.
During these interactions and the subsequent plans that many of the top media houses in India provided me with, I realized that the best way lose money in that domain was to listen to these top-notch newspapers and the special things that they do for you.
Some came with readership data, while others with special editions. They were there to make money and the best "bakra" that they found were bschools who let these people feel that education industry in the next best industry to spend good amount of money on Ads. When you show the carrot and dont have any knowledge of how to use it, the donkeys will have a gala time. And thats exactly what I figured out in the next 6 months time of my tenure.
Special editions are the worst possible things that can happen for anyone who is putting in money in newspaper ads. Special ads mean - there will be too many similar ads from BSchools across the geography (taking advantage of some discount) leading to 'Ad-Blindness' that kills the entire plan right away. So what do you do when you dont get response? You feel 'Oh, I guess another impression is required'. You go ahead with repeating the same mistake again and again.
Newspapers were never able to develop anything worthwhile for Educational institutions. It is not a medium that will give you anything. It has been losing sheen for quite sometime now, and the fact that there are certain institutions who spend crores to get Full Page Ads in TOI goes to show that credibility can be bought by those who have the money to do so. As an upcoming Bschool, you dont have the option to compete with those institutes.
Another way that bschools lose money is by participating in God-Foresaken educational exhibitions which are conducted in such a lousy fashion that the best thing one can expect out of these fairs are good lunch and picnic like travel and stay of the bschool representatives.
No event in India has been conducted with some thought. It is like book a space, throw in all sorts of institutes (bschools, finishing schools, modelling schools, lingerie making schools, etc.) and consultants (study abroad, study in India, etc.), throw in all kinds of students (10th standard students asking about MBA) and let everyone decide what they want to do. I know of institutes who "do not have any other choice" but to participate in these hillarious 'melas' in order to get some result. Invariably, everyone always complains about how things did not work. Every BSchool Diro tells the admission team that 'Ek bachcha le karke aana" then they break even for participating the event.
The problem of losing money and losing their minds is primarily because of the shortsightedness of these bschools. Neither they have the professional talent to think through winning strategies and implement the best ATL/BTL activities to get results, nor do they ever think of "zero-based" marketing plans. The best that they do is to plan according to the experience they had from some location last year. It takes a half-brainer to understand that things are dynamic and that the same results cannot be reaped from the same market with more money perhaps. Plan smartly and plan with some vision.
But for all of these to really happen, bschools will have to restructure themselves, think of raising the average intelligence quotient of students every year, and then looking at creating systems that will sustain development. I have personal doubts about 70% of the institutes i know of who cannot think of meeting ends (of getting the number of seats filled and then getting the money in through fees). Is there hope? I really dont know.
I had enough interactions with the media (all forms of media, for the record) during these times wherein we were planning to go ahead with the admissions season activities. Since, most activities are related to BTL things that a bschool can do to optimize cost and probably reach out to maximum number of candidates, there was money that we needed to spend carefully.
During these interactions and the subsequent plans that many of the top media houses in India provided me with, I realized that the best way lose money in that domain was to listen to these top-notch newspapers and the special things that they do for you.
Some came with readership data, while others with special editions. They were there to make money and the best "bakra" that they found were bschools who let these people feel that education industry in the next best industry to spend good amount of money on Ads. When you show the carrot and dont have any knowledge of how to use it, the donkeys will have a gala time. And thats exactly what I figured out in the next 6 months time of my tenure.
Special editions are the worst possible things that can happen for anyone who is putting in money in newspaper ads. Special ads mean - there will be too many similar ads from BSchools across the geography (taking advantage of some discount) leading to 'Ad-Blindness' that kills the entire plan right away. So what do you do when you dont get response? You feel 'Oh, I guess another impression is required'. You go ahead with repeating the same mistake again and again.
Newspapers were never able to develop anything worthwhile for Educational institutions. It is not a medium that will give you anything. It has been losing sheen for quite sometime now, and the fact that there are certain institutions who spend crores to get Full Page Ads in TOI goes to show that credibility can be bought by those who have the money to do so. As an upcoming Bschool, you dont have the option to compete with those institutes.
Another way that bschools lose money is by participating in God-Foresaken educational exhibitions which are conducted in such a lousy fashion that the best thing one can expect out of these fairs are good lunch and picnic like travel and stay of the bschool representatives.
No event in India has been conducted with some thought. It is like book a space, throw in all sorts of institutes (bschools, finishing schools, modelling schools, lingerie making schools, etc.) and consultants (study abroad, study in India, etc.), throw in all kinds of students (10th standard students asking about MBA) and let everyone decide what they want to do. I know of institutes who "do not have any other choice" but to participate in these hillarious 'melas' in order to get some result. Invariably, everyone always complains about how things did not work. Every BSchool Diro tells the admission team that 'Ek bachcha le karke aana" then they break even for participating the event.
The problem of losing money and losing their minds is primarily because of the shortsightedness of these bschools. Neither they have the professional talent to think through winning strategies and implement the best ATL/BTL activities to get results, nor do they ever think of "zero-based" marketing plans. The best that they do is to plan according to the experience they had from some location last year. It takes a half-brainer to understand that things are dynamic and that the same results cannot be reaped from the same market with more money perhaps. Plan smartly and plan with some vision.
But for all of these to really happen, bschools will have to restructure themselves, think of raising the average intelligence quotient of students every year, and then looking at creating systems that will sustain development. I have personal doubts about 70% of the institutes i know of who cannot think of meeting ends (of getting the number of seats filled and then getting the money in through fees). Is there hope? I really dont know.
Friday, January 29, 2010
An "Individual Learning Plan" for every student at a Bschool
Lots of bschools today are reaching out and welcoming interventions that will create some perceived value to the developmental systems present in the curriculum. One such thing I cam across recently at the School of Inspired Leadership a.k.a. SOIL was their "Individual learning plan".
According to SOIL, every student at SOIL uses his Caliper report (psychometric assessment by a world renowned US based firm) to build an Individual Learning Plan at the start of the year. This outlines 5 goals that they see as significant for them to focus on in the coming year. This is unique in the fact that every student therefore focuses on their individual learning goals and their mentor guides them accordingly.
According to me, the first set of requirements for this to happen are -
1. Individual Mentors - amounting to a lot of well qualified faculty members and also dedicated training interventions for the period of 11 months.
2. Well Defined processes- for each and every type of personality trait and level of development. This one is tough as measuring the first level is easy but following up and checking the progress may not be fool-proof and timely.
An Individual learning plan is never a selling point and is merely a neccesity for a Bschool student. Therefore, it is assumed that this factor is treated and conducted in some seriousness else the objectives will fail.
The problem in SOIL's case is that (according to the info I have), the determination process for the competencies to be developed are mostly some character trait. Thats important. But an invidual learning plan will be incomplete without extensive Gap-Analysis of the persons important competencies that will be required to (a) survive the course, and (b) be self-sufficient so that he/she can find the best job by him/herself.
Since SOIL says that it has support from the industry consortium, I believe that they should be the first Bschool in India to stop the placement assistance process thats normally available for candidates in bschools in India. This existent process make people dependant on the placement opportunity given by their bschool and that seems to be the most important factor to join a Bschool at times. Reminds me of the hindi metaphor which means "religion makes us lazy as we hope God will make a miracle happen for us". Nothing can better explain the way MBA grads look up to their bschool to provide them with jobs at then end of the 2nd yr.
According to SOIL, every student at SOIL uses his Caliper report (psychometric assessment by a world renowned US based firm) to build an Individual Learning Plan at the start of the year. This outlines 5 goals that they see as significant for them to focus on in the coming year. This is unique in the fact that every student therefore focuses on their individual learning goals and their mentor guides them accordingly.
According to me, the first set of requirements for this to happen are -
1. Individual Mentors - amounting to a lot of well qualified faculty members and also dedicated training interventions for the period of 11 months.
2. Well Defined processes- for each and every type of personality trait and level of development. This one is tough as measuring the first level is easy but following up and checking the progress may not be fool-proof and timely.
An Individual learning plan is never a selling point and is merely a neccesity for a Bschool student. Therefore, it is assumed that this factor is treated and conducted in some seriousness else the objectives will fail.
The problem in SOIL's case is that (according to the info I have), the determination process for the competencies to be developed are mostly some character trait. Thats important. But an invidual learning plan will be incomplete without extensive Gap-Analysis of the persons important competencies that will be required to (a) survive the course, and (b) be self-sufficient so that he/she can find the best job by him/herself.
Since SOIL says that it has support from the industry consortium, I believe that they should be the first Bschool in India to stop the placement assistance process thats normally available for candidates in bschools in India. This existent process make people dependant on the placement opportunity given by their bschool and that seems to be the most important factor to join a Bschool at times. Reminds me of the hindi metaphor which means "religion makes us lazy as we hope God will make a miracle happen for us". Nothing can better explain the way MBA grads look up to their bschool to provide them with jobs at then end of the 2nd yr.
EABS Pune wishes to attract talented aspirants through a Case-Study contest
At a time when most bschools in India are looking at various ways of attracting applicants for their programs, EABS Pune has also done something on the same lines.
One needs to first understand as to why will a bschool like EABS experiment with a contest in order to attract decent talent for applications indirectly. EABS has a 1 year PGP course which will need people with work-exp to apply for the selection process. The issue in India is that people with good work-ex do not prefer new or upcoming names like EABS and therefore the pool of applicants who end up applying to EABS are not neccessarily the ones thats going to take EABS to the next level of developments (like an ISB Hyderabad for example).
One of the things that Bschools have always done is to showcase the faculty strength (both full-time and visiting faculty). Through the contest that this college has arranged, it is evident that this strength will be showcased. The worry is that most of the people who will be involved in the process of the contest will not be full-time faculty members at the institute. Therefore, at the end of the day and the event, maybe everyone involved will be happy and smiling but no concrete objective can be achieved. Mainly that of creating an excellent pool of talent.
Contests of these kinds are a regular feature used by a lot of Business schools in India and abroad. But since most times, these contests are designed by the marketing teams or guys who have PR & Marketing backgrounds, these events end up being an extension of the kind of marketing messages that the institute intends to communicate to the aspirants base. In most cases, the first year of such a event invariably will not be that successful, the entire team from the institute feel sad about it and miss the entire point wherein they might have gone wrong.
If I am the Head of marketing and sales in such an institute, I will need to understand the kind of things that these candidates look at during their preparation and search for bschools. I know for a fact that these people do not look for an event/contest like this to decide on an institute. These people seek for precedence in bschool experiences through their colleagues or networks, and in case there is none, then they figure out about possible choices through various forums or information sessions that are organized by either the institutes or by some credible third-party operator.
I know for a fact that for every aspirant who will fit the requirement for a program like the PGP, there will be a list of "WOW" colleges that they will want to get into. But it is also a fact that they keep a 2nd list handy of those colleges that will be their safe options in case they miss out on the preferred options.
In case of these colleges in the 2nd list, the aspirants consult a lot of current students and "Star-Applicants" (those who have excellent profiles or are aware of a lot of bschools due to their networks) and then decide upon the names of bschools.
Bschools like EABS will need to also figure this part of the equation wherein they can connect the brand image of EABS to these star-applicants and create an impression so that at the time of recall, these people can refer the EABS name to potential aspirants.
The mistake that EABS will make by thinking that it's useless to target communications towards "star-performers" and ignore them will cost the mindshare and ultimately any chances of being in the preferred list of applicants of the desired profiles.
One needs to first understand as to why will a bschool like EABS experiment with a contest in order to attract decent talent for applications indirectly. EABS has a 1 year PGP course which will need people with work-exp to apply for the selection process. The issue in India is that people with good work-ex do not prefer new or upcoming names like EABS and therefore the pool of applicants who end up applying to EABS are not neccessarily the ones thats going to take EABS to the next level of developments (like an ISB Hyderabad for example).
One of the things that Bschools have always done is to showcase the faculty strength (both full-time and visiting faculty). Through the contest that this college has arranged, it is evident that this strength will be showcased. The worry is that most of the people who will be involved in the process of the contest will not be full-time faculty members at the institute. Therefore, at the end of the day and the event, maybe everyone involved will be happy and smiling but no concrete objective can be achieved. Mainly that of creating an excellent pool of talent.
Contests of these kinds are a regular feature used by a lot of Business schools in India and abroad. But since most times, these contests are designed by the marketing teams or guys who have PR & Marketing backgrounds, these events end up being an extension of the kind of marketing messages that the institute intends to communicate to the aspirants base. In most cases, the first year of such a event invariably will not be that successful, the entire team from the institute feel sad about it and miss the entire point wherein they might have gone wrong.
If I am the Head of marketing and sales in such an institute, I will need to understand the kind of things that these candidates look at during their preparation and search for bschools. I know for a fact that these people do not look for an event/contest like this to decide on an institute. These people seek for precedence in bschool experiences through their colleagues or networks, and in case there is none, then they figure out about possible choices through various forums or information sessions that are organized by either the institutes or by some credible third-party operator.
I know for a fact that for every aspirant who will fit the requirement for a program like the PGP, there will be a list of "WOW" colleges that they will want to get into. But it is also a fact that they keep a 2nd list handy of those colleges that will be their safe options in case they miss out on the preferred options.
In case of these colleges in the 2nd list, the aspirants consult a lot of current students and "Star-Applicants" (those who have excellent profiles or are aware of a lot of bschools due to their networks) and then decide upon the names of bschools.
Bschools like EABS will need to also figure this part of the equation wherein they can connect the brand image of EABS to these star-applicants and create an impression so that at the time of recall, these people can refer the EABS name to potential aspirants.
The mistake that EABS will make by thinking that it's useless to target communications towards "star-performers" and ignore them will cost the mindshare and ultimately any chances of being in the preferred list of applicants of the desired profiles.
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