Aegis Global Academy - The case of a wrong positioning

In the last 2-3 years, some of the corporate bigwigs in India have ventured into the education space through some way or the other aimed at solving a diverse set of problems. One of the recent ones that I can remember is - Aegis Global Academy, which is a part of the Essar Group.




2 years back when I was invited to meet the founding members of the academy (mostly the top guys within Aegis and Essar), I was presented with an idea that they felt should revolutionize the way people learn about Customer Experience Management, thereby helping people to become better at their jobs in a service economy like India. The debate was that unlike other economies and other educational-ecologies, India had different needs of growth and a different set of people coming from a monolithic educational system.



Along with IIM Indore and SQC Singapore, the Academy was aiming at bringing some of the best learning from service industry right into their classrooms. They had an excellent press meet (at the Essar HQ) and then went onto implement a massive pan-India branding program (in the lines of other Universities and FMCG) to attract some good number of applications for the program. Since it is a certificate program, the number of seats abailable for the course isn't limited.



After a disastrous 1st year admission cycle (and I was a part of meetings, discussions, feedback etc with their team all this time), the program took off at their campus in Coimbatore. The next year, they went back to the same drawing boards and then repeated the same go-to-market strategy yielding similar results. As a partner from the same domain, I was pushing them to go beyond the norm. But sadly that didn't happen.



Some of the major mistakes that rocked their boat were:



(1) A below par go-to-market strategy including a one-size-fits-all communication strategy



(2) Placing their brand amongst the audience that are supposedly the worst kind of decision makers, without directly having any engagement with the influencers



(3) Insisting to follow the examples of a communciation strategy that works well for FMCG, Telecom, (mostly products) etc.



(4) No learning from the feedback of the market



I believe all of these would be looked into by the team at AGA and I guess they will get to the right answers for themselves. However, there is something that I feel went fundamentally wrong in the first place:



Aegis Global Academy wasn't meant to be kick-starting its programs as fill-time options and for the same crowd who take up MBA/PGDM programs through CAT/MAT/XAT etc.



I believe that their first and foremost mistake was to take the same route as any other new MBA institution who join the same bandwagon as 2000+ b-schools have done before them. In one of the discussions with their core team, I had share the data that how over 80% of all B-schools in India fight for only 30% of the MBA Applicants' base, and the rest (i.e. 70%) of the candidates fight to get into 20% of the Institutes in India.



Although its their prerogative and strategy to use the program as a full time option, I believe that given the state of things in the jobs space, and the way people are trying to re-skill themselves while wanting to either keep or upgrade their jobs, the PGP of Aegis Global Academy could have been introduced as a "exclusive club" reserved only to some of the best talent wanting to get under the Essar Group umbrella for a better career. The probable options for the program could have been either distance learning or Online. I would have voted for Online, as if there was an opportunity, I know of people who will give their right-arm to get into the Essar Group and do so through some sort of a credible process.



The PGP then would have attracted more participants from across India (who anyways form the majority of CAT applicants - 2010 CAT had more than 70% guys with work-exp), and enabled these people to compete the 15 months program in say 12 or 9 months while being selected into Essar.



I am sure that there was some relation of the productivity of this program and the objective of Aegis to build up an excellent talent base for itself internally, but in the current state nothing is really happening. There are operational reasons for that too. I am sure every institute of program will have to have a minimum threshold of student-numbers that needs to be achieved to run the program even for one cycle. Aegis' only hope now is to either redirect and redo their Media communications program and hope to engage a bigger audience, or provide the Online program option to people who can do the same through separate campuses of Essar across India.



The problem is that once you position the product, its very difficult to re-position the same parallely. It takes a lot of courage to actually accept the market feedback and understand a new behavior that's affecting the very existence of your program. However, for the sake of this excellent program and its existence, they should give themselves one chance to revive the strategy and implement the same from this year itself.

A Pagalguy model to fix the challenges in Education (in India)

After reading about the game changing initiative by M.I.T. in launching its free online learning initiative (the M.I.T.x), I was wondering if such a system of disruption can take shape in India or other developing countries wherein two important and common factors run in the DNA - expensive & low access to quality higher education, and growth of internet usage (high speed data connectivity)

One look at the current scenario of higher education in India, and the kind of talent gap that really exists, one is forced to ponder upon disruptive ideas to break through the shackles and provide some genuine solutions to our problems. The initiative by MIT has a different ecology and probably a different set of people who would be using the same for their own developmental purposes, but it also gives us food for thought on how such a thing can be replicated in India by some organization that has already proven itself in the online domain.



The requirements for creating such a disruption are:



1. An established online community in education



2. Access to users who can contribute and design content for the new platform



3. Sponsored by companies/advertisers - so that the platform remains FREE for all students



I then focused on the online portals I know of that also have strong and established educational communities. The largest among all of them, and thankfully operating in the MBA domain is - Pagalguy.com. The portal gets over 600,000 unique visitors every month who contribute to over 300,000 pages of content that is Free for everyone to read and research on the portal. Even though the current usage of the portal is primarily focused in providing info about management education, preparations, experiences, alumni networking, etc.; the model can also be extended into providing MIT like initiatives that will add more value to the larger audience that uses Pagalguy resources.



So what have we got already working for Pagalguy.com?



Community - Already, the portal has a community of MBA applicants and b-school students who interact with each other and carry the feeling of being a member of this large community into their own networks, thereby allowing more people seeking info on MBA to use the portal. Since this factor is already taken care of, the first level of challenges that any product will face - like introduction to early adopters, etc - can be taken care of.

Profile of the users - Since the site is dedicated to MBA and related discussion, its evident that the users have a certain profile suited for such online course-ware to flourish. Some of the important factors are - (a) Usage of internet beyond basic levels, (b) Networking and knowledge of people's development systems and expertise, and (c) Ambition to get a better life.

Free Content - At present the portal is Free to all its users and it has worked (against all suspicion of credibility) very well for the users as well as its contributors. In the future, such a model can still exist and a revenue model to sustain such disruptive program can be designed without any hitch.

Customized design of content - The forum content on Pagalguy.com is the biggest draw for the website, wherein people find the type of content, that will suit their understanding/lingo/learning pattern, pretty easily. Imagine a similar situation for the new disruption, wherein content is still contributed without any fee by the users and they impregnate their own learning methods into those models or learning aids. The present theories of learning and intelligence bases state that people aren't getting their individual best ways to learn in standardized teaching, and therefore this model might also be taking care of that large problem and making life easy for thousands.



According to Prof. Clay Christensen's disruption models, the best way forward is to figure out the non-competition. In the case of this model, Pagalguy.com, and its users, this will be a brilliant canvas wherein no other new player or even existing players will have the success-factors, the user profiles, and the revenue model to sustain such innovation.

If this disruption comes into being, then a lot of so called distance learning programs, expensive yet inutile certifications, bridge courses, etc will thankfully stop functioning and spoiling the talent of this country.

Imagine a database of content contributed by some of the best in Corporate world, b-schools, NGOs, from Universities abroad, and all that being designed to suit your own developmental process - at the exact speed and learning ways that help you learn. This is definitely possible.

Why NITIE Mumbai has to redefine its objectives?

One look at the kind of exponential growth stories associated with Universities and Institutions in the developed world will raise questions for similar institutions in India that are still playing catching up with the magnanimity of the sort of profile of students, research, teaching methodology, vision etc of institutions abroad.


For today's case study, let's consider NITIE Mumbai and closely understand the meanings of statements that the institution has made about its vision, mission etc. I, for one, am a firm beiever if there is no clarity in the vision and mission statements of an organization, then neither its office bearers and nor the systems have any scope of understanding the requirements to top-grade and be counted amongst the best in the world.

So, if one visits the website of NITIE, one will read the following in the vision and mission statements:

NITIE is dedicated to help Indian businesses to make their presence felt globally. NITIE has decided to act as driving force not only in manufacturing sector but all dynamic sectors of the Indian economy. It has aligned its vision and activities in line with the current and future needs of the Indian economy and its vibrant and growing sectors.

Vision
“To be a leader in the knowledge led productivity movement.”

Mission
“To nourish a learning environment conducive to foster innovations in productivity and business development.”

Decoding Vision:

AS an institution, the dedication of helping of Indian Businesses to make their presence felt globally statement doesn't give out any sense of clarity for someone who does not know what is NITIE. The statement gives an idea that perhaps NITIE is something associated with some kind of global partnerships or fund house or something to help Indian BUsiness houses in their growth of their Individual businesses.

This doesn't connect at any level of creating value in education or community or the talent in this country. Someone might point out that this is all related, but the fact is that anything that needs to be analyzed and then decoded can't be a vision statement.

Then it states: "To be a leader in the knowledge led productivity movement"

Again, no clarity. First of all, someone needs to define knowledge led productivity movement. In which domain? In what space? In how much time? Where? I don't have absolutely any idea of which "movement" is being talked about.

The only place where they come anywhere close to talking about their main objective is the mission statement, wherein the words "nourish a learning environment" is mentioned. But words like Business Development and Productivity are never a part of the process that office bearers can identify with, and neither can their reasearch talent.

Just because they have some of the best talent teaching industrial engineering isn't enough for the institution to create ownership amongst its own people. These are the people who will take some of the most important calls in its history, in the forthcoming future. If each of them have their own versions of downloaded Vision and mission statements, then it will be enough to invite trouble. Also given that such institutions are constantly under the scanner for being productive in providing some of the best talent in the country, it is pertinent that such important things are always in place.

CMAT - a huge blow to MBA in India

Over the last few decades, the AICTE (regulatory authority for the Ministry of HRD in Indian Technical and Higher education) has been the biggest roadblock of developing brilliant education infrastructure in India. I can substantiate that by pointing out to the large number of irregularities in its functioning and representation of low standard institutions across India, absolutely no connection to its actions and the real time requirements of development needed in higher education (read MBA) programs, draconian laws and high-handedness thats rampant every year through newspaper advertisements by the body listing bschools and showcasing institutions like ISB Hyderabad as culprits, etc.



It is true that when one has a regulatory body that's bound to be affected by political and geographical factors and its very own establishment affected by the ruling party at the centre, there will be little hope of game changing policies, insights, implementations, and research that such a regulatory body will get into. One look at such bodies (even in the developed nations like the US) will give us an idea that such politically backed institutions have never thought about the real problems of education and have never even tried to provide solutions that are revolutionary,


The latest in its kitty dished out to management institutions, Universities, and State governments has been the CMAT which is to be used for admission into MBA/PGDM programs of institutions approved by the AICTE. In 2011 itself, there were announcements of other tests like - FMS Delhi entrance test, JMET entrance, and the MAT - being put to rest. MAT's last run is for this year and from next year on, the entire system that was banking on MAT scores will have to look into either CAT or CMAT.

I have many issues of the regulatory body implementing a new test - they have reasoned that, its for the betterment of students that so many tests are being taken-out and that they don't trust the validity of some of these tests (a reason why the court asked them to go for their own test if they felt the need for one). My issue is also on the objectives of this whole process and that it begs the question - Why is this test being so swiftly implemented from this year without any thought given into the usage, learning, training, infra, etc and Why are people being forced to accept the test at all levels?

One look at the history of any successful product (in this case, lets consider this test as a product) has been the way it was introduced to particular sections of the userbase and then it made its way through to the larger database by its own merit. Is AICTE scared that this acceptance will not happen with CMAT? Or does it have other vested interests?

Google, Apple, and host of other companies have been successful by following a simple principle. They designed products that were introduced to a selected bunch of users (namely - innovators and early adopters), and then the product made its way through these early adopters to the larger userbase, who now form the majority of the market share for all of their products. This is true for all products and services, and I am sure GMAT's history will also showcase a similar trend - of being accepted by the early adopters and then going global with its test. The stategy was never to force implementation to the masses, because thats where the backlash and resistance to change is. The masses are the ones that can ignore anything that is implemented only through them and lets face it - we have everyday examples in our lives to support this statement.

A blanket implementation strategy (and that too a forced one) reeks of other anomalies on the part of AICTE and doesn't really give out any signal that any execution level thought process backed with intelligent strategies have even been considered. This isn't surprising, because none of the current members of the regulatory body or the core team are acknowledged anywhere in the world as game changing thinkers. The motivation doesn't seem to be there to atleast replicate the best systems across the world and move forward, as much as it seems to follow what their bosses in the Government think makes sense. This is very sad, and there seems to be no hope of this changing very soon.

Another factor that needs to be understood here is the whole validity of this test. We have seen in the past 3 years' performance of CAT (when it went into the online format) and the kind of shameful glitches that marred its performance as a test. We are aware that there wasn't a raw test study done before the tests were administered to even come up with proper tests for applicants, and there were no answers given to many of the questions related to the validity of their flawed normalization process. For CMAT, where is the Raw test study? How did they figure out the ways to solve the problems that affected CAT as a test? Why did the lowest bidder get the job to design the supposedly largest process for MBA applicants? Were the qualities of choosing the vendor based on pricing benefits or were important test development factors taken into consideration? Who are the experts behind the developmental team and the team? Who is the singlemost Accountable person for all failures (if any) in case of CMAT?

By the looks of the first version of the test that came on LIVE for applicants, there are enough reasons to feel scared and disgruntled about this entire process. The Government will force the thing down the throats of our institutions (without doubt), because thats the way its structured, and because we are sovereign. But this doesn't look good for our country and its talent, which is already producing a soft underbelly that's not-tech-savvy and aren't fit to work in the job roles of the coming future. We are seeing some of the worst job losses across the world (including the developed economies), and given the trends catch up soon, are we ready to face the world with this kind of regulations and implementations that have the power to castrate the entire education system and make things difficult from where we are now?

According to my analysis, the CMAT in its current form, will be a nightmare if it's pushed down forcefully into the system. The AICTE needs to get its act together and follow the implementation rules that have made some of the best products and companies in this world successful, and then get the right people to design the test (and not the lowest bidder).

Saving MBA from a slow Death

The history of public education begins with single classroom schools in the US wherein a selective group of poeple learnt subjects that were thought to be "important" by the society at that time. From those first classrooms through the next century and till date, public education and schools have gone through a plethora of changes and updating - mostly through the needs and trends of different times or industrial revolutions.

If replacing Latin and Greek by maths, or science along with social studies were some of the major changes then, we have witnessed more interdisciplinary subjects that have been introduced across the years. Also, with the advent of software and the progressive technologies, various discplines and domains have been pushed into the limelight and have made their own niches.

Take Engineering for example. Post the industrial revolution, there was need for engineers (and hoards of them) who acutally had the knowledge to make machines work and then a set of highly qualified engineering-scientists who could create the next level of machines or revolutions. The school curriculums and higher studies subjects from that time have been a reflection of the same, and we witness most of those programs are still present in the same degree and with similar delivery process till date at schools across the world. The same can also be seen for the professional programs like MBA, which being an advent of the Industrial era, is still taught for the same job functions that were relevant "then", and probably aren't "now".

The credit goes to the current rate of innovations and technological advances, one finds the usual white-collar jobs or the roles that were populated by MBAs, are being replaced by automated systems or technologies that are creating irreversible job losses. The kind of subjects and the objectives of those subjects that were allowing MBAs to perform a set of activities, are now being achieved through automated or pattern-recognition softwares which will very soon affect developing economies like India (more so, given the current state of macro-economic affairs).

For example, most of data-centric decision making and services that were once jobs for passing-out MBAs are now a part of some software or technology. The trouble is that MBA as a program has neither recognised this, or even if they have, nor are they taking speedy actions towards redesigning the way MBA is delivered.

If I draw a parallel to the early school education system and MBA as a program, similarities are abundant. One can see a common starting structure for both - through a single classroom and defined curriculum being delivered through a standardized pattern of teaching/coaching.

As schools today are looking at modularity in teaching deliverables and peruse the way students learn (differently and in multiple intelligences), there is a sure-shot scale of revolution awaiting in the public education system's DNA across the world. The same has to be done for MBA, else we will try to improve a broked system that's probably too backdated to be of any value.

What if, MBA was redesigned the way schools were in their 100 years journey, but only this time its all expedited to ensure that value-creation for a generation of workers, is possible. Why can't we throw away the paradigm that its only the 4 main sectors - marketing, HR, finance, and operations - that ought to define how we look at the MBA curriculum? What if we introduce new subjects at an amazing pace so that the very same technology thats making jobs redundant and obsolete, can now be used and tamed to create the next set of job-definitions? What if we redesign the way standardized testing is done for selecting MBA students/admits? What if we do away with interdependancy in the curruculum of MBA and bring in modularity and independance of learning?

I have been thinking a lot on how the best delivery system can be developed for MBA institutions or bschools, wherein the best that they have ever been able to come up with is nothing but - case studiy method. Standardizing the entire delivery mechanism is easy for faculty maybe, but thats not the purpose - solving the problem for faculty. We need to accept, acknowledge and then design systems for multiple-intelligences and the way people learn differently.

The premise has always been wrong. Almost all school going students know that the most attractive student for a science or maths faculty is a guy who has excellent logical-mathematical intelligence. Thats definitely because the faculty himself/herself will have similar intelligence base. But are people who opreate with different intelligence bases not fit to study maths or science? There is abundant research going on in this field (of human anthropology and neurology) that suggests that the non-logical-mathematical guys do get maths and science but when its delivered differently and through the same intelligence bases. Which means that schools have formed the system of standardization keeping easier processes and faculty numbers in mind, and have therefore alienated millions throughout these years from actual "learning".

We have probably been doing the same for MBA - alienating thousands of so-called managers who are the products of this dinosaur - wherein all the extrinsic motivational factors that drove them towards completing MBA vanished due to economic downturn or technological advances. People seem to have lost the capability of having anything intrinsically connected to the MBA program due to the way standardization has happened across these years.

So is this the death of MBA or is there an answer for this?

I have reason to believe that if we bring in new modules - like sociology, design, product development, new age tech (programming and platforms), politics, sales, and a diverse set of domains into the MBA to make learning possible for the non-applicants of MBA today, and together with a modular & customized delivery system - we can create the kind of talent that will be relevant, intrinsically motivated, strong for separate & diverse set of industries, and can set the platform for progressive revolutions across various domains.

Classes wil look different and so will be the delivery. People will be assessed on their intelligence types and then specific delivery mechanisms can be tested+implemented for these people. The pace of job creation and job-obsolation can be matched with the relevance in learning and exploiting inherent skill-sets and motivations of students. Placements will then no longer be an issue of national interest - rather it will be job creation and a robust ecomony that will be the major objectives for these business schools.

Will the Indian Middle class spare this one (Unlike previous strong-posts like Engineering, medical, MBA, etc)? Probably Yes. That's because, for the first time, the definition of objectives of learning in MBA and the results will be defined intrinsically - by the students who would be a part of this program.

I believe this is the best shot MBA has got in this country, and across the globe.

Change definitions - remove standardizations - and let the magic happen.

To Disenthrall is to survive - The New Mantra for majority of Bshcools in India

In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned about how there are a majority of Business schools in India that should either mend their ways and get better or be prepared to close down in the span of next few years. I have also written about their most preferred communications when it comes to admission season, and why they don't work anymore.

When I sit and review how things might have changed in the last one year, I really don't see any effort on the part of bschools to make change happen and most of them have enough Ego to ensure that nothing good happens for the next few years. Its like they are waiting for someone to figure out their solution (thats acceptable by them) and then they will jump into that.

I had this meeting with a renowned University in South-India, which is famous for its Engineering programs. They intend to do something for their Business School now (which is languishing) and intend to know what needs to be done. Before I met them personally, I thought that their intention was to embrace the new-age communications platforms and also know from us (while we share our expertise) about how things are working for the good business schools.

Sadly, majority of the people involved were clueless and had such bloated ego that they did not want to encourage any exchange of best-practices and thoughts that will change the way their Bschool will brand itself.

This is not a singular instance that I have seen in India, and its sad that due to the inefficiences and indefference of some people, a Business School (which is an establishment larger than any individual) would perish or at best survive without any improvement. I am really doubtful if our so called "educators" have stopped educating themselves. If they feel that there is nothing more to learn, then they are hugely mistaken. Everyday, across the world, some of the best people in best of colleges are trying out strategies that will insure their brand against future trends in their specific domains. These are men and women who learn everyday - something which these people (I am talking about) are not interested to do anymore.

How does one improve one's institute from where it is now?

1) Improve the number of applications for the particular program
2) Improve the quality of applicants joining the program (direct impact on Placements and Alumni Strength)
3) Insuring the brand name through solving the top two issues

To these 3 factors, add things like improved faculty profiles, better pedagogy, improved projects and research, etc to make a better case infront of future applicants.

The top 3 issues listed here can be solved through better communication, over a longer period of time. Mostly, bschools in India are short-sighted in planning to reach out to prospective candidates with their admission communications. At most times, these plans are based on entrance test dates or results of tests. Now that CAT has gone into a 20days+ schedule, most people still want to start post the last date of CAT, forgetting that a person who has take his/her test on Day 1 is available for engagement from that evening itself. A bigger fact is that most applicants (given that a majority 70% come with work-exp or are of good profiles) make their decisions by interacting with fellow applicants, current bschool students and probably decide on their list of programs even before CAT.

I have seen decision makers stuck at their old ways of thinking and getting similar results year on year. By doing all sorts of mistakes, they are building a lot of ideas that are going against the very premise on which these bschools were built. My question then, is - What is stopping you from changing?

People still want to control the old ways of telemarketing, over-the-phone counseling, education fairs, and everything that worked almost 15 years back. A lot of things have changed but these decision makers are living in the past. It does not augur well for them as well as for bschools in India which are suppposed to produce talent for India Inc. With the Top 80 %ile of the applicants planning to join the top 15%ile bschools in India, its not a healthy trend. Will not one take notice of these facts?

My job is to allow business schools to top-grade themselves by reaching our and engaging good quality applicants through continuous communication, and it pains to see most of them missing the point. They need to Disenthrall and stop taking things for granted. They need to see the truth, however ugly it is, and however ego-blasting it might be. If they can't stand up to the fact that infront of new age communications, they have become dinosaurs fit to retire, then they are committing the ultimate sin of disallowing a better future to our country's talents.

Questions for Directors at B-schools and Edu-reformers in India

There is a lot of action in the recent years at some of the best b-schools in India towards improving pedagogy, curriculum, profile of students, etc. However, there seems to be this eerie feeling that something is not done in the right way or rather nothing is evolving out of the system. This is probably mainly due to the status-quo that some of these institutions have amongst their educators or responsible "top-management" guys; but I also subscribe to the fact that our MBA passouts are stigmatized in the lines of corporate growth in India. What I mean by this is - the kind of work or the level of good work that their counterparts are doing in some of the other parts of the world aren't available aplenty to these kids who are judged against draconian job-descriptions, outdated service standards, and the theory of "managing the Indian way".

India's challenges have been different. We don't have the market potential nor the kind of psychographics that some of these MBA students study about, that confuse these people to such an extent that they tend to dis-associate themselves from the learning in MBA and try to follow their bosses in learning about how things are really done.

There are scientific ways to explain why MBA adds nothing to one' s creativity or analytical prowess, and rather acts as a potentially limiting factor for human creativity and organic growth of the mind.

But in this case, let me take one part of the problem and try to address it. Let's begin with asking some questions to the top-guys from the b-schools and Universities and it will be good to know if these people have answers to these queries. My belief is that by answering and acting upon these questions, some of them can really revolutionize the way MBA adds value to anyone's career.

Questions to the Diro/ Reformers:

1) How often do you collect relevant global trends to change the pedagogy and the content of learning in your MBA program? Is it weekly/ monthly/ or quarterly?

2) What is the alternative to the age-old "case-study-method"? Have your faculty thought about developing something better than that?

3) What is your strategy in recruiting students for your program? Do you have specific pedagogy or content for people with different profiles, or interests, or with similar psychological patterns?

4) How do you develop learning environments other than "group-tasks" and lectures and micro projects? How are you placing the most important concepts for these people to learn?

5) What amount of research that your faculty is engaged in, is directly contributing in the development of these students? How many students are assigned to faculty members for their dissertations/ research in particular areas?

6) What is the $$ ROI for each student who joins and then passes out from your institution? Do you have a system to formulate, track, etc while providing the right set of environment and learning to ensure that there is minimum deviation in the ROI calculated for the person?

7) How are your students interacting with global leaders who are some of the best in their domains? Do you have a structure wherein these global leaders are involved in some research or work with your students?

8) What will happen if your placement process is discontinued for your students? Do you have an alternative way to implement a better process and also sell the idea to the students who would join your institution?

9) What is the diversity in the kind of offers that students are seeking out, beyond consulting/ investment banking/ FMCG? How are you making sure that firms from across the globe who have such diverse requirements are followed by your students throughout their stay in your institute, and that they are working continuously with such firms and job roles?

10) Do you have metrics to provide faculty performance as a function of $$ROI per student, research work, and also the overall diversity of job-roles and organizations that are recruiting from your institutions?

Indian MBA pass-outs will not be ready for the next revolution

How well prepared are Indian MBA students to take on the future job challenges and job-descriptions? If the current trends in the global IPOs and the next generation of large companies are to be considered, then the curriculum and the training (and conditioning) imparted to Indian MBA students are way off the real picture.

Indian MBA students are still being fed out-dated theories and ways of working. This includes even the top Institutes like the IIMs. Most of these pass-outs are preparing themselves for industry jobs that have been considered as the best by the batches of 1990s. Some of the prevalent names are consulting, finance, and marketing.

Even though we have seen a huge amount of differential growth in these sectors, the institutes have still been very happy training and then assisting in placing students in such sectors.

Given the current trends in NASDAQ Top100, and the number of IPOs that have been filed in 2010 for 2011, the world will look very different in the next 5-10 years. Are our people ready for that? I don't think so. Lets consider some data on NASDAQ Top100 and the IPOs:

NASDAQ 100 Sectors Weighting (The percentage of sectors that make up the Top100)
Technology 55.19%
Consumer Services 19.70%
Health Care 13.58%
Industrials 5.99%
Consumer Goods 2.56%
Telecommunications 2.40%
Basic Materials 0.34%
Oil and Gas 0.24%
(Data from http://financemainpage.com/Nasdaq.html)

The IPOs that have been filed in 2010 for 2011 (Data calculated from ipomonitor.com)

Consulting	2.34%
Finance	21.88%
Pharma	12.89%
Manu/Retail	28.91%
Internet	25.78%
Media	1.56%
Oil	6.64%

We now have Facebook's expected 100Billion IPO around 2012, and a lot more action to happen in the same domain.

The future holds challenges in job descriptions that will look very different from what they have been or what they are today. Success will be defined very differently, and we need to be able to take advantage of that properly.

Not only should we look at being prepared for this near future events but also need to be aware that all future entrepreneurial ventures in India that might become the next BSE Sensex top grossers would need the kind of talent that a Facebook or Google or Apple or other Chinese companies (that are now filing for NASDAQ IPOs) would be able to get from their own backyard.

Our Universities are not world-class yet (they don't feature in any global ranking), and neither are our B-schools and institutes that are supposed to be training students on industry oriented curriculum. Question is - which are these industries that these people talk about? I would want students to really figure this out. 

Getting sales talent (for example when I look to hire for my team), is so very difficult because most of these good men and women with the popular degrees/education and the right intention don't have the training, drive, and the conditioning from their colleges to arm them for the future organizations that will definitely multi-nationals and be so diverse that one will need a continuous developmental capacity - which is sadly lacking right now.

Our problem has been the over dependence in some of the point of references like IIT, IIM, etc that we feel are supposed to be world class. Recent study and analysis have indicated that these institutes may not be anywhere near the institutions or Universities across other continents or countries that churn out graduates who are armed with knowledge, skills, and the drive to be working the roles-of-future.

It is time that we take an objective view on these things, get our research right, and go ahead with brave steps to revolutionize the higher education objectives and conditioning to be able to ride the next storm and still be one of the most vibrant economies in the world.

Why the Teach-for-India model may fail to achieve its objectives

I got to know about Teach-For-India initiative a year back, and till now I really didn't give it a serious thought. During the last two months, I have been reading up a lot on transformative new ways for countries to look at public education and how the poor-countries can actually build a system to revolutionize the way education is designed and delivered.

The following are my observations on why I think the TFI initiative (although a noble cause) might fail to achieve its objectives:

1. Its remodeled on a successful system of US (the Teach-For-America).
India is not US. its a developing country and things work very differently out here. Education doesn't only mean the ways to improve one's chances of higher-education or quality of life, it also means a way to earn livelihood - and as fast as possible - for the burgeoning population of India. It has to be result oriented, wherein immediate results matter to the poorer sections of the society.
TFI can, at the max, create a sense of quality-education in the minds of students from smaller towns and villages, but the economic parameters in this part of the world is evidently different to that of US. Requirements and expectations are different. The Government tried to solve the "education to all" plan through their Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and meals, but things just didn't work out the way it was expected to.
There are revolutionary work being done by some great people (including our own country's Sugata Mitra), in the field of education and its distribution that will be best suited for a country like India. I will suggest this video that will tell you more on the research thats being done by some people:

As it is apparent, just remodeling TFA is not the answer to our special needs and objectives.

2. Talent issues
The "heart" of a teacher is something that old-schoolers like us were always fascinated about. The very person who toiled hard on getting us good education, and developing us through those years so that we become good talents, are also derided by the society as "unsuccessful" by comparing their financial success against other trades.
I am not saying that today's traditional teachers are still the respected figures in student circles. Thats probably due to the kind of activities that these people get busy with. But getting good talent for TFI is definitely questionable. I guess they have tried solving this by answering a question that some (if not all) people who will contemplate joining TFI will ask - "what's in it for me?"
I am aware that when rewards to join a certain organization or cause is not related to the cause, and it is anchored somewhere else, then things fall-apart for the cause. In the case of TFI, there are mentions regarding international Universities accepting this as an excellent work-exp and that might really attract good people to join for TFI.
But for what?? Simply to be there for 2 years, and then fly onto some of those Universities and caring nothing for the cause of TFI or education as a whole. It hurts to see that to try and give quality education to masses,the best that can happen in this - attract with some reward these people can have post their role in TFI.
Its like a perpetual system of entry and exit. Only time will tell if these MBA grads from international Universities will ever come back to TFI or the cause and do something worthwhile.

3. It's being a part of the broken system
The current public education system in India and other developing countries are broken and primarily predicated on the whims and fancies of political establishments. Research from the last decade has shown that efforts are being made to revolutionize the education delivery and design system entirely to make some sense for the children who are studying and are affected.
I am not sure if TFI goes to the extent of changing syllabus and other things neccessary to revolutionize the design and delivery of education in India,in case it isn't then its contributing to an already broken system of education available in India.

There has to be re-think of whats the best way forward. There is existing research available on this subject and change-agents are available to get everything designed - from the syllabus, to design, and distribution. Its important to note here that getting teaching talent is again going to be the major challenge. If people join TFI for their own future benefits and this is just a passing phase, then imagine the kind of delivery that will happen through these talents.

There is not "One" answer to this problem. It (TFI) needs to really think and carefully implement each and every part of the process. I feel it will lose the plot very soon, but I am praying against all odds that something meaningful comes out of this. If I come to think of it, almost every initiative that I know of (the large ones - that involved nationwide implementation/distribution) has FAILED to achieve the objectives. I hope that TFI gets it right soon.

Why GD-PI process is invalid in selecting applicants?

Each of us who've completed the MBA program (or others who prepared for MBA entrance tests) are familiar with the selection process that includes Group discussions and personal interviews post written-tests. People are trained on "how to speak in GDs" and "How to prepare your interview answers?" etc by professional trainers and that's an industry in itself. Thousands of applicants each year get to know the nuances of clearing these selection rounds and then get final admits into the b-schools.

According to me, they are all being a part of a broken system and one that is invalid in today's working environments, challenges, and other related factors upon which the selection processes are modelled.

If one of the major objectives in a GD is to check how one will perform in situations that involves groups, and tackle issues like group-think etc, then we are addressing challenges that existed 30-40 years back. In today's organization culture, people rarely work in such large groups and at most times team members work with each other from remote locations. The whole structure of GD and the way of selection (or rejection as many point out) was based on the industrial/manufacturing revolution that happened many years back. I don't think it will be wrong to say that the entire MBA curriculum in many places and countries (like India) is predicated on those lines to satisfy Industrial revolution requirements.

The challenges of today and the future are different. I don't want to use a system that broken and invalid to select people into my curriculum for meeting present and future challenges. What will test them for through a GD? Why should I subject someone to a 20-30 minutes jabber and then take a call on that?

Same goes for the PI. If I am to believe that b-school selection process reflects the requirements of the corporate world, then a single PI is not the norm of selection anyways in any large corporation for jobs worthy of MBA graduates.

Some of the best companies to work-with and the ones that are changing the rules (to be followed by others soon) are not hiring based on 1 interview or 1 essay. There are multiple rounds, tasks, etc which are lined up to test the skill sets of individuals. No longer are people getting promoted to their level of incompetence. There are proper systems in place in the corporate world, but let's understand that its all dynamic and prone to deviation and changes towards betterment.

Whats really sad is as Professors, academicians, and that lot- nothing is being worked out to get to better solutions. Selecting through GD-PI is as good as selecting people at random - both are broken systems and will not yield the best results. Some might argue that through GD-PI the fittest survive and then get admitted. Then we are making the MBA curriculum represent entirely differently, and some of the best minds will get rejected only because they could not speak in a fish-market-GD or could not convince some doubting-thomas during the PI. Please note that people who are part of these panels are also products of that previous generation who see fitment to match perceptions according to their Jurassic work-ethics and culture.

A system-wide change is required to revolutionize the entire process. Maybe some anthropological study can be conducted across the industry spectrum to understand today's work-ethics and ways and then reflect the same in the selection process accordingly.

Decision Making inside Private Universities in India

In some my most recent meetings, I have had the privilege of coordinating with the top guys at private Universities in the country, and I am on the verge of losing all kinds of respect that I had for this fraternity.

Let me base this entire thing on a particular premise - all that I will mention here has nothing to do with anyone personally, and it involves data trends during my course of interactions with these gentlemen and ladies.

1. They lack either the IQ or the courage to make change happen:
Since I am in sales, this is something I have found baffling at most times. These are the very people who are running our educational institutions and are supposed to teach students about how to make the next set of things happen. Surprisingly, these are the very people who are so very grounded to their comfort zones, or they don't have the IQ to understand how things have evolved, that anything thats NEW doesn't really get through the smokescreen.

I figure that no one would want to take the pain and the responsibility to be the "change-agent" primarily because of the kind of politics thats rampant inside such institutions. These political centers will take the lives and careers of such proactive-leaders downhill - such is the thought.

Then there are questions like - Whats in it for me (personally? I really hate to answer that question because the next set of discussions will vary on how much payout am I ready to offer for this decision going my way.

Pushing the buck (and pushing me around) across to other people (Read - ProVC, VC, Director, Finance Director, MCA Professor, MBA Professor, Pro-Chancellor, Chancellor) is an endless process wherein external travel, absence, etc are a regular part of this thing. Why should there every be urgency in order to do something that no one else has done?

2. They are pretty terrible in returning any communication
This happens in almost every case, and exceptions are a welcome sign actually. Simple things like returning calls, mails, or faxes are never done because they probably don't have time. Don't have time? For what? In most cases, I have had meetings with these guys when I was taken by the other person inside the department and we simply waltzed-into the office of a senior guy. They don't reply because of the first point I made - they choose not to reply actually.

They are aware that every reply they make, they will have be asked for an action on the plan or the proposal.

I once asked one person that - Simply put, will you view an ISO9001.2000 certification proposal the same way as you would for a proposal for improving the quality of candidates applying to you, or the quality of placements you are going to have?

He told me that, for a quality certification, he can "show-off" that "he" got that. But for anything on the other side like Admission, he will not be able to claim that it was due to his efforts that things are better in applications or placements. There are different people taking such claims-to-fame. So why should he be bothered?

Now if he is not bothered, then why should be be the bottleneck in the process? Quite simple - To be viewed as IMPORTANT.

I have a very sad feedback about the kind of conversations that I have with most of the top guys I meet across India - none of those (conversations) are really interesting. I don't know if I have learnt anything from any of them, or shared our knowledge on the ways of improvement of their University or Institution.

(Just a practical joke - I met this Director in Mumbai, and somehow, our discussion went onto when should I have kids now that I am married, and he ended up speaking on that for the next 45 mins. I was pulling my hair after the meeting, and am really scared to meet him again. However, on a separate note - the Deal was Done)

Decision making inside Universities involves a very complex mesh or matrix, and its a hard job to convert each of those guys. If they don't have vision or IQ or are scared, that compounds the problems. No one wants to mess around with the other person's ego or sour any relationship. In this status-quo situation, things go on and on as usual.

The good thing is that all this has been identified, and the next step is to break into the "chakravyuh".

A possible loss for GMAT

When I was thinking about all the chaos that has happened post the CAT (common admission test) 2010 results, I was wondering who would benefit from such a situation.

The Bschools are clueless as are the students, and the coaching classes are shivering at the thought of what 'rabbit' is going to come out of the CAT magic-hat.

One things that struck me was the opportunity that this chaos presents to other similar testing service like the GMAC who conduct GMAT. For the first time in the history of bschool admissions in India, there is this opportunity to propound the GMAT test to business schools, and Universities who would probably (proactively) look at this test providing them with quality applicants. This is predicated on the argument that amongst the 2000 odd business schools of MBA institutions, atleast 50-60 top ones are no longer bothered about the number of applications sold and application-form-revenues. Also, there would have been opportunities for students from other countries (maybe neighbours as well) to study in the programs offered by our bschools.

Another fact is that the majority of students actually intend to get into these business schools (top50-60) anyways. So end of the day, there wasn't going to be any issue with application numbers or revenue.

GMAT is expensive, but for students who take the CAT seriously and are now at the peril of losing their faith in themselves, GMAT would be the savior.

So for one very brief moment, the stage was all set for the GMAC authorities to approach the best institutions in India and then build up the system for the admission process of these bschools.

Trouble came in the form of a sudden change in AICTE guidelines or regulations. It was such a sudden thing, that even bschools have been taken by surprise. The new guidelines on admission process from AICTE stated that there would now be only CAT and MAT test scores available to Institutions who would come under the purview of AICTE. To make matters worse, there is a highly debated clause mentioning that admission process involving GD and PI will now be conducted by state regulated bodies (like the DTE in Maharashtra) for all colleges in that state offering PGDBM.

This took away any chances for bschools signing up for any other test (other than CAT) like GMAT, and also took away the admission process from them. It is to be noted here that last year (after the CAT debacle), institutions like Great Lakes conducted their own test. Same happened for quite many of them.

This whole rush to save the face of India's most famous entrance test today (yes, its the CAT), is difficult to fathom. Why should such mindless regulations be brought in to save something that needs to find answers from within? Why should the scope of top-grading the admission process and the intake being stymied by regulations and steps like these?

The license-raj isn't dead. it exists and the sad part is it is hurting the growth of higher education in India. I am not aware of any such regulation in US or UK against whom we feel our systems should be compared and developed.

Yes, it is a loss for GMAT, but thats not the point. This entire episode has shown the world that regulatory bodies can actually become real-time bottlenecks in the growth story in any sector in India. All that is left for the hapless bschools is probably the "jugaad".

My analysis of CAT2010 - beyond their explanations

CAT 2009 was a nightmare in terms of how it was administered and everything that people experienced while taking up the test (server crashes, re-taking the test, etc.).

While everyone anticipated the changes in CAT2010, the team of IIM-Prometric-Meritrac-Everonn combined did a better job at administering the test.

When I thought all was fine, came the troubles with results. Not only is there widespread chaos (wherein people who were scoring in the higher percentiles in their mock-CAT got damning final scores), there is also the 'explanation' (the official one) to all these that has got my bowels moving.

I am not going to explain all the pain and hardships people go through to prepare for this very test, and all the heartbreaks that are caused when results are announced that are way beyond anyone's nightmares. I am not sure if I have ever heard of suicides post CAT results, but I guess that may change too.

My point is very simple. According to my understanding and expertise of test design, all thats explained as reasons to how a person got his or her percentile is shocking. I almost couldn't believe what I read and the more I dug into the statistics and concepts that they have used, the more terrible it became to understand what really went on in the name of this test this year.

Lets demystify:

Any scientific test (the Final test - like CAT 2010), when designed, involves a huge amount of pre-test work that involves -
Raw Test design -> Administering the test on a carefully selected Sample (related to the final test takers) -> Get Raw scores -> Use statistical tools (may include Item Response Theory or "IRT") to determine Item weight/Item characteristic score/etc -> Normalization of the scores -> Create an error-free "Final Test"

This way, certain things are taken care of, like -
a) the distribution of the difficulty levels in every question paper that may be unique from the other set
b) a proper test paper set wherein one person taking Test 1 would probably be scoring in the same percentile if he takes Test 2.
c) final scores, percentiles, etc.

What I understand from reading the official statements mentioning the process is:
- They have done the process upside-down
Beginning from: Final Test -> Raw score -> IRT -> Normalization -> Percentiles and percentages

Therefore the premise seems to be flawed.

The content on IRT and Rasch Model of conducting Psychometry analysis and developing test is available on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Item_response_theory; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasch_model

If you read carefully, each of these are used for developing the Final tests, and not developing results.

So, what was CAT 2010? Was it a data gathering exercise for CAT 2011? Is it worth giving One year in one's career to face such a situation wherein there are now doubts on whether the whole psychometry and normalization process was mindless banter to cover up for a shoddy process?

Who will answer these questions? Some answers like "questioning the psychometry is like questioning maths" etc show the disdainful attitude to get things right. My heart pains for those aspirants who believe in this system and may today believe that they are really not good enough.

I am open for a debate on this. We can probably get the best guys from GMAT or GRE teams to talk on this on a open forum and tell everyone whats the actual process.

Filing RTI will never let us know if the process followed was right or wrong. We need global experts to make a point here. Else, the whole attitude of "we are the best in India and we can get away with anything and everything" will soon doom our management education system.