In the first part of the article by Dr MJ Xavier, Reimagining the MBA to keep it relevant , published on July 31, he says there appears to be a disconnect between the needs of industry and what is taught in an MBA. While industry is in 4G mode, using IOT and automation to manage in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, academics are in a 2G world, often unaware of SMAC (social media, mobile, analytics and cloud). It’s time, says Dr Xavier, to confront the problems haunting the MBA and look for strategies to reinvent the programme. This is the second and concluding part of the article.
A key reason for the decline of the MBA is the poor curriculum and pedagogy in most schools. Whether we like it or not, practice is ahead of theory. Our curriculum is behind practice by five to 15 years, based on the type of institution. This includes even top business schools around the world. For example, most schools teach marketing using Philip Kotler’s book while the world has moved far beyond. Marketing today happens through aggregators using mobile apps. Books are yet to be published on this new mode of business and marketing.
We cannot expect anything better from 1G teachers who are asked to teach 4G students. We still teach our students how to build a home using mud. The world has moved on. Our parents used bricks; we used hollow blocks and pre-fabricated structures. Currently, a house can even be built using 3D printing.
Naturally the students who graduate from such an obsolete system are not employment-ready. What is happening today is that industry has to spend time and effort training these MBAs further to make them employable. In such a scenario, industries prefer to invest money on undergraduates (say, those with BCom, BA or BBA degrees) who can be hired at lower salaries than MBAs who are prone to job-hopping in addition to being high-cost recruits.
A lot can be learnt from medical education, where students are taught using live cases as there are hospitals attached to every medical college. Unfortunately, engineering and management education have very few linkages with industry. The faculty is evaluated based on publications in top journals, which have no industry reviewers. Over time, the review process has further widened the gap between theory and practice.
Reinventing the MBA
Many are optimistic that the demographic dividend will revive the demand for MBA in India. Whether the MBA survives or not, technology will bring competition from unexpected quarters and cheaper alternatives, so that institutions will find it difficult to charge a premium.
Surely we are in a declining market as corporate jobs are dwindling. Can we find new markets for our existing product, namely the MBA? My estimate is that large corporates account for only 10 per cent of employment. The other 90 per cent of jobs are to be found in the small-scale and unorganised sectors.
The social sector is emerging as a dominant employer. There are huge opportunities in CSR, social entrepreneurship, disaster management and community health management. Unfortunately, neither the teachers nor the students are interested in exploiting opportunities in the social sector.
At IIM Ranchi, I developed a Barefoot Manager Programme for school dropouts at a cost of ₹30 lakh. This video programme is available in Hindi, Bhojpuri and Nagpuri languages. This fits in with NSQF (National Skill Qualification Forum) too. Within a year of its launch, we got orders worth over ₹2 crore. It’s not rocket science and can be taught to anyone.
Duration of the course
Management programmes need not be of two years duration. One can offer even a 10-day ‘mini’ MBA. You are only limited by your imagination. You can develop mini-MBAs for farmers, housewives, grocers and masons. Let us create models for the rest of the world to follow and not simply copy what is not relevant for us.
We should attach institutes to industry clusters — like a hospital with every medical college. Each institute should set up its own clinics — such as a marketing clinic or HR clinic. Consider, for example, an industrial cluster like Tiruppur. We can set up engineering colleges that offer hosiery technology. Management institutes can teach hosiery marketing, SCM for the hosiery industry, and so on. We need to bridge the divide between industry and institutes by engaging with them. Every teacher should become a consultant-teacher.
Programmes can also come in multiple formats – pure online, blended and face-to-face models. A mix of face-to-face, online/mobile and self-study elements should be built into each programme. Today’s technology allows even customised mixes to suit individual needs. Consequently, the programme fee can be different for each student. The start date, end date and programme duration can also be customised for individual students.
Range of options
We are living in an age of aggregators — be it travel, health or online retail. Ola Cabs is a good case in point. Now you have doctors online, drivers on call, and a host of other services managed by aggregators. The aggregators will soon invade education too. On a MOOC platform like Coursera, you can get the best professors from top universities around the world.
Over time, students will prefer such a platform that provides a wide range of courses and multiple teacher options for each course. Before an outsider unscrambles industry, regional business schools in India should form consortia and start doing common admissions and share resources.
What we are witnessing today is a major unbundling of education. The traditional method, where the same teacher plans the lessons, delivers the lectures, sets question papers and evaluates students, may be in for a major overhaul.
In the new model, lessons are prepared by experts, professional presenters deliver the lectures, specialists in evaluation prepare the assessment instruments and an outsourced vendor may do the evaluation. Apart from this, there are specialists who supply simulation games, set field projects and provide live case studies for each course.
On the whole, we are on the cusp of a major revolution in education. The university of the future may have little resemblance to what we have today. Not many of the successful colleges and universities may have the bandwidth to weather such a sweeping revolution. We need to reimagine everything, including classroom dynamics, teaching methods, and the kind of courses offered in colleges and universities.