E-commerce related activities in India are on upswing and so are the challenges attached to the relatively new and emerging business. In a bid to be able to handle some of these problems efficiently and faster, e-commerce companies such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon among hundreds of others are looking for talents with requisite skills. This in turn has provided a food for thought to a few business schools in the country to launch courses specific to e-commerce such as web analytics, supply chain, online business models and strategies, e-commerce laws, mobile application and big data.
The Indian Institute Management, Calcutta (IIMC) is planning to launch a few independent courses most likely from the next academic year. IIMC already has e-Commerce elective course for its 2nd year students, which might evolve as independent electives in near future. “We have thoughts related to social commerce and web analytics. These new courses could help the students to refine their thought process, enable them to manage the e-business houses in a more competitive and sustainable manner and enable to have greater customer satisfaction,” said Parthasarathi Dasgupta, Professor of Management Information Systems at IIMC.
Social Commerce
He further added that a few trends that would dominate study curriculum in business schools going forward are: increasing use of social commerce, use of mobile payment systems, analytics for intelligent decisions based on the huge (and often real-time) data from e-business, better integration across the supply-chain link and enabling use of multiple devices/platforms for e-business. Similarly, Ghaziabad-based IMT, which already offers courses on digital marketing, retail management, managing innovations, is also looking to start full-time courses on web analytics, supply chain management specific to e-commerce.
Vishal Goyal, Group Head- Corporate relations, IMT Ghaziabad and Dubai, said that the institute is talking to several e-commerce stalwarts and startups to understand the opportunities of this emerging industry. "Faculty members are reading and writing white-papers which are going to published soon. This will help us get clarity on what kind of new electives or independent course we can include in future," he said.
Mumbai-based MET has recently introduced a course in e-commerce. Hyderabad-based ISB, one of the leading b-school in the country, and another Mumbai based institute, Welingkar have been quite ahead of the curve and had introduced one year PGP programe on Leveraging Web 2.0, and Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM E-Biz) program respectively since the dotcom hey days. Welingkar also runs distance learning post graduate programmes on e-commerce.Professor Dr Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool (Welingkar) said that, "We are witnessing that e-commerce has grown 500 times in the past 5 years, the B2B e-commerce is growing as well and holds a huge potential. Our decision on the ebusiness program has thus been vindicated."
He also added that the entry of established global e-commerce players, interest of investors and several other parallel trends in terms of FDI in e-retail and digital payments have resulted in a gradual development of the e-commerce ecosystem and the corresponding boom in the e-commerce ventures such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Zomato and Makemytrip among others.
Of late many of these schools have witnessed an increase in number of students opting for e-commerce related courses.
At ISB, the number of students opting for each of these courses today has gone up 150 today as against a mere 50 students five years back. Welingkar receives over 10,000 applications for about 60 seats in Mumbai and 120 in Bangalore.
In Demand
Experts believe a degree in e-commerce/e-business prepares graduates for careers in a business world governed by electronic services. Due to the prevalence of e-commerce in the current business world, individuals educated in the field are in demand. Graduates of an e-commerce degree program can expect more advancement opportunities and a much higher salary than those trained in solely generic business areas.
Prof Amit Mehra, Joint Executive Director at Srini Raju Centre for IT and Networked Economy at ISB said that India is almost five years behind the developed countries in terms of e-commerce and this is one major reason why not many colleges have given a thought to introduce specialised courses. “The content of these courses are very dynamic and focussed. We don’t have experienced faculty for these courses. We should have more discussions among the colleges to understand the nuances of ecommerce that will help to create teaching materials and modules,” he added.