MBA degree and recession?

As most coaching classes are busy preparing their call-getters to convert their initial calls, into final admits, news from B-School campuses keeps pouring in. 'Placements take a hit at top B-schools'. 'IIM students look up to PSU's for their placements'. These reports have been raising doubts in the minds of the call-getters, whether it is the right time to quit a secured job and go for something as uncertain as an MBA?

The fact of the matter is that this slowdown is not a recent phenomenon. We saw it coming last year itself, the year in which the IIM's witnessed the highest number of CAT applications - more than 2.80 lakh, about 25% over the CAT 2007 numbers. A similar jump was seen in the number of applications to other institutes as well. So why is an increasing number of students looking to beat the slowdown with an MBA degree?

The reason why most people opt for an MBA is not only because it gives very generous monetary returns, but also because it is important for making a career change. Different people have different reasons for doing an MBA - knowledge, a better position, shift of career and some do it even for status.

But the big question is, what is the right time to do an MBA? With jobs not available, pay-hike being almost negligible, many people believe that this is the right time to spend 2 years doing MBA and upgrade your skills and ability to get employed. If you analyze objectively, by the time you pass out, the business cycle may be on the upturn and you would be ready on time to take advantage of the situation.

Though the atmosphere at business schools may suggest otherwise, a point to be noted here is that it is only the salaries that have taken a hit - not placements. Most of the top B-Schools have recorded 100% placements or close to that. Earlier finance companies used to recruit students in bulk at higher pay packages.

Today, due to the economic downturn, finance companies are making fewer offers with lower pay packages and this in general has plummeted the average salaries at B-schools. But on the positive side, students have garnered the opportunity to work in diversified profiles across sectors and functions, profiles that would help in their career progression.

The two intensive years that you spend at a B-School campus equip you with knowledge in areas like finance, marketing, logistics, personnel and strategy. Also, through case studies you would learn to analyze different business issues faced by the companies.

You also get an opportunity for internship and projects, which help you gain that valuable real life experience. In short, an MBA from a top B-school gives you the flexibility to switch careers and also makes you more employable because of the mental grooming to face the challenges of the real world.

Though this might be the right time to do your MBA, you need to be careful about certain things. Go for the top B-Schools only. An ordinary B-School may not offer you all the benefits that we have discussed earlier.

Since you are trading off an earning opportunity to do your MBA, you should ensure that you get a good return on your investment of time and money. Secondly, in tough times like these, you might look forward to shorter MBA programs. There are a couple of good institutes that are offering a 1-Year MBA program. So, you not only get all the advantages of a good MBA program, but your earning cycle starts a year in advance.

However, whether it is a 1-Year program or a 2-Year program, an MBA degree does have the power to bail you out of the recession.

Future managers should put theory into practice

The pursuit of success unfolds many challenges and choosing right career option is the first step towards meeting them. However, a few understand that it's not the end but a beginning. Certain careers beckon students for their good job prospects.

Management education is one of the most sought after options today. Aspiring MBA set their eyes on getting a toehold in the best business school. However, the industry professionals say students are under a wrong notion that entry into a premier management institute makes things easier for future. More than teachers, infrastructure or syllabus, it is perception that makes the best business institute stand out. Management is not just a lucrative career option but it's an attitude, the experts feel.

Students should understand the whole concept, says Dr (Capt) Chitale, dean, department of management sciences, University of Pune. "In order to become good managers, students should know what management is. It is part of every walk of life. Many aspirants have some vague idea about management. There are sub-options like finance, human resources, marketing, IT, communications and so on in the management field. Students should zero in on the branch they would like to pursue. When one is clear about one's goal, it can be approached easily," Chitale adds.

According to him, management schools should act more as academic institutes. "They give knowledge and create a solid foundation. Nowadays, many of them appear acting more as placement agencies. The syllabus is more or less industry-centric but all that matters is its implementation. There are certain things, current affairs for instance, we cannot incorporate in the syllabus. B-schools should organise seminars and workshops on issues like global warming, terrorism, budget and the like. Management is required everywhere, right from home to traffic to governance. These could be good lessons for budding managers," he says.

Students should not be learning the basics after joining jobs, he feels. "Proper orientation is needed. Many of them can't recollect in the fourth semester what they learn during the first. If they want to succeed, they should think beyond jobs. Most industries are not happy with today's management school products. Why have any disparity between needs of the industry and education?" he wants to know.

Putting theory into practice will take students far, he opines. "Perfect application of theory is crucial. Learning process continues all through the life. Management education is mere preparation and real learning starts with experience. They should hone their skills and get the basics right. Basically, why should one learn for getting jobs? If we study to build competence, success follows," Chitale says.

Good business schools should develop students' ability to think and anaylise, he says. "This is what management is all about. That's why it is called an attitude and way of life. Let students learn the basics and rest assured. B-schools should focus on this ground reality," Chitale avers. 

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Teaching: Business sense for entrepreneurs

KOLKATA: They are just as sharp and focused as some of the youngsters they train. And they could easily have been in their shoes, taking charge of the country's corporate sector. But they have chosen a behind-the-scene role of grooming business leaders, which has also proved to be a lucrative career option for many of these IIM and IIT graduates. Running a CAT coaching centre, they say, could be as rewarding as a multinational job if not more profitable and satisfying. 

Take Naveen Saraff, for instance. The IIM-Bangalore passout quit a job with Reliance Capital in Mumbai to train CAT aspirants at IMS Learning Centre in Kolkata as a franchisee. The reason: he found it as promising and interesting an option as any job that he could land with his IIM degree. "I wanted to be in Kolkata and preferred doing my own thing rather than a regular job. Also, the jobs offered to us on campus were not as lucrative as some of them now are," says Saraff, now the city head of Career Launcher, another CAT training institute. 

Saraff enjoys sharing

his experiences with students and helping them with 

insights and inputs that only an IIM passout can give. "It allowed me to do what I wanted to. I was confident of earning enough," he adds. 

A teaching stint at Time, another leading CAT training institute, changed the course of Rahul Reddy's career. The IIM-Calcutta graduate switched over to teaching entrepreneurship in Kolkata after holding senior posts in MNCs. "The entrepreneurship bug bit me on the IIM campus. I always wanted to be in the education field and try and do things differently. Also, I felt that I could help CAT aspirants do better and help more crack the test," he says. 

Others like Nikunj Bhagat, a partner at Career Launcher, made the switch since it made his professional life more flexible. "Working 12 hours a day and living out of a suitcase was not my idea of happiness. I was better off without the pressure," says Bhagat, an IIM-Bangalore passout. 

With a mechanical engineering degree from IIT-Kanpur and a management diploma from XLRI, Charapreet Singh never really saw himself as a teacher or an entrepreneur till he started teaching CAT aspirants at IMS as a part-time job. Singh, however, didn't take the plunge immediately. After successful stints with Tata Steel, PwC, Compaq and HP, he finally returned to his CAT training job as an entrepreneur. "I have no regrets," says Singh, who now heads the Praxis Business School. 

A growing number of students from leading B-schools across the country are joining management entrance coaching centres. And IIMs are no exception. Last year, two IIM-Ahmedabad students and one from IIM-Indore joined IMS as managers. One from XLRI, Jamshedpur, did the same. 

But are they losing in financial terms to pursue their interest? Yes and no, according to the teacher-entrepreneurs. "Considering the rise in the number of CAT aspirants over the last 10 years, the market has expanded phenomenally. When I started in 1999, around 3000 would take the test from Kolkata," said Saraff. "Now, the number hovers around the 14,000 mark and nearly all of them go through coaching. On the other hand, corporate salaries have gone up manifold. The highest salary offered on campus was around Rs 6 lakh when I passed out. It's five times that figure now. So, at the end of the day it is an individual decision." he adds.

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Does an Entrepreneur Need an MBA?

A lot of (wannabe) entrepreneurs ask or indeed wonder if they should enroll in a business school and get “business expertise” that would be useful to them as entrepreneurs.

Acknowledging this, an increasing number of universities and colleges are offering courses in entrepreneurship as part of their business education. Around the world, business plan competitions are held by academic institutions at regular intervals. The wide publicity given to entrepreneurship in recent times has resulted in entrepreneurs gaining respect and being acknowledged as critical participants in a country’s economy, wealth and job creation.

But does taking a course or two in entrepreneurship while pursuing a business degree make one a better entrepreneur? I don’t think so. While they’re useful in understanding multiple aspects of entrepreneurship, these courses don’t make you a better entrepreneur. Are these courses useless then? Not really.

A small percentage of any population becomes entrepreneurs while the vast majority becomes employees. There’s nothing good or bad or right or wrong about this – it is just the way it is and indeed should be as both entrepreneurs and managers-employees perform complementary activities in the growth of an economy.

A significant number of professional investors are MBAs while an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs are not! MBAs are trained to assess and attempt to mitigate risk and determine value of an investment in the future, a tricky thing to do in the best of times.

Additionally, there’s the seeming opportunity cost for an MBA – fancy salaries and lifestyles that effectively preclude any entrepreneurial thoughts. On the other hand, an entrepreneur needs to take several leaps of faith at various points (which unfortunately cannot be modeled), needs to be a good judge of people and situations (experience is a great teacher here) and be able to persevere, motivate and excite his team and partners to deliver (no MBA program teaches this). Taking decisions with incomplete information and with imperfect people isn’t what the classroom teaches. Only experience, introspection and a mentor teach you these lessons. Analytical skills alone won’t suffice, there needs to be synthesis as well - an ability to see the forest, the lay of the land and accordingly marshal resources to make a road.

In countries like India, most students doing their MBA have little or no work experience. Their ability therefore to spot opportunities, appreciate scenarios, develop and leverage relationships is limited compared to those with experience. It also doesn’t help that academic institutions in India are insulated from industry, entrepreneurs and the entrepreneur ecosystem.

Yet why are investors almost always biased in favor of entrepreneurs with degrees from well known business schools? The reason is that, all other things being equal, the degree is a filter – demonstrates that the holder has passed other stringent selection criteria. It is obviously not perfect. On the other hand, many professional investors and many senior executives in the corporate sector are usually business school an alumnus so having the MBA degree assures a network that can be leveraged by the entrepreneur.

Now here’s an exercise worth doing. Business school education in the US is about 100 years old and about 45 years old in India. During this time, how many wealth creators (not companies lifestyle or income-substitution businesses like consultancies), across all sectors of the economy, were founded by MBA entrepreneurs in either country? What about economies like Israel, Taiwan, China, Korea, Germany, UK, and Japan? My guess is that this number would be a very tiny fraction. What’s yours?

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India's B-schools: Growth in Quantity, Not Quality

NEW DELHI -- This is the tenth consecutive year that I have been actively involved in ranking India's business schools. As part of the study, I have visited over 350 campuses so far; still I could not keep pace with their rapid proliferation. It started with the liberalization of India's economy in 1991, when there were about 50 B-schools in the country. Between 1991 and 2000, the number rose to about 700. Between 2001 and 2009, the number galloped to about 2,000. This proliferation is perhaps the major highlight of our B-school story.

Quantitatively, it is an impressive growth story. However, the quality of education delivered in most of them is the disturbing aspect of this positive narrative.

Since our ranking methodology is based primarily on objective data, I have had access to important facts and figures pertaining to the faculty, infrastructure, industry interface and pedagogy followed in many of our B-schools. Last year, I also was nominated to the management and technology committee of the National Board of Accreditation, which is the government's higher educational accreditation body. This gave me the opportunity to have access to the official records of many business schools that otherwise don't participate in our survey.

And here is the depressing conclusion: Not more than 30 B-schools in the country – about 1.5% of the total -- have systems and processes in place to deliver quality education. The vast majority are inefficient teaching colleges and function primarily as placement agencies.

If there has been proliferation of dubious B-schools, one important contributing factor has been the "license Raj" of the government's regulator, the All India Council for Technical Education or AICTE.

Under the council's rules, a newly-established business school can't admit more than 60 students in the first year and for subsequent incremental expansion, it needs a number of different permits. This rule, it seems, has been inspired by the philosophy of keeping capacity down to avert monopolies and to protect the small-scale entrepreneur.

With this constraint on student intake, institutes find it difficult to run a quality program without any aid. Yet government-aided autonomous B-schools like the Indian Institutes of Management, which don't have to seek AICTE approval for expansion, have been too complacent. Though they have expanded capacity somewhat in the past two years, they failed to do so for the better part of four decades.

Many shoddy B-schools quickly moved in to fill the space that the growing economy created. Some of them blatantly violated the law, luring students with misleading advertisements and admitting them without any approvals. Many of them routinely siphon off major parts of the financial surplus they generate to unrelated activities instead of cultivating faculty or using it for improvement of the institute's systems.

If competent B-schools were allowed to increase student intake, they would have substantially crowded out the substandard ones. But to get AICTE approval, a school must meet the AICTE's requirements such as a minimum number of permanent faculty, a minimum campus size, a minimum built-up area etc. Many AICTE-approved schools have adhered to these minimum requirements but have not gone beyond. AICTE approval has become a licence for them to become complacent and, of course, to make money.

One of the main objectives of the annual ranking that we do is to bring B-schools out of their shell of complacency and to promote healthy competition among them so that, in the process, the quality of education improves. We have been partially successful in our objective. Since ours is a transparent methodology, every year B-school directors who participate in the survey get to know their weak areas and work to improve their rank.

In year 2000, we found that more than 70% of B-schools that we surveyed didn't have a single faculty member who had authored a case or a research paper or a book. In this year's survey, 81% of the institutes had at least one faculty member who had authored a research paper that was published in a peer-reviewed journal.

We can also see an improvement in faculty strength, interaction with industry, infrastructure and international linkages in some of them. About a decade ago, only about 20 B-schools had their own journals. Now, over 270 have one. On the flip side, not more than 10 of them are of an international standard. Beyond the top 25 B-schools, faculty publication in peer-reviewed international journals is almost non-existent.

Entrepreneurship development continues to remain a neglected area. Of the 2,000 B-schools that we now have, not even 10 have an effective incubation centre to cultivate enterprise.

But the most important concern when we conducted the first survey was the shortage of competent faculty. Today, sadly, it remains the biggest problem.

[Premchand Palety is chief executive of the Centre for Forecasting & Research (C fore) in New Delhi. He has more than 15 years experience in market research, opinion research, election surveys and performance appraisal studies at a national level. For about a decade he has been writing on management education. In 2002, he authored a book on the best business schools in India, published by Penguin. He is a member of the Management and Technology Committee of the National Board of Accreditation.]

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Business leaders advise executives of the future

ANTALYA - Senior executives of Turkey’s leading corporations and financial institutions come together with MBA students, sharing their experiences in the business world. Kamil Gökhan Bozkurt of Türk Telekom emphasizes the importance of collective intelligence, while Galya Frayman Molinas says a ’segmented approach’ helped Coca-Cola to break sales records.

Organized by the MBA clubs of Sabancı University and Bilkent University, MBA Forum 2009 was held in the southern city of Antalya over the weekend. Senior executives of Turkey’s leading companies attended the forum to share their experiences with MBA students.

Focused on four main topics, namely leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and branding, MBA Forum 2009 witnessed a barrage of questions from MBA students to executives.

Speaking on productivity in business life, Kamil Gökhan Bozkurt, human resources chief of Türk Telekom, addressed MBA students as "CEO candidates of the future."

"The MBA is a general program. What is crucial during this program is to decide which specific way you will take. This decision will affect your career path in the future," Bozkurt said.

Collective intelligence as opposed to individual action

Highlighting the importance of using collective intelligence instead of acting individually to achieve productivity, Bozkurt also said especially European and American companies implement this principle well, although they are perceived as "individualistic societies."

Defining productivity as "displaying the right behavior at the right time and place" Bozkurt listed the elements for success in business life as self-confidence, will to struggle, planned endeavor and avoidance from emotional behavior.

Galya Frayman Molinas, chief executive of Coca-Cola İçecek, said the organization is a great opportunity to prepare potential directors for their career journey in the 21st century.

"Coca-Cola multiplied its sales together with the profit margins when it diverged from the ’one size fits all’ approach to a segmented approach," Molinas said. "The company employs around 20,000 people just in Turkey."

Molinas said consistency and continuity are key factors in business success. "The primary focus in the business world is to achieve sustainable growth," Molinas said. "There are four main elements to this: marketplace, communities, workplace and environment."

Bringing a different perspective to the meeting, Hüsnü Özyeğin, chairman of the board of directors at Fiba Holding, stressed the importance of a social personality for a successful business life. "What MBA programs lack in general is a clear development plan," he said. "The factors of change and coincidence are also determinant along the career path."

"It is not so much important for a senior director to know the sector he works in very well," said Özyeğin, adding that the most important factor in business life is to have management skills, which include follow-up work, motivating employees and having a clear road map.

Answering a question on whether he has made any important mistake that might have affected his life or career, Özyeğin said he did a lot. "However, what is important is to make small-scale mistakes while achieving large scale successes."

Spotting employees with high potential

Highlighting "the desire to learn" as the crucial factor in managing businesses, Tayfun Bayazıt, chief executive of Yapı Kredi Bank, said experience plays a very important role in business life. "However, more important than that is to determine the high-potential employees and orient them into professional life as soon as possible."

Tarık Bayazıt, partner of Changa Restaurants, on the other hand, mentioned the difference between pursuing a career in a corporate business and setting up one’s own business. "I advise you to do the job which makes you happy the most. Do not be afraid of the job you do not know well. Maybe this is the very place of your success and happiness."

Disagreeing with Bayazıt, Burhan Karaçam, the former chief executive of Yapı Kredi, advised MBA students either to gain a good knowledge base before starting a job or to do the job they know well. "This is not a good time to risk your time and energy," he said.

MBA, or Master of Business Administration, is a master's degree in business administration, attracting people from various academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States as companies sought out scientific approaches to management.

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Earnings Gender Gap in Business

PARIS — The worlds of finance and big business are notoriously dominated by middle-aged men. But recent research suggests that this may not be for the usually suspected reason — a glass ceiling molded from male prejudice. The research, by Marianne Bertrand, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and two Harvard economics professors, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, provides a statistical explanation: women with children fall behind because they work less, the study says.

The joint paper, “Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors,” tracks the careers of male and female graduates of the Chicago business school who received their master’s degree in business administration between 1990 and 2006. It follows their progression into the corporate and financial sectors and shows how career paths differ by gender in terms of earnings and labor force participation, several years after graduation.

“Despite the narrowing of the gender gap in business education, there is a growing sense that women are not getting ahead fast enough in the corporate world,” the report says. Indeed, while 40 percent of master’s degrees in business awarded in the United States are earned by women, the survey cites research from the 1990s that showed only 2.5 percent of senior executives in large and medium-size U.S. companies were women. While the number of women chief executives in those companies rose eight-fold between 1992 and 2004, they still numbered only 34, or 1.3 percent of the total.

“The main conclusion from our work is that female M.B.A.’s have not done as well as male M.B.A.’s in the labor market,” the report says. “That finding should not come as a surprise. The more startling findings concern why they have not done as well.”

In business school and early employment, male and female career paths are quite similar, the survey shows. Women tend to take more marketing classes and men more finance classes; but their grade point averages differ only very slightly, and the years following graduation generally lead to similar jobs and performance.

The real difference, said Dr. Bertrand in an interview, starts with maternity leave. “Any departure, for six months or more, is costly,” she said. “Male or female, you never re-enter where you were.”

Women executives who do not have children follow career paths that closely replicate those of their male peers. Successful M.B.A. couples have similar work patterns, said Dr. Bertrand. “Women without children married to high-earning spouses are just as likely to work and accumulate post-M.B.A. work experience at an almost identical rate,” she said. “Call a woman without a child a man.”

Until the first child arrives, M.B.A. couples act as mutual drivers, encouraging each other to work more, Dr. Bertrand said. But with the arrival of motherhood, the picture changes. When women executives return to the office, after several months of absence, they typically start to work shorter hours, the study shows: 52 hours per week, compared with an average 58 hours for their male peers, as they adapt to their new double task. “They try to have both pieces,” Dr. Bertrand said.

About a decade after completion of the M.B.A. course, the gap in hours worked adds up to the cumulative equivalent of a six-month difference in job experience between men and women, and the difference is a costly one, the report says.

The relative earnings of female executives start to decline in the first two years after the first child is born, and the rate of decline accelerates thereafter. “Earnings decline linearly with hours worked in the first two years after the first birth, but hourly wage penalties, associated with career interruptions, become evident for M.B.A. women three years after the birth.

“A woman’s annual earnings drop by about $45,000 in the two years following the first birth, and the impact grows close to $80,000 a year in subsequent years.” In contrast, the earnings of male M.B.A.’s continue to rise after they become fathers. “Male labor supply is virtually unaffected by fatherhood,” the report notes.

Because top executive jobs are hard to fit with motherhood, high-flying women may quit the corporate rat race for self-employed consulting, and then cut back even further on working time: 10 years after completing an M.B.A., 62 percent of self-employed women in the survey sample had made that decision. “They want to be excellent professionally, but they want to be excellent mothers, too,” Dr. Bertrand said.

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How Business Schools Have Failed Business

As we try to understand why our economy is so troubled, fingers are increasingly being pointed at the academic institutions that educated those who got us into this mess. What have business schools failed to teach our business leaders and policy makers? There are three profound failures of sound business practices at the root of the economic crisis, and none of them have been adequately addressed by our business schools.

Just about everyone agrees that misaligned incentive programs are at the core of what brought our financial system to its knees. Countless individuals became multimillionaires by gambling away shareholders' money. Incentive systems that rewarded short-term gain took precedence over those designed for long-term value creation.

We could chalk this all up to greed, as many pundits have. But first we should ask how many of the business schools attended by America's CEOs and directors educate their students about the best way to design management compensation systems. Amazingly, this subject is not systematically addressed at most business schools, and not even discussed at others.

Secondly, as Washington scrambles to restructure the financial regulatory system, those who still believe in the private sector are asking why corporate boards were AWOL as institution after institution crumbled. Why did it take rumors of nationalization and a drop in Citicorp stock to below $2 a share to inspire Citigroup to nominate directors with experience in financial markets?

American icon General Electric was stripped of its coveted AAA-rating because of problems emanating from its financial services unit. Yet its board has only one director with experience in a financial institution. If it is the board's job to oversee a corporation, it seems logical that there would be a segment in the core curriculum of every business school devoted to board structure, composition and processes. But most programs don't cover the topic.

The third breakdown came in the investment community. Nearly 20 years ago I wrote a book titled "Short-Term America" that warned about the growing chasm between those who provide capital and the companies who use it. The concept is simple: When money provided to homeowners or businesses comes from an anonymous source, possibly half way around the world, there are serious challenges to operating a functioning system of accountability.

Nationally, finance departments at business schools offer hundreds of courses in asset securitization and portfolio diversification. They have taught a generation of financial leaders that risk can be diversified away. But in their B-school days, few investment bankers examined the notion of "agency costs." That concept explains that as the gulf between the provider and the user of capital widens, the risks involved with selecting and monitoring the participants in the portfolio increase. It should come as no surprise that financial institutions amassed securities that consist of a diversified portfolio of deadbeats.

About 70% of the shares of American corporations are held by institutional investors such as pension and mutual funds. These organizations are brimming with MBAs. But how many of these MBAs took a class devoted to how shareholders should exercise their rights and obligations as the owners of America's corporations? Few, if any. When shareholders are uneducated about their obligations, how can a corporate accountability system function properly?

Recently, when I delivered a guest lecture at another school, a distraught-looking student pulled me aside after class. She explained that my talk was very disturbing to her. After investing two years and $100,000, she was only weeks away from receiving her MBA. But prior to our class, she had never heard a discussion about board responsibilities or the rights of shareholders. She said she felt cheated.

By failing to teach the principles of corporate governance, our business schools have failed our students. And by not internalizing sound principles of governance and accountability, B-school graduates have matured into executives and investment bankers who have failed American workers and retirees who have witnessed their jobs and savings vanish.

Most B-schools paper over the topic by requiring first-year students to take a compulsory ethics class, which is necessary, but not sufficient. Would Bernie Madoff have acted differently if he had aced his ethics final?

Could we have avoided most of the economic problems we now face if we had a generation of business leaders who were trained in designing compensation systems that promote long-term value? And who were educated in the proper make-up and responsibilities of boards? And who were enlightened as to how shareholders can use their proxies to affect accountability? I think we could have.

America's business schools need to rethink what we are teaching -- and not teaching -- the next generation of leaders.

Mr. Jacobs, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, was director of corporate finance policy at the U.S. Treasury from 1989 to 1991.

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Art and Science of an MBA

Often, the question of whether management can be effectively taught is reduced to the question of whether it's an art or a science, and that's too binary. It's both.

Renaissance man extraordinaire Leonardo da Vinci blended art and science quite nicely and in a highly individual way, particularly with his inventions. So did Gaudi, the Spanish architect who designed the huge, whimsical church La Sagrada Familia. So has Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who has written beautifully crafted essays about his patients' neurological disorders.

You'll notice a lot of disparity within this highly distinguished group, and that's for good reason. The trick to blending art and science successfully is finding the right combination for the individual and for the moment.

The art/science debate isn't unique to business academia. When I was working on an MFA in creative writing, it was fashionable--among many of my peers and professors, not just people who exclusively wrote for a living--to argue that artistry couldn't be taught. We were, the argument went, just jumping through academic hoops to get employed or published. No one was actually there to "learn" the craft. Writers had talent, or they didn't.

Some of the art-can't-be-taught people were downright uppity when they got going on this topic, and I never understood that. Set aside the fact that the cynicism wasn't constructive. For me, the bigger problem with the argument was that it was so narrow, just like the art/science dichotomy many folks are so eager to impose on business.

Yes, it's true that complex business problems involving conflicts of interest or conflicts of ethics don't always lend themselves to the tidy kinds of solutions you're likely to cook up as you're discussing a case study in an MBA classroom. It's also true that you don't need an MFA to write the great American novel--and that, in fact, many such novels wouldn't stand up very well to being "workshopped."

But there's certainly no harm in practicing and refining your skills in the relatively safe environment of school so that once you're set loose in the big, bad world, you're better equipped to handle a bolt of brilliance when it deigns to strike. And if you're already a successful manager with a flair for, say, talent development, but you decide to go back to school to brush up on some technical skills to improve your bird's-eye view of your organization, no harm there, either.

Maybe we can usefully divide responsibilities for the ethical management of businesses along these lines: Schools need to cover as many bases as can reasonably be covered in a curriculum, and individuals need to take it from there. It's the individuals' responsibility to figure out what precise balance of instruction and finesse--of science and art--makes sense for them, given their own circumstances.

To the extent that great management is a work of creative genius, it's incumbent upon the manager to come up with his or her own recipe for success, as Da Vinci and Gaudi and Sacks did. Schools shouldn't be absolved from accountability for the quality of managers they turn out--but intelligently and responsibly designed curricula will take us only so far. MBA programs can set up people to succeed. But then the individual's values and ambitions will inevitably kick in, for better or worse.

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Attitude, not certificate, marks success: Shiv Khera

MADURAI: “It is not the certificate in our hands but our attitude that matters in our journey towards success,” said Shiv Khera, noted author of You Can Win, here on Sunday.He was addressing the students of various educational institutions run by Velammal Educational Trust. Shiv Khera observed that the management students of today, nurtured an unhealthy overconfidence in their capabilities.

They considered their mark sheets as tickets to success and they wanted to start their professional life as a CEO and nothing less. But in real life, most of the MBA graduates possessed expertise in nothing and had only their certificates to show, he noted. He charged that in most of the cases they did not even understand the overall situation prevailing in the industry in which they worked.

For the older generation remorse was the major factor if they committed a mistake but today’s generation if they were caught for some misdeed they felt no remorse but wondered why they had been caught, Khera stated.“The accelerating number of HIV cases in the country is also an indicator of the moral degradation of our society.

A major portion of HIV patients is reported to be below the age of 25. Ninety percent of those affected by the killer disease are homosexuals, those having multiple partners and drug users. This shows that our youth have a weak moral background and are sexually promiscuous,” he said.He asked the students gathered to enrich their inborn talents through practice and to work hard for the fulfillment of their goals.

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Demand for MBAs on rise

KANPUR: Despite global economic recession, demand for MBAs is expected to be around 10-12 lakhs within the next couple of years. The prophesy was made by management expert Anil Singh on Saturday.

Singh was giving tips to the MBA aspirants during a seminar organised on 'MBA preparation Demands'. Addressing a jam-packed hall, Singh said recession had proved to be a blessing in disguise for MBAs, as new employment avenues had opened up for them in the form of public sector undertakings.

He also made a special reference to CAT going online from the current year. He stressed that the students would now need to become computer savvy and thus must have strong conceptual skills and command on fundamentals.

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Should you do your MBA?

You just lost your job. Should you start looking for a new one or do the overstated MBA? After all, IIM grads do seem to be raking in all the moolah these days.

An MBA is not for everyone

"An MBA makes sense if you are doing it as part of your education i.e. before you start your career. However, if you are doing an MBA to boost your career, you must make sure you have sufficient years of experience," says Shashi Iyer, Partner, Harvest Strategies.

An MBA after just two years in a field is not completely worth it. It makes more sense to do an MBA after about five to seven years. This is because by that time you will have sufficient experience in the field and are looking for a break into a managerial role.

"If you are an engineer or any other professional, you could take a break for an MBA after about four years of working. This helps you get a feel of the industry and the MBA will help you refine your thought process," Shashi explains.

Does an MBA make a difference?

When companies are hiring, the harsh reality is that they would consider an MBA grad rather than someone with just talent for the job. "In my experience, I have noticed that MBA graduates from top B schools in the country have more structured thinking skills and require less inputs as compared to those who have not done an MBA," says Nupur Bhargava, VP Staffing, PepsiCo India Beverages.

Therefore, an MBA degree does give a person some edge over her contemporaries. However, at the end of the day it is only a starting point. What matters after one is hired is what one brings to the table, she continues.

Today, promotions are more performance-based than based on qualifications. So definitely people with talent can get ahead in the long run but it might take a little more time.

Money wise

If you are planning to get married and start a family in your late twenties, you are probably wondering if investing so much money in an MBA is worth it? Well, if you plan it out well, an MBA could work for you.

Say you start your career by 21. It would be a good idea to do an MBA by around 23 years. This way you can afford to take a break for marriage and post-pregnancy as well five years down the line.

Do a recognised MBA

Gayatri Parameswaran, Senior Officer, ADFC (a subsidiary of HDFC Bank) is pursuing a part-time MBA from Welingkars. She is specialising in Human Resources and hopes to get into senior level management.

But did you know it is not so much the MBA degree that counts as the institute from where you get it. Yes, any old MBA degree won't be worth anything.

"Very few companies accept any MBA certification for a managerial position," says Shashi Iyer. If you want to really grow in designation, it is important to do an MBA from a B school or a reputed international institute.

Also, it is important that you do a full time MBA because merely mugging textbooks isn't going to do you any good. It is the interaction with like-minded people and learning from them that will help you broaden your own knowledge.

But if you want to continue working, Manoj Varghese, Director of Human Resources, Google India says that you can pursue a part-time satellite based MBA through video conferencing. It is equally good as you get to interact with peers and learn from their experiences.

Arun Rajendran, Senior Account Manager with Adfactors was doing a part-time MBA from NMIMS but is now doing a part-time MBA from XLRI. "The XLRI MBA is a satellite based course. It is twice a week and hence, does not interfere with my work," Arun explains. "I am pursuing it primarily to better my prospects and gain perspective on dealing with my team."

Foreign MBAs

Doing an MBA from a foreign institute does not really give you an edge over your contemporaries. It is more important to do an MBA from a reputed institute than just a foreign one.

Fresh talent v/s experienced

Do companies prefer to hire fresh talent from B school and other MBA institute campuses? Well, it depends. Companies that hire from campuses are recruiting for various job profiles.

Every profile requires different qualifications. There are some openings that require more mature and experienced individuals while others require fresh talent that can be moulded into the organisational set up.

Company sponsored MBAs

Many companies offer their employees the chance to do an MBA while they work. This is great if you always wanted to do an MBA but couldn't because of lack of funds etc. However, you will not be able to do a fulltime MBA or choose the institute you want to do it from.

Often many people take up this kind of opportunity. Once they have completed their MBA, they have a degree in hand and usually wait to jump one level higher in their present organisation before they move on to higher ground.

Considering funds and a break

Opting for an MBA after working for a couple years makes sense if you do not have the funds to pursue an MBA immediately after a Bachelor's degree. However, after accumulating sufficient funds, you will probably be able to afford an MBA and take a planned break from work.

Also, if you plan on rejoining your old company, you must make sure that your company is okay with the extended break you plan to take. But if you are doing an MBA from one of the top institutes in the country you will be looking for a fresh start so that won't be much of an issue.

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Corporates focus on social responsibility

LUCKNOW: The organisations which have integrated themselves with societies would survive against all the present challenges. This was the opinion of the hosts of delegates from the corporates and academicia on the second day of the annual conclave - Manfest - organised by the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) on Saturday.

JJ Irani, director, Tata Sons said that one way is that of following the corporate social responsibility (CSR) which he said was "the future investment for any company''. The CSR, he said, was not only about giving back to the community but also fostering an environment of strong corporate governance. The other dignitaries present on the occasion included Seema Arora from CII-ITC centre of sustainable development and Prof PD Jose from IIM-Bangalore.

Manfest also hosted the second edition of `Anjuman - The Corporate Luncheon' on Saturday where the dignitaries were seen sharing their thoughts with students, faculties and alumni alike.

In the event - Call for Arms - top 10 B-schools from the country pitted against each other to formulate business expansion plans for the Sahara City homes. The plans were subsequently presented to the top management of Sahara infrastructure and housing limited.

Then came the `Biz Quiz' which was conducted by Avinash Mudaliar, acclaimed as one of the most renowned quiz masters. The quiz ended with the team from Accenture Services winning the final event.

Next, it was the turn for the elimination round of `Hell raiser', the rock competition. In the final round there were six teams from various B-schools which vied for the top prize.

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B-Schools and Globalisation

Robert Dolan, Dean of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, tells a funny story about when he, a freshly minted PhD in Operations Research, was assigned to teach a course in marketing at the Chicago School of Business.

He didn’t know much about marketing , so he decided he would visit the offices of Proctor & Gamble to find out what it was all about: “I put on my suit and was making my way out of the campus when the dean spotted me and asked me where I was going, all dressed up.

When I told him I was going to Proctor & Gamble to learn about marketing, he asked me, ‘Do they have any Nobel Laureates in Proctor & Gamble?’ When I said ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, ‘Well, we’ve got dozens of Nobel Laureates. So you just stay right here’” .

You might want to take the story with a pinch of salt, the way the dean tells it, but it certainly does serve to reinforce that old notion of academia as an ivory tower. Especially since it’s set in the University of Chicago, which indeed prides itself on the number of Nobel Laureates it has on the faculty and more specifically, at the Chicago School of Business, which has always put theory ahead of application (at the other extreme from Harvard, which holds up its case study method as the most effective pedagogy).

Nearly 30 years have gone by since Dolan tried to visit Proctor & Gamble. Today, his counterpart might consider hopping on a plane and coming to India or China instead . Would the dean stop him? The present dean of Chicago School of Business is the enlightened Ted Snyder and he probably would not.

At the same time, Snyder is unstinting in his criticism of how business school faculty have coped with the phenomenon of globlaisation: “If you look at how industries and organisations have responded to globalisation , you’ll find business schools have responded less than anyone else,“ he says. “It must be asked: do our faculty understand globalisation ? Do they understand emerging markets?”

The way the dean leaves the question hanging while adressing the audience of academicians, students and corporate CEOs at the recent Strategic Management Society (SMS) conference at the Indian School of Business (ISB), the answer seems to be ‘no.’ The reason is not hard to find. “Faculty don’t get around much,” says Snyder. “Bschools tend to be location specific and the faculty like to be rooted in one place for their research.”

No wonder then that the faculty of IIM-Ahmedabad has produced a surfeit of research on companies headquatered in Ahmedabad and ISB Hyderbad has tended to give undue importance to the now discredited Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers, who was invited to address not one, but two plenary sessions at the SMS conference.

At the Ivy League American b-schools , which are supposed to be more global in their outlook, research on emerging markets has come into vogue only in the last decade. Not surprisingly, faculty of Indian and Chinese origin, who happily find themselves in the right place at the right time, have taken the lead in publishing books and papers.

CK Prahalad, the prime mover of the SMS India Conference at ISB, plans to push the trend. “We have to ask ourselves , how can emerging markets be a source of inspiration for scholars?” he says. “The general view is that there’s nothing to learn from emerging markets, that innovation always flows from developed economies to developing economies. We have to challenge the tyranny of this dominant logic.”

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Techno-MBAs - need of the hour

The existing compartmentalised approach to management education has inherent limitations to be able to walk hand-in-hand with the fast changing global business scenario.

Today's technological civilisation needs rapid and radical changes to tackle issues. Hence business management programmes that connect with technology, design and innovation are indeed critical.

Survival as a manager in today's techno savvy work environment depends largely on your ability to innovate - and technology provides tremendous opportunities to innovate and differentiate.

The MBA of tomorrow therefore needs a strong foundation in technology.

Does this mean that one has to learn programming or be an engineer? - No. What is required is an understanding of the available technologies, their strengths and weaknesses, possible applications of these technologies to real life business situations and the ability to visualize newer solutions as an integral part of business planning. Equally the MBA needs to be able to harness this technology effectively and therefore must have good project, process and change management capabilities.

We are slowly but surely moving to an era where all business is becoming e-Business.

Recognising this need many B-schools started adding a few subjects such as e-commerce, MIS and IT for Management into their MBA syllabus. These subjects are usually handled as very elementary courses on technology and the management aspects of technology.

With the growth of IT and ITES businesses, the need for techno-MBAs is increasing by leaps and bounds.

From my recent years in helping students in placements I find that company's, both IT service providers as well as user industries looking for MBAs for traditional business roles seem to prefer MBAs who have some knowledge of technology.

Some B-schools, apart from having systems as specialisation, which is more suited for roles in the technology domain, provide the possibility of dual specialisation or a major/minor combination between functional and systems. This is an interesting way of addressing needs. Students who take finance or marketing for eg. can take these as their major and take a few subjects such as CRM or ERP or E-commerce as part of the Systems Minor.

Since many of these industry relevant courses and indeed the manner in which they are offered do not fit into the sometimes rigid framework of traditional educational systems such as Universities etc, the MBA aspirant must remember that the industry today evaluates based on the students' demonstrated talent and content of the courses and not merely affiliations to universities or government agencies. It is relevance which matters most.

Design and Innovation Management - imperative for future.

In this era of uncontrolled growth, not only of population but also products, services, scientific and technical information, how does one make sense of human needs and aspirations?

Emerging unarticulated needs and realities need new approaches. We feel management education can play a very crucial role in creating a new genre of managers who are attuned to these realities.

All forward thinking business leaders agree that innovation is the only way forward. Design that delivers sustainable solutions will play a significant role in business transformation.

We need a separate genre of managers who are trained not only to manage but also innovate, looking at the human, social and psychological needs of the users of their products and services, to make better profits in their line of business.

There are several organisations that have innovation centers/innovation hubs that focus on internalising design and innovation at all levels in the organisation. Some of the roles one can expect to play as persons with business and design knowledge are:

l Design Strategists / Design Interface Managers
l Business Analysts / Solution Architects / Information Architects
l Business and Organisational Architects
Certainly new output needs new input and therefore the pedagogy used while inculcating design and innovation thinking include unlearning workshops, integrated teaching and hands-on learning.
Your future success lies in selecting institutes and courses which have demonstrated their ability to deliver such as a blend of management, technology, design and innovation.

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research is key for excellence in B-schools

Foreign educational institutions are bound to be allowed to come in to establish institutions either on their own or as joint ventures, so the competition will intensify

The report of the committee to review the functioning of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) which was submitted to the Union ministry of human resource development (HRD), has been facing criticism within the IIMs since October. One of the biggest criticism was that the panel’s recommendations interfere with the autonomy of the IIMs. The panel in turn finds the B-schools’ management development programmes eroding the quality of their teaching and research. The ministry has now invited public comments on the recommendations.

Former Maruti Udyog Ltd. chairman R.C. Bhargava, who headed the panel, speaks about IIMs‘ autonomy, faculty MDPs and of dealing with intensifying competition from private business schools in an interview with Mint.

Excerpts:

The IIMs have turned out to be leaders in business education in India till now and they attract the brightest of students, both boys and girls. At the end of two-year post graduate programme, they are very much in demand, both inside and outside India. That’s the measure of the quality of education at the IIMs.

What we felt as a committee is that now they face a challenge from private investment in business education. It has been growing rapidly and will continue to grow because everyone has seen there is a big gap between demand and supply of good business education in this country—for 1,800 odd seats at the IIMs, about 2.5 lakh candidates take the exam every year. People invest where they see demand.

Foreign educational institutions are bound to be allowed to come in to establish institutions either on their own or as joint ventures so the competition will intensify. There is already some competition from private business schools but IIMs are still way ahead.

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Pink Slip and Jobless

JAIPUR: Life was sailing smooth for 25-year-old Shobit Saxena (name changed) till early September, when the real estate major he was working with asked him to shift base. He was asked to move to Chandigarh from his hometown Jaipur where he was comfortable earning Rs 10 lakh per annum. Taking it as a regular transfer Shobit, shifted base only to find that his monthly salary cheque came with the most feared pink slip' and is jobless today.

Sixty-year-old Ashok Kumar (name changed), took a demotion from being a general manager at a country resort in Delhi to become deputy general manager with a home developer firm, only to be with his family in Jaipur. Little did he knew that the happiness would be short lived. Kumar lost his job within a year and is living on his savings as he searches for another job.

These are just two examples, but as more and more pink slips are being rolled out, professionals are leading a life in fear. Dealing with depression within and that in the market place is taking a toll on them. As Dr Shiv Gautam, additional principal, SMS Medical College, puts it, "Unprepared to take any stress, these youngsters who feel secure after bagging a lucrative job put themselves at the biggest risk of facing trauma in any adverse situation."

Experts feel that one on the contrary should realize the gravity of the situation and take a realistic approach towards one's professional profile. If you are less experienced or don't possesses adequate skills, it will be tough to sustain.

"In a booming market, even dirt sells at a price of gold, whereas in recession it's hard to sell gold. Don't panic, build up your skill sets," is what Dr Rajesh Kothari, director, R A Poddar Institute of Management tells the aspiring professionals.

Psychiatrists are of the view that a growing number of professionals in the age group of 20-35, primarily from IT and ITES, and marketing are seeking professional help to bail them out of fatigue, irritation and anxiety.

"The first advice we give is to ask them to take a realistic perspective of the situation, hold what is on their hands and the act," says Dr Gautam who feels sharing one's thoughts and practising yoga can help a person calm down and take a fresh stock of things.

Keeping a positive outlook and converting threats into opportunities might sound the biggest clich?d jargon in these tiring times, but experts feel taking a sabbatical and looking for alternative streams can actually help.

"The education sector is still booming and with the growing number of engineering colleges and B-schools there is a dearth of good professionals and those with industry experience can get good bargains there," says V Raghunathan, managing director, GMR industries. "These might not be a full time solution but they certainly act as parachutes that might help you keep afloat," he adds.

Apart from the job woes, it's the investments that aren't paying the desired results. The reason, according to Raghunathan, is the very fact that we haven't yet adopted to live in a free market.

"While most of us enjoy the luxuries that a free market economy offers, we are yet to come to term with its hardships. We are yet to come with terms of its basics that for every fives years of boom there might be a year of lull, for which we should save beforehand," says Raghunathan.

Despite the sensex failing to show any great advances, experts feel that when it comes to making money in the stock markets, it is going the Warren Buffet way, buy when the world is selling.'

Invest in the best shares as they are available at never before prices is a unanimous expert opinion. According to Pawan Parasher, chairman, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Jaipur branch, "Don't go by the word of mouth, do some research before investing in stocks and go by the real value of the share as in the net worth of the share, dividends it has been offering and company profile."

His pick is the infrastructure sector. They always do good in the long run' whereas he feels parking your money in the IT sector can be a bit dangerous in the present situation.

These are difficult times, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. So calculate your moves and keep walking is the mantra.

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Secrets of success for B-School entre

There is no set of rules that can teach you what to, and what not to do in GD/PI. This is because it is a process to assess a candidate’s personality, and you cannot apply the same set of rules to every individual. What becomes important in such a scenario is to understand the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of GD; and arrive at your own rules that fit your personality.

The first things first — why

B-schools conduct GD/PI when students have already gone through an acid test. Isn’t clearing MBA entrance test enough to show that you are worth it? The simple answer is NO, because B-schools are not simply looking for walking dictionaries or logarithm books.They want candidates who can be trained and polished to be managers.The entrance test is just one stage where they see whether you have the basic acumen to understand the course that will be taught during the MBA programme. In that, too, some parts of personality, like ability to take decisions, ability to perform under pressure, and analytical and logical thinking, are assessed. But in order to get a complete idea of a candidate’s personality, B-schools go through this long process.

Group discussions and personal interviews are accepted tools to select a student, because in a limited time they can give a fair idea to B-schools whether a candidate can become a manager or not. This brings us to another question: are managerial traits natural or can they be acquired? If they are natural, what is the need to do MBA?

An MBA course teaches students how to achieve larger goals and it polishes those personality traits. But there are some basic traits that a candidate should have to go through the MBA process and to know that, institutes conduct GD/PI.

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B-schools need to shape mindsets, not just placement agencies

The global economic crisis has thrown up many challenges for our higher educational institutions, especially business schools. This meltdown is not only about greed or irresponsible judgement in using other people’s money by those at the helm in some institutions; it is also a manifestation of a deeper crisis in capitalism. B-schools can play a role in addressing this crisis. Besides shaping the mindset of the students, they also need to set a new direction to the research their faculty is involved in.

The subprime mortgage crisis in the US could not have caused such havoc worldwide had the regulators and the rating agencies done a better job. Valid aspersions are being raised on the integrity of these rating agencies that converted the bad debts of some financial institutions into investment-grade products and trapped other financial institutions. Some even attribute it to an unholy nexus between rating agencies, regulators and financial institutions. The disturbing aspect of it is that most of these organizations are run by products of some top B-schools.

Unfortunately, the role models for most B-school students are those graduates who earn the biggest pay packets; and their dream destinations have been companies that pay the most—even those that borrow heavily to do so or whose directors don’t mind getting fat bonuses even as their firms bleed. Wall Street icon Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which was highly leveraged and collapsed in mid-September, was also one of the highest paymasters.

Even media overplayed the placement performance of B-schools by publishing misleading data. This overemphasis on placements in the last few years has had a great impact on shaping the mindset of students. Many faculty members at some top Indian B-schools have told me how they see the quality of students deteriorating every year. From the day they enter campus, their focus is more on getting high-salary jobs than on improving their capabilities. Students are increasingly viewing B-schools as placement agencies rather than learning centres. This creates an environment where making money gets primacy over hard work, ethics and social responsibilities.

After the Enron Inc. crisis, it became the fashion to include ethics as a subject in B-schools though I have my doubts on whether ethics can be taught at all—particularly at this stage of education. In my view, the best way of inculcating ethics in students is to promote an ethical culture in the institutions. Faculty and management should be role models for ethical behaviour.

This is where many of our B-schools falter. Misleading advertisements, backdoor admissions, hiring incompetent faculty, siphoning money from the system and tolerance for unethical practices among faculty and students by management have a corrupting influence on students.

This, in turn, is often reflected in their alacrity in taking short cuts to complete their projects or in making money. Reversing this trend would be a big challenge for our educational institutions.

The present economic crisis is not only about the failure of some financial institutions, it is also symptomatic of the breakdown of the capitalist system. Like the command economy of the erstwhile Communist countries, it too has failed to keep up with the needs of our growing population and its growing aspirations. It invested much more in fuelling consumption than on investing in creation and application of knowledge in critical areas such as food, fuel and the environment.

Most of the research in the financial sector, too, has facilitated consumption on borrowed money. For example, securitization, the process by which loans of one institution are sold to other institutions as pools of debt, has in a way resulted in irresponsible lending that has significantly contributed to the present crisis. Even the poor are treated more as a market for different products, including debt, rather than as potential wealth creators. This is precisely where research in our educational institutions should now focus—to increase the productivity of the poor, especially those in rural areas. Before treating them as a market, their productivity should be increased by leveraging innovations in technology.

For this, our educational institutions should first believe that they can play a leadership role in transforming society. As of now, most of them are content with being just teaching outlets and placement agencies.

Premchand Palety is director of Centre for Forecasting and Research (C fore) in New Delhi, from where he keeps a close eye on India’s business schools. Comments are welcome at businesscase@livemint.com

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Persistent determination, the basis of business

What is the fundamental nature of business? It is true that the foundation of a business revolves around the notion of profit but this is not all. The successful operation of a business depends on many other factors apart from this. One of these factors happens to be persistent determination. This is not only essential but also motivates a person even at the hours of distress. Are you a student of MBA? If you are, you have surely gone through many case studies related to this. But now you can have something in your home.

How? Have a chat with RK Krishna Kumar, the Vice-chairman of Tata Group’s Indian Hotels and see his self-esteem and steadfastness even at this worst situation in the history of Taj. The person is fully committed towards the reconstruction of the structure of Taj and proposes a toast to the spirit of the employees of the hotel. Never forget that this trait should be present in every management although the bulk of the Indian companies are found to be devoid of this.

He has also criticized vehemently, while talking to the media persons, the deadly attack on the city of Mumbai and two of its iconic landmarks — the Taj and the Oberoi. According to him, this is in no way a stray incident and a simple continuation of the previous terror attacks for the liberation of Kashmir or other demands. On the contrary this is a daring attempt to halt the economic progress of India and her emergence as a global power.

In the context of Taj the rebuilding of the age-old institution will start as soon as the present crisis ends. What’s more he is confident that the management is enough competent and will restore it to its fullest glory. What should be the level of the reconstruction? This can be clearly understood for the fact that the entire top floor of the hotel has gone up in flames.

You will make a huge mistake if you consider RK Krishna Kumar as the only vigilant person of the management. Mr. Tata is also conscious of the entire happening and its gradual developments. What does this indicate? The illustrious dedication of the Taj group originates in the determination and consistency of the management. The self-sacrifice of Taj’s employees is an outcome of this age-old yet effective ideal.

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