Industry Integrated MBA:A New Approach

7/29/2019 Industry Integrated MBA:A New Approach

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Industry Integrated MBA: A New Approach

Dr Raaju Ganiesh Sunder

Director

Green Heaven Institute of Management and Research,

(M)8600143480

Email:[email protected]

Abstract:

As we entered into the world of globalization we require more & more labor force to sustain

in the competitive era but there is a mismatch between demand & supply of skilled workers.

This is because of the fact that we have many flaws in our education system moreover the

role of government is not up to the mark in providing the skilled labor force for the industries

& organizations. This paper focuses on the approach taken up by a Self financed university &

the steps taken by the government & the steps taken up by the corporate world to overcome

the situation of dearth of talent. The measures make a way out to overcome the Crunch.

Introduction:

For a country of 100 million, generating employment is a big challenge. India is confronted

with significant unemployment rate despite high rate of economic growth since 1990s with

globalization and opening of the economy. Under-employment is also a concern especially

with the MBA graduates. Employment growth lags behind actual growth in case of skilled

manpower. Employment in agriculture has fallen significantly. Consequently, rural-urban

migration everywhere continues unabatedly.

As the global workforce struggles to keep pace with hiring needs, demands for talented

employees exceeds the supply, leaving many organizations wondering ,what strategies to

adopt to retain and even expand their workforces to maintain competitive edge.

HR Experts rank in the list of "niche talent, who are observing a shortage of talent. Some

other notable numbers are:


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There were 16 million new jobs created in the year (2011). Services will lead the way withHealth care 248, 500,Hospitality 218,200, IT and ITES sectors adding 183,000 new people,

followed by Education, Training and Consultancy 107,500 Retailing with 38,600 jobs,

Financial Services with 80,700 jobs, Energy with 249,900 jobs, Manufacturing ( Machinery)

68,400 jobs, Manufacturing ( Non Machinery) 223,400 jobs, Media and Entertainment

126,100 jobs, Real-estate 144,700 jobs, Transport and Storage 93,300 jobs, and pharma

with 49,100 jobs .

All the above areas are niche areas where an MBA fits in well.

0

50000

00000

50000

00000

50000

00000

Jobs in India

Diagram No:1


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There are 40 million registered unemployed in the country. 27 million are employed inthe organized sector. 333 million are either underemployed or belongs to the

unorganized sector.

Diagram No:2

Indias skilled manpower is growing at the rate of 2.5 per cent annually, butemployment is growing at the rate of 2.3 per cent annually.

Globalization and opening of the economy have not been of much help. The total direct

employment generated by multi-nationals in India is mere 18.8 million. Indias skilled work

force is growing at the rate of 2.5 per cent annually, but employment is growing at the rate

of 2.3 per cent annually.


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Diagram No:3

Mismatch between demand and supply

The demand and supply factors that create the market are the market for skills. In classical

economic analysis, the demand and supply for labor and skills should reach equilibrium,

where demand will be equal to the supply. Every year around 2500 business schools in India

produces 1,90,000 graduates with MBA degree .Over 400,000 engineers & 1500 PhDs ,India

produces innumerous knowledge workers every year .With a shortfall in skilled labor which is

likely to be there in the next four to five years in most of the developed economies ,then at

that time the demand for expertise from developing countries is expected to rise .This would

give Indian professional better opportunities in terms of works & wage terms .But in todays

scenario this does not happen, when there is persistent youth unemployment, particularly for

educated youth, this is a condition of skills mismatch due to supply-side institutions and

policies that are not responsive to labor demand.


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Diagram No:4

Causes of Mismatch...

The main causes of mismatch between demand and supply are as follows.

Education: The Indian case is extremely well-documented in term of skills mismatch and

shortages, particularly at the higher levels of education. Enterprise based surveys conducted

by both donors (e.g. World Bank) and the private sector (McKinsey Global Institute) have

estimated a large demand for technical and higher education. The demands of the

knowledge economy of India have made for a new perspective within the massive and

complex education system, one oriented to the needs of a private sector. The scale-up of

secondary and tertiary education facilities and programming is clearly impressive. Moreover,

there is a new curriculum focus, one that stresses the key skills demanded by the private

sector. (World Bank, 2005). General functional skills, such as critical thinking, problem-

solving, teamwork, and interpersonal communication, are absent from the traditional formal

education curriculum. Often referred to as soft skills, these general functional skills have

been identified repeatedly by firms as the basic skills needed for the workplace.


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Diagram No:5

Curriculum: The current curriculum of various MBA programs is too generic and is not aligned

to the needs of the industry leading to students passing out with low job readiness, thereby

impacting placements. A lot can be done in terms of the pedagogy to impart relevant skills to

students so that there is high readiness to job. The current focus of most B-Schools is largelyaround knowledge dissemination and not skill development. While the recruiters would like

day 1 productive employees, most B-Schools are producing graduates who are not readily

employable.

There is a requirement to re-look at the course curriculum being taught at B-Schools. Courses

and electives should focus on vocational skills which are relevant to the industry. For

example, the largest demand is for front-end selling skills. Unfortunately, no program in the

country addresses this need. In the Banking sector itself, there is a huge demand for sales,relationship, customer service skills. However, the supply of resources with these skills sets is

absent.

Even the 6-8 week internships mandated by B-Schools seem more of a formality; 8 weeks is

insufficient. It takes this time to comprehend the working of any organization, leave alone


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delivering results, making valuable recommendations on a live corporate project. The course

should instead, be modeled on a healthy mix of internship and classroom training i.e. the

students should spend at least two semesters working on live corporate projects that would

enable them to apply knowledge and not just remember frameworks.

Besides the issue of curriculum and design of the MBA programs, one other key area that

needs systemic intervention is that of faculty development.

Faculty Development: Most of the faculty members across business schools are academicians

with limited or no industry exposure. This makes it difficult to build a bridge between

industry and academia. Medical education is an example of getting practicing professionals to

impart skills to students. Why cant we have a similar structure in management education?

There is an immediate need to relook at qualifications required to become professors at

management schools. Why cant we have a system wherein years of industry experience be

made equivalent to a Ph.D. and encourage professionals to take up faculty roles? We should

make the movement between academic institutions and industry seamless. The other key

area that needs a detailed review is the remuneration of the faculty. There is a steep

difference in the salary levels between that of a distinguished professor to what is offered in

the industry. It is important to align the pay structures in line with the industry if we want

this seamless movement to take place.

The directors and promoters should lobby with the relevant bodies to ensure that we bring

about these structural changes at the earliest.

WELL-EDUCATED YET ILL-PREPARED: Although there are more logistics and supply chain

management curricula in colleges, universities, community colleges, and even high schools

than ever before, the output is not filling all of the industry's needs. We are turning out

graduates with incredible analytic skills and tools, and unprecedented exposure to advancedsupply chain and logistics concepts. Yet industry is not completely happy with these

resources.


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Perhaps the solution lies in more and better collaboration between business and academia.

Certainly, there are roles for both in developing supply chain talent for now and for the

future. But where do today's graduates fail to meet either needs or expectations?

For starters, they don't grasp the big picture, in two significant dimensions. One is that end-to-end supply chain concept. They can say the words, but they too often look at the supply

chain as a collection of functions, rather than as an integrated whole.

Then there's the woeful under-appreciation of how, where, and to what extent supply chain

management contributes to corporate performanceand ultimately, success or failure. This

partly reflects innocence of how and why management needs to link into the corporate

mission and with the strategies that support it.

It also reveals an abysmal lack of familiarity and comfort with the language of finance and

enterprise performance. Things like ROA, ROI, ROE, EBITD, and free cash flow. This severely

limits the practitioner's comprehension of the full value of his or her efforts and the ability to

communicate effectively with senior management.

Reflecting a failing of the incumbent generation, the highly educated newcomers don't get

the difference between management and leadership, and they have not learned the roles and

value of each. They, sadly, gravitate more toward a management perspective.

In a possibly related development, the elements of sustainable change management are not

among their skill sets, and change is more often seen as a matter of announcement than a

problem with cultural, behavioral, and attitudinal dimensions.

While the newbies may be reasonably good at working in teams, they have very little in the

way of skills or appreciation in relationship building and maintenance. This is deadly enough

internally, but is doubly destructive in external relationships with customers, suppliers, and

service providers.

In general, young people are coming out of school prepared to rely extensively on brainpower

and analytic skills to succeed, to the near-exclusion of the so-called "soft" skills that are

becoming essential to individual and organizational success in the 21st century.


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Finally, and not surprisingly, the new kids are short on experience. Maybe more corporate

projects as part of curricula could help, and perhaps more internships could take the edge off

its perception. But many young people don't take the time to gain employment experience

between picking up a B.S. and an M.B.A

ADDRESSING THE CONTENT SHORTFALL:

As for how to solve the content shortfall problem, the answers are not completely obvious.

We might make a case for addressing more of the gaps outlined above in academic curricula.

But at what cost? With time provided by the elimination or de-emphasis of what?

Certainly, individual companies could build many of the needed skills in individualized

development programs. But on what schedule, given the immediacy of the need? And at what

investment level, given imperatives for performance and productivity?

External education and training to cover many of the issues is also a possibility but raises

many of the same questions.

The New Approach

All this goes a long way toward explaining why we are, in the collective, experiencing a

nearly unprecedented boom in corporate efforts to capture, develop, and retain top-level

performers in management. The forward-looking organizations are investing significantly in

educating, training, recruiting, and rewarding human resources at all levels and in all

functions. Many, regrettably, are not. They will be the ones hearing Ross Perot's giant sucking

sound as their key employees run like the wind into the arms of progressive companies as

economic recovery continues.

Every organization wants their fresh hires to be productive from Day-one. Take the case of

ICICI Bank, who have been working towards achieving first day, first hour productivity through

a series of Industry-Academia initiatives. They have had success with industry specific post-

graduate programs in partnerships with NIIT and Manipal University.


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They have also introduced the ICICI Business Leadership Program for catering to niche

requirements in Wholesale Banking, Credit, Banking Technology and Treasury. The Bank has

also recently launched the ICICI Sales Academy in collaboration with ITM University to ensure

a supply of trained entry-level front-end sales staff.

With an objective to provide an impetus to meet the manpower need of the industry and

create a winwin situation for the academia, students and industry, Himachal Pradesh-based

Baddi University of Emerging Science and Technology (BUEST) is going to offer a program from

this academic session called Academic Adoption, a first in the country, which shall provide

academic exposure as well as practical exposure to the students in industry while studying.

Under the program, the industry will adopt the students from Day One of the course.

The university has developed a special module for implementation of the program. The

uniqueness of this program is that students will be given academic exposure on weekends in

the university and they will be working in adopting industry on weekdays, for which the

students will also be paid a stipend ranging from Rs 6,000 to Rs 20,000, depending on the

work done and pay scale of the adopting company. The companies that have already agreed

to absorb the students are Virtuous Solutions, Trade India , India Mart , AurthorGen

Technologies Ltd , Clicklabs, North Star Fasteners and Him Teknoforge, Isolloyd, Yodeva,

Alpla etc

According to the industrialist, this will not only help in bridging the skill gap requirement, but

also ease the shortage of workforce problem in the area.

What will this lead to?

Stop spoon feeding every time. At least give some opportunities to students to work

independently.

Since the student is working independently he/ she gets a feel of the subject and when the

student utilizes the practical and theory the knowledge gain is immense and for lifetime.

Justify the need for learning a particular subject and its learning outcome in advance.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Baddi+University+of+Emerging+Science+and+Technology&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Academic+Adoption&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Virtuous+Solutions&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Trade+India&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=India+Mart&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=India+Mart&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Trade+India&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Virtuous+Solutions&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Academic+Adoption&select=1http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Baddi+University+of+Emerging+Science+and+Technology&select=1


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Update the syllabus of the course regularly.

Conclusion:

It indeed is evident from the skill gap studies that in India, skill-based occupations do notenjoy appropriate status. This mindset needs to be changed by celebrating skills, which we

hope to by imparting skills training to the candidates from time to time during the course to

make them employment worthy.

An Industry integrated MBA is the need of the hour, keeping in view the present state of

affairs wherein admissions to the MBA course is dropping and the students who take the MBA

course are disillusioned with the sort of placements which is an important parameter for

getting in the course.

The knowledge gain through such an program would deliver to the society a holistic

personality which is what the Industry needs.

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Industry Integrated MBA:A New Approach