MUNNA-M(ba) B(Grade) B(usiness) S(chool)

The global MBA curriculum has evolved and today has niche spaces, specialisations. The business institutions have built around the core subjects and now embed specialisations. The global finance management companies needed smarter business educated graduates to manage their portfolios. Harvard even today is specialised and has provided these specialists hired at huge entry level salaries. In India, MNCs have recruited fresh PGDM graduates from IIMs again with considerably huge entry salaries. Over a period, A business degree has become necessary entry level qualification. The Post graduate degree an additional advantage. With the increasing demand of business savvy graduates after liberalisation, many private institutes started to provide business education PG degree MBA.

The growth of the institutes created fall in standards and the classification of cream/premium of the institutions and the rest came into being.

Let's take the case of MUNNA-MBA from B Grade Business School (MUNNA-MBBS), what are his choices, what kind of career prospects does he have. I will take Munna, a graduate from somewhere in some subject, pursuing his MBA, expecting a placement assistance from his Business School to which he has paid heavy fees.

By the end of two years of his study, will he be a transformed, skilled, knowledgeable and employable MBA? 

The number of seats for MBAs are increasing, the quality is falling ,recently a report highlighted that only 10% of the fresh MBAs are employable. Where are we heading in Business Education with these standards where is India's Business Education headed.

Two instances require mention here, recently I was recruiting sales executives for my organisation, when I read resumes to recruit people for a sales jobs, most sales people want to project their resumes as marketing people rather than sales or sales with marketing knowhow and experience. A few sales people, with outright sales experience wanted to continue in sales, Good sales talent is not available in the market. The challenge was to get the talent and finally, we got the best. The best possible means to get the best sales talent was launched, several channels were put in motion to narrow down the best available.The whole identification, search and fulfillment revealed a great understanding of the underlying truth of the "Sales Job", MBAs we interviewed did not like sales jobs, lesser educated sales people wanted to pursue MBA to enhance their career paths to move away from sales. So much focus on marketing in MBA, Are there so many marketing jobs available, will the curriculum change to create something on sales and more intense. 

Another instance, a well known MBA institution, I have been associated with increased their intake for MBA, the quality of intake suffered, hence the output. Average student has learnt words like strategy, objectives, planning, marketing, advertising and relates to names of some brands. The understanding is shallow, in conceptual framework or in terms of application to situations. Voice is louder, content poor, presentation means slides of powerpoint. All reading is screen based, bullet points and digital. The culture of academic writing remains at the premier institutions.  Also the institution faces the challenge of finding placements for the unemployable. 

May be the MBA institutions in India, need to keep their first 2-3 months in teaching/training soft skills, communication, reading, writing, referring information sources, articulation, confidence building measures, presentation skills, problem solving from a general perspective. These skills along with the academic studies will help. These can be incorporated in the time table and improvement targets set and progress monitored.

Availability of good Internship opportunities is another issue, the companies have to build a system of taking interns, having the system of rotation to provide the required training to the interns. In another blog of mine, I have suggested that every Member of Parliament should have an Engineer and one Business Graduate as Interns.

The industry-academic connect needs a boost. Industry needs a solid reason to partner with academic institutions and institutions need to build the bridge. 

Another question that lingers is entrepreneurship training could be a better option, for two years, just focus on producing an entrepreneur. Work on the idea, strengthen it, evaluate the idea, revisit it, learning about it and incubating the idea is worthwhile for a business school. With an MBA student paying average fees of Rs. 5,00,000 per year, the starting salary expectation itself is a big barrier. I am not sure if a B grade Business School MBA will be able to produce the value to justify hiring. 

Should there be a MBA in entrepreneurship, again, not just to beat the placement challenge but in the true spirit and value. MUNNA-All the best.