Success of an educational institute is exhibited by its alumni when they distinguish themselves through different endeavours around the world. Over the last many years, alumni of MBA IIT Kanpur have shown their presence across the occupations. They have conquered every opportunity in different territories winning accolades to showcase their mettle. It’s our pleasure to announce once again that our Alumnus, this time Siddhartha Gupta and Aditi Makol, MBA batch of 2010 have made their Alma mater proud by coming up as  winners of the Capgemini Super Techie Show.

Capgemini Super Techies show aired on ETNow is India’s first reality TV series for IT professionals where they get a platform to showcase their tech talent to the world. Siddhartha and Aditi, the TECH-ILA- SIZZLERS, had somewhere deep in their psyche that art of winning, the skills of analyzing and problem solving, the knowledge, the attitude to be a leader and the charming personality. The ignition came through a newspaper advertisement and the journey to fame had commenced. As every journey has milestones to achieve, this was no different, starting from an online application form, then profile based short listing, telephonic Interview, face-to-Face interview and to make it more gruesome the on-the-spot problem solving round and presentation to extremely competent and experienced jury members from the ETNow, Business Financial news channel and Capgemini, the world renowned consulting, technology and outsourcing firm. Further to add the flavour of adventure, each round being eliminating, aimed to bring out the best contestant. The contestants, coming from the four zones of the country, being gems from their varied fields, working for big organizations to the likes of Adobe and Linkedin, having experience in the range of 20 years plus the entrepreneur’s who have successfully established many companies, formed the invincible army to take on. The Tech-Ila- Sizzlers were one of the youngest of all the teams. A total of twenty one teams were selected from across the zones and the Tech-Ila- Sizzlers was one of them. Three teams were grouped to compete against each other.

Siddhartha Gupta and Aditi Makol, (third and fourth from left respectively) MBA batch of 2010, with team name Tech-Ila-Sizzlers, winners of the Capgemini Super Techie Show

The Challenge for the group including Tech-Ila- Sizzlers was a real time task that insurance companies grapple with everyday i.e. The Max Life Insurance challenge- Increase sales and productivity. The entirely new domain of Insurance sector and with the given one week time to come up with the solution including the office hours and travelling, it was a herculean task to achieve. Also, the communication with the mentor assigned was limited to two phone calls and two e-mails. Finally, the Death day arrived and teams presented their solutions to the jury which happens to be the experts from the Max Life Insurance, CyberMedia and Capgemini. The process was followed with the questioning session between the teams and the jury members on understanding of the problem and the feasibility of the solution presented. Solution for the problem presented by Tech-Ila- Sizzlers aimed for better conversion ratio included better positioning and good targeting to customers. The team suggested applying data mining and predictive analysis techniques to the comprehensive customer data base, a web based CRM to be created which will have real time access by the sales team. Second step aimed to reduce the sales cycle by means of technology, implementing an online medium facilitating live chat between sales team and prospective customer, answering queries and providing policy details. The use of cloud computing and location intelligence employed for faster customer contact was also one of the agenda. The simplicity, conciseness and the economic viability supported by qualitative assessment of ROI for the solution presented by Tech-Ila- Sizzlers made the much needed impact and Tech-Ila- Sizzlers came up the winners with flying colours overpowering the experienced and talented competitors.

For students who have just entered the MBA universe and are willing to reach the same heights where our seniors are, what are the learnings required? Siddhartha and Aditi acknowledged that the case study methodology adopted by MBA @IIT Kanpur was the key to their success. Participation in various events and organizing the same equipped them with the necessary skills and tools to reach this level. The Brand value of MBA @IIT Kanpur came handy at various moments and motivated them for being a part of an Ivy League institute and the cream of India’s working population.
For Siddhartha and Aditi, it was a first experience of facing camera, interacting with the industry leaders, networking with the tech savvy and well-informed professionals. They became famous in their industry circle and got acknowledged by their employer, Infosys, for becoming the part of its Intranet activity.

To conclude, Siddhartha and Aditi are living the MBA@IIT Kanpur brand!!

(For their post show coverage please checkout:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGJ6L0jlYIM)

TEAM AG (with thanks to alum relations team)

This is an excerpt[1] taken from the book “What is the future of MBA education” written by Harvard professors Srikant M Datar and David A Garvin indicating the changed realities before b-school graduates. Today in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and amidst the specter of sovereign debt crisis, there is a definite need for rethinking of business education. This article would focus on what does current business education paradigm entail, how effective it has been and what are some of the key challenges before it.

Current business education paradigm – where we are!

The  current business education seems to focus on taking a student through a grueling two year grind (even more tough 1 year slog at some places) in order to ram basics of wide variety of business subjects. These range from human resources, finance, operations to systems and marketing. At some places, niche topics are taught to students with focus on specific industries such as power, oil & gas, banking etc. There are various case studies, multiple assignments, mid-term and end-term examinations and at the end of the two years the rough stone is assumed to be polished and shaped enough to sparkle as a jewel in the shiny bright world.

The key to a good business school program and campus today is the magnitude of newspaper headline grabbing placements. Therefore the whole system, at least in India, seems to be aiming at producing business graduates who earn eye catching salaries.

A sneak peak at the history of business education – where do we come from!

According to Wikipedia[2], the world’s first institutions specializing the teaching of commerce was established in Lisbon in 1759. It took another 60 years before ESCP Europe (world’s first business school) was established. The Wharton School was established as the world’s first collegiate business school in 1881. Since then a variety of business schools have opened in all parts of the world.

At this stage it is also important to note how exactly management theory evolved. This is important as it has been the key shaper of business education. It all began with the advent of scientific management school[3] heralded by FW Taylor and his espousal of development of a true science of management. Scientific management theory led to a dramatic increase in productivity in a number of instances but also placed undue emphasis on the same. It had the company of classical organizational theory school linked to Fayol’s principles, which were later criticized by others as fables of management. Today along with these schools of management theory we have among us others including behavioral school, management science, the system approach, the contingency approach and the dynamic engagement approach.

Today’s B school curricula primarily epitomize all these approaches in one way or the other supported by pedagogical approaches such as the case study approach.

The science and the art of management – are we focusing too much on the science?

Management is a judicious mix of both science and art. Therefore it cannot be just learnt from books. It has to be actually experienced on the field, in the meeting rooms, in the questioning eyes of office colleagues, each time leading to some modifications in our belief. In the real world, teams may not always deliver the same result; obstacles may not be visible through brainstorming or focused group critiques; the strategies of the meeting room may not be suitable outside of it. We should realize that although we study principles and analyze case studies, in the real world application of theory may falter. This is because the administrative man (as proposed by Herbert Simon) makes satisfying decisions affected by bounded rationality.

But today’s business schools are focusing a little too much on science and less on art. There might be a need for addition of social sciences such as psychology, sociology and business history in the curriculum.

The buck stops here

After the Reagan and Thatcher governments led role reduction of public sector in various spheres in 80’s, today private sector is the key engine of the world economy. Since those days, the role of governments has primarily been consigned to that of regulators. While the government has surely faltered in its regulatory role, in the lead up to global financial crisis 2008, the business world too cannot shy away from its responsibilities. There was a time when there were all powerful governments, today we have all powerful multi-national corporations. As these corporations and many other private enterprises are led by managers, business graduates are sure to face scorn from the general public who are being tormented by the crisis. This is especially true in USA, where we are already seeing “Occupy Wall Street” protests. One thing is for sure, even though we are again looking very solemnly at the government, the buck today stops at the private sector. It is crucial that the paradigm of business education be revisited afresh.

What next?

You might be wondering is this a critique of business education. No, this certainly is not. This is an attempt to start discussion on making us, the budding managers at IIT Kanpur more relevant to the changing society. We at MBA IIT Kanpur should have the courage to challenge the basic paradigms of business school education and strive to achieve change. Again, the aim of this article is not to come up with some suggestions to act as a panacea. The only aim is to start some soul searching, between the faculty, the present students and the alumni, on how to channelize our thoughts to reshape our pedagogy in line with changing requirements.

[1] http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6363.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_school

[3] http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/IIT-MADRAS/Management_Science_I/Pdfs/1_2.pdf

Gaurav Sharma

Ernst & Young

IIT Kanpur MBA Batch of 2007

“But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.”—- Ronald Reagan

The CBSE is out with yet another educational reform. This time it is the turn of the age-old dreary 10^th Standard Board Exams. From the academic year 2010-11 onwards, a new system of evaluation – Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) has been approved. In simple words, students will be assigned grades for each subject rather than marks scored out of a cent. Moreover, the grades are set on the basis of a classification of marks scored which will now be kept secret.

The verdict is clear – when grades are to be calculated on the marks itself, doesn’t it turn out to be a case of reinventing the wheel? This new grading system appears to be a makeshift solution, rather than being an effective tool to tackle the problem it was originally designed for – Exam related stress, or phobia.

Let me throw some light on what the metric exams mean to a kid – even before he/she appears for them, during the year when they are due to appear, and finally the consequences that have to be born throughout life.

The CBSE certification system is synonymous with adulthood in the Indian society – exams are akin to a deadly beast in an ancient Colosseum, where the student is a gladiator, expected to ward off the creature with a thousand eyes scrutinizing him/her. The fear of not being able to meet expectations looms large.

Almost every teenager born in middle class India is elaborately coached by his/her parents to be a reading machine. A fear of “THE BOARD EXAMS” either creeps in or is deliberately infused into the child by the guardians, whether they use measures like higher levels of “Inception”, simple moral policing, or feudal aged “gentle touches of the stick” for that matter. The metric exam-time is generally considered to be the most eerie time of one’s life. Will the grading system help a generation avoid the usual academic and mental pressure; the rote learning and the sacrifice of creativity? It surely doesn’t seem likely.

The authority in concern, the Central Board of Secondary Education claims that it will reduce cut-throat competition for marks that kills out the child in the test taker. My take on this – Earlier it was a battle to score more and more marks, reason being that low-scorers get taunts from parents, relatives and friends. But now, it will be an identical case, but with grades. Who doesn’t like getting good grades? The parents and in some cases the ward are used to treating marks in the order of 90+ as a trophy. Now it will be the grade A1. Sounds good too, “A-ONE”. Royal Air forces anyone?

The icing on the cake is that there will be no failures. The board has initiated these decisions keeping in view the growing pressure on students. This seems to be an effective step in the direction of reducing exam stress. However, look closely and you might differ. It reduces the sanctity of the exam. It does not reduce stress; it removes it altogether. Which student will care to study for an exam in which he/she can never fail? The exams have been a concrete method to distinguish between students that meet the certification criterion and the ones that do not. This may end up to be a major flaw in the system. The undeserving ones, who did not care to pay attention in class, let alone the self-study can sail through the annual test which is just a formality now. The hardworking ones, who toiled hard standard after standard, now find themselves with no takers or benchmarks to achieve throughout the academic year.

Educational reforms are imperative, considering that the current English schooling system was invented hundreds of years ago. The onus is on the CBSE and the NCERT to ensure that written exams get lesser weightage, while an effective mechanism is developed to evaluate all round performance of a child in his formative years.

Whether it turns out to be a feather in the cap, or a can of worms, only time can tell. My only expectation is that students should not get a raw deal. If there are hiccups, and there is a rollback, this will add to the confusion. More so, students who have been graded this way may feel like laboratory rats.

Lyf izz hard kids – God Be With You!

Author : Salil Gupta

MBA, IIT Kanpur

(Batch of 2009 – 2011)

salilgup@iitk.ac.in

MBA, I don’t know why, is a much hyped course in India. Every year more than three lakh aspirants, with a desire to make it to their dream B-school, write various entrance exams of which CAT, JMET, XAT and FMS are the major ones.  Most of the private colleges make sure that each aspirant fills a separate form for their college (and sometimes different forms for different courses in the same college). These colleges make sure that they keep the deadline of these forms at least a week before the common exam which students take. When asked, the admission committees give reasons of logistics and other “jargons” which they might have learnt in their MBA program. If this was the case, why does IIMs and IIT don’t take this route?  This question still needs an answer.

Even the cost of these forms is sky rocketing. The average cost of the application forms is not less than INR 1500. On an average, an aspirant spends about INR 10,000 on just applying to a carefully chosen group of B schools. This is utterly ridiculous. Why not have a common form for all the colleges, have a common GD PI process and then have a combined ranking system? Perhaps, because if this happens, all the MBA churning factories (read B schools) would be shut!

One of my other concerns is in the system of B school applications itself. Majority of those 3 lakh students who sit for the entrance exam are not clear why they want an MBA degree. MBA is a career enhancing program. Most of the students fail to realize this. They see MBA as a “degree” which would give them fat pay cheques after two years.  Most of the people are not clear which specialization they want, this is perhaps because they don’t even know what is taught in an MBA program. This, according to me, is a sheer waste of resources and talent of our country. One way to make sure that only the “genuinely interested” takes the course is that we have a small preparatory course (which the institute can itself give). After reading the study material, the students can themselves decide which stream they want to do their MBA in, and more importantly, do they even need an MBA or not. At least people who finally make it to B schools are sorted in their thinking and desires from their MBA curriculum.

Management education is a life time investment and should be taken only when one is sure of it. Ideally, that happens when one has worked in industry. This is what happens in US and UK B schools. They stress more on the total work experience and less on the entrance scores (GMAT). If Indian B schools have to compete with their international counterparts then we have to change the way we function. The metric which Indian B schools use to measure an applicant’s calibre (Entrance exam) should be changed to accommodate overall profile evaluation as well. I am sure the talent in Indian students is at par with, if not less than, their international counterparts. But to have a global standard, we should lay more emphasis on evaluation of the skill set of the student. Only then, can our institutes of management education compete with the Harvards and the Whartons of the US or LSB of UK.

Author : Aayush Jain

MBA, IIT Kanpur

(Batch of 2010 – 12)

aayushj@iitk.ac.in