As of 2021, about 23.4 lac Indians hold an MBA degree out of 150 lac who hold graduate management education (GME). That is a whopping 15.6% of the total graduate management education strength. Globally, India stands second after China, with people with GME degrees aged between 20 and 34.
Although getting an MBA doesn’t seem to slow down, there have been some major hits for the star GME program, like about 147 standalone B-schools in India were shut down in the 2013-14 academic year alone.
With all this insight, the question arises: is MBA still relevant?
The best parameter to check the efficacy of a discipline is to see the employability of people who undertake it. An Economic Times report stated that an MBA’s employability in India is merely 10%.
The first MBA program to start was back in 1908 at the Harvard Graduate School, and since then, the program has spread across the globe and has been taken up by several generations of people over more than ten decades. But with time, the efficacy of a discipline slowly and steadily comes down. There could be various reasons for it, but the only question that persists is—
Is a revival of an MBA possible? If yes, how?
What could revive an MBA?
1. Industry-Focused Specializations
One of the critical revival techniques is introducing industry-focused specialisation programs. In the last two decades, there have been significant changes in technology and consumption trends of consumers.
To understand how technological advent changes consumption trends, the story of Netflix is a good illustration. Rewinding two decades, home entertainment was about renting VCDs and DVDs from local “CD parlours.” The mail-based movie rental model in countries like the US made corporate giants such as Blockbuster and Netflix.
Netflix started in 1997 by renting out DVDs via mail. In the subsequent years, it moved from the pre-rental model to a monthly subscription model. By the mid-2000s, the revenue of Netflix was over $500 million. Around the same time, the internet infrastructure started growing in terms of higher data speeds and lower bandwidth costs. This advancement made downloading movies from the internet possible.
Netflix decided to come up with an idea to design a device called the “Netflix Box” that would download movies overnight. The idea was scrapped before it could see the light of day as streaming caught on on platforms like YouTube, skipping a whole step—Netflix box for Netflix.
In 2007, Netflix launched its streaming service, which is now a household streaming name worldwide and is often synonymously used for streaming.
The evolving technology and change in consumption trends swung E-Commerce in full steam ahead, disrupted traditional business processes, such as supply chain, and brought ESG and climate change to the mainstream—sustainability management, creating a massive demand-supply gap in the job market for trained professionals who could address these new challenges. Prestige University has designed industry-focused specialisation MBA programs to fill this talent gap that could produce trained professionals in Data Analytics, E-Business, Supply Chain, Agribusiness, and Sustainability.
2. Industry-Academia Partnerships
Have we ever thought about how industry and academia are interrelated? Well, it is one of the most symbiotic relationships that could exist.
The industry-academia partnership in India does not go beyond agreements and MoUs. This could be because of the legacy trust issues and lack of sincere mutual benefits.
An excellent example of how academia has helped the industry is the Developing World Biomedical Device Innovation Co-op Program of Clemson University. In 2017, under the Developing World Biomedical Device Innovation Co-Op program of Clemson University. The program’s primary objective was to facilitate the bioengineering students of Clemson University to partner with US-based biomedical companies to improve the existing medical devices. Secondly, to create innovations for clinicians as well as patients. These bioengineering students assessed the need for medical devices in Tanzania.
This partnership served the students as well as the companies. Students played a significant role as they spent considerable customer discovery time in the field, focusing on the actual medical device needs vis-à-vis what engineers and designers think is required. They also used the research findings to apprise what’s wrong with the companies’ technology and how it can be improved.
The collaborative program allowed the students to structure medical tech innovation developments with large corporations. Secondly, they also got to experience the process and gained the knowledge that employers seek.
Prestige University onboards people from the industry as industry partners to design curricula programs to make them industry-relevant and, in turn, well-suited to their hiring requirements. Industry partners have endowed research chairs at the university to facilitate research on real-world problems affecting top-line and bottom-line.
3. Best Practices from Top-Rank Global Universities
To adhere to best academic practices, it is essential to benchmark with the best. Top-rank global universities, which also include Indian varsities, broadly cohere with the following to enhance their academic delivery:
- Building Andragogy: The literal definition of andragogy is the method and practice of teaching adult learners, which augments pedagogy—academic delivery for dependent learners such as school students. Adult learners are self-directed, and building sound andragogy requires self-concept, experiences, readiness to learn, motivation, need to know, and problem-centric learning. New avenues of knowledge, such as capstone projects, self-assessment tests, and one-on-one remedial exercises, help facilitate these, which builds sound andragogy.
- Novel Assessment Techniques- Traditionally, assessment techniques have been limited to end-of-term tests to assess the achievement of the program objectives. The top varsities around the globe emphasise the overall development of a student and thus do not restrict their assessment techniques to tests. They also evaluate the students on the quality of their engagement in the classroom. This helps to enhance the whole learning process rather than just putting the students on a grade curve.
- Faculty Development: In academia, developing the faculty should be as inherent as imparting knowledge to students. Unfortunately, we do not see this happening in a very effective way. Top universities’ faculty are tempered on research methodology, classroom delivery, and industry engagement.
Benchmarking the programs by associating with institutions of excellence that imbibe andragogy, deploying modern assessment techniques, and investing heavily in faculty development is the core part of the foundational philosophy of Prestige University.
4. Internships that Build Stronger Job Candidacy
Most universities and colleges in India across disciplines offer a two-month internship. A two-month internship helps achieve the quintessential of having an internship certificate but fails to deliver results for the student and the organisation.
A practical internship program can be for two months or more, but its efficacy lies in the results it generates for the students and the organisations. An excellent way to achieve this is by mentoring the students on project objectives and methodology, the economics of the respective industry, workflows, and corporate etiquette. This enables the student to be result-oriented from the first day and deliver value to the industry partner, offering a stronger proposition for full-time job candidacy.
A result-oriented and well-structured MBA internship would help the students and benefit organisations by reducing the administrative load, earning bankable results, and helping in hiring decisions.
Every MBA student at Prestige University goes through a pre-internship training module to understand various facets of the project. The 5-month internship program at Prestige University is designed to provide a competitive advantage to the students, an immersive work experience, and improved visibility.
5. Heterogenous Cohort
Most MBA batches today majorly constitute engineering graduates, ranging from 66% to 76% of the total strength.
Each member must have unique skill sets and perspectives to derive significant learning from the cohort members. A cohort of high-achieving and insightful individuals from diversified educational backgrounds and experiences makes a cohort heterogeneous and rich.
A heterogeneous cohort provides an opportunity to explore synergistic collaborations, fuel entrepreneurial ideas, and forge a long-term relationship with formidable cohort members that is a potent asset throughout the careers.
Prestige University’s selection process follows a chessboard philosophy to make a rich cohort.
Prestige University is a greenfield project of the Prestige Education Foundation. PEF is one of the pioneers in professional education in central India, with over 27 years.
PEF identified two postulates behind the Indian talent heading global organisations, one—the Indian academic rigour and the second—western pedagogy.
The two facets of Indian academic rigour that make Indian students unique are their thoroughness and the ability to withstand stiff competition.
Further, it reckons that Indian graduates who pursue their masters from foreign varsities, especially the Western, are offered a holistic perspective by them. These universities have a deeper knowledge of how to deploy the foundational knowledge to innovate business processes, and they continuously engage with the industry for research and rebuilding agile curricula.
Prestige University is an endeavour to offer a holistic perspective to the home-bred talent to build future global business leaders in the heart of India. Admissions are open for MBA programs for the year 2024. To apply, click here.