Senior delegates from industry and management schools attended the conference. The Chief Guest for the event was Dr. R Natarajan, former chairman of AICTE. Dr. Panduranga Rao, director, XIME, was the conference coordinator.
The conference was held with a view to discuss, debate and recommend ways to bring about greater interaction between B-schools and the industry.
Other speakers at the conference included Prof. J Philip, president and director emeritus, XIME; Mr Vinay Deshpande, chairman, Encore Software Technologies; Mr Pallab Bandyopadhayaya, Chief People Officer, Scandent Group; Mr M S Zahed, former chairman HMT; and Mr Sudheesh Venkatesh, director-HR, TESCO.
Speakers were of the view that the need of the hour was to find a catalyst between industry and management schools to facilitate the preparation of a curriculum that would cater to the changing needs of the marketplace.
Prof J. Philip, highlighting the need for such a conference, said, “War is too serious to be left with generals and, in the same way, management is too serious to be left with directors and deans.” Apart from the IIMs, where only 2% of the 75,000 students pursuing full-time MBA in the country study, there are also several other B-schools in the country catering to the management needs.
At the conference, four core groups consisting of individuals from the CII, alumni, HRD network and public sector units deliberated on issues confronting the management institutes and industry – among them lack of practical application of management practices in B-schools, insufficient focus on R&D, inadequate investment in infrastructure and shallow knowledge on the part of students in various functional areas of management.
Dr. Natarajan spoke on the need for industry and academia to work together for mutual benefit, leveraging their own areas of strengths. He said the need of the hour is to create “productive professionals” which could only be achieved by a hands-on approach.
Mr. Deshpande observed that it was necessary for B-schools to provide the right products with the right skills to the right companies. He emphasized on the need for more intellectual capital in order to enhance our competitiveness. Mr Bandyopadhayaya, presiding over the HRD panel, said that there was no short-cut to excellence and what was required was a strict adherence to the basic principles of honesty, professionalism and pride. “The MBAs of today are the leaders of tomorrow. India has arrived but needs to go beyond that,” he said.
Mr. P Ravindra from Infosys Technologies envisaged the extension of the “Campus Connect” program conducted for engineering colleges to management schools as well.
P Sudharshan, an alumni member of IIM-Ahmedabad, emphasized on the vital need for adequate practical experience on the part of management students through factory visits and increased coordination of students’ projects with the industry.
An action plan, formulated at the conference, laid emphasis on the need for entrepreneurship courses in management institutes, for life sciences to be repositioned as an essential part of the curriculum and for working out a model which would help in “documenting reality”.
