Everyone, so it seems, is getting into the business of meeting this demand—from locally grown job training institutes such as IMS Proschool and Career Launcher to the parade of foreign business schools from around the world—eager to gain market share in the booming Indian market.
Demand for education, of course, is good. No doubt there are many levels of need for education as India wrestles with everything from leveraging its growing influence in the global marketplace to its front-lines "skills crunch," both by-products of its extended economic success.
So how could the exploding demand for management education and training in India be a threat to established MBA programs? The MBA, long held to be the most sophisticated form of management education—the place where future captains of industry are incubated—is vulnerable to devaluation from a variety of angles.
- In environments where there is enormous entrepreneurial opportunity for smart people with great ideas who are willing to work hard and take risks, the payoffs can be enormous. Who needs the deep knowledge development, costs and time commitments required of students in serious MBA programs? Just look at recent major business coverage in the U.S., for example, which suggests that the enormous salaries earned by hedge fund whiz-kids without an MBA are proof that the degree is no longer necessary to reach the pinnacle of success.
- Similarly, in rapidly growing markets in which individuals with even basic skills are in high demand, the potential is great for the marketplace to blur definitions of quality between educational programs focused on skill development—intended as job training—and the fundamental understanding of the world economy required for future global leadership, driven by rigorous, research-based MBA programs provided by world-class academic institutions.
Why does this matter? No doubt the Indian business education market, in all its forms, is responding—as it should—to the diverse commercial needs of the country. In the short term, this is absolutely necessary to meet the full spectrum of human capital demands of a skyrocketing economy. It would be wise, however, for business leaders, academicians and the government to promote understanding in the marketplace of the distinctly valuable role and contributions made by top-tier MBA programs, for the benefit of business, society and the long-term global success of the Indian economy.
About the Author:
Tim Westerbeck is an expert on branding and marketing strategy. He has provided marketing and brand strategy advice to hundreds of leading global corporations and nonprofit organizations, including the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Stanford Law School, the American Medical Association, Yale School of Management and the Graduate Management Admission Council.
Prior to joining Lipman Hearne, Tim was for 10 years president of Westerbeck Communications, a national brand marketing consulting firm based in Chicago. The company was acquired by Lipman Hearne in 2002. Lipman Hearne ( www.lipmanhearne.com ) is a US-based specialist branding & marketing firm exclusively for non-profit organizations. Its clients include Yale School of Management; Princeton University, Princeton; Northwestern University, Evanston; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Ford Foundation; Aspen Institute Washington; Graduate Management Admission Council; American Medical Association; and American Red Cross, Washington.
Tim began his career as a professional journalist, working as a major-market television news reporter for ABC News. He has been quoted in hundreds of major media, including The New York Times, FORTUNE, Crain’s Chicago Business, Bloomberg Business News and The Los Angeles Times. Tim is a regular contributor to Biz Ed magazine, the global publication on management education published by AACSB International.
