Indian business schools step to the crease

Indian business schools have found themselves being sought out by MBA recruiters, says Ross Geraghty.

Most people don’t need to be reminded that it’s fiercely competitive out there in the wide world of business. International recruiters at the top blue-chip firms, seeking the best MBA graduates to lead their companies, refer more and more regularly to the ‘war for talent’ in interviews and on corporate websites. They are more than aware of the constant evolutionary process of rapidly globalizing businesses and of the amount of effort, finance and strategy that is required to entice the very best talent from this 21st Century battlefield through their doors.

Echoing this, the world’s top business schools find themselves liaising ever more closely with the business world to learn their specific needs. Not that business schools and the ‘real world’ were ever too distanced in the past – indeed most top business schools’ faculty are drawn from the top echelons of international business, proving that the war for talent exists at faculty level too. But increasingly, courses are being created to provide specialized skills to MBA graduates, while remaining within the intrinsically general business nature of the course.

Recruiters

In recent years, Indian business schools have stepped up to the crease, according to the world’s biggest MBA recruiters in an exclusive Jan 2009 report. The QS Global Top Business Schools 2009: The Employers’ Choice provides exclusive feedback from 619 prestigious international MBA recruiters as to the world’s best business schools. The recruiters, from dozens of different services and industries, include such names as Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson and Google. These are the blue chip companies setting the standards they expect from the world’s business schools, and which provide the yardstick against which others are measured.

The report shows that India’s business schools are achieving greater recognition amongst the international business community. The ‘ABC’ of Institutes of International Management at Ahmedabad (11th in the Asia Pacific region, up from 12th the previous year), Bangalore (6th, up from 9th) and Calcutta (12th up from 17th) all featured strongly in the report with IIM Bangalore cementing its place in the Top 10 of Asia Pacific business schools for the second year running. A strong placing by the Indian School of Business (13th up from 20th) and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (21st) cemented the fact that India is providing a major business school presence in the Asia Pacific region.

War for Talent

As the war for talent rages, despite the recession, a business school’s reputation with recruiters and MBA candidates, is of paramount importance both to business schools and the people who hope to attend them. For the best students, attending a school at the highest echelon of the industry, meaning those with access to the world’s largest MBA recruiters, has never been more important. The success of Indian schools in this kind of survey is great news for the country’s many thousands of MBA aspirants as well as international students who wish to study overseas in places like India.

So why are Indian business schools doing so well in recent reports? Alok Jain, Admissions Tutor at IIM Ahmadebad, says: “The world is looking closely at India and it makes a lot of difference for any employer looking for a global dimension. The economy is booming, big investments are coming in and the large population has become a major strength of the country. India has a huge young generation segment, more so than China. For any economy there is a lot of market available so there is a lot of potential for companies. Indian Business Schools like IIMA believe in providing unique Indian business cases in class. That is why Indian schools are improving day by day.”

The report is also totally unique in that it ranks the most popular schools by region and discipline. As well as the strong regional showing by Indian business schools, they also featured particularly strongly in the finance discipline. Indian schools did not perform quite so well in other fields such as marketing and entrepreneurship, however. Although not necessarily competing with some of the top US and European schools, this may be a concern to the program managers of India’s biggest MBA providers.

Top 10 Schools in the Asia Pacific Region (alphabetical order)

INSEAD Singapore   

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

Melbourne Business School, The University of Melbourne   

Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University

NUS Business School, National University of Singapore   

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Australian Graduate School of Management 

Monash University Graduate School of Business

China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)   

Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Next 10 Schools in the Asia Pacific Region (alphabetical order)

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad   

Asian Institute of Management

Indian Institute of Managemet Calcutta 

University of Hong Kong

Indian School of Business   

Australian National University National Graduate School of Management

Tsinghua University School of Economics & Management   

Guanghua School of Management , Peking University

UTS University of Technology Sydney. Graduate School of Business   

Chinese University of Hong Kong

“Overall I think the report shows that Indian business schools are really getting their act together and are doing things right,” says Nunzio Quacquarelli, managing director of QS and expert in the international MBA industry. “It shows that global recruiters, not just local ones, are looking closely at Indian schools and graduates of those MBA programs, and are seeing the quality and value of the education those schools provide.”

Are Indian business schools still playing catch up? Alok Jain says: “There is still work to do. American and European models have more research-related output where Indian ones have a close co-ordination with Indian business and economy, and we are developing course curricula according to what the industry is asking for. It’s especially true in Mergers & Acquisitions, as many businesses are being acquired by Indian entrepreneurs. This was not the trend 10 years ago. Slowly we are developing international aspirations and requirements and developing courses to meet these demands.”

QS Global Top Business Schools 2009: The Employers’ Choice canvassed the opinion of human resources decision-makers. These have the most objective and informed opinions as to which are the ‘best’ business schools, and this makes them ideal candidates to respond to such a survey. Nunzio Quacquarelli, author of the report, says, “When HR managers choose from which business schools to recruit, they will draw from a wide range of information sources, evaluate their experience of MBA alumni currently working at the firm and canvass their opinions, assess the quality and efficiency of schools’ career services and the reputation of the school, globally and locally, look beyond rankings and examine the facilities, the course content and the quality of students.”

One thing is for sure. As the Indian economy flourishes and the world’s big businesses start to take the country more seriously as a business proposition, the country’s business schools and those who want to enter MBA courses there, are booming with it. And this can only be good news for the next generation of Indian business leaders.