The DNA-Indus Learning 2012 Survey identifies the Top 20 B-Schools in India that have managed to optimally balance the essential academia-industry imperatives

Institutes managing best of both worlds

The DNA-Indus Learning 2012 Survey identifies the Top 20 B-Schools in India that have managed to optimally balance the essential academia-industry imperatives

B-Schools are a Mecca for management aspirants. It is here that they seek to realise their dreams of being a part of the teams that control big business operations. Therefore, the parameters are quite clearly set and that too upfront. As a result, these days the quest for management education comes with a rider; Industry-Relevant. It is no longer enough to just have a huge campus, a well-stocked library and a reputation stretching decades into the past. The question that students and their parents are increasingly asking, is just how well does the B-School prepare aspirants for the real business world? The fact is that when they take admission, most management aspirants have no clue of what will be expected from them in the corporate corridors after they complete their education. The amount of focus and hard work involved, initiative and skill sets required to gain the fat salaries or impressive titles are aspects that a B-School needs to convey and explain. The basic task of selecting an institution to set the foundation for a management career can be quite confusing if one is not having a clear set of parameters in place to follow. Making the right or wrong choice can mean the difference between getting your career off to a flying start and losing the race even before it begins. The only point is whether a student or parent understands the parameters to rank B-Schools and their ramifications? The obvious answer would be they do not. For instance, how much significance would one attach to aspects like the experience and expertise of the faculty? Would a student understand how important it is to distinguish between in-house faculty and visiting faculty? Or comprehend the difference between ‘industry exposure’ and ‘industry experience?’ Grasp the hidden implications of campus placement interviews vis-a-vis placement counselling sessions? Therefore, the search for B-Schools where students are encouraged to question, debate and interact with their peers and professors for inputs for their projects, hold brainstorming sessions before tackling assignments, where professors are available to help students select appropriate tasks, diagnose problems, provide challenges, offer feedback and assist them in their collaborative efforts is a difficult one to conduct alone. Aspirants have to acquire skills that are required to grow managerially ranging from communication etiquette, team handling, public speaking, presentation skills and most importantly the knowledge in financial concepts which is so very important when you are in a leadership role. The students need to be given exposure to real life scenarios, case studies and taken for industry visits to ensure they are ready to perform right from day one so that it reduces training cost and supports timely delivery. The B-School should strike the right balance between academic delivery of the highest quality and industry interface. The bottom line is that the corporate world looks for graduates who are ‘industry-ready’ when they join their organisations so B-Schools have to keep that in mind. However, as pointed out earlier, this is no easy task. With the aim of facilitating the process and enabling management aspirants to not just understand the parameters on which they need to rate B-Schools, but also provide a systematically conducted, comprehensive rating, DNA and Indus Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd. recently conducted a survey to identify such B-Schools in India. The objective of the research was to rank the Top 20 B-Schools within the country based on the perception of student, faculties, alumni and HR consultants. The evaluation of business schools was done on specific parameters like curriculum, intellectual impact, international exposure, CSR initiatives, placement, industry interaction, infrastructure and potential to network. The preferred business schools were listed on each parameter, followed by the evaluation of each business school on each parameter, leading to the final list of Top 20 business schools in India. For this, a survey was conducted for the selected institutes with structured interviews of 300 respondents across the six cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Chandigarh and Bangalore. Convenience sampling was used to ensure that the ratings for all business schools were taken. A weighted average was then calculated across different parameters for selection of the top business schools in India. Target respondents included students of the age group 18-30 years. These comprised potential students who were willing to get admitted in any business school, had passed 12th standard and passed within the last 1 year, those presently studying in any business school and alumni students who had passed from any business school within the last one year. Faculties who responded had to be a teaching faculty of any business school whereas the HR professionals had to be directly involved in campus recruitments. Snowball sampling process was used to ensure that the ratings for all business schools are taken. The survey findings provided rankings in the following categories: Overall Ranking, Most admired institution - Course Curriculum, Most admired institution - Intellectual Impact, Most admired institution - International exposure, Most admired institution- CSR initiative, Most admired institution - Placement, Most admired institution - Industry Interaction, Most admired institution – Infrastructure and Most admired institution - Potential to network. These are the key factors that epitomise an ideal institute for imparting management education and stand aspirants in good stead, all through their careers. After all, a B-School that combines relevant and updated courses with exposure to the corporate world ensures that its students are ready to deliver from day one, making them an attractive proposition at the campus hiring stage. The same attributes that make a student attractive for hiring today, will be driving career growth tomorrow.