A few weeks ago, the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad organised a conference where alumni entrepreneurs were invited to share their experiences with the centre and with students interested in becoming entrepreneurs.

Most of us would assume that very few people showed up on either side, since the popular perception of IIMA is that it is the bastion of straight-andnarrow corporate executives, and not the breeding ground for off-the-beaten-track entrepreneurs who march to the beat of their own drummer.

Factually, the audience comprised about 150 alumni entrepreneurs and over 250 eager beaver students who came to learn whatever they could and to ask questions like “Is 5-6 years of work experience in a company a good thing before striking out on your own” and “how do you know when you are ready to take the plunge”.

At the conference the CIIE also released a book written by an entrepreneur alumna, Rashmi Bansal, titled Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, covering the story of 25 alumni entrepreneurs who she divided into Believers (those who always knew what they wanted to do), Opportunists (who were hit by an entrepreneurship opportunity they couldn’t refuse), and Alternate Vision (people who became social entrepreneurs or ran boutique businesses).

Alternative Vision

The list of IIM-A Alumni entrepreneurs is very impressive and includes a heartening number of social entrepreneurs too — naukri.com, Subhiksha, Edelweiss, Mastek, Mphasis, Educomp, Makemytrip.com, India Infoline , IRIS, Gridstone, Orchid Pharmaceuticals , Give Foundation, Basix and Eklavya, to name a few.

Some of them went straight into entrepreneurship on graduating. Others first worked for a few years gathering experience in other companies. Sanjeev Bikchandani worked for a few years with a company before quitting to set up naukri.com and R Subramaniam of Subhiksha spent 15 days with a large multinational bank and decided that dealing with money markets and bonds would not give him the life skills he needed and then moved to Enfield for two years before setting up his own shop. Vijay Mahajan of Basix opted out of placement to pursue his alternate vision, but worked first for another NGO before setting up Pradan. Some were late bloomers and some even were ‘second innings’ entrepreneurs , having retired early form top corporate jobs. Rahul Bhasin did a buyout of the securities firm he was working with and Jerry Rao started Mphasis after an entire career with Citibank.

On an average, over the years, 25-30 % of every batch eventually ends up becoming entrepreneurs. The move was more gradual in the older batches but is accelerating in the batches of the 90s and 2000s. Last year, 11 students in a class of 200 or so did not seek placement and set off on their own entrepreneurship voyage — definitely a sign of the times, with easier funding and the comfort that today’s corporate world will hire them at any time, on par with their classmates.

I asked a sample of these successful entrepreneurs to evaluate IIMA course content and teaching in the context of creating more people like themselves. There is a fair amount of consensus that the concepts or tools of business management being taught are equally relevant whether you are an entrepreneur or in an established corporate set up — because after all, running an organisation, whether your own or someone else’s is more or less the same. Also, in the early stages, entrepreneurs have to take on a variety of managerial roles themselves, since they can’t afford to hire too many experts. That’s why several of them support the view of R Subramaniam (RS) of Subhiksha that a ‘work somewhere first’ route is helpful.

However there is an equally emphatic agreement that the contexts / perspectives in which these tools get applied could be totally different in the world of entrepreneurship and more attention needs to be given to making that point.

The prescriptions on how to do this are varied. RS of Subhiksha feels that the way entrepreneurship is currently being portrayed in most B-Schools is much too romantic; and there is a need for highlighting the classic pain — it takes 10 to 12 years of struggle to build anything of significance. There is a real need to understand and control risk better and know what foolhardy and romantic risk is and what well gauged risk is. His prescription to do this is a ½ unit course “somewhere between OB and strategy” to sensitise would-be entrepreneurs to this.

Sanjeev Bikchandani of Naukri.com feels that B-Schools need more case studies on start ups and entrepreneur driven organisations in order for students to see alternate contexts and alternate views of the world. There must also be more successful and failed entrepreneurs invited to talk to the students to provide different role models of managing businesses. Taking Sanjeev’s thought further, I must say that having worked with both typically corporate CEOs and entrepreneurs, even the way management tools are applied are quite different.

For example, market research to scope business opportunity done for an entrepreneur ends up revealing different things than that for a protocol driven “current market and its rules” obsessed corporate CEO. An entrepreneur once said scathingly to me in reply to my question on how much he had leveraged his balance sheet to grow, “only you B School types think that one must leverage ones own balance sheet to grow. There are several other balance sheets you can leverage to grow” . And in fact he had done just that, all totally kosher and legal! Vaidy of Alchemy Capital says that the brain is meant for thinking, reasoning and memory.

He feels that a lot of what he was taught at IIMA is more connected with reasoning than it is with thinking; and also that the memory bank built in student’s heads of things that went wrong and right with entrepreneurial ventures is still quite lightweight compared to that of corporate behaviour. This again points to more exposure to people and case situations from the world of entrepreneurs. There is near total agreement that courses which “help give courage”, “strengthen resolve” , “are inspirational” , “accelerate the seed of entrepreneurship inside us” are very valuable.

A 20 year old course at IIMA that does this and that most of our entrepreneurs remember fondly is LEM - Laboratory in Entrepreneurial Motivation. For the past six years it has been offered by alumnus visiting faculty Sunil Honda, a pharma-turnededucation entrepreneur. His students say that it instils confidence, makes you interact with small shops in industrial estates who earn more than most corporate executives do, and it begs the question “why can’t we, with more education and privileges of intellectual exposure, do it too”? In fact, in the bidding system that students at IIMA use to get a course of their choice, this one comes near the top of the list.

Venkat, a social entrepreneur and founder of GIVE India says that while LEM inspired him to pursue his dream, he also found that the system of IPs (2 Credit Independent Projects) also helped him progress his future business ideas in depth, while getting him the credits needed to graduate.

The CIIE at IIMA was set up six years ago, with the coming together of seven faculty members from different areas, interested in doing research in entrepreneurship . Its chairperson Prof. Rakesh Basant, explains the IIMA philosophy that research centres be integrated with other areas of activity of the institute. One arm of this integration has been the creation and offering of a wide range of entrepreneurship relevant courses ranging from private equity all the way to social entrepreneurship, supported by custom created case material and designed to include project work on the companies being incubated by the centre, on managing the seed fund, in mentoring start ups, vetting their business plans and so on.

The Centre has also worked with the placement office to enable summer internships with start up companies, for a permanent placement slot just before the main placement activity begins, for start ups who want to come and recruit, and for those who want to be entrepreneurs straight after they graduate, a safety net scheme by which they can participate two years later in the campus placement process.

Clearly the mental, the environmental and the emotional aspects of becoming an entrepreneur are what BSchools ought to address. And even if concept learning stays the same, there is a necessity for context learning through greater exposure to entrepreneurs and start up case situations. Ramâ Bijapurkar is a management consultant and visiting faculty at IIMA.

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Q 1. Over 22 years of Experience in CII what make you to join apex body AIMA

22 years of grooming in CII made me ready to take up the challenge of the top executive job at AIMA. Lot of synergy between the kind of work done at CII and AIMA and so it is like a natural progression.

 Q 2. What’s your next step, after becoming the Director General of AIMA?

AIMA is a great Institution and a great Brand!

My key KRAs at AIMA, while all the while working towards AIMA’s vision to be a leader in management development movement and facilitate individuals and organizations realize their potential include International ties and linkages, enhance AIMA’s profile, E Learning and E Testing and more mega events from the AIMA portfolio.

Q 3. Any plans to improve the standard of MAT ?

The purpose of an aptitude test is to assess the potential of the candidates. In the case of Management Aptitude Test (MAT) it has been designed and structured to assess the potential of the candidates to undergo management programs.
We are working towards taking MAT online.

Q 4. What is the strategy behind conducting 20 to 25 events every year?

Events are one of the vehicles through which AIMA reaches out to its membership. They also profile AIMA. The differentiating factor is that AIMA events and programmes are based on industry needs. The mix of programmes is such that it caters to all managerial levels including b-school faculty and students.

The vision is to organize mega events – with a much higher profile while maintaining the content and depth of each event.

Q.5 Comment on “Business Responsibility Summit”

This Summit was path breaking, as it marked the beginning of a new movement of Responsible Business- a clear departure from CSR on the side. We set out to propose a definite agenda on Responsible Business for the professional community to follow and the response we got was satisfactory. We plan to take this further to ensure that the movement grows and businesses voluntarily assume responsible ways.

Q.6 What are the new courses in AIMA?

(a) In association with IGNOU, we are planning to introduce a few sectoral specialization courses in the areas of Energy, Transport and Education sectors. Some of these courses would be made available through e-learning mode.

(b) We are also planning to launch one year Post Graduate Diploma programme in Financial Planning to meet the growing demand for financial planners due to the exponential growth in the Financial Services sector.
Q 7. What do you think about the management talent in India?

Every year almost 1.5 to 2 lakh Management Graduates are passing out of over 1500 B-Schools in the country.  A large percentage of the graduates passing out from the average (not well known B-Schools) lack analytical and soft skills.  There are enough jobs but companies are complaining that they are not able to recruit people with right skills.

Q 8. Kindly comment on AMT session held on July 21st?

To contribute towards quality management education, AIMA offers certification service popularly known as Accredited Management Teacher (AMT). The certification recognizes the academic achievements and professional expertise of management professionals and management teachers. It aims at identifying capable professionals from any arena not necessarily academics who can effectively impart management education by virtue of their academic achievements and professional experience.

The idea of AMT certification is to create a pool of experienced and knowledgeable management faculty from academia and industry. AMTs become benchmark of quality management faculty for B-Schools. Accreditation sessions (presentation and interviews) are conducted once in a month i.e. normally on third Monday of each month at AIMA, New Delhi. The forthcoming AMT sessions are planned for 18 August and 15 September at Delhi. To facilitate the applicants from Kerala an AMT session is planned at Cochin on 29 September this year.

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Management education is must have education for many students. The field opens various streams for a bright career. However, good education is only possible with qualitative faculty. Here we talk about accreditation of management teachers.

Non availability of adequate faculty is a major constraint for sustainable growth of quality management education in India. Today there are over 1700 management schools. All of these are in need of faculty. In view of the severity of faculty shortage, B-Schools have not been able to improve the standards – both in faculty, student ratio and senior - junior faculty ratios. Given the demand supply gap, additional faculty needs to be attracted.

In addition to pursuing traditional routes, new support facilities have to be created to overcome faculty shortage. This has also been brought out by NKC Working Group on Management Education in their report submitted to Prime Minister in October 2007.

To meet the demand of management faculty AIMA as a national apex body for professional management in the country has a scheme for Accreditation of Management Teachers (AMT). It aims at identifying capable professionals from any arena not necessarily academics who can effectively impart management education by virtue of their academic achievements and professional experience. It has been well acknowledged that teachers at management institutions should be those who have practiced and practitioners who can teach.

The applicants for AMT certification are screened through the following process: It starts with Screening of Applicants and goes through Psychometric Profiling, Presentation,and lastly an Interview.

Accreditation sessions are conducted at AIMA, New Delhi every third Monday of each month. To facilitate the applicants from western part of the country an accreditation session was held at Pune on 28 June 2008. Another accreditation session for applicants from Kerala is planned in the month of September this year.

Qualification required for this program: Post Graduate Degree or equivalent in a discipline relevant to management education.Post Graduate level regular teaching experience of minimum 3 years. Or Industry / consultancy / training / research experience of minimum 5 years.

The Accreditation Board comprising of highly reputed academician from institutes of excellence, senior practicing HR heads and consultants with proven track record conduct interviews with candidates. The AIMA’s initiative of AMT certification is to create a pool of experienced and knowledgeable management faculty from academia and industry. AMTs can be considered as benchmark of quality management faculty for B-Schools.

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B-schools are also encouraging professionals from diverse profiles to do an MBA.

Bhuvana Ramalingam, senior director of communication, ISB, says: “Anyone can do an MBA. Earlier, engineers made up a chunk of MBAs. Today, it’s people from backgrounds as diverse as journalism and defence. Diversity is important in business education as it enhances discussions in the classroom.”

KJ Somaiya Institute of Management, Mumbai, has changed the selection criteria to incorporate as many disciplines as possible. Unlike last year, when 95 per cent of students came from engineering backgrounds, this year only 60 per cent of students are engineers.

A consideration of 12.5 per cent on past academic records is now applicable to students from all the disciplines under the revised selection criteria, as against last year when only engineering students received this consideration.

The institute has also cut down the consideration on work experience from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent, and has broadening the eligibility to include aspirants from other disciplines as well.

Satish Deodhar, chairperson, admissions at IIM, Ahmedabad, said: “Another trend in IIM-A is that of Chartered Accountants (CAs) doing MBA. Earlier there were many economic students opting for MBA. But today, they have been outnumbered by engineers and CAs as there is more scope for economic graduates in the field of BPO or hospitality.”

The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar, (XIMB), has more than 60 per cent of engineers this year.

Many feel that an MBA is a favoured programme for all as offers a complete learning experience. But why switch career for an MBA degree, especially when you are in a good profession, already?

The answer seems to be the competitive advantage the programme confers.

“Management education gives students a jump start. The salaries are attractive after an MBA, for instance the average salary for an MBA from IIM is 10 lakh. There could be other reasons for opting for an MBA like tedious jobs, the urge to break the glass ceiling and to broaden the niche market for one’s own profession,” explains Deodhar.

A section of MBA aspirants feels that the course helps them bridge the gap in their established domain of education.

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Mumbai, July 20 With the hospital industry expected to grow at the rate of 30 per cent by industry analysis, need for hospital management professionals is growing by the day. The Institute of Clinical Research India has started a health section which is offering MBA in hospital management and medical tourism. The founding member of the Academy of Hospital Administration, Dr Munindra Srivastava has taken charge of the ICRI Health division. Excerpts from an interview:

Q. What was the need of designing a specific course for hospital management and medical tourism?
Trained manpower will be required soon. These people will be trained in maintenance, human resource management, quality and quantity of care along with promotion and strategizing. The earlier conception that management is “common sense” and can be handled by senior medical professionals is no longer true. It has become a highly specified field.

Q. What value addition will a trained professional make to hospital management?
The course will teach them how an operation theatre is designed, about waste disposal, laws related to hospitals and human resource. We will also train them how to prepare for accreditations and how to maintain standards. Hospital management professionals need to have a degree in science before they are trained in management. This will probably avoid arguments arising among administrators.

Q. Though a lot of hospitals, government and private, are trying for accreditation, there is a debate that the norms should be reconsidered for these two branches.
The accreditation norms were designed by a body of experts from the fields of medicine, law and management. We collected all existing norms and formulated new ones after considering the laws and conditions at the hospital.

Q. There is a lot of dispute related to MCI recognition and the universities. Why is this happening and what can be done?
There is only one reason for this. The state government gives the permission for land and setup while the MCI comes in later. All approvals should come at the same time. The students get cheated sometimes at the time of admissions as they are told that the applications have been sent for MCI recognition.

Q. Where is the hospital industry heading and what are its demands?
The industry is expected to grow at the rate of 30 per cent in the next few years. Also the corporate sector is likely to enter the healthcare field as more and more foreign patients are coming to India for treatment. Patients are demanding professionally managed hospitals, which need specially trained professionals. Stagnation too appears to be a far fetched dream as of now.

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