The Coming Of The All-rounders

Smack in the middle of the second economic crisis in three years, with national growth slowing down and hiring activity at its lowest ebb, the MBA faces his toughest challenge yet — both in securing a job of his choice and in steering his company out of distress once he has got one. It is in such circumstances that one needs to know which are the B-schools that are girding up for the challenge, and which are the ones most likely to fall by the wayside.

This year's BW-Ipsos B-school survey does exactly that. A quick look at the top 20 tells us that it is status quo in the top 3 spots — IIM Ahmedabad, followed by IIM Calcutta and XLRI Jamshedpur. While IIM-A and IIM-C score the highest in intellectual capital, the former tops in industry interface and pedagogy, with the latter having the edge in infrastructure. XLRI, on the other hand, is in second place as far as placements are concerned.

The rest of the top 20 is witness to a lot of churn. SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, has moved from 12th place in 2011 to 4th place; Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, has moved from 16th to 5th (its best performance in a decade, beating its 2007 ranking of 6th place); Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, has jumped  from 13th to 9th; Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi, has zoomed from 17th to 11th; and International Management Institute, Delhi, has gone from 19th to 16th. There have been some falls too. SVKM's Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, has dipped from 4th place to 7th place; IIM Kozhikode from 5th to 8th; IIM Indore from 7th to 12th; and Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Mumbai, from 8th to 13th place.

The big movers up the rankings owe their success in large measure to the emphasis on development of soft skills, the constant review of curricula, foreign tie-ups, faculty appraisals, increased focus on research and greater interface with industry, among others. FMS, for one, tops in placements (thanks to its ROI) and ranks 4th in industry interface; IMT Ghaziabad scores high in intellectual capital and industry interface, coming 3rd in both; and IIFT's stress on pedagogy gets it 3rd place in the category.  

There are a few institutes that are conspicuous by their absence. They either did not send in their questionnaires and documents before the deadline, supplied inadequate data, proved inaccessible or refused to participate in the survey. Among those that missed the deadline were ICFAI Hyderabad and Vinod Gupta School of Management IIT-Kharagpur. IIM Bangalore did not supply adequate data, while IIM Lucknow, Indian School of Business Hyderabad and Mudra Institute of Communication Ahmedabad were among those that did not participate. The Indian Institute of Planning and Management Delhi chose to withdraw from the survey. Over 450 B-schools across the country were contacted for the survey with 144 making it to the final rankings (see methodology).

The presence or absence of soft skills in those passing out of B-school has been a matter of debate, but its need has never been more acutely felt than now, when the economy is in the throes of a crisis. Good managers will need a lot more besides what they learn in the classroom to tackle the curve balls that will be thrown at them, that is, things like sociability, empathy, communication, humour, integrity, optimism, leadership and teamwork, among others. We examine the present scenario through a debate between a senior B-school academic and a practising HR manager of a large corporation (read the debate).

As regards job offers and placements of the batch of 2012, a cross-section of placement coordinators and students across institutes informed us that while many more companies than last year trooped into campuses, the offers were fewer and did not touch the stratospheric levels witnessed in 2007-08. Most companies were cautious in their approach, with marketing and consulting showing the most interest (see Cautious Optimism).

This year we have two B-school graduates, from IIM-C's very first PGDM batch of 1964-66 and the 47th batch of 2010-12, recounting their experiences and takeaways (What I learnt at B-school).

Most important, if you want to see if the college you're aiming to join has made it to the rankings, or where the one you're in figures, we give you 27 pages of the Objective Survey, broken up category-wise. Then comes the Perceptual Survey,  where senior faculty members, recruiters, MBA aspirants, MBA students and parents rate institutions on six parameters.
For all this and more, keep reading.

(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-06-2012)