AHEAD OF THE PACK
Salaries at the top 25 B- schools are much higher than the rest (` lakh)
over the rest in terms of salary offers. The mean average annual domestic salary at the top 10 institutes was `18.52 lakh while for the top 100, it stood at just `8.86 lakh.
CHANGING COURSE: Meanwhile, the B-schools are also modifying their course content to stay in sync with the times. “Originally the operations area was much more about manufacturing but today it is much more about analytics and supply chain. Therefore, we have changed the name of our ‘operations’ specialisation to ‘operations and supply chain management’ and that has been received very well by the recruiters,” says SPJIMR'S Banerjee. It was done last year and implemented from the 2017 batch. He says, it is important since operations is one of the four important areas of specialisation in the course – the other three being finance, marketing and information management.
Refreshing the curriculum seems in tune with what the students expect. “We are seeing a resurgence in jobs from some of the traditional sectors. Other than few companies like Amazon and Zomato, e-commerce is being largely replaced today by demand from mobile payment players and by traditional financial sector,” says Balaji Uppala, student of the PGP 2016-2018 batch at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). Post GST implementation, new opportunities are coming up in operations, marketing and sales, points out Uppala. “This is because of the reorganisation of the supply chain. Also, with maturity of niche start ups in technology areas like AI, ML, analytics, some of them
are now visiting management schools with business development roles,” he says. And more could be in store for B-schools. Uppala expects to see market expansion with companies from new sectors visiting campuses. “For example, driven by the large scale infrastructure NPAS (non performing assets), opportunities could open up in asset reconstruction companies also,” he says. That is not all. Traditional companies also seem to be open to creating roles that give entrepreneurial exposure to its talented workstore. Sanjiv Mehta, Hindustan Unilever CEO and MD, in an interaction with students at SPJIMR, had disclosed that his company was considering supporting those who have an idea with capital to incubate it within the company.
How do the recruiters from some of these traditional hot sectors see the future? “Having set a goal of becoming a `1 lakh crore FMCG company by 2030, we, at `10,000 crore, are clearly at the beginning of our growth cycle therefore I don't see any let up in ITC'S talent intake,” says S Sivakumar, Group Head, Agri & IT businesses, ITC. The company, he says, hires around 120 managements graduates each year from the top 20 B-schools for its talent needs. So, what is the company looking for when visiting campuses of management schools? “The larger concern for the company would be to ensure the incoming talent meets the fundamental requirements of the business.” These, he says, are a set of competencies around innovation: an ability to generate alternatives that are sensitive to customer needs; capability to collaborate across network and willingness to take ownership to outcome as opposed to mere completion of an assigned task.
HE RANKINGS : For the rankings of B-schools, the survey has, like last year, continued to use objective data. IIMA continues to remain on top, with IIM Calcutta in second place, XLRI Jamshedpur and SPJIMR, Mumbai have emerged as the third and fourth best B-schools in India and the Management Development Institute (MDI) is at number 5. The other institutes in the top 10 of past years have stood their ground. If some reputed schools are missing from the list, it is because they have either refused to participate or did not submit data on time. Some notable institutes like IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow did not participate.
As always, there is significant insight from the findings of the survey. But here again, one element stands out: the future orientation of the schools, given that Indian companies are trying hard to establish themselves globally.
Much like last year, IIM Calcutta tops the list followed by XLRI. They have done even better than the listtopper IIMA. And coming close to IIMA and just a shade below on this parameter is SPJIMR. ~
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