INDIA'S BEST

B-SCHOOLS

Then, of course, B-schools are responding to the pandemic-led acceleration of digitisation of businesses. IIMB has introduced a new core course on digital businesses this year, while electives like gamification, Web 3.0 and Metaverse respond to some of the latest technology trends. IIMA has started courses on digital strategy and transformation, and digital marketing. “The traditional way of marketing or strategy or managing HR are all changing. Real-time data about what employees are doing is useful to understand how giving a day off in the middle of the week may improve productivity,” says D’Souza.

Consulting major BCG India, one of the largest recruiters at the leading B-schools, recently launched ‘BCG X’—a vertical to bring together more than 2,500 digital and AI experts, tech designers and builders globally to service client needs, as the nature of businesses they consult for is also evolving. “We do a lot of work with large start-ups now, which are digital-first companies,” says Natarajan, adding that the new vertical has a mix of people with specific functional and domain expertise, but also requires management and consulting skills. Similarly, the consultancy firm also started a ‘Climate & Sustainability’ hub at its Delhi office this September. “This is critical as it is on the agenda of most of our large clients. This hub brings together the capabilities we already had. It also gives an opportunity for specialists in those domains to be hired and create specific teams,” he says.

HOWEVER, ESG and sustainability have mostly remained buzzwords in the industry as organisations are yet to fully understand how to compute their business value. Very few firms have created separate verticals or reporting structures for these roles. Agreeing, D’Souza says large and medium firms are questioned on this, despite India being a price-sensitive market. “We are responding to it,” he says, adding that IIMA’s courses on green financing and sustainability do find takers. “Companies are not looking for sustainability managers. They want a marketing or a corporate finance or a product manager who understands sustainability issues. All of them need to have adequate understanding to be able to integrate it into their business decision making,” he says, adding that they have ensured that ESG-related topics are made part of the core curriculum.

But in the midst of this fast-changing and rapidly digitising world, questions are growing louder about the relevance of a two-year management programme. In 2022, applications to premier US institutes, Harvard Business School and The Wharton School, declined 15.4 per cent and 13.9 per cent, respectively. “The changing world has a lot of new opportunities and there are those for whom the two-year programme is not ideal, either for students or for the recruiters. So, we need to diversify. We are chang

ing the portfolio of our basket,” says IIM Calcutta (IIMC) Director Uttam Kumar Sarkar, referring to a combination of one- and two-year programmes as well as online, offline and hybrid programmes. “The capacity of the programmes will have to change accordingly,” he adds.

In India, an estimated 3,000-plus B-schools produce more than 300,000 management graduates every year. But not more than 10-20 per cent are employable, according to some estimates. BT-MDRA’s own ranking of the best B-schools in the country has 281 institutes participating. But even within them, the differential in the overall scores of the top-most and bottom-most schools is a wide 622.9 points. IIMC emerges on top with an overall score of 902.8, while IMS Business School, also from Kolkata, finishes off the list with an overall score of 279.9. The top 11 schools have retained their positions, while the next 50 show minor fluctuation in their ranks. These pages profile what the top five schools are doing right, and how they plan to prepare managers of tomorrow. As they say, chaos is another word for opportunity and it looks like students are in for both in equal measure.