Any MBA VS The Right MBA- Prelude

The Indian Management Education Industry (MEI) jumped quickly from a few hundred to a few thousand B schools in just about a decade, from 2000 to 2010. Globalization (which was the main reason for this enormous jump) was still in its first decade, and much of the Indian corporate, which in the 1990s was majorly family-controlled, was now in search of professionals to help them compete with the MNCs that were in blitzkrieg mode in India after LPG. The Indian economy was shifting from being agrarian/manufacturing driven to service driven. An MBA fitted the bill very well here.

Higher Education standards, both in Engineering and Non-engineering education, between 1990 and 2010 in India, only made sure that employability was a huge concern. An MBA made sure the employability quotient went up and was also a route to understand the Corporate. An MBA thus became in the early 21st century what graduation was in the last four decades of the twentieth century in India- almost inevitable.

Then came the catch.

• Programs like Law, Liberal Education, Design picked up that had a job market of their own.
• The graduation ecosystem underwent significant changes to make sure professional skills were taught.
• IT employment increased drastically over the years starting early 21st Century.
• State owned jobs- Bank PO jobs were on the rise.
• Online short-term programs offered similar packages like those of an MBA, in one third of the time and one tenth of the cost.
• The recession of 2008 meant that organizations did not have higher pay packages for freshers, add the fact that graduates did almost the same things as what MBA s would do.

·         The Lehman Crisis added insult to injury. The 10 % GDP growth rate until 2008 suddenly declined.

·         Graduates from bigger ecosystems- Mumbai-Pune, Delhi NCR, Bangalore etc. got similar pay packages as an average B-School postgraduate. Both B.Tech. and MBA, therefore, became victims of the old proverb, “Technologies doesn't discover Markets; markets discover technologies.”

• Overall, The MBA program, from being aspirational, became routine and conventional as ROI kept decreasing. The result was a steady decrease and then stagnation in MBA aspirants. A lot of standalone PGDM institutions began to face challenges, and those offering quality higher education were shy of expansion. Ironically, this is also the time we witnessed an increase in the number of IIMs, IIT s, NITs and other private universities offering an MBA- thereby being both a substitute and a complement to what has been discussed till now.

More companies have fallen down trying to manage growth than those that have fallen down trying to manage decline. Management education in India had shades of diabetic growth and, dare I say, lack of planning. The six-lane highway suddenly had unexpected speed breakers, making way for lesser mortals like me to write on, “Any MBA vs the Right MBA.”

 Part -2 - The road ahead for MEI in India… follows soon.”