Managing Disruption: The New Age Formula

Change is constant. And lately, very frequent. A look at how companies and B-schools are gearing up to manage disruptions.

- Mayura Amarkant

Anyone who was born before the ‘80s witnessed an era where things changed every two to three years. After 1990, however, India saw change like never before. And in the past 10 years, with the advent of technological disruptions, the changes in the business environments have been at a rapid pace.

What hasn’t changed much, however, is the traditional, two year full-time MBA that still comes with a fixed curriculum, loads of assignments and a promise to make students ‘industry-ready’. While regular workshops, live projects and seminars are also organised under the garb of ‘industry-academia interface’, these short-term steps aren’t helping. The industry is constantly complaining about how management students lack awareness and understanding of the real world.

Anand David, director at SEEK and founder director of Manford, asks a pertinent question that most corporates have, “Do the professors at B-schools have the slightest clue of what their graduates go through in the first few years of corporate life? If yes, why is there a huge difference between what is taught and what it practiced in the corporate world? There is an urgent need to make management education more relevant. There should be deeper research on what organisations need, the pain areas, challenges, etc.” Though it’s a bold point of view that may rub a few people the wrong way, David is simply stating what corporates are facing with respect to new joinees.