Indian b-schools offer more structured placements than international b-schools

INTERVIEW Himanshu Rai, director, IIM Indore

- ABHINAV SINGH

The Indian Institute of Management Indore is one of 100 institutions in the world to have the triple accreditation of AMBA (Association of MBAs), AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and EQUIS (European Foundation for Management Development Quality Improvement System). It achieved this under the leadership of Professor Himanshu Rai. Prior to his current role, Rai was dean of SDA Bocconi (India campus) and also worked as a professor at SDA Bocconi, Milan. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, he had a corporate stint with Tata Steel and has also taught at IIM Lucknow and XLRI Jamshedpur. Rai is a consultant to the World Bank, apart from the Indian government and industry. He spoke to THE WEEK about the quality of management education in India and how it compares with the top b-schools in the world. Excerpts:

Q/ Where do India’s best b-schools stand in 2022 compared with the world’s best?

A/ In recent years, we have seen a significant number of Indian b-schools featuring in global business school rankings. For instance, in the 2022 Financial Times business school ranking for Master’s in Management (MBA or PGP equivalent), seven business schools from India are among the top 100. If we observe the historical data of the last three years, the number of business schools from India in the list shows an increasing trend. This is certainly a positive aspect. Similarly, in the QS Global MBA Rankings, released recently for the year 2023, there are nine and 10 Indian business schools in the rankings for one-year executive MBA and two-year MBA, respectively. So, going forward, too, we will observe significant improvement in rankings of Indian business schools.