Will ISB give IIMs a run for their money?

Namrata Singh in Mumbai &
R Ravichandran in Hyderabad

The spotlight will be shining bright, and all eyes will be glued to the stage when the first batch of management graduates from the newly launched Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), take a bow exactly a year down the line. Even as corporate India waits with bated breath to scrutinise the new ISB graduates, the million dollar question currently doing the rounds is: Will the much-talked-about ISB be able to beat or match the IIM cult that currently exists in the Indian corporate psyche?

Says a senior corporate manager from Glaxo and the 1985 batch of IIM, Bangalore: “All the hype has to be finally justified in action by delivering in an ever-demanding corporate workplace to prove themselves to be IIM equals. Business needs professionalism. And IIM has definitely institutionalised a system to train the talents into focussed, disciplined and performance-driven corporate professionals.”

“I still believe that the aura of an IIM will still be left unmatched. With all the ingredients for a good feast you still can’t dish out a delicious spread unless you are taught to be a good cook,” opines Mr Lyndon D’Silva, vice-president (retail services), Morgan Stanley. What’s more, some of the FMCG corporates are also willing to break the time-honoured norm of recruiting from premier management biggies. Even before it starts hiring the ISB graduates, Coca-Cola India is looking at building a relationship with the new business school. Listen to what Coca-Cola India’s director (HR), Mr Adil Malia, has to say: “We would be developing relations with the School (ISB) as we do with other Universities.” The company is currently studying ISB’s model and the new set-up.

“A good knowledge dissemination system, committed faculty and a dedicated bunch of trainees make the ideal academic mix,” says Ms Chetana Gargava, a senior HR professional from Marico Industries Ltd. According to IIM-Ahmedabad director Dr Jahar Saha, “Any good school or institution coming in is competition.” However, on whether this would mean attracting the best talent away from the IIMs, he says: “This would largely depend on the students since people make their own choices.”

The fee structure
The fanfare and exuberance for the launch of the management institute notwithstanding, the fee structure is a high Rs 10 lakh per annum. Nevertheless, the student list boasts of some of the senior industry professionals who have taken to academia for an intellectual break. And the institute itself challenges to be an alternate stop-shop to the prestigious IIMs from the management world. However, the fee structure of ISB is definitely being raved about at B-school corridors.

As compared to the ISB fee, the IIMs charge about Rs 1.5 lakh per annum. “One can always evaluate the price differential between an IIM and ISB,” says Mr D’Silva. “If the price differential in terms of the kind of quality human capital that can be rendered by the non-IIM graduate is not substantial, then there is every possibility I will go that extra step and put the trainees on our board,” says Mr D’Silva.
Says Ms Navita Aggarwal, an IIM graduate from the 1983 batch, who is manager (credit) at IndusInd: “There is a desperate demand in the industry for professionals who can be profit-centric in job delivery. If a management institute can translate the incomplete knowledge into complete practical expertise with little learning curve involved, then definitely they are welcome to fill in the knowledge gap ,” she adds.

A wait-n-watch game
Will all this then mean that ISB might pose a threat to the IIMs in terms of attracting the best students? The feedback is mixed. Mr Malia says that one has to wait and see. “The school is very new. However, the model is time-tested and is getting replicated. With the faculty ISB boasts, we have to see how it turns out to be,” he adds.

Mr Malia also expressed concern at the shrinking job market. “With a shrinking job market, one has to see whether ISB is able to change that or just add to the supply side.”

According to Mr Paul Vincent, an IIM Lucknow pass-out from the 2000 batch, who is currently with Deutsche Bank in Mumbai, “a relevant application-oriented study modules and repeated industry exposure can shape them up like any other IIM graduate. But they definitely need the conviction and drive to utilise the logistics available with them to match-up to the other top institutes of the nation,” he opines.

A long way to go
Students of IIM-Calcutta feel that ISB has to go a long way before it emerges as a potential threat to IIM-C, the premier institute in Kolkata.

“The PGP (post-graduate programme) they are offering is for a period of one year. This is too little a time to teach the students,” says one faculty member of IIM-C. “Next, you need to teach the students from an Indian context. We don’t know how the ISB will manage that, given their faculty pool who are mostly visiting faculties,” he says.

Asked if he rues not being in ISB, Mr Manoj Goel, a 28-year old electronics engineer from BITS Pilani, says: “No way. My experience is simply great.” Mr Goel is a final year student of PGP and hails from Gurgaon, Haryana. For two years Mr Goel was employed with Motorola before he decided to pursue his MBA.

The course curriculum
ISB feels that its curriculum is designed to maximise the 52-week programme without undue pressure on the students. There are elective subjects from technology, entrepreneurship, analytical finance and strategic marketing. There are also international programmes and exchange programmes in association with the Wharton Global Consulting Practicum, London Business School and the Kellogg Business School. Further, there are also enrichment and personality development programmes and courses like “ Mind, Body and Soul,” and the leadership module. But others are not impressed. “ Although ISB offers a similar course in my subject, I don’t think they will be able to offer the kind of options we give to our students here,” says Professor Asish K Bhattacharya, an ex-Alstom employee, currently a professor of finance and control at IIM, Calcutta.
In the first year of the two-year MBA course, IIM-C teaches its students financial accounting, cost accounting and corporate finance. In the second year students are given the option of choosing from financial engineering, fixed income securities, security analysis and portfolio management and international finance among others. Prof Leena Chatterjee, chairperson of the placements cell at IIM-C, says that it is too early to say anything
about ISB.

Foreign tie-ups
ISB has tie-ups with two prestigious US universities — the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, and one British institution, the London School of Business. In comparison some of the IIMs have equally interesting associations. As of now, IIM-C has tie-ups with nine foreign universities across the globe — Carnegie Mellon of US, Whu Coblenz Atto Beisheim and Leipzig Graduate School of Germany, Curtin Business School and Curtin University of Technology in western Australia, Copenhagen Business School of Denmark, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Queensland Institute of Technology, Brisbane, and the Norwegian School of Management, Norway.

For the alumni of IIMs, ISB students are management brethren rather than competitors. And for senior working IIM professionals, they can always be an alternate stop-shop, if not the soul supreme. For corporates, this is an additional campus they are not reluctant to visit for a recruitment round. When it comes to quality recruitment, it is certain, there is nothing unofficial about going for an added choice.

— With additional reporting from Tarun Narayan in Mumbai/ Pummy Kaul & Mukta Magazine in New Delhi/Jaidev Majumdar in Kolkata/ Jyotsna Bhatnagar in Ahmedabad