Indian companies are now more confident about their management competence as they recover from the Covid-19 crisis, with the overall score improving to 74.5, according to a study.
This year’s overall Management Capability Development Index (MCDI) score rose to 74.5 compared with 71.6 in 2018. The self-rating scores have improved on all 10 parametres, the survey by All India Management Association (AIMA) and KPMG, said.
The scores are out of a maximum of 100 points. The AIMA-KPMG MCDI survey 2022 offers a view of India’s management capability over the past decade.
The self-rating by India’s management leaders have fluctuated since 2011, when the overall self-assessment score was the highest at 77.8. The lowest point for Indian management was 2014, when the MDCI score dipped to 70.7. It recovered in 2016 to 75.5 only to fall again in 2018 to 71.6.
“It takes immense management capability to navigate through uncertainty and ambiguity,” AIMA President CK Ranganathan, said.
Women were more confident of their organisation’s capacity than men, who rated their companies on 10 yardsticks such as vision and strategic leadership, performance leadership, financial leadership and innovation among others, it said.
However, women score their organisations lower than men in the areas such as people leadership, organisation, and application of technology and knowledge. Both genders agree in their rating on the criterion of focus on getting results.
The areas of biggest concern through the past decade have been the organisation capability and people practices, but there is a recovery on both counts this year. On organisation capability, since 2011’s peak score of 76.2, there have been dips but now the score has recovered to 71.5. The people leadership score has also recovered this year to 73.2 after dips through the past decade.
The decadal trends of self-rating by Indian management shows a strong bias towards ethics. Over the past five MCDI studies, India Inc has consistently given itself the highest scores on integrity and governance – in the high 70s or low 80s. In fact, this year, the score on integrity and governance has peaked at 80.4, it added.
According to the report, there is a lack of substantial score upgrades in application of technology and knowledge and innovation and adaptability. The score on application of technology and knowledge has gone up slightly to 74 now from 72.1 in 2018, despite the wave of digitalisation during the past couple of years. The score on innovation and adaptability has also improved a bit to 71.6 from 70.3. This indicates a significant bump in the level of thresholds in the areas of technology adoption and business creativity.
Among the sectoral outcomes, the healthcare sector scored the lowest, as the respondents from the sector believed there was a huge scope for management improvement. The most satisfied group was that of the mining companies.