With the rapidly changing nature of businesses in a highly technology driven world, “Innovate or Die” is the mantra that entrepreneurs know by heart. While globalisation has made more markets easily available, improved connectivity has helped fasten business processes. It has also increased competition and challenges to new businesses manifold. With India emerging as the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, there is growing demand for efficient and innovative management graduates who are adept and trained at devising new strategies to resolve problems. 

Despite the increase in demand for the discipline and the changing paradigm of management and business, Indian management education was slow to respond to the changing trends. However, more B Schools today are reworking their syllabus, pedagogical techniques, agenda as well as admission criteria to better suit the needs of the time. Currently, the education system across the board strictly follows the culture of in-class teaching. Once considered as an ideal mode, the teaching method has lost its essence at the hands of the need for more practical exposure, to match pace with the industry. 

The in-class teaching method puts a burden on the faculty where they are judged by number of students turning up for the class, classes taken and numbers scored by  students in examinations. It places a quantitative analysis of imparted knowledge rather than being of a qualitative nature. This also creates a distance between students and faculty, which hinders the sharing of experience and practical exposure. While an understanding of the theories of business and economics, and the history of growth of entrepreneurship is important for every management student, the real teaching comes from action and practical learning. Even employers today evaluate students less by the schools they have attended but more by the practical exposure they have had. A student who has dabbled in a business or run an entrepreneurial project will get preference over a student who might be a high scorer but has had no such real time experience.

Out of class teaching combining theoretical lectures with practical projects is the need of the time and is being adopted by many B Schools today. In a bid to become good managers, students should be able to realise the impact of their decisions in real time, not on paper. One of the most essential demands of the industry today is incubation. This is not only important to generate more enterprises but also to create economic value. Therefore, it is necessary for every management institution to introduce this concept. 

Ideally, first generation entrepreneurs who have not only developed enterprises but have also achieved success in the international scenario should operate such centres. In this context, combined support from the industry, institution as well as the government is required to make incubation a success in India. When students spend a fortune to pursue their degrees, they are not in a position to take entrepreneurial risks. Due to high opportunity cost of education, less than 10 per cent of IIT and IIM students get into incubation despite the presence of state of art incubation centres within their premises. Resultantly, they stay away from entrepreneurship and look for sustainable jobs.

Department, by its nomenclature, defines compartmentalisation and classification. Therefore, where digital marketing rules the roost by being a blend of marketing and IT, building departments seems a story of past. It efficiently connects two departments to offer programmes and provide industry advisory protocols.

Precisely, departments can be conceived as a building or a construction that is restricted in terms of courses and opportunities. However, in case of centres, multi-disciplinary teaching and research is a norm. It is an amalgamation where convergence of power takes place as it allows many industries to participate together. 

Creating management learning may integrate several associated aspects and sub-groups of business including ideation, fund-raising, talent acquisition, business development, marketing, etc. In this context, it is important for both the industry and the government to open about providing internship, placements and sharing data. Many successful professionals in different domains are today deciding to take sabbaticals from their careers to polish their skill set. Many of them, may be engineers, or even doctors, desire to study management courses. Realising this shift in nature of students, many B Schools today are reworking their admission criterion to provide weightage experience and practical exposure along with test scores.