Exclusive interview | Technology, understanding of government key shifts in management education: IIM-A director Errol D'Souza

Prof Errol D'Souza, Director IIM-A

Businesses are changing at a breathtaking pace and are getting increasingly technology-driven. The shift is also being felt at business schools as they adapt to the digital age as also to changes in the economy that call for a deeper understanding of how the government works.

In an exclusive interview to Moneycontrol, Errol D'Souza, Director, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of the country’s top business schools, said deep knowledge of technology, data sciences and functioning of the government are the key shifts in management education.

Management graduates must understand political economy, the culture of a place and how government and businesses interact and work together, D'Souza said during the video interview conducted last week.

MBAs need to stop saying “I am an expert just in HR, finance, or marketing”, said D'Souza, adding cross-functional knowledge is a must and managers cannot afford to work in silos. Edited excerpts:

Is MBA or management education keeping pace with the changes in the industry and the shift in the larger economy?

We are seeing two predominant trends: 1) MBA is becoming largely tech-driven because of the digital dependence of industries and they going virtual for several of their operations. The other is regulatory changes and understanding of the government.

Let me explain. Unlike earlier, management students now are going deep into the nuts and bolts of technology, and how software is working, and what are the constraints of using it. Can you also code, can you work on data issues? Earlier, we used to say we are blind to which discipline you are coming from, we are still blind, but not to data-related issues. It’s a big change. MBA grads are getting trained in technology and data.

The second change, you need to understand a lot of regulatory processes, you need to understand government functioning better.

Earlier we used to say we are blind to which discipline you are coming from, we are still blind, but not to data related issues. It’s a big change. MBA grads are getting trained in technology and data.

An understanding of the government operating system is important.

What about soft skills?

The other big shift is the emphasis on communication because soft skills are in huge demand in industries. The reasons being, as the world is becoming more complex and more specialised, you have to work across silos. And that’s possible if you are good at communication.

Management students can no longer say ‘I am great at HR or finance or marketing’. You got to be good at all of those and know the technical details and need to communicate it for cross-functional roles and operations in the world of business.

Looking at the shift in the B-school education, are we going to see engineers continue to dominate management classrooms instead of the diversity we are talking about?

We can teach coding to anyone. Students from literature background at our campus have learnt to do coding. It’s a question of taking the fear away and learning a new language or skill.

A lot of software is helping to pick up coding in a matter of weeks and months but B-school campuses will continue to struggle to find enough candidates from non-engineering background.

Earlier, we had 90 percent+ engineers in the classroom, and now it has dropped to 70 percent. We want more from medicine, economy, CA, literature and social science, etc because today diverse views are crucial for decision-making. You cannot solve the problem with just one mindset and with people from (one) stream. We all need diversity—to learn from each other.

We want more from medicine, economy, CA, literature and social science, etc because today diverse views are crucial for decision making.

Let me tell you what we are offering them. The first is the ability to work and solve problems. Industries which come to hire at our campus know our students go through a rigour. Our graduates are problem-solvers. The case method of teaching is helping students understand the real problems in businesses and how to work on solutions.

Our students are entrepreneurial in what they do. Organisations which are entrepreneurial keep flourishing. Many of our students are in positions of power and entrepreneurs. They are not doing a job but building institutions.

How has the coronavirus pandemic changed the way IIM-A teaches and learns? Will you carry forward those changes?

Covid did make us embrace changes. It’s just not the medium but also what you are doing via that medium. We have to reinvent ourselves with courses which are more contemporary.

What we did is bring out courses in areas like management of the biopharmaceutical industry, a very relevant subject now, we have a full elective on pandemics, we have new courses on digital marketing, digital strategy and transformation. We have one on digital HR, reimagining next-generation businesses and then we also have some around financial systems beyond the focus on traditional banking system.

These are courses which will keep us ahead, give us the edge and we have worked hard to stay ahead. We realised this is a moment of transformational change and we need to do the needful else we shall stay behind. We have 24 new elective courses including one on healthtech products and one on innovation.

We were discussing even before Covid-19 that what will happen to education once education gets digitalised. We are thinking about what to change, so that industry values our students when they hire them.

Would you have introduced these courses had the pandemic not hit us?

We would have introduced but it would have been much slower. Covid was a shock and it pushed us to do harder things and we have done by taking crisis as an opportunity. What would have taken us to do five years, we did it in less than two years.

One advantage was, that it was a residential campus and faculty was staying inside. We could meet while following due safety protocols and worked on what to do beyond online classes.

A lot of these meetings lead to spin-off ideas and it helped us pulling it off, and that’s the benefit of being a residential campus.

(This is Part-1 of a two-part series on functioning, education delivery, and the path forward for IIM-A, considered the best B-school in India for its rigour, pedigree and contribution to the world of business)