The standing joke among the older batches from the IIMs, at alumni reunions, is that we should all quit our jobs and go back to business school to do our MBAs again; we’ll get much higher salaries from campus than what we are currently getting. The only problem: we may not get into the IIMs again with the increased competition and the proposed 49% reservations.
For me the core of what gives IIM Ahmedabad its present status is the work ethic — the singularly focused, some would say fanatical, commitment to academic rigour and excellence. You take a group of two hundred students, drawn from the top 1% of those who applied for admission, put them under the charge of very good and tough professors. Make them apply themselves to an extremely demanding academic curriculum in an environment that fosters high levels of competition with the ultimate prize being an overseas job with an embarrass- singly high salary but not to all — only if you make the cut — and you get a glimpse of IIM-A.
Batchmates who subsequently went overseas and did a second MBA and others who did their PhD and are now teaching at business schools overseas tell me that nothing that they experienced or witnessed elsewhere compared with the intensity of competition, the work load, the effort and the sheer terror of the first term at IIM-A. IIM-A alumni brag: if you can survive the first term you can survive most things in life.
Over the last 17 years, since I graduated, I have been back several times for guest lectures. Interestin- gly, the students seem even committed to academics now. The reason I presume is that the stakes are a lot higher than before, given the difference between the salaries of the overseas and the Indian jobs.
What I have also witnessed during my visits is the transformation that has taken place in the academic curriculum and the infrastructure in the last decade. The courses and the material are a lot more contemporary, a number of new courses are in the offing, industry interaction is closer, there are foreign students in class, there is an ongoing exchange programme with business schools in Europe, there is much greater use of technology on the campus and the classes are air conditioned. This transformation is generally not talked about in the media — which prefers to focus on the highest salaries so that the public at large can get to feel lousy.
While we are on the subject of very high salaries at the IIMs and the ISB, I would like to point out that what we are witnessing is competitive bragging by the leading business schools in India to prove that they are better than the rest or at least as good. Gross salary figures are being touted without being transparent about the details — how much is the variable pay, how much is the annual performance bonus, how much is the ESOP component, what is the cost of living in the city where is the job located, what is the tax rate there, is the student joining at the entry level or does he have prior work experience, which is the company making the offer and so on. And the media is participating in this game happily without asking the right questions, because high salaries make great copy. I am willing to bet that the real salaries — the take home cash every month after adjusting for all these items is a lot less than what is being said to the media.
What therefore happens is that you give out wrong signals to those applying for admission, you create unrealistic expectations among current students, you create envy among large sections of the public — all of it without basis.
More importantly you run the risk of forgetting what makes a great business school: bright students, great professors and a focus on academics.
The IIM-A experience is about the value you add to yourself while you are there. The salary you get when you graduate is only a happy incidental outcome.
The author is CEO of Naukri.com and pass out of 1989
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