The rising inflation: A cause for concern

Wholesale inflation accelerated at a faster-than-expected pace in July, surging to 23-month high of 3.55 per cent on higher food prices. 

Wholesale food prices last month rose 11.82 per cent year-on-year, compared with a 8.18 per cent gain in June. Among individual food items, potato prices surged 59 per cent, vegetables 28 per cent, pulses 36 per cent and sugar 32 per cent.

In June, wholesale inflation had risen 1.62 per cent.

Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, Care Ratings, said until the new harvest comes in September, the pressure on inflation is unlikely to ease.

The consumer inflation data for July, which was released on Friday, also showed an acceleration, with the reading topping the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) near-term target.

Consumer prices rose at a faster-than-expected pace to 6.07 per cent last month from a year ago, up from June's 5.77 per cent annual gain. Mr Sabnavis said that the price rise vindicates Reserve Bank's strong stance on inflation. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address to the nation strongly backed the government's fight against inflation.

While PM Modi's government is yet to pick a successor to RBI chief Raghuram Rajan, it has bound the next governor with Dr Rajan's retail inflation target of 4 per cent, with a band of 2 percent on either side, for the next five years. 

Article first published on NDTV and has been borrowed for academic purposes only.

So with this rising inflation and the strange spot our job market is in, as an MBA aspirant let us know how do you think the government can stabilise the situation.

Shaping the future of management education Source

The following article has been borrowed from the original source for educational purpose and not with any monetary intention. The article first appeared in The Financial Express and is authored by Kanu Priya Sekhri.

For the past several decades, management education has been one of the most coveted disciplines globally. Applicants seek quality education that can fast-track their understanding of economies and business. Corporate firms are looking for job-ready individuals who can understand the bigger picture and contribute to their growth story. Business school graduates are driving change through leadership positions across industries and sectors. 

Being a relatively recent discipline and the one that is context-specific, management education must undergo frequent changes. Innovate or die is the mantra that business schools have to adopt in order to stay relevant. They must appreciate the changes in the way business is done and accordingly review their curriculum, methodology and people. Business schools that insist on following the traditional approach will be doing a disservice to their students and to the recruiters as well.

The decade gone by saw two significant changes that management schools went through. The first was in terms of student profile. Diversity came into focus. Scholarship programmes were started for women students. Students with work experience across industries were invited back to the classroom—for this, the focus in the entrance criteria shifted from test scores alone to the candidate’s experience and exposure. Several business schools changed their entrance criteria and started giving credit to qualities beyond a test score. For example, in 2009, the School of Inspired Leadership introduced Caliper, a profiling tool that tests applicants for their leadership potential. The intent was to strengthen the diversity in business school classrooms.

 The second change was industry involvement. Increasingly, senior executives became more conscious of the importance of contributing to education and were willing to make the time for this across business schools. They came on board as mentors, visiting faculty, guest speakers and for research collaborations, offering live projects—over and above industry internships—which gave students the opportunity to learn in a real-world setting under the guidance of seasoned professionals. Looking ahead, we can see two trends emerging—one is the globalisation of management education and the other is the increasing use of technology.

 The world has definitely shrunk and business schools must swim with this tide. More and more students today ask for global exposure. While exchange programmes have long been part of the business school curriculum, now joint degrees are being offered as well, which lead to a diverse learning experience. The time-honoured case study method of business schools is also being augmented by global immersion experiences where students do a live project overseas. This kind of real-world exposure in a different context and setting can prepare students for global leadership roles—much needed in today’s corporate context. Increasingly, business schools are playing host to India immersion programmes for senior executives of other nationalities. They partner with other business schools and consulting firms to arrange a learning experience for their executive education programme participants. Recently, we met a delegation of women leaders from Chile to share with them our inspired leadership model. Such dialogues increase awareness about the Indian education system and deepen global partnerships, which, in turn, pave the way for students to enhance their learning.

One of the biggest reasons for this kind of cross-cultural exposure is the increased use of technology in the current business setting. This, in itself, is another upcoming trend in higher education today. Till recently, technology-related discussions may have been restricted to the MIS or statistics classrooms. Soon, technology will make its way into every classroom.

 Going forward, the acute shortage of credible faculty and the resulting costs will lead to greater acceptance of online courseware. This can be of two types—recorded videos of in-house faculty or MOOCs (massive open online courses) by other schools. MOOCs are available freely across subject areas. MOOCs also give an opportunity to students to add to their repertoire of skills and improve the opportunities available to them after college. Today, a hybrid model of online and offline learning is developing the world over to maximise student learning potential.

In today’s digital era, an in-depth technical orientation is critical in every branch of learning. Across the board, technology has seeped into management subjects. Social media awareness in marketing, big data analytics, tech-based innovation, knowledge management, e-commerce and HR analytics are all gaining importance. Faculty and learners alike must be able to dissect data and be conversant with technology.

 Business schools are fast accepting this fact and conversations are on about how to get the best faculty on board for this. Superior learning can happen if faculty has first-hand exposure to these areas. For this, the current trend of industry involvement as faculty is essential to make students job-ready.

 Further, tech-savvy professors are also starting conversations through communities of practice on social media commons such as LinkedIn, SlideShare and others. This enables them to learn about the best practices from across the globe and selectively apply what is appropriate to their context. The rate of change of curriculum has to keep up with this tech-enabled speed of knowledge sharing and dissemination.

This invigorating combination of globalisation and technology-orientation will make business schools the best place to learn and grow. Those who keep pace with this transformation will emerge as winners in the minds of their students and industry partners as well.

Our Note:

Most of the above mentioned changes (highlighted) could be found in SMSR. KLE Tech. University curriculum "www.bvbsmsr.org".
SMSR has a range of programmes such as Rural Immersion, Student Industry Institute Track (SIIT), Microsoft Dynamics NAV and NOSTALGIA an annual corporate fest for industry participants. The school also a dynamic and experienced Board of Studies to update these programmes on a regular basis.

Grow a Great Orange:

Joel Podolny who works at Apple explained " Capture  (the value other creates) how you squeeze more juice out of orange. It's not about how you grow a great orange. In business schools, we really teach people how to squeeze oranges - how to manage for greater efficiency and economies of scale-not how to grow new and better oranges, which requires a different kind of thinking.

Source : Creating Innovators, Tony Wagner

There are some schools which make an  effort to teach " how to grow a great orange" 

MBA aspirant’s Institute Assessment Framework (IAF)

The biggest question any MBA aspirant has to find an answer for when researching about different potential institutes to join is how do I rate these institutes? How do I assess them? Should I join an institute which has excellent subscription base of management journals or the one which places 90% of its students in to sales and marketing? To answer all of these questions BVBSMSR has designed an Institute Assessment Framework which can be referred by individuals who are trying to chose or decides between institutes.

The factors and what one should look for in an institution are listed in the table 1.The factors listed and weightage given below are on rationale of opinion of experts in academics and industry. Individuals may adjust (change) the factors and their contributions and get the rating. Further a format of the evaluation sheet is given in table 2. User can simply put the score and compute index value.

Table 1:  Guidelines for scoring a B-school

FACTORS	CONTRIBUTION	REASONS FOR THE SAME
Faculty	20%	·       The most important factor each aspirant should take in to account ·       Judge on the basis of  Knowledge, Qualification, Experience and   Attitude of the faculty members
Curriculum	10%	·       Judge on the basis of curriculum and content, and it’s relevance to industry requirements ·       Judge on the basis of key differentiators ·       Judge on the basis of an autonomy to change curriculum and content
Research	5%	·       Research is a base for all other academic activates ·       Good research will always result in good curriculum and real time imparting of the same ·       Judge an institute/school with number of faculty members having research mindset, doctorates and research scholars  along with publications
Affiliation	5%	·       Judge on the basis of the rapport of the university to which an institution is affiliated to
Library	10%	·       Judge on the basis of availability and access to books, journals, online journals  -     Seems like a high rating in today’s tech age?
IT Lab	5%	·       Judge on the basis of computing, internet and software facilities
Industry Interface	10%	·       Judge on the basis of engagement of an institute with an industry in the form of internships, visits, guest-lectures and  workshops
Scope for Innovation / entrepreneurship	5%	·       Judge on the basis of scope for innovation and entrepreneurship in form of courses(subjects), training and infrastructure for incubation
Placement	15%	·       Judge on the basis of number of companies visiting for campus recruitment, package and reputation of the companies ·       Don’t judge on the mere number of placements
Values and ethical practices	10%	·       Judge on the basis of a demonstration of value-system and ethical practices
Sports and extracurricular activities	05%	·       Judge on the basis of  good sports facilities and encouragement

Table 2: Evaluation Sheet

S.No	Criteria (factor)	Weightage (%) -wi	Please score the institutes under consideration out 10 points
			Institute:1 -Pi                          ___________	Institute:2-Pi                          ___________	Institute:3-Pi                          ___________	Institute:4 -Pi                         ___________	Institute:5-Pi                          _______________
1	Faculty	20
2	Research	5
3	Curriculum	10
4	Affiliation	5
5	Library	10
6	IT Lab	5
7	Industry Interface	10
8	Scope for Innovation/entrepreneurship	5
a	Placement	15
10	Values and ethical practices	10
11	Sports and extracurricular activities	5
	Final Total (Index) = ( ∑ Wi*Pi)