Books may teach you about the business functions but they won’t teach how you can possibly be a part of the functioning. Books may teach you about the business but they won’t teach you about its management. For the on-field knowledge about business, there are B-schools.

Business Management is a craft. It’s based on experience. Then, there’s a component of art, of insight and creativity. It is not a science but it uses science. B-schools teach analysis, teach the functions: marketing, finance, accounting – in terms of theories and cases. B-schools introduce you to the world of business, to the customer, to the people; B-schools teach you the practicality of business industry unlike the bookish theory. Let’s find out.

Teamwork – An overview of corporate world

In the world of ‘I, Me, Myself’, B-schools teach you to give importance to the ‘we’ world i.e., teamwork. At the beginning of the year, they ask you to create a team of 3-4 participants that will give back records. On most occasions, teams are formed by the MBA Program itself and include people of diverse backgrounds and interests. The idea is that through teamwork and interaction, MBA participants will share their experience to provide a more global view.

Pedagogical methods – From theory to practicality

In an open and flexible environment, academic excellence and practical experience, the content of the curriculum in an MBA program is balanced between formal business education and real-life problem solving. It is a mix of teamwork with competition and teaches the skill that will enable the students to grasp new ideas and seize new opportunities. MBA program combine the theoretical and practical approach. The practical approach relies on real-life business cases, the IBS case study approach is unique and one of a kind and allows the student to understand management & businesses better. The theoretical basis relies on seminars and lectures which are equally significant but cannot be utilized without application.

The faculty members – Hear it straight from the horse’s mouth

 The faculty members at MBA program usually have a PhD or experience with a top management level providing a high level of education to the students. From consultation to top companies to applying academic theory and the practical lessons they learned in the management ranks, they have done it all. It’s like taking lessons from the people who have gone to the battle field and conquered it all. Furthermore, there are more and more guest speakers who come to class and bring a practical point of view to the courses taught by faculty members.

Elective subjects – the power of specialization
MBA program offer elective subjects through which students can adapt the course to their practical needs. The student who is interested in a career in finance may focus on electives in the field of finance, the one who intends to start up his own business may focus on small business management or the one who wants to be into HR management can pick management of human resources.

Not only the choice of subjects, the program also offers relevant expertise & experience through – internships & projects in their chosen area of preferred careers.

 Soft-Skills

English – Get a grip of this global language, Being an international management degree and originating from the United States, MBA is usually taught in English. This opens the channel for working in the global markets. Right from educating the industry terminology to sharpening the intercommunication skills, you can master the language and its benefits to apply in your career for years to come.

Not only language MBA @ IBS includes Soft-skills with equal credits as the electives. A student at IBS receives proper soft-skills grooming & training on language, management skills and people skills.

Practice vs. Theory

Books are there to mug up the theory but practice of those theories is necessary to implement the knowledge gained. In order to develop a more practical understanding of business, MBA Programs have developed compulsory industry projects, internships that are part of the curriculum and grading as well.

Social responsibility – It’s important for a progressive Nation

Apart from providing good education, discipline, ethical and moral values, MBA teaches social responsibility to the students. Some MBA schools have special focus on the rural development and they teach as well as take many initiatives to work towards it. A simple contribution like clothes donation to a noble task of teaching the unprivileged, every activity aims in rural and social development. Educating an emerging subject like this goes on to prove that management education is a constantly evolving subject.

Technological approach – A high-tech environ for high-end thinking solution

Technology has helped us traverse not only to space, moon but to a neighboring planet as well. It is this technology that transforms dreams to reality. When it comes to MBA program, they tend to offer the highest possible level of service to their students, including: IT classrooms, completely wired buildings, the most up-to-date information technologies, large libraries, all sorts of business databases etc. This in return makes the students more tech-friendly.

Modern business challenges – Bring it on

Whenever there have been changes in business practices such as globalization and the development of new technology, MBA program have also gone through content and program changes. As a result of these changes, new subjects have appeared such as international finance, supply chain management, total quality management, e-commerce and information technology. New disciplines have also been introduced such as politics, religion, history, ethics and communication. So MBA always teaches us the sense of evolution.

Now, all these are not complied as one chapter of the book though. In the first year of an MBA program, the students learn the core disciplines of management education and then go on for specializations. Initially, emphasis is put on the fundamental subjects such as principles of management education, the basic concepts are taught in the first year of the MBA program, it develops an all round perspective of the student. In the second year, students can opt for specialization in selected areas of management. The second year of elective papers gives a student a good understanding in one particular area and provides them with good exposure to practical work also.

We recommend Books for always but an MBA Program can possibly change what you can extract out of those books.

Contributed by Jigyasa Laroiya

A ship that sails you towards your career path – Set off for an Internship Course for hands down industry experience

The custom of pursuing internships in different industries has been for many years now. Apprenticeships or on-the-job training are tried and true methods of mentoring and teaching students or workers a new trade or profession. Few courses have made it a mandate whereas some take it by choice to get a closer look of the industry they see them in the near future. The college students participating in internship opportunities continue to grow as more and more employers expect graduates to have real world experience.

What is it about?

The main purpose of an Internship is to provide a meaningful learning experience for the students. It’s not a cake walk all the time because the work allotted to you can be very basic, but the things that you are going to observe or learn can be meaningful and will help you understand the job, profession, or field. An internship may take place during the academic year (if it’s a mandate for your course) or you may even apply for an internship after graduation (your personal choice).Internships may not be paid or may not receive academic credit but if you take home the right knowledge, the experience will prove to be priceless in your professional life.

And here at IBS, Internships hold academic credit and many a times have proved significant & decisive move in the final placements of students as well.

How to find it

If your course comes with an Internship ‘must-have’, then expect to get a sorted list at the placement office or at specific department where you can possibly apply. Perhaps the most direct way for students to learn about internships is through the college Internship & Placement Office. Your college can also help students with cover letters, resumes, interviewing skills, and workplace expectations. For students who want to pursue it personally after graduation (those who take it up realize the edge during MBA) or during the MBA Program, can research online or may get in touch with family or friends who are in the same field.

What to expect from it
Now an intern should be ready for all sort of odd errands. That’s the ground level where employers expect you to grow from without complaining. From data entry to fixing appointments for seniors, from filing to taking photo copies, all these will come your way. Expect that!

What they expect from you

Now, they may overload you with gibberish work at times but they expect you to be proactive. Ask for work, question when you have doubt, do research about the company profile, show interest in attending meetings. If people see the interest in you, they will give you real work. But be sure to initially ask your supervisor for work and not the company owner.

Be Social. Make Contacts.

Now, the industry that you are interning now with may be the enter point of your career, so there’s no harm if you socialize a bit with your coworkers. Talk to them, ask them how they got to where they are, pull out contacts, and find out who they know in the industry. A little chit chat could just land you a job as soon as you pass out.

Get a clearer picture

It’s not just an internship; it gives you a real picture. It makes you realize whether you are ready to step in to the corporate life in the coming days. It helps you evaluate what you have learnt and what you need to learn more. You may want to take up a second internship or a third one, that’s ok as long as you make the best of every one of it.

The value of an MBA internship

Now internship isn’t only for graduates, it is also for the students pursuing MBA degree from the most prestigious business school. The skills you learnt in the classroom don’t have any importance if you don’t find its application in the real world of business. As a result, the value of vocational experience for MBA students and recent graduates cannot be emphasized enough.

For the majority of graduating MBAs, internships provide the chance to develop industry-specific abilities; develop strong teamwork skills, interpersonal skills; increase the likelihood of building professional networking contacts, mentoring relationships and so on.

Of course there is no guarantee that an MBA internship will give students a full time position but it will certainly enhance their chances as it will help them become viable, experienced job applicants when they are seeking employment after graduation. But point to be noted, many employers do consider internship experience in the hiring process, and many look to their own interns as the best potential candidates for full-time positions.

Are they really that important?

Here’s a clearer picture of why participating in an internship is an important experience to complement the learning you are doing in the classroom.

• An internship can serve as a screening device for employers. Also, many employers hire employees from their own internship program.
• An internship gives a student an opportunity to test a job or a field before taking a permanent position.
• Students who complete internships may discover gaps in their practical knowledge and they can fill in those gaps before they graduate.
• Another important take is that an internship looks good on a resume and employers are increasingly expecting to see an internship on a student’s resume.
• An internship in the resume builds the confidence in employers mind to hire the student because it increases job retention. They know that interns have experienced the profession and the work world.
• It may work as a deciding factor whether to take up that particular industry or thrive for a different one.
• Students who complete internships may receive higher salaries when they are hired.
• Very simply, an internship may lead directly to a job offer.
• Internships are fun – and great self-confidence builders.

Both future and current students are thus advised to start thinking about which companies will best help to take their careers forward.

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“Should I go for an MBA degree? Is it really worth it?” These were the concerned questions that an anxious gym-buddy, who also happens to be an aspiring entrepreneur, asked me one day. An apparently affluent non-MBA diamond merchant who stealthily overheard our conversation, interrupted us by highlighting his view which was – “An MBA curriculum is meaningless for entrepreneurial success.”

“Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Sergey Bin & Larry Page of Google did not go to business school. In spite of that, they are the some of the richest entrepreneurs in the world! So, it would be better for you to invest the time and money on your dream venture instead of a Business school.” He continued by adding that doing so would more likely increase the odds the start-up’s success. He did have a point there. However, he had inadvertently poked just the tip of the ice-berg . On retrospection, the question seems to have a lot more depth to it. So let’s try to analyze the truth behind the ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ analogy.

Just using ‘Google’ to learn more about the life-stories of the richest entrepreneurs shows us that all of them had a massive interest in the field of their venture to begin with. This was backed by the passion, experience and real-world education in their core fields before they started their ventures. This equipped them with a required set of skills. With Google, Larry and Sergey spent years learning advanced computer science. It was only afterwards that they build a revolutionary search engine.

Similarly, Bill Gates had been programming since the age of thirteen. At 15, he developed a traffic-management program that fetched him $20,000. In 1975, he had dropped out of Harvard and formed the world’s largest software business ‘Microsoft’, just because he was confident of his knowledge, skill-sets and experience of creating something new and managing it. These were the exact things that would have been taught in an MBA school, which is why he dropped out.

The same holds true for Mark Zuckerberg. At a tender age of 12, this child prodigy created a sophisticated messaging program called ‘Zucknet’. Much later, at Harvard, he created ‘Facebook’ after spending hundreds of hours perfecting it in his dorm room. David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ is a perfect medium to demonstrate the hard work that went behind creating Facebook.

If you pay attention, you will see that the common thread connecting these three success stories is that all of them basically had an ‘extraordinary product’ that was created by immense talent, passion, effort, time and hard-work. And most importantly, they knew how to manage all these in an efficient manner. Unfortunately, not all aspiring entrepreneurs possess all these qualities at once. This is where the role of an MBA comes into play. An MBA degree will provide you with practical knowledge of business basics. You’ll get to learn useful business concepts, create business plans and acquire finance & marketing tools. An additional benefit of studying at a B-School is ‘Networking’. It would greatly benefit you if you make it your ulterior motive and focus from Day 1 that you have build a personal & professional network with batch-mates and faculty, particularly those with an industry experience.

Networking with batch-mates might seem odd considering all you are starting from the same point. However, their contribution might be helpful in the long run, when they might be successfully managing businesses in various fields. Likewise, choose an industry-based faculty as your mentor. If he is equally passionate about your venture idea, he may even open doors for you into his trusted business network, thus greatly benefiting you in return.

An aspiring entrepreneur needs to tread his path carefully and choosing the right B-School is the first step on the way. It would be helpful to hand-pick those B-Schools where ‘Case-Study method’ is an integral component of their academic curriculum. It will help you understand the pitfalls and risks on which other businesses have struggled with. Let us see a real-life case to support the theories discussed till now.

In the year 2002, Google founders Sergey Bin & Larry Page wiped out the entire managerial layer in an innovative experiment. The motive was to strip away the managerial barriers faced by the idea development team, by flattening the hierarchical structure. The experiment failed terribly and soon witnessed an end. Google realized the hard way that managers, especially those trained in some of the most reputed B-schools, are virtually indispensible in an organizational structure.

A B-School can perform similar wonders on an aspiring businessman who has an entrepreneurial spirit but lacks more formal analytical skills. The skills acquired by a management student remain identical irrespective of whether he becomes a manager in an MNC or starts his own business. However, there is a downside to everything. A veteran management professor once said in an interview, “In my opinion, entrepreneurship is a matter of the heart and education is a matter of the brain. It is difficult to teach a heart.” I share his perspective on the above statement as an entrepreneur may be defined as a person who has a risk-taking appetite and a fearless attitude. These attributes are inherently ingrained into his/her personality.

An MBA education can teach someone to take wise decisions based on calculated risks. But can it teach someone to enjoy taking those risks? I am not very sure about that. Some students who have endured the rigorous years of an MBA program often compare its schedule with the intense military training. So let me to give you a beautiful analogy explained to me by a worldly-wise Indian Army Colonel, who is also a distant relative. This analogy draws the similarities between entrepreneurship and military training.

India, for example, spends crores of rupees on its soldiers so that they are absolutely prepared to fight battles when required. They are trained to fire rifles, use hand-combat and operate in simulated high-pressure situations. Although, all that training only goes so far. The Colonel added that he could never anticipate how a soldier would respond on- ground. He may choose to hide in his foxhole, run in the other direction, play dead or face the situation and fight like he has been trained when the bullets start to fly.

How someone responds to extreme-stress circumstances depends mainly on one’s intrinsic nature, which is hardwired into one’s personality. The training provided will only take you so far. The same theory is applicable to entrepreneurship. Learning Finance, Marketing, HR & Business Strategy can be very helpful. They will fetch you good GPAs, but dealing with the real-world outside your training ground is a different ballgame altogether. It is equally important to be self-confident, passionate, curious and extremely street-smart. If you don’t have these natural qualities and instincts, you are likely to face issues as an entrepreneur.

So I personally believe that MBA programs do equip the future entrepreneurs with some valuable tools. They may help them in avoiding silly mistakes that the beginners make. In spite of all the tools and training, it is up to the individuals to decide whether or not they have the heart to tackle unexpected and unpleasant obstacles that usually tag along with new businesses.

That’s when the real bullets start flying. Do you have it in you? Think! Introspect!

Takeaway: Entrepreneurship is 70% Execution and 30% Analysis, whereas most B-Schools teach you to become the exact opposite. So choose your school with utmost care. To me, real world experience is the best teacher, but an MBA degree will give you a solid foundation which may help you launch your business venture with utmost confidence. I am not sure whether the probability of success will increase drastically but I am certain the probability of failure will reduce significantly.

Contributed By: Pranshu Awasthi ( Class of 2007, IBS Gurgaon ) 

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