Honey, I shrunk my Ads!

Indian Management Education is passing through interesting changes. While on one side the leaders and trend setters like IIM-A, B and C are forging ahead with innovating programs and strategies, there has been large scale mushrooming across the country by private B-Schools. After having been in the field for nearly five decades, IIM-A, B and C have been increasing the batch intake size, fixing the program fees suiting of course to the market conditions, etc. After expanding to Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode some years back, IIM-Shillong was added in 2008-9. GOI has also taken a policy decision to add more number of IIMs recdently in tier-2 places like Udayapur, Rohtak, Ranchi, Trichy, etc.


Wide range of new private Schools have been surfacing with innovative ideas and campaigns to lure the gullible and not so informed MBA aspirants. Sectoral programs are being offered by several Institutes without any bearing as to their specialised faculty resources. Today there are B-Schools not only for regular flagship PGDM, but also programs for Technology Management, Banking & Finance Management, Risk & Insurance Management, Rural Management, Petroleum Management, Advertising & Communications Management, Treasury Management, Health care management, Defence Management and so on.

Another interesting feature is B-School Rankings by a host of business magazines, journals, market research agencies, Newspapers, Consulting Companies, etc. Different Strokes by different folks. Each one has its own parameters, yardsticks and perceptions. And then, the intelligence of the reputed Coaching Centres like TIME, IMS, Career Launcher, Career Forum, PT, Erudite, etc. There is stiff competition among all these.

And then, the race for advertisements, advertorials, road shows, exhibitions and so on. One of the active Institute has been aggressively putting up full page ads in leading news papers challenging IIMs and other reputed Institutes. They claim several 'firsts', 'ranks', 'visiting faculties', 'foreign collaborations' or free-bees like trips abroad or lap-tops. After making a lot of noise for nearly a decade, there was a public notice from the regulator about a month back, to which they also released a rejoinder. And recently, I see a drastic reduction in the size of their advertisements. This is what I call (remembering a movie), "Honey I shrunk my ads". Only time will probably solve all the aberrations and lead to a proper consolidation of B-Schools.



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