Management Education in India

Students visited a management school and a dairy processing factory to learn about management in India.

The Indian Institute of Management group (IIM) consists of 20 highly regarded, independent institutions across India, providing tertiary management education. Each year 250 000 people sit the IIM admission exam, described as “one of the most competitive exams in the world”, with less than 2% of applicants extended a study offer. IIM is highly regarded and has a stringent admissions process. The week prior to our visit saw their first MBA and PhD qualifications awarded.

We were privileged to be hosted overnight and most of the day by the IIM Kozhikode (IIMK).

Some of us started the day with a brisk walk round the IIM campus. Social responsibility appears to be a key attribute of Indian institutions and was illustrated by a story we were told about the original residents at the current campus site being displaced in 1996 but are now employed by IIM as cleaning and security staff, as such there are more than they need but this illustrates their commitment to their community.

In campus we saw a large statue of Arjuna, a central character of the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. In Indian tradition, archery is held as a highly respected battle skill and it is also considered an art. There is a story where Arjuna, the greatest of all archers, and some peers were aiming to shoot a bird. The first of the students aimed, fired, and missed. The teacher asked him what he saw.

“I see the sky, the branches and the bird”, he replied.

The second student aimed, fired, and missed. The teacher again, asked the student what he saw.

“I see the sun, the clouds, and the bird”, he replied.

Finally, it was Arjuna’s turn. He fired the shot, and it went straight through the bird’s eye.

“What did you see Arjuna?” asked the teacher?

“I saw the bird’s eye. Nothing else. Not the sky, or the branches, or even the bird. Just its eye.”

The moral of the story is about focus. Arjuna’s great focus on his task led to his ultimate success. IIT Kozhikode encourages all its students to have the same focus as Arjuna, to achieve academic success.

Professor Rudra Sensarma co-ordinated the day, and the formal sessions started with a brief history of IIM as well as the economic outlook of India.

We learnt about IIM’s sophisticated strategic 10-year plan to elevate its capability to produce highly educated graduates not only for India, but also the rest of the world. This supports their guiding dictum of 'Globalizing Indian Thought'. Balancing growth, quality, teaching excellence and thought leadership are challenges and they believe in responsibility without authority and academic freedom.

We were then delivered an excellent session on economic history of India, which gave us an insight into not only India’s complex economy but also IIMK’s teaching style.

With a population of 1.3 billion, Indian students have to work extremely hard as high-quality education opportunities are scarce. Access to word-class education is something most Kiwis take for granted.

We moved through the campus to the onsite business museum which told the story of India’s commercial and financial history from 7000 BC to present day. It was on one of the hottest days of the trip and being such a large museum, it was a lot to take in in such a short time.  If it had air conditioning, I am sure we could have stayed there all day as it was so interesting and such a contrast to New Zealand's comparatively short economic history.

We were privileged to have a talk and tour from Sri. K.M.Vijayakumaran, managing director of cooperative Milma.

The building was beautiful and old but not up to New Zealand’s engineering standards, with Anu (a structural engineer) stating ‘sheesh...seismic hazard!!’ as we entered.

It was fascinating to hear how the company was formed and how the socialistic development model supports small (3-4) to medium (40-50) local farmers. Milma’s peak processing in 2018 was 708,321 litres of milk—a real contrast to New Zealand and Fonterra.

We enjoyed a tour of the factory which was labour intensive with low levels of machine and computer automation. We were surprised by the differences in food hygiene practices compared to factories we have been to in New Zealand. There could be an opportunity here for New Zealand to offer expertise to help with these processes.

It was great to see that their management has autonomy to innovate and Milma develops the business by converting milk into many interesting new products, such as butter in a cup.

Free ice cream tastes delicious and was needed on such a hot day.

The day concluded with the start of a 12-hour night train adventure from Kerala to Chennai. The interesting thing we observed was that all levels of society were on the train including doctors and Arun said he had caught it many times in his youth as well. A truly unforgettable experience.

A popular misconception is that India is a poor, lower socioeconomic country. However today we learnt about IIM and the reality of the sophisticated strategic 10-year plan to develop an elite nationwide programme to elevate their top performers. Their goal to produce highly educated graduates as one of India's chief exports to leading western nations seems to be working.

The main themes of the day revolved around social responsibility and care, IIMs commitment to business education off its long history of business success in India, and co-operative milk processing methods and the logistics Milma’s model requires to get the products to market. Finally, we witnessed first-hand the scale of India and difficulties around mobility to other regions.