Progress BPO industry analysis and my views on ISB experience

I made some progress on the BPO industry analysis that I began yesterday. I am using some of the Mckinsey techniques that I learnt recently. Till now, I put down initial hypothesis as to how big the industry is going to be, what customers are going to demand in near future, how competition is heating up etc.

I want to share some thoughts I penned down some time back at a request of my friend. Hope this will be useful to some of you.

What I like

Opportunity to get a World class MBA in India
Let’s look at the options that students with workex (of 3 or more) have for world class management education. Esp if they want to work in India post MBA. Other B schools in india are out of the consideration set because of low avg experience (2 years or less) and in my opinion such low experience levels do not aid learning. Hence many consider schools abroad. Given that most Indian students have to take a dollar loan, they will not be able to pay back that loan with an Indian salary. Bottom line is that such students (who would like to work in India immediately after MBA) with experience have no option to get an MBA in a world class management institute.

ISB caters to such increasingly large number of students who otherwise leave for mgmt education abroad or just be India without it. So there is a clear and large market segment that ISB caters to.

Also, because of its connections with many high profile B-schools (Kellogg, Wharton and LBS), individuals and companies, ISB could quickly put in place the required high quality infrastructure… both hard and soft (faculty, course materials etc).

Faculty
Faculty is undoubtedly ISB’s greatest asset. “Wow! What a class it was!” is a regular feeling we have after each class. Most of our professors come from partner schools and other prominent schools in US, Asia and Europe. Many among them are Indian Diaspora and bring rich teaching and consulting experience to class. They are committed and connect with the vision of creating a world class management institution in India. In so doing, they do get a sense of giving back to their home country. Examples: Kellogg’s Dean Mr. Deepak Jain visits our campus often and talks to us asking for our concerns. He was instrumental in the formative days of ISB. Dean of Anderson business school (Mr. Rajiv Banker) taught us a course and is area leader for technology elective.

One professor (an American), I spoke to has this to say about ISB’s faculty: “Your faculty is envy of any B school. Just look at the list. Each of them has been successful in their own area and is an excellent professor in his own right. I think you guys are very lucky”

Just as an aside, Rajat Gupta (former managing director - McKinsey & co) is coming over next week to take a course in management. ISB promised NR Narayana Murthy (Infy chief mentor) and Rangarajan (former RBI governor) as well.

Infrastructure
Our campus is picturesque and has world class infrastructure. I think the classrooms and other facilities compare with the best in the world. e.g. fully computerized (you can control even the window blinds from a computer) classrooms, classrooms have large plasma screens to view presentations, have video teleconferencing facilities etc).

Students
Each one of the students I met with here is unique…student body here is a very interesting and diverse set of ppl. To give you some facts, there are around 40 IITians, similar number of CAs (most of them rank holders) and a bunch of engineers all from diverse geographies and industries. From diversity point of view, there are doctors, marine engineers, ppl who worked in World Bank, a German, a UK citizen, some 40-50 NRIs, and many who have international experience, a national swimming champion, models (and stewardesses!), movie freaks, poets, absolute tech geeks, quizzing gurus, all India Taekondo (a marshal art) champion, youngest CA and so on. Bottom line- I consider it reasonably diverse. Aspects in which diversity in ISB falls short of international levels are low female ratio (19%) and low international students ratio (very low).

We asked some professors as to how they compare ISB students with those in US B-schools. The American prof that I talked about earlier had this to say: “You are pretty much there with the Dardens and Sterns and so on though I can’t tell you right away how you compare with the top three”

Extensive industry interaction
We have many CEOs and ppl in senior management coming over to ISB to deliver lectures. Actually we have an overdose of such interaction that we let some of them go to complete our assignments or prepare for next day’s classes. Such industry interaction provides with different perspective of how they run their businesses and many a time confirm what we learnt in the classroom. Recent visitors – Kiran Majumdar Shah (Biocon CEO – India’s Biotechnology icon), Kiran Karnik - Nasscom President, Mr. Harris Miller, Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), Jayant - Director marketing - Intel, Mr. Kishore Biyani - founder and head of Pantaloons and other retail companies, Mr. Ravi Ramu-CFO of Mphasis BFL Group and. Think I have made my point.

What I don’t like

Very intensive
Program is very intensive and is designed to keep us on our toes every day. We just have no time to rest. We have to run fast to stay still. Our seniors blame us that our batch is responsible for making our course grade intensive. I am not sure whether that is a compliment, but I found it very difficult to get good grades over here.

Permanent faculty

Some of the permanent faculty recruited by ISB could not meet students’ expectations. I too did not like some. But possibly we are being harsh to them. First, students are comparing them with exceptional visiting faculty and two, probably we need to give them some elbow room to adjust themselves.

Apart from this, students here have a party culture and keep blasting off music at midnight every fortnight or so. This has no relation to ISB’s program but I did not like that part of my experience. This junta wants to extract more out of every thing. Be it acads or parties.
I wrote more about what I like than what I did not. That is in line with the proportion of my actual likes and dislikes about ISB. Well, I kind of thought aloud and probably wrote too much. I am sure my ‘thoughts’ are long. Hope they are not lengthy.