India's Best B-Schools ; the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Slips a Bit but Remains the Undisputed Winner in India's First and Only Ranking of B- Schools Based On Recruiter, Wannabe-Mba, Mba Student, Functional Head and Young Executive Perceptions. The Real Story, However, Is of the Emergence of 15 B-School Brands This Year As Compared to Eight Each in 2003 and 2004. A Bt-Acnielsen Org-Marg Study.

Business Today › July 22, 2005

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Summary

Every March, India's educated elite-given the literacy rate of 57 per cent, anyone who is educated belongs to an elite group-revel in the throes of vicarious pleasure. The occasion is placement or recruitment season at India's best B-schools, and reams of newsprint and a chunk of airtime is devoted to 20-something individuals who are in seemingly in possession of attributes for which companies, Indian and multinational, are willing to pay a lot. For the record, this magazine spent around seven pages on the phenomenon, the dominant part on a birds-eye view (number-heavy) round up of placement season in some of India's best B-schools; the more interesting part was a brief profile and a photograph of Ravi Singhvi, the 26-year-old from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, who was picked up by HSBC for a salary of $152,000 (Rs 66.8 lakh) a year. Not too long after, a student at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad attracted a bid of close to $200,000 (Rs 88 lakh) but by then, the media- and public-frenzy was dying down and all he could manage was five, as opposed to the conventional 15 minutes of fame.

The kind of money companies are willing to pay for MBAs has catapulted B-schools, once ignored centres of higher education, into the national mainstream. A survey of India's top 100 companies by market capitalisation (see Where CEOs Come From on page 102) may seem to indicate that there is inadequate numerical evidence of the corporate world being taken over by MBAs, but that depends on how the numbers are analysed. Of the 100, 50 companies are headed by professionals (people other than the founders or members of the founding family or promoter group). Of these 50 companies, 16 are headed by MBAs. That (32 per cent) is not an insignificant proportion, and with time, the number can only increase. Indeed, today the debate on whether one needs an MBA to succeed is almost over (it has been decided in favour). Today, the two most interested parties (recruiters and students) ask similar questions: which schools should we hire from? (in the case of the former) or which schools should we seek admission in?

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India's Best B-Schools ; the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Slips a Bit but Remains the Undisputed Winner in India's First and Only Ranking of B- Schools Based On Recruiter, Wannabe-Mba, Mba Student, Functional Head and Young Executive Perceptions. The Real Story, However, Is of the Emergence of 15 B-School Brands This Year As Compared to Eight Each in 2003 and 2004. A Bt-Acnielsen Org-Marg Study.

It was to address questions such as this that this magazine launched, in 1997, India's first survey of B-schools. In its first avatar, the exercise was largely conducted by gathering information from schools and recruiters. However, validation proved to be a problem with this method. For instance, most schools and recruiters prefer not to give out salary details. Then, there's the iss...

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