SMOT Blog

With the very first set of students of PGPM entering the career track specialization phase from the 8th of September, SMOT has come through a full circle; Foundation to Functional to Career - a well thought out and thoroughly over-hauled program to meet the most challenging business demands of the day.

The career phase starts with an intensive 36 hour Executive Workshop in Management Consulting anchored by an internally accredited Executive Management Coach from Canada - Mr. Kevin Schwenkar. This is followed by a 36 hour Virtual Class Room based mentored sessions where in the students will make presentations in their respective career track specializations.

Students also do a project / internship anchored by subject matter experts both from academia and industry. The rest of the credits, equal to 108 hours, are devoted to imparting the most essential career specific knowledge, skills and soft skills.

For example, to put it a little more structurally, the student who wants to specialize as Business Analyst must

Know what are business processes, engineer and re-engineer them, be knowledgeable in various types of business cases, be in a position to understand the organic and technical nature of the business cases, be in a position to evaluate the business value of IS of various business cases, know how to model the IS, know project estimation, resources and pricing, know different types of business analytics and tools, know business intelligence, know business development strategies, have understanding of project management, IT Services Consulting, Account Management,  Sales Collaterals and Ethical Consulting. These apart, students also get sufficient grounding in negotiations, presentation skills, documentation skills etc. - all these on the soft side.

Thus, SMOT’s highly talented academic council members have developed curriculum for each career track specialization. This approach has given enough room to identify the most essential skills and knowledge and package them with appropriate weight.

Accreditation is a term loosly used in the context of ‘approval’ from the competent authority of the Government. In so far as the Management Programs are concerned, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is the competent authority in India to accord approval to a management program being proposed by a private party or a Government body. For a program to be approved, AICTE stipulates several requirements, both for academics and infrastructure. One of the requirements is that the program proposed should have a span of two years. There is a tendency among the manageement schools these days to offer programs of different durations - such as 12 month, 16 month and 18 month. The 12-month program has gained a lot popularity in the recent past. Going by the way these ‘accelerated’ programs are conducted, there does not seem to be any compromise on the credit requirements - they aparently meet the international standards on the minimum credit requirements. It is just that they do not give any vacation, time table with a lot leisure time etc..According to them, the students joining such accelerated programs start earning 12 months ahead of others thus moving up the ladder in their career path even earlier. Probably, more suited to experienced candidates, such programs have a gained acceptance from the recruiting companies also. 

Many Business schools believe that business and management education can not be viewed straight jacketed, within the narrow parameters of just yet another academic program. Broadly, any higher level educational program should allow room for structural and curricular changes with a lot of possibilities for innovations in faculty deployment, students in take and offering support services.

While it is important that a certain level of control on the programs is necessary, it is also equally important to allow entrepreneurial institutions to experiment with new ideas and innovations; even if it amounts to going out of the way to help, the authorities might very well consider doing so.

On top of the agenda is the focus on fitment to the industry. There are other equally important personal goals that the students work for: execution - doers not just thinkers, personal transformation through empathy - appreciate others as much as you would expect others to do for you.

SMOT is aware of the fact that the expectation on the MBAs is quiet high from the indutry. Their expectations could be:

1. High standards of performance
2. Demonstrates application of knowledge
3. Listening, speaking and writing skills
4. Ability to put across the arguments fluently
5. Ability to identify problems and issues
6. Ability to understand goals
7. Independence and initiative taking ability
8. Judement
9. Clarity of purpose
10. Coming up with more than one option
11. Time management
12. Self discipline
13. Team work and ability to motivate others
14. Exposure to multiple cultures
15. Global in thinking
16. Realism
17. Clarity in short and long term goals

These goals are achieved through a set of activities, and some of them are:

• Listen to the knowledge pool of nearly 1200 man years of experience
• Listen to the innumerable short guest lectures on variety of topics
• Have a chance to meet business leaders and listen to them sharing their personal experience
• Listen to faculty coming from all kinds of background and geographies: international, industry and individual consultants
• Exposure to a corporate environment
• Exposure to professional management

Opportunities typically depend on many factors: expectations from the future career, your own skills and knowledge, what is it that you would bring to the table with your potential employer, your fitment to the role, short term and long term goals and so on. SMOT offers a curriculum that is a unique blend of meeting your short term goal of getting the right fit job and long term goal of shaping up as a specialist in the chosen area of expertise. The industry wants people with a blend of freshness in attitude and focus in delivery.

The curriculum at SMOT designed to career tracks immediately attracts the attention of the potential employers as they are able to clearly see what they want to recruit for and the specializations that students have done. Supply Chain or Finance Analyst or Retail or Market Analyst or Business Analyst - these are exactly the rolls that the business graduates are expected to take on and deliver and these are exactly the specializations that the students at SMOT would do.

While you try to shape up your future career, you are most likely influenced by factors such as your present occupation or job, whether you want to change direction or looking to re-skill yourself to better your current performance, the kind of experience you already have etc. Even the geographic factors, such as the type of city you are from, will have a say in the opportunities that are thrown open before you. Sometimes, your own beliefs, interests and values might influence the range of opportunities available to you.

Management can be debated over whether it’s an art or science. I feel MBA students are the only lot who are capable of blending this and work for the betterment of any organization. Any layman might have the art of management and he will use the so called “Gut feel” for decision making. Any accountant might know the nuances of finance and can see a balance sheet and analyze. But is it what industry looks out for? NO, Industry looks for students who can apply their analytical skills in decision making and use the art of management for rest of the process. In other words, for formulating any strategy, the person should use his analytical skills and for implementation of the strategy, he should learn the art of management, he should learn the art of delegating work (HR skills - socializing skills, etc) and to become a authentic leader/ manager, there cant be any substitute to Management graduate especially SMOT students who are Masters of Business Execution. Execution (Implementation) is the most important and difficult aspect of any job and here we are to deliver it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Balaji.R
Student-Smot

Can we say MBAs salary jumps faster than others? I have seen some of the fresh engineering graduates who got campus offers for less than 1.2 lakhs command a premium of 4 times this salary after a MBA degree. And top it all, this jumps to around 7 lakhs in the next two years. It goes on..

The other striking characteristic is MBAs become somewhat global in thinking. The very nature of their curriculum imbibes at least a bit of international perspective which is to the advatage of the recruiting companies.

MBAs command range of opportunities and options which other streams can only look with awe. There are much sought after options in finance, consulting, systems, operations and human resources.

Over and above, their experience, prior to MBA, comes in handy to garner top slots in the companies.

All said and done, much depends on the individual student - academic performance, skills and knowledge….

“What is my path to success?”; “What are my preferences in life?”; “What are my skills and competencies?” are some of the questions that loom over the heads of many at some point in time in course of their career journey. It is quiet possible that we realize deficiencies in our delivery skills, knowledge and preferences while on a job or in one’s own family enterprise. Expectations may not match the available tools. Opportunities may be very high but one would not be sufficiently equipped to grab the opportunities and launch on the growth path.

Therefore, first and foremost step is to ask yourself the questions listed in the first few lines. In all probability, a master’s degree would make sense in that context.

As employee you may perform to your peak, communicating your message to the team, working around personality clashes, motivating team members and making judgment calls, but those may not still be the cup of tea for a non-MBA.  

There may be a time in your career when your leadership qualities are due. Well informed judgment calls can be made if a person becomes managerially well rounded. Management education comes handy here.

As of faculty is concerned, there must be a right mix of them coming from academics, industry and professional institutions. An institution can have some permanent faculty who are widely experienced, highly qualified, delivery focussed, research oriented and who will not shy away from institutional responsibilities. These positions may be at senior levels. Some of the teachers may come from foreign universities on visiting assignment or on a tenure to infuse the flavour of global practices in teaching pedagogy as well as approach to academics in general. Some should be drawn from India’s top notch business schools. This gives an opportunity for the students to benchmark their expectations. Faculty drawn from industry are the seasoned people who have a deep flavour for teaching and they love interacting with students. They come from IT, Manufacturing, Services and other sectors. These people bring with them a culture that is typical of industry and conspicuous by its absence in educational industry - being meticulous and delivery driven. Faculty from professional organizations such as, CAMC with whom we have a strategic partnership, is the hall mark of SMOT. This is done in an organized way in SMOT. We are going all out to draw a huge number of professionals from such organizations to teach in SMOT. There are number of capable people around, leading an unassuming life, yet knowledgeable. They are not associated with any organization nor are they on any full time job. There are quiet a few courses that coulf be taught using these “free-lancers”.

In spite of education being a huge activity in the country, it largely remains a loosely-managed enterprise. Professionalism and corporate culture are some of the characteristics that are conspicuously missing in education sector. The result of this is lack of focus, mediocrity, widening gap between industry and academia and absence of competitiveness. This is what we see as education today in
India.This has resulted in creating an institution primarily for the industry, and with its own style and structure – thus SMOT is born.