The Hindu Business Line : For B-schools, IT is not `core'

INFOSYS recently announced the setting up of the world's largest centre in Mysore to train 4,000 people at a time, with an investment of Rs 260 crore. This is in addition to Infosys Leadership Institute, which trains about 400 Infoscians every year.

Apart from Infosys, the in-house training programmes of IT biggies such as Wipro, and TCS are well known. Given the magnitude and effectiveness of these in-house training programmes, what is the implication for the IT curriculum in post-graduate programmes, especially in the business schools?

In-house training programmes, which are specific skill-focussed, cannot, however, replace the rigour and content of the courses taught in a post-graduate degree programme.

However, the IT curriculum in the B-schools is increasingly being marginalised. The primary reason is that most of the premier B-schools give added importance to work experience even while admitting students.

A large number of students have worked in IT companies, that too with bulk recruiters such as Infosys, Wipro or TCS. Since they have already gone through the in-house training programmes, they really need no introduction to IT.

Hence, some of the B-schools have stopped offering introductory course in IT in their core curriculumand there is a concomitant reduction in demand for IT courses.

On the other hand, the other promising technology sector, say telecom, narrates an altogether different story. Though telecom companies have their own training centres, they do not operate at the scale and scope of software companies.

This is evident when the Rs 5,000-crore Bharti group announced outsourcing (call it "reverse outsourcing") of its network maintenance and IT operations to multinationals such as Ericsson, IBM, and Cisco.

Bharti's strategy is to move away from day-to-day operations to channel its resources more productively towards its core areas such as product innovation, value-added services, marketing, branding and pricing.

This necessitates a change in recruitment strategy of these companies from pure technologists to graduates from B-schools who understand the technology, management, marketing, pricing and policy issues in telecom.

A look at the placement seasons at the IIMs and other premier business schools shows that telecom companies do not appear in the B-school campuses and even if they do, they often do not get a chance to compete with the bigger paymasters in IT and consulting areas, to recruit good students. Telecom, the vital part of the country's infrastructure sector, needs the best.

It is time the telecom companies stress on developing management skills among its employees and pick up the good ones from campuses.

The above two trends signify that while IT is getting marginalised in the core courses of the MBA programme, there is still a need for elective courses to impart knowledge in specific areas such as telecom management, information security management, software project management, business intelligence, knowledge management, and customer relationship management.

The faculty of the B-schools may take a note of these industry trends in designing their IT curriculum.

Students should adopt these courses in the hope that they get the job where their skills are needed and appropriately utilised.

(This author is Professor, Information Management Area, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.)

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