The Hindu Business Line : Nature as catalyst

Management institutes are often set in sylvan surroundings. What better way to promote academia-industry interaction than to get busy IT experts to unwind amidst the greenery with the students? Say hello to academic tourism.

IT'S an oft-repeated call - that the academia and industry need to collaborate.Yet, notwithstanding significant efforts made on both sides to reach out to each other, the results have been like a curate's egg — good in parts.

Industries, especially the booming IT industry, are waking up to a widening demand-supply hiatus. A recent Nasscom-McKinsey study reveals that India's IT industry, for instance, is expected to face a shortage of 262,000 professionals by 2012. According to the study, India needs at least 630,000 IT professionals this year alone, but it lacks 175,000. And by 2006, there will be a fresh demand for another 430,000 professionals to be met. Already, the employable pool in the over two-and-a-half million graduates India produces annually is getting minuscule compared to the opportunity pie.

While significant emphasis is being laid for justifiable reasons on the need for the nation's universities and institutions to teach these students better by way of improved and relevant study courses, the problem also owes itself to the dearth of industry-ready students who have had qualitative exposure to the industry dynamics as part of their academic growth.

At a time when the prevalent management and engineering curricula are functioning in near-complete exclusion of each other, it is indeed the need of the hour that traditional channels of industry-academia collaboration make way for more radical, proactive and novel channels — like those available in the US — to scale up to the exacting headcount growth projections made by professional and trade bodies such as Nasscom, CII and Assocham.

One such industry-academia linkage program is explored in this article. A few weekends ago, I was at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (Calicut), to participate in what was perhaps the first seminar of its type in India. It saw industry captains and marketing and branding heads of reputable IT and BPO companies deliberate on the subject of "Marketing and branding of IT solutions".

Like all first-time visitors to the institution, I was enthralled by the idyllic locale of the campus, perched atop two hillocks caressed by a sylvan canopy and accessed by roads lined with towering coconut trees. It was one of the most picture-perfect destinations I have ever visited, arguably better than many classy tourist destinations across the globe.

That set me thinking. Could such institutions be marketed as places of academic tourism — similar to eco-tourism or healthcare-tourism — to help them attract the middle, senior and executive management from the industry to unwind and spend unhindered time with the students at the same time? The grouse in most academic institutions is that they find it difficult to get the likes of FC Kohli, (the brain behind Tata Consultancy Services), Arun Seth (MD for India and SAARC region, British Telecom Worldwide Ltd) or Nandan Nilekani (CEO, President and Managing Director, Infosys Ltd) to spend a few hours or days on their campus and mingle with the students, thereby enriching their learning experience.

Academic tourism could well be one of the most effective ways of attracting these hard-to-get industry captains and other senior management folks. And institutions endowed with the largesse of nature are better positioned to make the most of it.

These institutions could easily pack in the punch of a family getaway by hosting swanky, well-maintained cottages on their campus and rolling out packages covering tourist destinations in and around the place. While embodying an incentive for the head honchos and management folks to travel and relax with their families, these institutions could also get them to spend a few hours in the morning or evening with the students. Better still, the entire programme could be outsourced to hospitality or tourism majors, which could turn it into a win-win situation for all parties.

IIM, Kozhikode, for example, is so strategically situated that, from the campus, Wayanad is just an hour's drive, Mahe a two-hour drive and the backwaters of Cochin a three to four-hour drive. All three are hot tourist destinations that are known to attract a significant number of global tourists for the best part of the year. In India, there is no dearth of attractions that appeal to leaders with a historical, cultural, religious, anthropological, or architectural bent of mind.

If structured, branded and executed ingeniously, academic tourism could be one of the many ways by which the industry-academia linkage could be better fostered, nurtured and cherished, thereby making students more industry-ready and holistic, rather than converting corporations into quasi-training establishments.

Picture by K.K. Mustafah

The author is with Corporate Marketing and Communications, Cognizant. The views expressed in this column are personal.

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