BTech (IIT), MBA (IIM) and Tomato Ketchup

BTech (IIT), MBA (IIM) and Tomato Ketchup !.

                                                                      Dinesh K Kapila.

Maybe or was it exactly thirty years ago (ok plus minus a couple of years)  I met a Senior Marketing Head of a very reputed shoe company.  As we talked we discussed the sales and achievements, the top honcho told us rather smugly the sales revenue had to increase, after all he was an IITian (an Engineer – that also in Electronics) as also a MBA from the IIM Ahmedabad. While I have no dispute with the company or its revenues, but what did jar was the reference to the engineering degree and its smug assumptions for essentially a mundane marketing job in a then rather dull India market in the 1980s. The conversation has stayed with me over the years as I have explored the issue in discussions with students, parents, faculty and recruiters. This attitude which I have just stated has been to me  symptomatic of the entire Indian educational system, recruitment processes and more importantly the adverse impact the IIMs have had, though indirectly,  on  attitudes towards varied educational streams.

The title of this piece could have been Engineering, Masters in Management and Shoes or Bank Vouchers or whatever, the main point is do you need only engineers from the top engineering schools and with MBA degrees to boot from the top MBA Institutes to retail tomato ketchup or flour or noodles across India. Or for that matter pass banking vouchers and transactions, even if placed at a slightly higher hierarchical level than other staff.  I have no dispute or envy or jealousy for engineers, infact I have tremendous respect for the profession and am only too aware about their need so as to speed up developments in manufacturing, but that’s precisely where they (specially the IIT types) often go missing.  Recently the Chairman of India’s largest private sector engineering company expressed his anguish at the low response his company received at campus placement offers at leading IIMs. The stars at placement at the IIMs, and reported breathlessly by the media are invariably the consultancies, finance companies and multi national consumer product companies.  With a predominance of engineers, this is where India’s engineering talent is headed, not into manufacturing. The specialisation is also in Marketing or Finance, Operations is normally ignored. Just one more point, an IITiian, no matter how brilliant, may work a year or so at a preferably consumer focused  company and then onto an IIM and then consultancy, and yet we lionise them. No issues are raised on their lack of experience or exposure to the real business world at these consultancies or to the implied loss to the economy by the loss of engineering talent.

This may also be studied from a cultural context.  Indians have had a deep aversion to physical work for many centuries and a discernible trait for debating the abstract. This comes out perceptibly in the attitude towards engineering – qualify the examination and study it but seek opportunities outside of it. Within engineering, we have aimed for software, the cleaner and abstract form, we have ignored the hardware part of computer engineering. I once interacted with engineers at a seminar and inquired informally about their opting for a course in management after a short period (one to two years each in a two wheeler manufacturing, civil construction etc companies) and the answers ranged from the shop floors are dirty to its really noisy, you have to deal with labour, the requirement of shifts, low pay and status for the engineers vis a vis the finance and marketing guys and job security .

Another facet was the definition of an engineer, the mindset is only engineers in the government – the Public Works Department (PWD), Irrigation, Flood Control Departments, Public Health Department etc - not even in the PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) are the real engineers. The reasons are many, status, job security, the work profile as of a “sahib” as in Civil Services, the implied access to hidden incentives and no real exposure required to engineering of the field type. The engineers employed by the State Electricity Boards are also many a times judged differently, the engineers posted to the distribution wing or materials management etc are on a distinctly higher plane compared to the production engineers.  This is the tragedy of our cultural mindsets. Even today, if I tell a parent to prepare his son / daughter for a diploma in engineering and joining as an assistant foreman or chargeman in a factory, its normally first met with hostility or indifference. However, a position in the clerical side in the same companies is deeply aspired for.  Cultural norms can be very strong.  

Years and years ago I worked in a major integrated steel company, it would have employed maybe 900 odd engineers, which would depress their relatives deeply on visits. For the uninitiated, the relatives thought consistently that an engineer should be like a PWD or Electricity SDO (Sub Divisional Officer) on initial placement, with staff saluting him, a small clean office and members of the public queuing  up for favours. Some other aspects are best left unsaid. Not much has changed even now. This also explains the rush for Government Engineering Services Examinations. The distortion in our mindsets by the needless need to ape the mode of working of elitist civil service officers  and its impact on productivity is a subject of another article, but suffice to say it has also played a role in engineers feeling the need to aspire for these services.  While going through the profile of bankers in Germany, I was surprised at the number of non MBAs in many senior positions. Very few seemed to be engineers in any case. While I may have done a limited scrutiny, it does indicate a lower emphasis on a specific sector of education for recruitment.        

I was recently on an interview board for recruitment by a rural bank of officers at the initial entry level, I was surprised to find an engineer with an experience profile of three years ready to work far away from his home state. His answer was the lack of job security in a downturn in the economy and the definition of his job as an officer were major attractions.  There were quite a few other engineers I interviewed from state level colleges. More disturbingly, my colleague on the board  which was recruiting for clerical positions also found many engineers amongst the applicants. This speaks volumes about the quality of teaching at engineering colleges, the concerns for employability, the rather stiff employment policies of the private sector in the past decade or so and the favourable social viewpoint for a banker as against an engineer on a shop floor.  The manufacturing sector needs to scale up urgently as also to develop a proper package of incentives (including perceived respect) to recruit and retain talent.

Now onto the roles of IIMs, for years they recruited literally and consistently engineers, with the examination evaluating mainly mathematical aptitude of a high level. This only embedded attitudes across India that a MBA degree at an IIM was only for engineers and that the other fields, specially the humanities, had no place at the MBA colleges, specially at the IIMs. Now corrective steps have been initiated but it will take years for any discernible impact to be felt or for social attitudes to change. Incidentally, from what I can make out, the GMAT is a different testing tool and tests more comprehensively an applicant for the profession of management. In any case, any society needs a mix of academic streams, it cannot just lionise just one stream or ignore a sector such as humanities. The process of nation building requires all streams coming together in a holistic manner and feeding of each other’s strengths.

As varied companies, banks and institutions have recruited from IIMs mainly over the years and the profile has been preferably IIT cum MBA and then a scaling down, the like minded and of this qualification have recruited the similarly qualified.  This is now a reality, it’s a deep rooted mindset in an informal club. Not for a moment do I suggest that an IIT Btech cum MBA is not required, it is, just that an over emphasis on them and their placement across a wide spectrum is causing distortions and that a balanced approach is required.  We need an orientation for manufacturing for revenue generation, for generating employment and a sustainable economy, this where the IITiians should be mainly employed plus of course in related sectors.   

This brings us to another issue of concern, the dumbing down of humanities or as some say the arts, by recruiters, industry and even  academicians. This results in parents forcing their children to study only Engineering, Commerce or Science. Arts or Humanities is considered ideal for the students who are reaching nowhere. This will have wide and adverse ramifications for us as a society and nation unless corrected in time. As Stanford University states, research into the human experience adds to our knowledge about our world. Through the work of humanities, we learn about the values of different cultures, about what goes into making a work of art, about how history is made. The efforts of scholars preserve the great accomplishments of the past, help us understand the world we live in, and give us tools to imagine the future. Today, humanistic knowledge continues to provide the ideal foundation for exploring and understanding the human experience. Investigating a branch of philosophy might get us thinking about ethical questions. Learning another language might help us gain an appreciation for the similarities in different cultures. Contemplating a sculpture might make us think about how an artist's life affected her creative decisions. Reading a book from another region of the world, might help us think about the meaning of democracy. Listening to a history course might help a person  better understand the past, while at the same time offer a clearer picture of the future. Just to emphasise the point, the study of literature requires a deep understanding of its history and culture at the time of its writing and sociological developments. The area of concern can be the standards of teaching may have declined across India along with the perceived dumbing down of this sector. 

The private sector has stepped in and is planning universities with a focus on humanities and arts but the state run universities need to also chip in and emphasise the need for a deeper understanding on an issue rather than learning by notes. This will bring about a higher quality of pass outs, maybe a few colleges of excellence are required in this field in every state.  Actually, the services sector and professions such as advertising have remained focused on certain metros only. This along with the non development of apprenticeship in services has provided limited opportunities for employment for the graduates in humanities. This has also reduced their clout and visibility within the employment market.

Related to this has been the ignoring of HRD as a field by the MBA colleges. This is perceived to be oriented mainly for ladies, for the students of humanities and even the initial placement can be a problem unless from a top institute. The emphasis on industrial relations within the study of HRD has been reduced considerably by academicians, again a part of our cultural proclivity for the abstract rather than for the real world or rather the shop floor. The violence we witnessed in various factories in the past few years is evidence of results a dependence on bean counters can produce if the human concerns are underplayed. While the role of consultants or the importance of financial aspects is a separate issue, the need to step up manufacturing and amidst a non existent social security net and widespread poverty requires specialists within the industry and a degree of empathy amongst owners to tackle the issue.

While on this issue, a Professor at a IIM told me that the best engineering colleges in India are at the campuses of TCS, Infosys and Wipro as also the major Tata manufacturing companies. The quality of education at engineering colleges can be so low that the recruits require extensive retraining. The engineers may be under confident and hence look for avenues outside engineering, such as a MBA degree, for a career. This may be quite accurate but would not apply to the IITs. There it could be the higher pay packages and the glamour of working for major consultancies and multinationals as also foreign banks which could be the major draw. Some exceptions may be there but its still not a forceful trend.   

Therefore back to the core issue, do we require a top engineering college degree cum top college masters in management to sell milk or noodles or any consumer product or staple for that matter. Is there space for other fields of education to also associate. No society, except ours, as far I could gather, has such as obsession with these degrees for such a vast spectrum of professions. We need cultural education, to be emphasised by our leaders and opinion makers, to value core engineering and production along with the appropriate policies for recruitment and retention coupled with social recognition for shop floor engineering. One can add to it the need for a national manufacturing policy.  Alongside, the other fields of education also need to be developed and emphasised and catered to in admissions and placement. This will be in the nation’s interest and also in the interest of a balanced society.      

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