- News
Featured 
Recent
Tapan rayaguru sunstone business school PGPM executive MBA 1 yr One year executive MBA part time distance
Tapan Rayaguru, Sunstone: fat salaries have overshadowed learning
15Planning on an MBA? Then you will benefit from the words of Tapan Rayaguru, Executive Director, Career coaching at Sunstone Business School. In an interview with Oneyearmba.co.in, Tapan shares his advice on how to approach MBA education and make the most of it.
You graduated from IIM Calcutta’s PGP programme in 1996. What has changed in management education in India over the years?
What has definitely changed is the incoming batch profile. During my time folks like me with two years pre-MBA experience were old (!) on campus. Now of course it is rare to find folks with less than two years’ experience in any two year full time management course.
Now let me answer a different question 🙂 What should have changed that has not?
The mode of management education has not really changed to factor for this different profile of folks coming into the system. The pedagogy continues to be theoretical frameworks, imaginary case studies to support the theory and the dreaded exams that decide your GPA and which in turn decides your job prospects come placement week.
I wish the education was more practical and reflected the environment within real organizations with real business issues to resolve. I wish it allowed the students to apply the learning as they are acquiring that knowledge. I wish people that have spent significant amounts of time really practicing these within organizations provided the knowledge; knowing what works and what does not.
Globally MBA courses are targeted at candidates with work experience. In your view, what role does work experience have in creating capable managers?
MBA education is the most applied of any discipline and the concepts/techniques that are learnt must be learnt in the context of a real world business scenario and more than that there must be an opportunity for the learner to apply it at his/her workplace as he/she learns a concept. Most MBA programs today are too monolithic and full time leading to knowledge acquisition in bulk and knowledge application being postponed to a later point in time.
You shared an interesting insight during our discussion – many students in India keep planning on management education but never make the jump. What’s your advice to these aspirants?
This is really a game of expectations. In India, management education is seen as some kind of a ticket to success and often considered for the elite few as the demand supply mismatch for quality management education is lop sided. For instance, from the over 1.7 lakh folks that apply for CAT to gain entrance to the two-year PGP/PGDM courses there are really 1800-2000 decent management seats open across all good institutes.
In my view, somewhere in this scenario ‘education’ has taken a backseat and the promise of a fat salary has taken the front seat leading to this imbalance.
…somewhere in this scenario ‘education’ has taken a backseat and the promise of a fat salary has taken the front seat
The Indian economy has lost its spark with growth averaging 4.8% over the past few quarters: way below the 10% growth rates we saw earlier. High paying jobs for MBAs are shrinking. There is talk of how the MBA degree has lost its sheen. What advice do you have for someone planning for MBA education amidst such gloom?
Yes, if your perception of an MBA is this high stake (one/two year career break, expensive fees) being a ticket to stardom is true, what you are saying is agreeable but industries are still growing and there is still need for quality management education to make managers out of core engineering/technical folks.
Corporate internal training programs today do not fill this gap, so each person must invest in himself/herself to get ready for the next opportunity that shows up. Slowdown or recession there will always be growth opportunity for folks that are ready and willing to work hard to be successful.
A recent report in Indian media talked of how IITians are behind a huge number of startups. This could, in part, be due to the high fees at IIMs (as compared to the 2.5 lakh fee at IIT, IIM students pay between 10 to 22 lakh as fee depending on the course) as a consequence of which most IIM grads have heavy education loans. Taking up a job is the surest way of paying back the loan. As someone who is both an IIM and IIT alumnus, what’s your take on this? How can Indian business schools encourage entrepreneurship?
Don’t know if I agree to your generalizations. In my opinion, educational background has little to do with entrepreneurship, if anything at all. In fact, the sense of entitlement that comes with a lot of ‘IIs’ in your education could be a hindrance for breaking out of the rat race and living the long and hard life of an entrepreneur.
…the sense of entitlement that comes with a lot of ‘IIs’ in your education could be a hindrance for breaking out of the rat race and living the long and hard life of an entrepreneur
As for schools encouraging entrepreneurship, it is all about role models and never about courses on entrepreneurship. A little nudge from someone who has been there and done that (may be successful and may be not) will go a long way than 3 more artificial subjects on entrepreneurship taught by professors with PhDs that have never gone anywhere close to running a business.
Sunstone Business School is one of the few schools in India focusing on Executive education with its core programme ‘PGPM’: the Executive MBA programme offers a part time modular structure of study to participants. What is Sunstone’s reading of the MBA market in India – are more students going to be exploring Executive MBA education (MBA courses that can be pursued alongside work)?
We are trying to impart business education to folks that want to move to a business centric role through their own perseverance and hard work. Our program is not a piece of cake with some theory and an exam to prove you remember the theory. We believe a lot in application of knowledge and hence follow the problem based learning philosophy. We believe MBA programs should not be monolithic and expensive and need to allow room for application of the knowledge by being flexible at the same time affordable for an early/mid-career professional.
We believe the current ‘management education market’ will probably not change much with the younger (read less than 3 years experience) crowd still expecting to get the moon with a two-year PGP/ PGDM programme.
We are creating a new market for ‘Business Education’ that is real, that is taught by practitioners in the context of real business problems and one that will lead to long-term career success. In a short span of three years we are admitting over 300 students a year and are well on our way to realizing this vision.
Tapan Rayaguyru is responsible for career coaching for students at Sunstone Business School where he helps students discover their professional strengths and improvement areas based on which, he engages with them to create career possibilities in the right roles.
15 Comments
Mr. Rayaguru, some very pertinent points made by you. The single minded focus on salaries is tragic. All 4 – media, business schools, students and parents are responsible for this frenzy. How do we bring back the focus to learning? A lot of these mindsets towards education i.e best education = more money in India are deeply instilled and possibly have been borne out of long periods of economic uncertainty faced by previous generations. Any ideas on how we can speed up transformation in attitudes towards education?
While a 18 year old believing a seat in an Engg college or a medical school guarantees an employment for life cannot be blamed, what amazes me is someone who is 28-35 yrs old and looking for a management education and expects salaries to zoom post a one year course overriding 7-12+ years of work experience.
In my opinion it has to be one person at a time that changes their thinking to move forward towards learning. once the learning is applied on the job and performance is achieved, monetary will follow.
I try to inculcate these values in the students at Sunstone but we have a long way to go….
Sir, I want to understand if learning is affected in any way in an Executive course such PGPM. I feel classroom interactions with other students and faculty is a big part of learning which a full time course offers. Is there some way Sunstone avoids the limitations of a part-time programme and builds these aspects into its programme?
Sunita – you are right. we realise the value of face to face interaction. we hold once a month half day sessions in 9 cities in India and bring in students across batches to one common place to interact with each other and Sunstone faculty. we also invite industry guests (you will find blogs of some of these sessions on our website) to share experience and inspire our students.
but for core learning of business concepts, we believe the web classroom (using an industrial grade platform that allows for interaction through video, voice, chat, whiteboards etc.) is way more efficient for learning – no commute, attend classes when you travel, watch recordings when you miss a class etc.
perhaps the answer lies in the Hybrid model that we are pioneering in our PGPM program. others should take a cue 🙂
I am quite interested in starting something on my own so i appreciated your point that entrepreneurship is a mindset. very encouraging. But as far as formal grounding in concepts go, what would you say is the right approach for a 28 year old male aspirant like me? I have kids and one year of lost income in a full time one year course is slightly jarring. At the same time, a full time course might afford me better opportunities down the line. For someone with a focus on entrepreneurship like me, can a part-time course give the requisite push? thanks for your insights.
good question. we believe Entrepreneurship is an Art + Science. think of the khujli (itch) to do something as the art but the basic fundamentals of business as the science.
while the art cannot be taught the science can and should be taught. aspects of market size, positioning, pricing, fundraising, building a culture, hiring through the life cycle stages of your firm etc. are better learnt that discovered the hard way.
if you ever have gone it alone or want to – the only thing that keeps you afloat is perseverance and every last paisa that you can save. Affordable education is a big part of that. One needs to conserve the cash and use it for the business instead. Full time allows for networking with only your batch mates, while the Sunstone model allows for interaction across batches and several industry leaders since the networking sessions are in big cities where our ability to invite guests is much higher owing to each of our backgrounds of playing senior management roles in the industry.
what finally decides success is YOU. always remember that. any course is only a booster to pick up your confidence. if you can get it for free from coursera go for it, if you want some push do a part time web classroom course like ours…
I agree with you on the money part. One would rather spend the 20 odd lakh in growing the business than on a one year break from work for an MBA. The interaction with industry leaders, although, is there in full time as well. My cousin is an ISB graduate and they had regular interactions with the CEO/CXOs during the year.
Hi Tapan, I am new to Sunstone, but i appreciate what the organisation is aiming to accomplish. I think hands on education is the need of the hour. I am an expat in India on work and scheduled to be here for the next two years for a company project. Is the PGPM programme offered by Sunstone open to foreign nationals? If yes, in the rare case that the project is relocated abroad, is there any facility at sunstone to complete the project offshore?
Thanks.
Thanks for your interest in Sunstone.
Yes. Our program is open to foreign nationals as long as you meet our minimum work experience criteria and clear the interview process. The course can be completed when overseas as well. We have students now who started the program in India but are now based in the US, UK and 4 other countries. We have plans for taking the program global next year. Feel free to reach out to attend one of our Wed Information session to learn more about us.
Wonderful read. Rightly said that the value of education needs to be rethought in India. If only education was seen as key to learning instead of earning.
plz provide a suggestion to me ., a year long mba or business – which is more beneficial for our career and how to apply,and what is the fee.
I am not sure I understand your question but yes the Sunstone program is a one year PGPM program which is equivalent to an MBA. If you are interested in learning more please visit sunstone.in and click on the ‘attend info web session’ button and you will be invited for a presentation on the school and our course. that should help you decide.
The way I look at Sunstone is it is currently following a very bold and innovative/disruptive approach to management education. In a way, this is the need of the hour. Programmes at reputed schools meant for experienced professional haven’ t still tackled basic issues such as the need to tailor curriculum for executives of diverse backgrounds/stages-of-career. This, despite the fact, that these 1-yr-MBA’s have been around for quiet a while now – the oldest one as old as 1997!
1 yr. MBA’s at schools abroad are somewhat much mature on these terms (esp. in Europe).
Sunstone is trying out, what should ideally have been done a long time ago (there must have been difficulties inherent, one cannot deny)! But yes, somebody finally comes out with the idea and the execution, and that’s nice!
Hi Tapan,
Can you guide me cause I am already did MBA from Govt Uni.2007 (not well known) & somehow I feel it was just a generic MBA..
I want PURE mba education (not just reading philip kotler 1000 pages useless Mahabharata)
Can you please give me any real case study..Internet pe to sab haara haara hi dikhta hai 🙂
Ramesh
It is hard to give advice with only the limited information you have provided.
We at Sunstone try to make the education practical by following the Problem Based Learning approach. We also don’t have professors, only industry leaders who ‘coach’ rather than ‘teach’.
I would encourage you to explore more by attending one of our information session webinars.