Date:31/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/31/stories/2008103150410200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

B-School teachers can link academia with the industry

Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE: The faculty of Business Schools should move out of their academic confines into the world of consulting. It helps improve their teaching and benefits the institution and students in terms of ties with the industry.

The faculty development programme, “Dynamics of Management Consultancy,” organised by the Institute of Management Consultants of India (IMCI), Chennai Chapter, and RVS Institute of Management Studies and Research, discussed the importance of B-School teachers taking up consultancy services.

“The link between the industry and the academia is weak. Teachers of management institutes can act as a link between these two worlds by taking up consultancy work,” said R.S.Murali, resource person from IMCI.

The industry could utilise their expertise and the teachers could take the case studies from the industry to their classrooms.

Business Schools always had to be in touch with reality and that was possible only if it maintained relationship with the industry, he said. The consultancy business in India engaged about 1.25 lakh people. Teachers could share their expertise with the industry. The performance of a Business School was measured in terms of its placements. With faculty members acting as consultants to companies, getting the companies to conduct placement drives in the institutions would be easy, he observed.

In India, teachers were always considered as ‘pure academicians,’ observed R.Kasthuri Rangan, resource person from IMCI.

There had been no concerted effort to create a common platform for the industry and the academia to interact.

Doing consultancy work would give teachers freedom to experiment with their ideas and utilise their knowledge for solving practical problems. It would help them earn an income potential for their B-School. Teachers should be pro-active and start interacting with the industry. B-Schools needed to build real or simulated consulting projects into the curriculum.