13 Sep With experiential learning, and soon, technological competence, the Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai is trying out a different approach to creating future managers
A few months ago, Professor Bala Balachandran was driving his Tesla in Chicago when it suddenly developed a snag and came to a halt. When he called the company’s helpline, even as he was talking, Tesla’s mechanics remotely took control of the car and set things right. The founder and dean of Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM) in Chennai and professor at Kellogg School of Management at the Northwestern University, Illinois recounts this incident to illustrate how the world has changed and how management education too needs to change rapidly to keep pace with these changes.
“I think, by and large, management education in India is not relevant. Some schools are factoring in the transformation that, among other things, business intelligence, business model disruption, stealth competition and design thinking are bringing about in the way businesses are managed,” he says. “But many are still teaching the same 10-year-old curriculum and they are not realising that they are getting obsolete by the second.”
Professor Balachandran, 79, who started his teaching career in 1960 and has won many awards for teaching, has for long called for an overhaul of management education in India. He started Great Lakes Institute of Management in 2004 with the objective of offering a cutting-edge curriculum that anticipates the changes in the business environment.