The managements and faculty of the best among India’s ‘other’ B-schools believe that despite being obliged to compete academically with the government-backed B-schools without the benefit of subsidies and handouts, they are closing the gap which separates them from the IIMs Long accustomed to playing second fiddle to the country’s Central government-promoted and heavily subsidised six vintage and seven newly established Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which hog media headlines and attract the country’s brightest postgraduates aspiring to become business management professionals, the best among India’s ‘other’ B-schools have welcomed the inaugural EducationWorld-C fore survey rankings of the Top 50 management institutes — from which the over-hyped IIMs have been excluded — as overdue recognition of institutions struggling to catch up on an uneven playing field. Their managements and faculty believe that despite being obliged to calibrate their tuition fees according to IIM benchmarks, and balance budgets and compete academically with the government-backed B-schools without the benefits of subsidies and handouts, they have closed the teaching-learning even if not the research gap, which separates them from the IIMs. Certainly from the body language and tone of faculty and students of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; XLRI (formerly Xavier Labour Research Institute), Jamshedpur; S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai which head the inaugural EW-C fore league table of India’s other B-schools, they genuinely believe they are as good as the IIMs in all respects. In particular, the top management of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, promoted in 2001 by the Who’s Who of India Inc in collaboration with the globally top-ranked US-based Wharton and Kellogg schools of business at a project cost of Rs.250 crore, and housed on a spectacular, well-equipped 250-acre campus in the suburb of Gachibowli, seems to entertain few doubts that it is as good, if not better than the IIMs. Despite levying a tuition-cum-residential fee of Rs.20 lakh for its intensive 12-month MBA diploma programme, and the institute not ‘recognised’ by the powerful Delhi-based All India Council for Technical Education, ISB doesn’t experience any shortage of admission applicants. This year ISB (which also has a superbly equipped 70-acre campus in Mohali, Haryana, inaugurated in 2012) received 4,000 admission applications against which it admitted 770 graduate students after intensive interviews countrywide. “I am pleased that ISB continues to be acknowledged as a premier B-school offering world class management education. Although we are a relatively new institution, ISB is the youngest school ever to be consistently ranked among the world’s best for its MBA programmes, and the first B-school in South Asia to receive the prestigious AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) accreditation. We are also one of the largest providers of executive education in Asia and arguably the most research-productive institution of business management education in India,” says Ajit Rangnekar, an alumnus of IIT-Bombay and IIM-Ahmedabad who acquired over 30 years of industry and consulting experience with the Associated Cement Company and Pricewater-houseCoopers, Hong Kong, prior to being appointed dean of ISB in 2009. Ajit…
