IT’S BEEN MORE than a century since business education began as a discipline. Where does it stand today? Where do you think it is headed? These are some of the questions that I have been trying to question in the past few years and the answers lead me to one idea, that management education is going to become more important than what it is today. If you look at the past 100 years, management institutions have been working with (broadly) three visions: i) knowledge creation or research ii) knowledge dissemination, which means teaching programmes, and iii) knowledge certification, which means awarding MBAs, BBAs or PhD degrees. In the coming decades, there will be a fourth vision—knowledge monetisation. Right now, management education deals more with entrepreneurs, but in the future it will deal with institutions as its demand will grow. Business is about people. The more you learn about people, the better you will become. Knowledge creation will also become a big deal, especially in the west, because the west wishes to know how to do business in emerging markets. So, new research will emerge. While in India we will be doing more work on knowledge dissemination and creation, in the western world, where these two areas are at an advanced stage, people will be talking about how we can look at converting this knowledge into streams of business opportunities. This means a large part of management education will involve experiential learning—applying things that have been learnt to practice. Just like in medical schools where a student goes into medical residency after receiving his or her degree, then spends three years specialising, B-schools, too, will focus on ‘business residencies’. Students will have to do ‘real projects’ with companies or involve themselves in actual business opportunities. Today, we have progressed in areas of science and technology—a lot of students, thereby, are attracted to these fields. However, not every student joins the academia after graduation. Some join biotech firms, others work for venture capitalist or private equity companies. Which means that in addition to the knowledge of life sciences, science students will need to have a grasp of business fundamentals. And what will be those major trends in management education? According to me, the first trend will be that students at prestigious universities (read: Caltech and Johns Hopkins) will also require an additional degree in management education. Most students will be sent to B-schools to study business basics. Science, technology and medicinal universities will tie-up with world-class management institutions or start their own schools. We will also be seeing new clients, such as officials from the government, join B-schools. The biggest trend will be that business schools will go ‘beyond business’. The focus will change from merely success to ‘significance’. Today, business students concentrate on their own success and on getting a job. However, as time passes, every individual, especially those pursuing business education, will have to involve themselves in ‘social responsibility’. Just like we think of corporate social responsibility today, the next wave of business will see us looking at ‘individual’ social responsibility. Till date, business school curriculum involved questions related to share-holders’ value, upon how to improve a company’s responsibility and increase share-holders’ value and profits. That is what I call ‘Standard Capitalism’. But now, Bill Gates has arrived on the scene with his concept of ‘Created Capitalism’. He has started talking about why we should not only think about our profits, but also about the welfare of others—he is not talking of money, but social recognition. I believe more than social recognition, we should think of social responsibility. As far as I am concerned, the next wave will be about developing an attitude of environment protection and preservation of the planet: Prosperity=Profit + People+Planet. If we don’t worry about our planet, then we make our lives miserable. That brings me to my next point: focus on the environment. And since we will be widening our scope in terms of issues that we address and the clients we bring in, B-schools will soon be called ‘schools of management and leadership’. The importance of management education will continue to grow. It will be regarded as a ‘fundamental’ discipline. It will be treated as ‘core’ and basic as science. Simple equation: you cannot be happy if the people around you aren’t. Inequality is not a sign of a healthy society. It’s our individual responsibility to change the quality of life, especially of those who have not benefitted from the so called economic growth. Otherwise, we fail as individuals. Second, as the gap between classes widens, the possibility of social unrest rises. Our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used the term inclusive growth. I don’t know to what extent growth may be economically inclusive, but it has to be inclusive as far as social wellbeing is concerned. B-schools should be making social consciousness a part of the curriculum. The syllabi should not be just about courses in finance. We need to teach students the impact of decisions and projects on our environment. Second, business schools have to promote responsible consumption. We need to focus more on long-term results than just us and our immediate surroundings. New age business curriculum will see new pedagogical innovations. Today, we take a global tour to show how business is done in countries. The next big change will be taking a tour to the Antarctic or the Amazon, to see the impact of our activity on those environments. B-schools have begun to take stock of their role in present society. A year ago, Harvard launched a debate on how to fix such courses. Do I believe B-schools need fixing? I don’t think anything is broken per se, so the term ‘fixing’ is probably not the right one. Things are not worse, but yes, we have to go beyond the normal conventional boundaries of education. The point about B-schools is that they teach business concepts, but forget to inform students about risk assessment or risk associated with these concepts. Management education needs to be more holistic and balanced. Till now, all the focus has been on knowledge. Knowledge comes from analysis. But, wisdom comes from synthesis, which is basically connecting the dots. There’s a saying that learned people can see the picture that you and I cannot see. Business schools should structure themselves to keep innovating constantly. The most important thing is to maintain an entrepreneurial culture. You should have the flexibility to perform tasks. If you have a bureaucratic structure, while it may not stop innovation, it will ensure that innovation takes time to happen. Institutions should involve stakeholders (read: alumni, students, faculty, corporate partners and the government) and align them with the school’s vision. US-based B-schools have revamped their curricula, the most recent being Wharton. For Indian schools curriculum design should be a continuous process. It’s time for a review or an update whenever there is enough body of knowledge and whenever complexity rises. A school should keep on looking for feedback, and modification should be an ongoing process. If someone wanted to set up a world-class business school in India today then one would only need to look at the model adopted by the Indian School of Business. Look at what it has become in 10 years. If a business school was to be set-up today, its social responsibility has to be greater. For instance, at the upcoming ISB, Mohali, we have made additions such as public sector, infrastructure and healthcare management, to the curriculum. New programmes have come up in the past 10 years: especially in sectors where we believe a social need exists. ISB Mohali has entered into interesting tie-ups with other top business schools—such as the one in public policy with Fletcher School and the one in urban infrastructure with MIT. ISB also offers a unique course in public health management. For someone mulling to set up a new institution, there are a lot of interesting evolutions that are happening. Keep a lookout!