Rajiv Srivatsa, co-founder and chief operating officer of online furniture retailer Urban Ladder, holds an MBA degree from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Part of the institute’s 2002-2004 batch of approximately 200 students, Srivatsa was awarded the gold medal as the best all-round student when he graduated. Over the last 12 years, much has changed for both Srivatsa and IIMB, which was founded in 1973.
“Of course, there are double the number of students,” says Srivatsa, whose four-year-old startup has raised about $77 million in venture capital funding and counts Tata Sons’ Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata as an investor. Startups have become an integral part of the Indian business ecosystem, and the focus of management education also seems to be veering in that direction.
“There is a lot more focus on entrepreneurship—talks by entrepreneurs, guest lectures and also merging this into the management festivals,” says Srivatsa, who visits his alma mater at least twice a year, either for an event or as a guest speaker. Even job offers from startups, he adds, are being viewed on par with offers from traditional multinational companies. “It is crucial that this aspect has changed.” More so, because a number of startup entrepreneurs are taking time off to get themselves an MBA degree.
Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys and member of the board of IIMB, says that entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, is gaining a place in all management programmes. That apart, the programmes keep up with the current business environment with courses in technology management, corporate governance, digital economy, social networks, society, etc, adds Gopalakrishnan.
(This story appears in the 28 October, 2016 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)