Mail Today, New Delhi / Chandigarh, Tuesday, June 5, 2012

22 MAIL TODAY Special Initiative Mail Today, New Delhi, Tuesday, June 5, 2012

EDUCATIONMAIL‘Demand forcase studieson the rise’

� Being a Canadian B-School, what led RISB to accumulate so many India specific cases? We have always been interested in Asia; our faculty does a lot of research in Asia. Most of the Indian B-Schools do not have case studies pertaining to Indian companies. Several MBA programmes here rely on cases relating to North American companies.

� How important are case studies in man-agement education? Management education without case studies is theory based. Students should know how to use the knowledge they acquire inside the class-room in the real world. Corporate houses who hire MBA graduates are complaining that MBA education in India is not sufficient to meet their needs. A good management educa-tion should integrate theory with practice.

� Then why are Indian B-Schools falling short on the case studies front? This happened mainly due to lack of expo-sure. For Indian fac-ulty members to be world class today, you have to have case-based business educa-tion. Harvard is the biggest producer of cases globally. � Do you have any col-laboration with Indian B-Schools or corporate houses in the country? We have been working with a number of com-panies in India helping them design executive development pro-grammes, also doing workshops for faculty members at the Indian School of Business, Indian Institute of Management, Banga-lore and Management

The Canada based Richard Ivey School of Business (RISB) boasts of one of the largest case studies pertaining to Indian companies in the world. In an interview with Sangeeth Sebast-ian, Ariff Kachra, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Managing Director of India Development, (RISB) explains how case stud-ies have become an integral part of man-agement education.

Development Institute, Gurgaon. Our goal is to create capacity faculty to write cases and teach with cases. The demand among faculty members for cases has increased tremen-dously over the last three years. Today, we have more demand than we can satisfy.

� What are some of the focus areas of RISB case studies? Our case studies spread across various areas including strat-egy, leadership, mar-keting, organisational behaviour and brand-ing. Some of our top India-based cases include Infosys: The Challenge of Global Branding, Dabbawal-lahs of Mumbai, Louis Vuitton in India and Swatch and the Global Watch Industry.

THE GMATThe new GMAT, which comes into effect today,require candidates to bemore analytical whiletaking the examination By Sangeeth Sebastian

The gateway to some of the top B-Schools in the world has just got tougher. Beginning today, the Graduate Management Admission Test popularly known as GMAT will have a new ‘Integrated Reasoning’

(IR) section that will test the candidates’ ana-lytical skills along with their verbal and quantitative abilities.

According to the U.S. based Graduate Management Admissions Council, which conducts the exam, the IR section will require candidates to analyse information from a variety of sources and take decisions based on that information.

“The new section will judge a candidates ability to solve complex business problems with insufficient information or information from complex sources,” said Biloza Wani, faculty member, Career Launcher.

This means, the section will measure a candidates abil-ity to understand and evaluate multiple sources and types of information—graphic, verbal and numeric—as they relate to one another, use quantitative and verbal reason-ing to solve complex problems and also solve multiple problems in relation to one another. It will be of 30 minute duration and include 12 questions.

“The section is somewhat similar to about three hours and 30 minutes, the logical reasoning and data inter- remains unchanged.“This is pretation included in management because a candidate now has to exams like the CAT and XAT,” said write only one essay instead of two, Ulhas Vairagkar, director, Triumphant as was required earlier,” said Institute of Management Education Vairagkar. (T.I.M.E.). ‘There will be a lot of irrel- The changes in GMAT examina-evant data, how a student sifts the tion pattern was brought about fol-information to find the relevant part lowing a survey conducted by will be crucial,” he said. GMAC in 2008 among faculty mem-

However the duration of the exam, bers from 740 business schools

around the world. The respon-dents identified certain emerging skills as important aspect to B-School education and in further-ing the career of students.“Stu-dents will now have to practice for more hours,said Vairagkar of T.I.M.E.

“Moreover since IR section is harder than the essay it replaces and has to be taken before quanti-

Fashion exhibition By Tairah Firdous Works” at India Habitat Centre,

an event organised by Pearl SADHVI Thakral had stayed as a Academy of Fashion for its grad-guest with a family in Udaipur uating students to display their when she realised even today work. “My experience in some cultures don’t allow Udaipur made me realise that women to enter the

Theexhibits put on

display at ‘Open Works’ included a

variety of products ranging from short

films to graphic novels

when people believe kitchen during their certain myths, they periods. It lingered become hardcore in her mind and traditions. So I when she had to wanted to do do the final something project in her around Communication menstruation, Design pro- women and gramme, she myths,” said created a book- Thakral, who is a let “Kahani Her communication Mahine Ki” aimed design student at to teach the visually PAF. impaired women about “Open Works” exhib-menstruation. The booklet was ited a wide range of projects one of the student projects ranging from short films to

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Sadhvi Thakral poses with herHindi booklet on menstruation atthe PAF exhibition in the Capital exhibited as part of “Open graphic novels. Lara Saluja’s