An educational institution has a pivotal role to play in building the core competencies as well as the foundation of the Student, strengthen the community around and the country at large therefore it is a job of tremendous responsibility when the stakeholders of that institution are slated to perform myriad roles as in case of a business school.
As we continue to look to the future, it’s imperative that we build more entrepreneurial-driven academic institutions. Not only will this provide the foundation for much-needed innovation, it also will strengthen our economy by providing jobs and fostering sustainable growth in the business domain.
The very reasons Business Schools were started was to inculcate in the students a sense of freedom in being their own Boss. The business management students are the game changers of tomorrow and hence every program must enhance this Latent Talent in Students. Skilling up and scaling up are not mutually exclusive pursuits. The entrepreneurship flavor introduced in a B-School encourages students to generate new sources of enterprise, come up with innovative business ideas, and create new jobs. A new age B school must teach students how to start the business they’ve been dreaming about. Students learn the necessary skills they need and meet an entirely new network made up of classmates, professors and alumni who will be their future advisors, mentors and investors, and business partners. Entrepreneurship includes venture marketing, venture financing and venture leadership, i.e., the entire business. Entrepreneurs are modern day Rockstars and are riding high on business Strategies.
This wave starts with the curriculum, which represents the heart of this change. Business schools must take the lead in designing courses which will facilitate access to a Potpourri of innovation and entrepreneurship deas. Working with peers from differing disciplines, business school faculty must design an entrepreneurship curriculum that provides students with a transformational experience based on action-learning techniques. These cross-disciplinary courses should empower students with entrepreneurial skills and judgment. More than simply offering a subject that can be studied and researched, entrepreneurship educators should see their role as transforming students, campuses, communities and societies.
The strategies of bringing this about:
- Successful entrepreneurs must be invited to campus to bring a dose of reality to the increasingly arcane and theoretical world of most business-school education.
- The Flip side of Failure must not be glossed over. The Ramifications of starting one’s own business must also be made aware to them.
- Entrepreneurs need internal motivation.
- Students need to understand the links between different aspects of the business.
- Students will need to know how to go beyond saying “We’ve always done this” to asking “Why are we doing this and how will we benefit psychologically and financially.
- Entrepreneurship can help with “bottom up” thinking to help students understand that revenues are generated by each sale, not as a market share point.
- Start the business first, take calculated risks and then Jump in the water and try to swim.
- Success Stories are rampant with Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong, Ola…..list goes on
Business schools need to be redesigned from the bottom up. They are currently designed for the prisoners who want to be part of the Corporate Rat Race…They should run for the gladiators who will shape the world. Students must be made to absorb the intricacies of the fact that entrepreneurship, in general, is a field where news is made not by average performance but by the few people who have the passion, the sheer insanity and who revel in the euphoric state of doing and discovering something new.
