Indiaabroad Mba DL

Ind a Abroad
June 2009
MBA at the
crossroads
Is a business degree the right career path

in the current economic climate?
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From the Editor
he idea for this special magazine was

sparked by a chance
meeting I had with
three Master of
Business Administration students of the Rotman School of
Management, University of
Toronto. Nikhil Venugopal,
Apar Jain, both 26, and Vishal
Singhal, 28, had worked with
Indian software major Infosys
in Bangalore. They felt they
had hit a plateau in their engineering careers and needed a
leg-up, which only an MBA
degree could give them. They
spoke of their fears fed by the
doomsday stories of the global
economic downturn but said
they were convinced they had
made the right decision to pursue business education in
Canada.
That set us thinking. Amid the
scary stories the Globe and
Mail recently wrote about how
business graduates are now
downsizing their salary expectations and The New York
Times recently reported how
even graduates from the presti-
gious Wharton School of

Business are finding fewer jobs,
to recall a few we felt certain
issues were still hazy. For example, in the wake of the global
turmoil, does the MBA curriculum itself need change? What
skills do B-schools actually
teach? How do those skills help
business leaders? Is the MBA
just a passport to a fat paycheck? Is an MBA degree for
anyone and everyone? Has the
MBA degree been devalued?
Thus, India Abroad sponsored
a symposium, Center Stage
2009, held at Prego, downtown
Toronto, March 21. In attendance and sharing their views
were students and faculty from
three of Canadas best Bschools Rotman, the
Schulich School of Business,
York University, and the School
of Business and Economics,
Wilfrid Laurier University
entrepreneurs who know what
it takes to run super successful
businesses in the real world,
and academics who know what
it takes to turn a bright student
into a business leader.
Vishal Singhal, left, Nikhil Venugopal and Apar Jain
3 India Abroad June 2009
AJIT JAIN
In the following pages, you will
find their wisdom to help
you choose the right career
path.
Special Thanks
Center Stage would not have
been the success it was without
the help of the entire IndoCanadian community and
especially
students
like
Abhinav Dani, Sudhanshu
Chopra,
Shivanki
Singh
(Rotman) and Mugunathan
Ganeshan (Schulich School).
But, Center Stage would not
have been possible at all without the help of four outstanding
individuals: Nikhil Venugopal,
Apar Jain and Vishal
Singhal who spared no
effort in making sure the
symposium was a star-studded affair and Aditya
Jha, president, Karma
Candy, who so very magnanimously threw open his
Prego restaurant for the
symposium without accepting a single dollar in return.
The staff at Prego mirrored
their boss large-heartedness. We dont have words
enough to thank them.
LEADERS MANTRA
MBAs, you have all the aces
y message is one
of hope. Despite
the scary headlines and bleak
prognostications of self-styled experts, the
future of MBA students looks
great. Your prospects remind
me of those of a gambler who is
dealt the very best hand in
poker. You are holding a hand
in poker that shows four aces!
Your first ace is for being here
in Canada, in Toronto, which
thinks of itself as the center of
the universe when we all know
that center is really in Calgary.
After all, Canada is blessed
with unique natural and
human assets. We have what
the Germans call lebensraum,
which is more room to grow
than anyone else on this
crowded planet. And, as
the faces in this room testify, we are the worlds
most diverse society and
are at peace with each
other as human beings. I know
it is a clich, but our diversity is our
biggest asset as a nation of nations, a rich
community of communities.
So, when the global economy starts to
grow again, we in Canada, with your
MBA students in the vanguard of our
future, will lead the parade. We have the
people. We have the goods. We have the
space.
Your second ace is getting your MBA.
The timing for receiving it could not be
better. The only direction for you to go
now is up.
Your third ace is the simple fact you are
South Asian. We South Asians need yield
to no others in Canada when it comes to
success in what I call the three Es:
Education, entrepreneurship and enterprise. We are now the largest so-called
ethnic group in Canada, having overtaken the Chinese Canadians in the last census. We South Asians are also adept networkers at a time when it has never been
more important to rely on contacts,
friends and communities to move ahead.
That is why I am here today: To network
with you as new friends, to share with
you some of the reasons for my success.
South Asians in Canada are going to help
to make Canada the new, economic tiger
of the western hemisphere. We have the
BOB
DHILLON
essential commodities, and India has
other key resources to complement us.
And you are the ones with the unique talents who are going to bridge these two
countries and help build that economic
tiger.
The fourth ace is timing, you are in the
right cycle of life to be key players in the
global economic village that will advance
after the recession ends, a process that
will start here in Canada if our prime
minister and the head of the Bank of
Canada are right. By the way, in the new
era that lies ahead, we will be in the postAmerican world, according to Fareed
Zakaria, the brilliant Indian-American
pundit thats an Indian word! who
has a program on CNN and a column in
Newsweek. Like me, Mr Zakaria sees
Canada as a winner in the future, along
with India, China, and Brazil.
All of you are products of another of
Canadas greatest strategic assets our
colleges and universities, where worldclass minds impart not only theory, but
practical knowledge about the real world
to students like you. With that Canadian
MBA, you are not only building bridges
from Canada to South Asia, you are
bridging the world. Your MBA will be
recognized everywhere, because Canada,
with reason, is regarded as a

center for scholarship. In my
case, it was the Western
Business School, where my
dean, Larry Tapp, infected me
with a relentless passion to succeed and to take risks. Today, Mr
Tapp is chairman of the Board
of Mainstreet.
India is my homeland in many
ways, but in fact I wasnt born in
India but in Japan. My grandfather Saproon Singh Dhillon
migrated from Punjab to Hong
Kong at age 16. There, he eventually became a trader and
established the North China
Shipping Co, which exported
goods to Japan. And thats
where I was born in 1965. Six
years later, our family of wandering merchants moved to
Liberia to tap the trading market of West Africa. During the
1970s, Liberia was torn apart by
a brutal civil war. We lost everything and arrived in Vancouver.
Our family moved to Calgary,
where at first we met up with
the kind of prejudice such as kids calling
me a Paki and pulling my hair. My mother was fired from her job at the post
office strictly because of its racist attitude. But we didnt get bitter, we used
the system and fought the case with the
post office, a government agency, and we
won. She was reinstated in her job after a
year. She was a pioneer a pioneer of
the spirit of diversity, tolerance and
acceptance that abounds in this beloved
country.
Yes, it was tough for me to get a job in
Calgary. That wouldnt be true today, but
25 years ago it was a different case. There
were only stereotyped positions available
for the Sikhs, and it was really hard to
break in. So, I went into business for
myself in 1984, at age 19. I bought two
houses, fixed them up, and sold them for
an $18,000 profit. That was the sum I
started with. For the next 15 years, I
bought and sold Calgary real estate
worth about $150 million. I worked out
of the trunk of my car and with a cell
phone. What drove me to work 70 hours
a week or more was that my family had
lost everything in Liberia after the coup,
and I vowed it would never happen
again.
Along the way, I realized I didnt know
LEADERS MANTRA
everything. So at the age of 32, I spent

two years at the University of Western
Ontarios Richard Ivey School of
Business, Canadas top business school,
nicknamed the Harvard of the North.
Then I incorporated Mainstreet Equity
Corp as a numbered Alberta company. It
became my main investment vehicle. My
office was the trunk of my car. I used
every available course at Ivey to formulate the strategy for Mainstreet. Whether
it was building a brand, running an efficient operation, financing growth or
making a speech, I thought about the lessons in terms of what they meant for
Mainstreet.
When I started my first business in
Canada more than 20 years ago, it took
just 15 minutes and $50 to register the
business, its name, and receive the paper
that allowed me to open a business bank
account. Everything was done in a morning. Later, when my business expanded,
it was a simple thing to incorporate. It
didnt take much time. Try doing that in
Peru or Egypt. Registering a business
could take two years or more. Bank loans
are unheard of for small businesses. I
was glad I had chosen Canada as my
home base.
After I graduated, I took Mainstreet
public. The people I had met showed me
that building wealth, and holding on to
it, needed a different strategy than being
a super successful real estate flipper. I
started buying properties to hold. I
moved into a permanent office in one of
my buildings.
Along the way, I have learned to see
opportunity where others see failure.
Heres an example. Calgarys Forest

Lawn area had 60 deserted cars and
trucks in its derelict parking lot, holes in
living-room walls, and all the telltale
signs of having been a druggie hangout. I
invested $2.3 million, doubled the rents,
and turned a slum into a middle-class
complex.
The secret to my success in real estate
in Canada is simple. I buy distressed
mid- market properties and that fits
what I call my value chain model. I raise
those properties to a standard that middle class renters are looking for.
Mainstreet focuses on mid-market
apartment buildings. The large investors
ignore these buildings, even though its
65 percent of the market. So, it has been
dominated by mom and pop operators
who have neglected this market for 35
years. In many places, rent control has
seen to that. There is poor service for the
tenants, no branding of the buildings
that is shown in an abysmal level of quality. On top of that, we only buy buildings
that are in foreclosure or are in rough
shape. So we take over these buildings,
bring them up to our standards and
increase the revenue by 40 percent.
Today, Mainstreet occupies a unique
niche: In between the small landlords at
the bottom and the giant property holders such as Trizec and Brookfield at the
top. What I specialize in is multi-family,
mid-tiered residential rental properties.
I started in Alberta, and then moved
west to Vancouver and east to Toronto.
Just nine years ago, the Globe and Mail
Report on Business magazine ranked my
company at the top of its list of biggest
profit gainers, with a 15,791 percent

increase!
As my Canadian real estate holding began to grow, I found myself
getting involved in buying land in
Belize as well. The country and I
seemed to discover each other at the
right time. It is an English-speaking
democracy with little poverty, and
still virgin tourist territory. With
only 300,000 people, it has all the
advantages for expats: Offshore
banks protected by secrecy laws, a
diving paradise second only to
Australias Great Barrier Reef,
dozens of Mayan ruin sites, and 540
species of wild birds.
I bought a 3,000-acre island and
marketed beach lots, only a few with
price tags of under $1 million.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a neighbor,
and Madonna owns a nearby estate.
Belize will be the next St Barts without the Euro trash. It has the best
fishing, the best diving, the best sailing, white sand beaches, and the kind of
lifestyle we all dream about.
My real estate life in Belize is, of
course, totally different from my one in
Canada. In Belize we arent rebuilding,
but starting from scratch, building houses and condominiums on Ambergris
Caye. But there are ways my main business co-relates with what I do in Belize.
First off, finding value. The reason I am
in the multi-family game in Canada is
because of the opportunity that exists. In
the Caribbean, I could have gone to St
Barts, say, but the opportunity doesnt
exist there.
The second is timing. Just as it is a
great time to be in the rental apartment
business in Canada its been ignored
for decades and the demand is there
the same is true for Belize. While the socalled smart money was busy shoe-horning development into Cancun or building cheek-by-jowl apartments in
Barbados and St Barts, Belize has
remained a paradise. And it will remain
that way because the government and
people like me want to keep it that way.
Just being in Belize makes me a little
more introspective than most entrepreneurs. Outside my little paradise I tend
to be what I call a triple-A type personality. But a few days in Belize has me thinking about who I am, and a big part of
that is how grateful I am to have Canada
and an MBA, as a springboard to success.
Bob Dhillon, president, Mainstreet
Equity, Calgary, Alberta, is developing a
3,000 acre island in Belize.
LEADERS MANTRA
Innovation is the key
s the world struggles with a

steadily deteriorating economic meltdown, individuals,
companies and countries
globally are seeking to redefine their roles in the new economy. One
word rings true for all innovation.
Despite huge investments worldwide
to establish globally competitive school
systems, superior technology incubators,
aggressive capital venture initiatives and
a business-friendly political environment, we all must hang our heads for our
abysmally poor track record in sustainable innovation.
Why do we fail?
First of all, what do we
mean by innovation? I
define innovation as a
process through which economic or social value is
extracted from knowledge. First, you
must have a creative idea. Next, you must
generate enthusiasm for this idea
amongst those that will finance and help
deliver on this idea. Then, you must
operationalize the idea so that maximum
benefit can be drawn from it. Finally and
most importantly, you must ensure that
the processes are developed to sustain
the operation in a sound business model
to fully leveraged the societal and economic value.
Where does this innovation process
break down? It is evident on a global
level that we produce fine minds that
spawn amazing ideas in medicine, entertainment, retail, recreation and business.
But for every one of these success stories,
there are thousands of failures. Indeed,
two out of every three businesses fail
before their fifth anniversary.
Innovation and the start-up
The Datac Doblin Group found that
the innovation initiative success rate
over all industries is a mere 4.5 percent.
The top three obstacles to innovation in
larger firms, as stated by the Boston
Consulting Group, include long development times, lack of coordination and a
risk-adverse culture. It is proven that
innovation pays shareholders. A study of
global innovation firms found that total
shareholder return reached 14.3 percent
while the S&P 1100 returned only 11.1
percent.
Finding a solution
How can we all effect the changes necessary to change this momentum of
innovation failure? Business schools can
GINNY
DYBENKO
influence a new generation of business
leaders to assist in the necessary cultural
shift that must take place around the
world. But many schools are letting
everyone down teaching from a textbook point of view rather than from real
life. Most business schools teach business practices that belong to a bygone
era an era of big stable corporations in
an expanding economy. Few, if any, business professors have any real business
experience much less experience in
the unique challenges of entrepreneurial
start-ups. Few business schools have the
insight or the expertise to provide training in business skills that are designed to
complement the considerable technology expertise that our schools have been
spitting out for years.
Worldwide, just a few universities have
broken this mold. Case in point, Wilfrid
Laurier Universitys School of Business
and Economics. Laurier has recently
introduced a wildly successful new MBA
program, an MBA in innovation and
entrepreneurship. Within this program,
students will not only be exposed to new
and creative courses focused specifically
on the challenges of entrepreneurship,
but they will also have access to the
Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program
to help them found their own new company. Students will complete their MBA
program not only with a degree but also
with their own business ready to go.
Lauriers curriculum provides a strong
foundation in economic analysis, tech-
nology management, business strategy,

finance, accounting and marketing and
policy specifically tailored for the entrepreneur. The program provides knowledge, skills and strategic perspectives
required for leaders and senior managers
in larger companies as well. All of this is
done through small classes and research
seminars that support interactive learning and maximum student-faculty dialogue and is informed by faculty on the
cutting edge of research in innovation
and entrepreneurship.
We have had a steady stream of entrepreneurs through our doors over the past
four years since we established the
Schlegel Center for Entrepreneurship.
Let me introduce you to just a few, like
Alkarim Ladha, who started Simbiotic
Corporation, that produces water filtration bottles for use around the world. Or
Rachna and Mona Prasad, who founded
Gourmantra, that produces pre-packaged, authentic Indian cuisine. An
upscale Meal-in-a-Box, it has been
picked up by Sobeys, Longos, Loeb and
Food Basics here in Ontario. Or Matt
Inglot who initiated Tilted Pixel, a popular Web site consulting and development
business with a clever platform that provides the absolute easiest-to-update and
most modern Web site in the market. Or
Meghan Kirwin of iNERGY, HR
Solutions a human resource consulting firm that makes employee training
easy, affordable and tailored to specific
needs. Or Sean Sinclair, who is starting a
company to provide custom designed,
high performance mountain bikes. Or
Amira Bayoudh, who is looking at the
import and distribution of specialty
Tunisian olive oils. Or Mike Johnson,
who is investigating the import and
online distribution of specialty products
for the disabled population. Or Toni
Bothwell, who is starting up a new consulting company in the pharma and drug
industry tech transfer and regulatory
space. Or Domenic Stalteri, who is looking to combine several complementary
practitioners in one location one stop
shopping for your wellness needs.
At Laurier, we believe that entrepreneurs and innovation will be the force
that eventually drives economic recovery
around the world.
Ginny Dybenko is dean, School of
Business and Economics, Wilfrid
Laurier University.
LEADERS MANTRA
MBA curriculum in the

global economy
n ongoing debate among

educators in business
schools around the world is
the impact of the economic
meltdown on the MBA curriculum. Since most well known business schools deliver management education within universities, where normally the approach to education is
more of continuous improvement
rather than pursuance of reactive
strategies to changes in the business
environment, it is generally expected
that there will not be drastic changes
to the MBA curriculum in response to
the current economic times.
However, it is prudent to raise the
question whether the current management education designed on the functional pillars of organizations, is only
really suitable for an era of global
business and economic interdependence. Since the 1990s, the new economic order has been globalization
and privatization. This process has
made all nations interdependent on
each other because one economic shock
rapidly spreads through the global economy. Under these conditions, we have to
assure ourselves that students trained in
business schools are prepared to provide
global solutions to global problems.
Taking a hard look at the current global recession, it is not entirely dissimilar
to other recessions or down phases of
economic cycles that have occurred. It
would be fair to say that this situation
reflects other recessions 1974, 19811982, 1991-1992, 2001-2002, etc each
of which had a different trigger: The oil
embargo, inflation, tech sector bubble
and burst, etc. In each of these situations, recovery has taken place and management education helped facilitate the
progress. So, what is different now that
should cause us to reconsider the MBA
curriculum in any business school? By
many accounts, the severity of the present recession and the so far unseen triggers like subprime mortgages leading to
the destruction of the global banking
system, make this period different than
previous. Also, unlike other recessions,
since we are operating in a highly interconnected global economy, it is not a sur-
forefront management issues that are

relevant to the times, perhaps through
case studies. This assists in shaping
the future business leaders who may
face a cultural shift in the emerging
global network.
Dr Hugh Munro, director of MBA
programs at the Wilfrid Laurier
University School of Business and
Economics, suggests: The concepts in
MBA programs are still very relevant
today managers need to be more
effective in applying them in their
thinking to solve todays extremely
challenging issues. To that end, there
has been a shift in the development of
thought processes in our
MBA
programs
to
reflect a more integrative perspective in
addressing
business
issues. This includes
more interdisciplinary analytical
processes but also more balanced performance considerations, for example,
socially responsible as well as financially prudent outcomes. To a lesser
extent, but also an evident trend, is the
need for more innovative versus conventional thinking. These developments in
management thinking are particularly
appropriate for succeeding in todays turbulent economic times.
For the longest time, finance and more
specifically investment banking, has
been a popular career path for MBAs.
While this sector has been seriously
affected by the [economic] collapse,
business school professors say that the
finance programs are not likely to change
as much in response as the expectations
of graduates. Finance skills that are particularly relevant to the current economy
such as cost avoidance, cost control
and risk management deserve attention. Certainly with Wall Street not able
to absorb a large percentage of MBA
graduates, new graduates cannot expect
lucrative salaries or Wall Street firms as
entry points, but should look for opportunities in smaller organizations, documented to be exponentially more in
number globally. Investment banks that
handle mergers and acquisitions will still
need qualified new MBA graduates, but
MITALI
DE
prise that this economic meltdown has a

more global impact. Almost all business
sectors are experiencing the meltdown
and therefore it is fair to comment that
the sectoral impact is also different this
time and has much more of a domino
effect, unlike other times. For example,
the impact of the technology sector burst
of 2001 was more restricted to that sector, to a certain extent. So, diversification
of the risk is a much bigger challenge.
It is also important to note the role of
governments and regulations in this
recovery and their impact on a primarily
free enterprise society.
So, while the market corrections are
taking place, it is expected that good
business models will survive and management education delivered through
the MBA curriculum in business schools
will continue to contribute to the new
economy. The key to success of the MBA
curriculum in these times is flexibility
and adaptability to new environmental
information. While the theoretical
frameworks of the academic disciplines
that form the backbone of management
education remain consistent, flexibility
in the MBA curriculum can bring to the
LEADERS MANTRA
maybe with specialized knowledge to fill

specific market needs. These economic
times have become the driver for focusing on corporate and global governance,
risk management, revenue management
and ethics and MBA programs with the
flexibility of nurturing these topics will
be particularly relevant.
No doubt the external orientation and
how businesses are dealing with the
environment in these times is of concern
to management education. For example,
all the rules of valuation are probably not
working as the assumptions have to be
modified in the M&A curriculum.
Similarly, the new reality has brought to
the forefront the stresses and strain of
downsizing and restructuring normally
covered in the organization behavior
curriculum. As employers are no longer
able to offer the guarantees that were the
norm in strong economic times, business
professors of human resource management are raising the issues of the more
prevalent contract employment in the
MBA curriculum. While the theoretical
framework around pricing, distribution
or marketing communication will not be
revamped, we have to admit to changes
in consumer behavior due to the economic times. It is therefore natural to
raise issues around luxury goods marketing and conspicuous consumption versus
brands around necessary items. Once
again, all of these issues can be
addressed with relevant business cases.
A proactive approach at Laurier has been
to incorporate the experiences of cooperative education, business consulting
projects and international study tours in
classrooms. This best practice method
has been particularly useful to make
adjustments to the MBA curriculum in
this continuously changing economic
environment.
Traditionally, the role of the government has not been a major component in
the MBA curriculum. As the role of governments unfolds in the current economy, a proactive approach would be to
include this in the curriculum. It is
expected that in emerging nations like
China recovery will be relatively quicker
and stronger due to the role of the government. The non-traditional fiscal policies adopted in this recession such as
large scale government bailouts, also
directs us to adjustments to the MBA
curriculum in the future by introducing
topics on public policy, regulations, and
the role of the governments.
In these economic times, it is particu-
larly important to maintain the quality of

knowledge transfer so that management
education is sustainable. It is generally
expected that the ideal MBA candidate
in the future economy will probably be a
well-rounded leader who understands
the basics of the core functional areas of
business. Since globalization played an
important role in how widespread this
recession was, multinationals should be
able to learn from different economies
and strike a balance. For example, in
South, Asia the recovery of economies
with strong manufacturing sector
China, Vietnam, etc or knowledge sector India should be closely observed
and developed into case studies. The cultural growth and education emerging
from these experiences can only benefit
the MBA graduate in the years to come
where leadership, transparency, ability to
anticipate and flexibility will be valuable
skills.
Finally, ending with a tone of optimism, the future for the creation of a
truly global MBA curriculum and degree
is optimal now.
Mitali De is associate dean, School of
Business and Economics, Wilfrid
Laurier University.
LEADERS MANTRA
Managers for the future
henever an economic
crisis erupts in the
United States, a country where the MBA
program was invented, the relevance of graduate business
degrees is called into question. The
current economic crisis is likewise
blamed on the greed of managers.
An assumption is made that MBA
programs are somehow responsible
for the crisis. There is no empirical
evidence that the decision-makers
responsible for the meltdown in the
financial services and housing development/mortgage sectors have an
MBA or a business degree.
In the absence of hard evidence, it could well be possible that most of the decision-makers who precipitated the financial crisis did
not have an MBA and perhaps could have benefited from one.
We also need to recognize that there
are bad apples in every profession and it
would be unfair to tar an entire profession based on the actions of a few individuals. During the financial and housing crisis, most other industries have
continued to function efficiently and ethically.
Regardless of the arguments presented
above, MBA programs in general have
responded less than admirably to the
ethical, societal and sustainability challenges that the business world has faced
over the last couple of decades. For the
most part, most programs have responded by adding courses in ethics or corporate social responsibility, or recently during the current crisis, courses in understanding the reasons for the economic
meltdown. Courses on the interface
between business and society have been
around for around three decades. Since
most MBA programs have included such
courses as electives, the implicit assumption is that it is critical for all MBA graduates to understand that business is
embedded in, and inseparable from,
society.
The reactive response of most business
schools is evident if we trace the history
of ethics courses. Revelations of several
accounting frauds in the 1980s and
Michael Milkens indictment on 98
counts of racketeering and securities
fraud in 1989 led to a rash of business
ethics courses in MBA programs. The
SANJAY
SHARMA
pressure to launch ethics courses
declined during the economic exuberance of the late 1990s and was revived,
once again, after the Enron and World
Com scandals in the early 2000s.
Environmental disasters such as the
Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the
Union Carbide tragedy in Bhopal led to
MBA programs adding elective courses
in environmental management or business sustainability. Since these courses
are electives, students who opt for them
self-select into these topics. These are
precisely the students who do not need
these courses in the first instance. This
also sends the signal that only a few
MBA students need to be ethical, socially responsible, and concerned about the
sustainability of the operations of their
companies.
Global environmental problems such
as climate change make it evident that
solutions to these problems involve radical innovations, the transfer of new technologies to developing countries, reverse
knowledge flows from the developing
world to the developed, and the facilitation of grassroots economic capacity
building. Social equity, environmental
protection, and economic growth are
intertwined. For example, marginalized
and poor societies often survive by burning wood for fuel and via slash and burn
cultivation, all of which exacerbate climate change. The need for a holistic
examination of the social and ecological impacts of business has been

magnified by globalization and trade
liberalization. Just as globalization is
criticized for several negative environmental impacts, it is also criticized for the uneven distribution of
economic benefits, with some segments of society experiencing a
reduction in quality of life, loss of culture and heritage, reduced social welfare, and erosion of economic security.
MBA programs are at the cusp of a
great opportunity to increase their
relevance in educating managers of
the future who will lead radical
change help address global problems
by creating value economically,
socially, and ecologically. MBA graduates must not only be able to manage
core functional areas such as marketing, finance, accounting, operations,
and strategy, but they must also
understand how to make decisions in
a globalized multi-stakeholder, multicultural, and dynamically complex world
that must develop sustainably. At the
John Molson School of Business, we have
made ethics mandatory for all MBA students and have begun to integrate CSR,
sustainability, governance, globalization
and stakeholder engagement into the
core. We still have a long way to go before
we develop integrated projects, teaching
cases, simulations and other teaching
materials that enable an examination of
the economic, ethical, social and environmental impacts of business operations along the entire supply chain
from cradle to grave, from one generation to the next, from one species to
another, and from one society to another.
Our goal is to equip managers to understand how local and regional ecosystems
and communities impact and interact
with global ecosystems and communities, and how they can develop capabilities for collaborative process of shared
learning, knowledge creation and integration. Via such approaches, MBA programs will move from a reactive to a
proactive strategy of educating managers
for the future and avoid questions about
the relevance of MBA programs whenever a fresh business crisis erupts.
Dr Sanjay Sharma is dean, John Molson
School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal.
LEADERS MANTRA
Learning from the meltdown
hat did the great

financial meltdown
of
2008-2009
teach the world? In
my view, the following are the takeaways.
1. A short-term focus is counterproductive to long-term financial
well-being. The incentive structure
for managers and for shareholders
has been heavily geared toward the
short term. If managers could show
gains over the next quarter, their
organizations rewarded them with
bonuses and the markets rewarded
the organizations with an elevated
stock price. In such an incentive
structure it should be no surprise
that both managers and organizations will seek to game the system
such that the short term looks rosy,
be this, as it may, at the expense of
the long term. The incentive structure has resulted in a mortgaging of
the future to secure temporary and
largely illusory gains.
2. A restricted focus on key financial
metrics is counterproductive to longterm financial well-being. By focusing
attention on only a handful of financial
metrics such as revenue growth, the system fostered a culture whereby managers within organizations chased revenues, or indeed even manufactured revenues as in the case of banks in the
United States and companies such as
Satyam in India, thereby mortgaging the
long term to secure a temporary and
largely illusory short term.
3. The financial well-being of the US
affects the financial well-being of the
world. All the talk of the rise of regional
powerhouses in Europe and Asia aside, it
remains the case that the US is the 800pound gorilla of global economies.
Where it goes, the rest of the world follows. This is especially true for a country
like India, where so much of its exports
in key sectors such as information technology depend on the health of the US
economy. Considering that 60 percent of
Infosyss earnings come from the US,
multiply that across the IT firms in India
and you get the picture of the extent to
which India is dependent on the US.
What does all this mean for the MBA
curriculum?
In my view, the MBA curriculum needs
to unfold across three key strategic platforms.
both the multiple perspectives

approach and the adoption of
the stakeholder model of decision making.
3. Globalization. The final
strategic platform entails considering the interplay between
local actions and the global
context. In doing this, students
can begin to feel empowered
that actions that that take in
their local organizations can
actually add up to have significant positive impacts on the
globe. Thus, for example, the
simple act of an organization
procuring fairtrade coffee
has a significant impact
on how coffee
is cultivated
and
on
labor-management
Ashwin Joshi, right, with a student
relationships in this industry
and a colleague
worldwide.
Keeping it real
In my conversation with Canadian
1. Multiple Perspectives. It is imperative for students to be exposed to the educators, I tell them the MBA curricuhuman and environmental costs/bene- lum in Canada is actually quite robust in
fits of engaging in commercial activity, in terms of the ideas discussed above. Be it
addition, of course, to the traditional the commitment to integrative thinking
focus on the financial costs/benefits. at Rotman, the drive to strategic leaderConsider a lending officer in a US bank ship at Ivey, or the commitment to the
at the height of the subprime boom stakeholder model and the triple bottom
where they were being pressured to give line at Schulich, all in their own ways
loans to people regardless of their ability recognize the importance of keeping it
to repay. The new MBA curriculum real and looking at the long term.
My discussions with counterparts at
would give the lending officer the tools to
reflect on the human impact of their leading US schools, as well as discusactivities. It would force the officer to ask sions of proposed curriculum changes in
the question: Am I helping this individ- the leading US newspapers such as The
ual by giving them this loan or am I tying New York Times and The Wall Street
them into a potential cycle of debt and Journal, indicate that the curriculum in
despair?
many of the leading US schools needs to
2. Stakeholder Model. In addition to be significantly updated to reflect the
viewing opportunities/threats from mul- themes mentioned in this article.
This is not to say that Canadian schools
tiple perspectives, the new MBA should
give students the tools to consider the should rest easy. Quite the contrary. The
entire stakeholder network that is impli- time is now for us collectively to show
cated in their actions. It should enable the world like the Canadian banks
students to routinely inquire, what have that our model works and is
would stakeholder x, for example, ready for adoption. As Canadian busiemployees, say, if the company engaged ness schools, this is our time to grasp the
in behavior y? By giving students the mantle of leadership
tools to consider the impact of business
decisions across stakeholders, the quality Ashwin W Joshi is director of the MBA
of decisions would improve significantly. program at the Schulich School of
The twin traps of a short-term focus and Business, Toronto. July 1, he will become
a short-range focus in terms of range executive director of the Schulich India
of metrics would be overcome through MBA in Mumbai.
ASHWIN V
JOSHI
LEADERS MANTRA
What companies are looking for

employment opportunities is follow the
money.
I do not mean try to get the largest
salaries, but actually know where the
capital is flowing. When companies get
their funding, they expand. Dont wait
for a job posting. Approach them first.
Do not focus on mature markets.
Please focus on emerging markets. There
are two great areas to start your career in
the current down market: they are the
nonprofit and government sectors.
You need to create your own job opportunities or start your own business when
companies stop hiring. Every time that I
visited India, I was impressed by the
strong entrepreneurial
culture. Canada and the
Western world need more
of this entrepreneurial
culture. Look for the
leaks in the value chains
around
companies.
Where are companies losing their effectiveness? Which items are companies
not getting to and what is the dollar
value? Think of barriers to entry, which
sectors or businesses are easier for you to
get into a business and keep others out?
Focus on industries or companies that
make it difficult for someone to compete
with them. For example, the McKinseys
of this world, the IBMs of this world, are
busy charging $10,000 a day for consulting. If you want to be a consultant, look
at where are the gaps. Where do the big
firms not tread because their overhead is
too high? Theres a whole industry there
Tata Consulting Services, CGI and
others focusing on adding value, focusing on technology integration, focusing
on implementation and change management. Think about that as potential
future career opportunities.
South Asian students are very good at
analyzing situations and coming up with
solutions. South Asian students and professionals are sometimes challenged in
knowing how to effectively communicate
their recommendations in the most professional, persuasive and compelling
way.
Another trend in Canada and global
business that will affect all of you is a
decoupling away from the dependence of
the US as our primary trading country.
Thats a growing trend. Theres less trust
in the politics, in the business practices,
governance, reporting requirements and
the confidence that the US would be able
to pull us out of the current global reces-
JOSEPH
PALUMBO
irst up, some questions to ponder: What are South Asian

business students good at?
What gives us the edge in
North America? What are
South Asian business students not good
at? What should South Asian business
students do to improve themselves?
One of the things I teach my MBA students are to talk in sound bytes and to try
to be memorable and opinionated as
future leaders. Theres no such thing as
talent shortage. Although there are plenty of people around the world, theres a
leadership shortage. And just like oil
prices, right now prices and demand are
down, but if you think it is over you are
wrong. The best companies, not necessarily the largest but medium-sized
entrepreneurs, technology firms, family
enterprises, are aligning themselves;
they are looking for great companies to
buy; they are looking for great technology; and they are looking for great people.
Let us take a look at whats happening
around the world. The G-20 and the
International Monetary Fund are looking for emerging markets China and
India to help the world come out of
this global mess that we are in now.
In Canada, we are looking at the government getting into business, not so
much in the banks but investing in infrastructure. In Canada, some of the opportunities are in infrastructure, wealth
management, natural resources and in
corporate social responsibility. In the

United States, investments are also in
infrastructure, health care, finance and
also in new ventures. They are not going
to get out of the mess that we are in now
with the government infrastructure
spending. That may help slow GDP contraction somewhat, but they have to get
out of it through emerging technology.
Entrepreneurs and innovators will
have to once again lead the way for the
US and its primary trading partners.
New technology, green innovation,
biotechnology, health care, new ventures
these are all things that India, the US
and Canada have been leaders in.
If you are thinking about working in
Canada, or working in India, please be
advised those are not the only two
options. Think of global centers of excellence. Where capital flows, thats where
investments in people occur. Goldman
Sachs is one of the global companies
where most MBAs around the world
would like to work. In my entire 12 years
at Schulich, Goldman Sachs in Canada
has posted three opportunities. Goldman
Sachs in Asia, Hong Kong, in Singapore,
to a lesser degree in Shanghai, and
Mumbai has posted hundreds of jobs
same company, different locations. Many
of you [students] are from India or have
family in India; you have a huge advantage over students that have never been
outside of Canada or the US. The best
advice I can give regarding uncovering
LEADERS MANTRA
sion. What can you do? You have
got very different perspectives:
First, you are in Canada, not the
US. We try to enforce that as
much as possible in our school.
And second, youve got a very
Asian and Indian global perspective. Global trade in products
and services is big part of China
and Indias success. Be and act
like
a
global
citizen.
Enthusiastically seek out opportunities to work in the global
centers of excellence, on the best
projects, with the best teams and
with the best clients.
About entrepreneurship, do it
on somebody elses dollars first.
Get trained, call on their clients,
work on great projects and then
go to your own company or start
your own business consulting.
When we go into India and sell
the Schulich School, our programs and executive training of
which I am part, we are told by
CEOs and senior leaders that
they have full confidence in their Indian
people. We are told that they are
absolutely phenomenal technically but
they do not always know how to
lead people, how to connect the
dots. South Asians are really good
project managers; they understand
technology, they understand the
financial statements and technical
aspects of an organization. They
dont necessarily know how to connect each of these skills, how to
commercialize it, how to engage an
organization, how to communicate
a strategy and get people aligned
around that strategy. So, think
about your competencies and comfort with communication skills,
presentation skills, interpersonal
skills, cross-cultural skills and team
building. All those personal skills
are crucial.
A February 2009 survey of executives on Execunet.com asked where
are the jobs in the next six months:
90 percent of the positions you cannot do without an MBA or the
MBA would be a huge advantage.
So, MBA is the right choice. Most of the
positions were in business development
and customer value creation roles.
On your university campus, do not rely
on just the 100 or whatever the number
of companies that come out on campus
to offer those opportunities. Although
they make the job search process easier
and make you feel that you are really
wanted, they may not be your best companies. You have to think about what are
your value and cultural preferences,

what are your technical preferences and
where will you do well, what you did in
2. Match your head and heart and you

will be very successful.
3. Be a global citizen. Excel in working
across cultures.
4. Focus on the transfer of your
skills. Focus on critical thinking,
problem solving, value creation, and
effective relationship building.
Those transferable skills will be with
us no matter what sector, what
industry, what functions, what your
geographical targets are.
5. Ensure that you always understand the business, understand the
technical aspects. It is always important. If you look at the TSX, Dow
Jones or any major stock index in the
world, you will find that companies
are getting more complex engineering, accounting, IT are great, but
what more do you bring to the table?
It is not the best engineers or the
technical person that rise to the top.
It is the person who knows how to
negotiate, play the political game, get
people to rally around the strategy, is
a great person in the boardroom and
the frontline.
Those are the skills you have to get.
How do you get those skills? In class?
Yes, but outside the class as well. Half of
your learning must be outside of class.
Organizations will invest in talent that
can apply their learning in a global, realworld context.
THERES NO SUCH
THING AS TALENT
SHORTAGE.
THERES
A LEADERSHIP
SHORTAGE.
AND JUST LIKE OIL
PRICES, RIGHT NOW
PRICES AND DEMAND
ARE DOWN, BUT IF
YOU THINK IT IS OVER
YOU ARE WRONG
your life, etc. Thats what you should do.
Your passion is your heart, your head is
your dollar and you want to make some
money or you want to make sure that
your education continues beyond education and therefore you have to opt for
centers of excellence.
So, let me summarize:
1. Follow the money, the flow of capital
means investments in new projects and
contracting for employment.
Joseph Palumbo is executive director,

career development, Schulich School of
Business, York University.
LEADERS MANTRA
Focus on the future
he changes taking place in

India and China are seismic. I
dont have to emphasize this
point to you MBA students
from India studying in
Canadian business schools.
You have the great advantage of a
superb Canadian education that you can
take to whichever part of the globe you
choose to make home. The Financial
Times a few years ago noted, companies
that do not yet have an India strategy are
in danger of being left behind. All of you
will be the strategists and leaders advising us on how to get it right.
When you combine Indias
emergence with China, you can
see why BusinessWeek stated in
2005: Never has the world seen
the simultaneous, sustained takeoffs of two nations that together
account for one-third of the planets population. Our interest with India is best
summed in the words of Raja Mohan, a
leading Indian strategic thinker, when he
observed in 2006: India is arriving on
the world stage as the first large, economically powerful, culturally vibrant,
multiethnic, multi-religious democracy
outside of the geographic West.
In my view, it is this combination of
economic rise with geopolitics that
makes the study of India a most compelling one to understand. All the other
reasons that are usually cited democracy, widespread use of the English language, rule of law are profoundly relevant, but by themselves provide an
incomplete picture of our current and
future interest with India.
An area that has not garnered much
attention, although it should, and it will,
is the India-China relationship, both on
the economic front, where the bilateral
numbers are increasing at a phenomenal
rate, but also in the political arena where
their relationship will be more nuanced.
Strategic concerns on Chinas actions on
India borders, in Asia and beyond
Indian Ocean, Africa, diversification of
energy sources are all factors which
will make these two giants collaborators
and competitors. China and India have
been dealing with each other for over
2,000 years. In Dr Amartya Sens highly
readable The Argumentative Indian, the
Nobel Laureate devotes an entire chapter to the interactions between these two
great civilizations. Then of course is the
fact that India exported Buddhism to
KASI
RAO
China.
While there is this relationship stretching over many centuries, about four and
a half decades ago, a seminal event took
place between them. The month of
October 1962 will forever be etched in
our memories for the Cuban missile crisis. That same month, half a world away,
China and India were at war, which
ended swiftly and decisively in Chinas
favor. It left an indelible imprint in
Indian strategic thinking.
The India-China relationship will need
to be understood, and as you can see, not
just from the business perspective but
from a much wider lens. As business
leaders, if you can combine the depth of
your business education with the
breadth of politics and history, you will
be able to advise your organizations even
more strongly on the global developments that will take shape in the coming
decades. To do this, we all will need to:
1. Demonstrate an attitudinal shift.
From a conceptual standpoint, we need
to recognize the breadth and the permanence of this rise. According to a BCG
report three years ago, which has since
been updated, 21 Indian companies are
on the list of top 100 global challengers,
with China at 44. Interestingly, five
Indian automotive companies made it to
this list. India has emerged as one of the
fastest growing car markets in the world
and the production of the Nano is further testament. Similarly, in the fall of
2007, BusinessWeek listed Asias top 50
performing companies. Of these, 12 were
Indian or India-based; more interestingly, only one was from the tech sector.
2. Understand geopolitical factors.
India is becoming the swing power with
a relevant role in international affairs, G20, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and
the African Union. Next years G-8 leaders summit will take place in Muskoka,
Ontario. Perhaps you can organize this
conference again next year and provide
advice to those leaders on what you think
needs to happen.
3. Understand the need for physical
infrastructure. For all of its vaunted
strengths, Indias ascent cannot mask
certain harsh realities. The contrasts and
contradictions are very much in evidence: Brilliant scientific and technical
personnel and still 40 percent adult illiteracy; spanking state-of-the-art research
and corporate facilities, but located adjacent to decrepit physical infrastructure.
Significant opportunities are there in the
long term. India is increasing its infrastructure spending. Canada has great
expertise and you are the perfect conduit
to make the key relationships happen.
4. Focus on higher Education. Half of
Indias population is under 25 years of
age and the middle class is clamoring for
good education for their children.
Canadian universities and colleges are
collaborating with Indian ones. The
Canadian brand is taking shape in
Indian minds and again you can play a
huge role in advancing this cause in the
coming years.
5. Devise Diaspora strategies.
Important Diaspora organizations like
the Indian Institute of Technology Alumni Association gather across North
America every year. You can create your
own Indian graduates of Canadian
business schools! I assure you we will
pay attention to what you have to say.
This year you have three institutions,
why not make it provincial, and indeed
national?
6. Not ignore non-profit organizations.
Your business education and knowledge
are deeply relevant in this sector both in
North America and more so in India. In
India recently, I was struck by the small
but growing section of leaders with
MBAs who are making a real difference
in advancing the public good.
Kasi Rao is a consultant with several
Canadian universities.
ALUMNI ADVICE
A degree in commonsense
had an opportunity to
earn my MBA degree in
1985 from the University
of New York and received
what I refer to as a dose
of formal commonsense education. I have not looked back
since.
I believe that earning my
MBA was the best thing that
ever happened to me and
helped me to grow as well as to
rediscover myself. This foundation guided me in opening a
whole new world of opportunities in my career. I first recognized these opportunities as I
rose to senior vice president of
a large company from the position of a mid-level manager.
With my education in hand, I
took advantage of all opportunities that presented themselves to me,
allowing me to become an astute business owner and entrepreneur.
Would I have been able to accomplish
who I am without an MBA? I really dont
have to think about this question; the
answer is very simple: Without an MBA
I would not have been able to accomplish
all of the things I have in my life. My
MBA has taught me the desire to succeed and without that desire I may not
have pursued opportunities nor have
been able to achieve the successes I have.
Please allow me to share a few
thoughts about how obtaining an MBA
changed my life and how it can change
yours.
The first day I walked into my class, my
professor said, What all of you will get
out from this degree is how to use commonsense in a formalized fashion; 95
percent of people have commonsense but
unfortunately 95 percent of people do
not use commonsense or do not know
how to use it. That was certainly a good
starting point.
Leadership is a quality that we all think
we have. We all assume we were born
with this quality. I come from the school
of thought that leaders are not born but
made. We all have some leadership qualities. An MBA degree will help you
unleash those qualities to become true
leaders.
Innovation and creativity always put
you ahead of the crowd. The question
you have to ask yourself is: Do you want
to follow the crowd or do you want the
then! Time management is in

your control. Manage your
time and dont let time manage
you.
I dont have the financial
resources. That is an important consideration. The only
thing I can suggest is that get a
part-time job, or consider
going to school part time. I can
assure you that even if you
have to get a loan to earn this
degree, it will be one of the best
investments in your life.
MBAs
are
dime a dozen.
Sure they are,
but if you dont
have an MBA
you will be in
the category of a penny a
dozen. Its all relative.
I believe in practical work experience I
dont want to be bookish. Great line by
obtaining your MBA you have some
bookish smarts to go with your work
experience, making you extremely marketable.
Apparently, MBA students today do
not command the salaries they once did.
Too many MBAs chasing too few jobs.
This is true, but lets look at the other
side of the coin. Leadership qualities,
sound decision-making and the ability to
make informed decisions are more critical than ever in todays economic environment. In these times, the fittest and
best-experienced leaders will survive and
prevail.
Yes, it is also true that MBA graduates
today are not compensated as they were
prior to the economic slump. However,
everyone else earns less also whether
you are a corporation, individual or even
government.
Remember, when there is too much
competition, you need the competitive
edge to be in the 5 percent category of
leaders. By obtaining an MBA, you will
have earned that competitive edge.
Todays economic climate poses many
challenges. These challenges can also
create opportunities. An MBA will allow
you to explore opportunities that arise
from challenges.
Also remember, the knowledge and
skill sets you acquire with an MBA will
outlast any economic downturn.
AJAY
VIRMANI
crowd to follow you? By enrolling yourself in an MBA program, you are already
ahead of many individuals who are still
thinking or considering pursuing this
goal. Out of the box thinking is finally in!
Making sound decisions in any business environment is considered a trait.
These traits are always in short supply.
The days of crystal-balling and guessing
are over. In order to make intelligent
decisions, you need to take calculated
and educated risks. I strongly believe an
MBA degree will give you the tools and
foundation to ensure educated guesses
and calculated risks are taken.
Nobody today wants to be known as a
mediocre or an average person. We all
want to be excellent at whatever we do. I
can tell you that in order to achieve
excellence you must first establish a
sense of purpose and then a sense of
accomplishment. Once you earn your
MBA degree, you will have defined your
sense of purpose.
Group dynamics working with people is an important tool to achieve any
success today. Companies today continue
to promote and market that their
strength is their team. Working with
your peer group of students, listening
and participating in these sessions establishes a sound footing to acquire these
necessary skills.
In todays environment a debate often
leads to the question: Is it really worth it
to obtain an MBA? I often hear the following arguments:
I dont have the time. Well, make time
Ajay Virmani is president, Cargojet
LEADERS MANTRA
Focus on yourself
he current economic environment has put tremendous

strain on all of us and definitely on new MBA graduates of
2009. While students should
be aware of this, they shouldnt be directed in their efforts by this.
Their dividend will come from focusing on themselves and how well they are
able to interact and network with people
who may be able to open doors for them.
A solid interaction with just three to four
influential individuals can be more valuable than applying endlessly in response
to job advertisements, etc.
Networking is not about
how many hands you press
or how big your rolodex
becomes. If you focus on
just one or two individuals
and ensure that they will
remember you and become motivated to
connect with you and your needs, then
your mission is accomplished.
Success is not a continuous state
It is ironic that we keep addressing
individuals as successful as though success is a continuous state. The reality is
that success is just a point in time, an
event in ones life and the more lucky
ones have many such points in their life.
If you sat with a successful businessman like Bob Dhillon in a relaxed environment so that he is open to share his
information with you, then I would guess
he might convey that in his professional
and business life he has encountered
more misses than he has had hits.
Let me take my own case. Five of us
started our software venture in late 1990
with an initial investment of $1,000, and
after three-and-a-half years it got
acquired by Sun Microsystems for a lowthree-digit-million dollars. This was definitely the pinnacle of our professional
and entrepreneurial life. However, today
when I am referred to as a highly successful individual or a business role
model, I cringe as I know that I have not
been able to replicate any more such success points or events in our life.
Having said that, I think that entrepreneurship is one of the best pursuits of
excellence in ones life. The highly effective entrepreneurs are good at understanding the power of multiple layers of
leverage. It is multiplicity of leverage
that is going to win because the thin edge
of winning is so thin that the multiplicity of leverage would be the clincher.
ADITYA
JHA
Pursuit of passion
Entrepreneurship should never be
viewed as a career option; it is about pursuit of passion to create wealth. An
entrepreneur by nature pursues opportunity of wealth creation that is beyond
his/her current resources to pursue the
same. To succeed in entrepreneurial venture, the defining trait is intensity in pursuing your passion about the venture.
The success comes with a mixture of
team, timing and talent and I would
even say that in that order of importance.
Assembling the team and then having
the emotional talent to keep it when you
are successful or when you face challenging times is what differentiates whether
you will be massively successful or not.
The next important aspect is working
smartly but also working very long
hours. The definition of having a balanced life needs to be redefined. I read
about Carol Bartz, who recently became
CEO of Yahoo! She said if her husband
doesnt put their dinner appointment
three months in advance then it is most
likely that they are not having dinner
together. But, they say that they have a
normal life. They have redefined what is
normalcy and each of you who aspires to
be successful CEOs and entrepreneurs
will have to understand what is normal
in your extended life and how would it fit
with your pursuit of passion.
Mindset change
As you enter the workplace after your
MBA degree, you would not be served
well by the industrial-era mindset of an
employee. It is no longer someone elses

job to help you grow. That is your and
only your responsibility. Dont put too
much faith on the PowerPoint presentation from your human resources department. It is in your interest and your job
to make it happen. Companies no longer
owe you anything and the entitlement
mentality has to go. You should not
attempt to be indispensable; rather,
make your organization and your senior
management dependent on you. You and
only you have to take initiative in areas
beneficial for your organization. You
dont get paid for the job but you should
be engaged because you like to do the job
that is the mantra to be highly successful in a professional environment.
Lifestyle-support earning should be
given and be just the starting point.
Today, high-performing professionals
consciously or subconsciously think
about wealth creation and not just getting high salary. This new mindset will
make you tremendously useful to your
organization.
Philanthropy is good for you
I would urge students to make philanthropy an integral and well-thought part
of your entrepreneurial life. The common approach of looking at philanthropy is that since you have the resources
and you have been fortunate, you should
do some good for the society. I have come
to realize, on the contrary, that philanthropy is good for you good for others
is just the byproduct. Herbert Simon, the
Nobel Laureate, discovered that 90 percent of wealth we create in a wealthy
society is due to the social circumstances
we live in. If that is the fact, then it is our
responsibility and in our own selfish
interest to support such social circumstances so that we and our children continue creating wealth because of the continued presence of such social circumstances. Second, you will be amazed to
realize that when you give time, money,
your talents and passion to the social
causes you believe in, it enriches yourself, your thinking and your self-worth.
It brings you in close contact with people
whom you would have never met otherwise and they will value you and look at
you and listen to you in a very different
way a good way. Philanthropy gives
you opportunity for benefiting most
from the multiplicity of leverage.
Aditya Jha is president, Karma Candy.
LEADERS MANTRA
MBA: Looking back,

looking ahead
ou have heard the story

before. In 1907, when
asked to consider developing a business school,
then
Harvard
University president Charles
William Eliot said, Theres no
market for it. Against that notion,
the MBA program began in the
early 1900s in the United States. It
started as an educational response
to the demand for increased
supervisory and management
cadre triggered by the active pace
of automation and industrialization taking place on shop floors
across the country. Therefore, as
was obvious then, and quite as relevant today, the industry and economic practice in mainstream
United States and its physical and
virtual shop floors have been key
influencers in the demand for
management talent and hence in
the development of this education
program.
If you pursue the preceding
argument, it is easy to relate the
evolution of the MBA program, content and pedagogy to three main developments. These include:
1. The increased levels of
automation and engineering progress witnessed in
the early 20th century
enabled increase in scale and throughout
of operations. This resulted in the need
to develop personnel skills beyond shop
floor practices to supervisory and management skills that facilitated oversight
and guidance of larger, more sophisticated and distributed work environment.
For example, the notion of capacity utilization evolved from basic labor capacity assessment to an interdependent balance between labor and machine capacity and level of automation. Hence, the
early MBA was built off the traditional
managerial accounting, book keeping
domains coupled with industrial human
resource practices. The Tuck School of
Business, one of the first such programs
in the US, began awarding masters
degrees in the commercial sciences, a
PRASHANT
SHANKAR
PATHAK
precursor to the MBA.

2. The MBA program of
today was substantially
influenced by the 1959
Ford Foundation report that characterized the programs as vocational in content and indefensible in quality. The
report suggested making the program
more entrenched in disciplinary knowledge, analytical practices and experiences. This is still the model that shapes
the curriculum of business schools and
MBA programs worldwide.
3. The emergence of the Internet and
its adoption in the commercial domain
resulting in the birth of the Internet
entrepreneurialism
triggered
the
demand for entrepreneurial focus within
the MBA programs. The reach and
boundary-less nature of the new enterprises that emerged from this phenomenon also brought into greater focus the
need for a globally conscious and aware
curriculum at most schools.

Impact of this includes the
branding by schools around this
theme, for example INSEAD in
France is now the Business
School for the World.
Core Criticism
The criticism of the MBA program has been long ongoing, ever
since the Ford report. The recent
criticism of the program has been
around three main themes: The
limited relevance and impact of
the research, insight generation
and knowledge creation from the
program;
unclear
linkage
between the MBA curriculum
and content and ability to building effective leadership and management; and relevance, or lack
thereof, of the increasingly commoditized technical skills around
which the original program that
had its roots in manufacturing
automation was designed.
Warren Bennis has argued that
the MBAs institutionalizing their
own irrelevance as a result of
focus on scientific research that
has limited linkages to day to day
business
realities.
Henry
Mintzberg of McGill University
has been more scathing in his perspectives that conventional MBA programs
train the wrong people in the wrong
ways with the wrong consequences.
In a recent BusinessWeek article,
Mihnea Moldoveanu of the Rotman
School argued, The MBA is in crisis
because it selects for and cultivates traits
and skills that are increasingly vacuous
and superfluous. Finally, as if to drive a
stake through the argument, Rakesh
Khurana from the Harvard Business
School has even linked MBA schools to
corporate scandals by arguing that the
MBA graduates fixated on shareholder
value at the expense of other stakeholders have been drivers of corporate crime.
Despite all the criticism, from a pragmatic and market acceptance standpoint, the MBA program appears to be
alive and well. Claims to the contrary are
either too premature or too biased. In an
increasingly global business and corpo-
LEADERS MANTRA
rate environment, with greater international trade the demand for trained
management talent has increased.
Furthermore, in the absence of any other
general management program for training individuals in skills and competencies, in a risk-free environment, the MBA
remains the destination. The numbers
bear it out. A recent research conducted
by the HBS concluded that B-Schools
around the world turn out about
500,000 MBAs a year, with upwards of
150,000 of those in the US alone.
Back to the future
For the foreseeable future read
decades the MBA will continue to
provide a significant portion of the
raw input required for meeting the
management and leadership demands
of enterprises globally. There are several reasons for this relevance. The critical ones are:
1. The key proposition of MBA programs to enterprises often tends not to
be the educational content but the
credible stamp of approval or confirmation of the highest selection standards. This is reassuring for the multitudes of new graduates in the current
economic environment. They can and
should take comfort in the fact that
similar to other selections standards or
lists, by virtue of progressing successfully through a recognized and wellplaced MBA program, they have
increased their professional profile and
hence if I use generalities their
employability.
2. In an increasingly complex and
international operating environment
companies are looking to get their
management bench strength and leadership talent trained in risk-free environments where lessons are learnt not from
expensive mistakes but from shared
knowledge and experiences. The MBA
programs at most schools provide a rich
portfolio of course content and interactions that enable the keen student to
learn and grow from codified experiences and orchestrated class interactions
for example, international participants that are hard to replicate in
their job or work environments.
Caveat
Having touted the relevance in the
near term, I also believe it is worth highlighting some caution for the MBA program based on personal experience.
Increasingly administrators, teachers
and participants of the MBA programs
need to ask themselves how they expect
to not only remain relevant but also
more critical to the human capital
required for global enterprise. There are
three considerations I will offer:

1. Remember Dubai, Mumbai,
Shanghai. There are two direct implications of this phenomenon: Analytical
and algorithmic skills prized by most
managers and MBAs like excel modeling
and five forces analyzes, are commoditized. These tasks can and will be arbitraged to workers in lower cost countries, not too different from what has
happened to other jobs. The program
and its participants therefore need to
focus on acquiring experiences para-
DESPITE ALL THE

CRITICISM, FROM
A PRAGMATIC AND
MARKET
ACCEPTANCE
STANDPOINT, THE
MBA PROGRAM
APPEARS TO BE
ALIVE AND WELL.
CLAIMS TO THE
CONTRARY ARE
EITHER TOO
PREMATURE OR
TOO BIASED
digms and deliberation habits that focus
ingenuity and not just focus on algorithmic and analytical skills to simplistically
model and structure complex and
dynamic problems. Second, the MBA
program that within its curriculum or
experiences ignores to address the pragmatic aspects of the tectonic shifts in
supply creation, demand and consumption habits and capital formation, capital
flows caused due to the DMS phenomena risks being relegated to irrelevance.
2. The worldview changes when you
have capitalist profits and socialist losses. A key outcome of the recent turmoil
has been the socialization of the losses of
institutions that are characterized as too
big to fail. This is counter to the
Schumpeterian concept addressed in
business schools about the wave of creative destruction; it is also a signal that
traditional models of competitive structure and industry conduct are incom-
plete. When Detroit is run from

Washington, DC the implications emanating for MBA programs and their participants are a greater need for appreciating and illuminating the systematic
and interplay between government
intervention and corporate value creation. Mercantilism and autarkic principles denounced for long are alive and
well, though in a different form.
3. If opportunity doesnt knock, build a
door. Amidst all the uncertainty out
there is some certainty the traditional
promise of the high-flying financial
sector, consulting and professional
services opportunities emanating from
business schools post an MBA have
vaporized. A research within the business idea marketplace concluded that
most business schools have not been
very effective in the creation of useful
business ideas. Clearly that statistic,
state and stance will do little to
improve the future well-being of the
MBA participants or the program
itself. In the current economic environment it behooves schools, administrators and participants to think entrepreneurially with regards to each element
of the old proposition and entrepreneurially explore potential elements of
the future proposition from the MBA
that will ensure they are creating
demand for the talent and skills that
the program endows. In a simple manner, this asks participants and schools
to shift focus from enterprise management to enterprise creation, from seeking jobs to creating jobs, from thinking
that is left-brain-biased to wholebrain-balanced. It is these changes that
will enable the current crop of participants and the MBA schools to create the
environment where the exploration for
building a new door begins. Building the
new door is critical since ability is nothing without the opportunity.
In conclusion, I will add the MBA program has and will continue to have relevance in the medium term as an effective
educational and training platform for
building the managerial and leadership
workforce. Ironically, the seeds of its
irrelevance as a moniker or degree are
not outside the program but maybe sown
in its very fabric. The threat from within
being the active growth in continuous
learning and executive education programs being offered by the same
providers of the MBA.
Prashant Shanker Pathak, who did his
MBA from the French business school
INSEAD,
is
managing
partner,
Reichmans Private Equity Funds.
EXPERTS BRAINSTORM
A dose of the real world

I
n such challenging economic times,

how does the future look for business
students?
On a chilly Saturday in early Spring, a
group of dedicated South Asian MBA students from the Greater Toronto area gathered to reflect on the world of the MBA,
their education and their future.
The setting was Prego, a beautiful Italian
restaurant in Toronto, which the owner,
Aditya Jha, had generously provided for
the event.
I had the privilege of moderating a
panel of eminent business leaders,
mostly of South Asian origin, who
volunteered their time to provide
their perspectives and advice to the
students. The panelists included representatives of business schools and
self-made entrepreneurs: Bob Dhillon,
president, Mainstreet Equity Corporation;
Professor Mitali De, associate dean,
Wilfrid Laurier School of Business and
Economics; Peter Sutherland, former
Canadian high commissioner to India;
Aditya Jha, president, Karma Candy; Hari
Panday, president, ICICI Wealth
Management; John Palumbo, executive
director, Schulich School of Business, York
University; Kasi Rao, consultant with several Canadian universities; and Ajit Jain,
managing editor, Canada, of India Abroad,
which organized the seminar.
As a professor at the Rotman School of
Management, I advise students on a daily
basis and I was curious to see how the panelists would deal with the burning questions that I know were on their mind.
The tension in the room was palpable.
The students had rolled the dice on a highcost educational gamble: Spending tens of
thousands of dollars for a business education with no assurance of work at the other
end. The MBA is one of the most expensive
degrees one can take, and many had taken
out large loans to pay their tuition and living expenses and moved far from home.
Yet, the environment was far from
encouraging. Television, the Web and
news reports were screaming of economic
disaster and warning of job losses
throughout the economy. The students in
the room, like business students everywhere, were, to say the least, nervous.
The panelists, with the benefit of experience and maturity, took the issue head-on.
Take the long view, was their advice: The
MBA is a wonderful investment in the
future, one that will give students skills for
a lifetime. While concerns about the job
market for MBAs were understandable,
DAVID
DUNNE
the investment the students were making
could be expected to pay back many times
over if one takes a longer-term perspective.
Yet, to take advantage of their investment, MBAs needed to be nimble, flexible
and conscientious. While the economic
news looked grim, there were still many
areas of opportunity. While the dynamic
economies of China and India were
expected to slow down, there was still a
great deal of momentum and, with that
momentum, opportunities.
The students were encouraged by one
panelist to follow the money: Not by
looking for the highest salary, but by looking to see where the greatest investments
in technology and jobs could provide them
with opportunities. Other panelists disagreed on this point: One suggested that
graduates should anticipate where the
money was going to be, rather than go
where the money is now; others felt that
Canada remained a good place to make
money but all emphasized the importance of building a career over time, rather
than looking for the short term financial
score.
Panelists acknowledged that, in the short
term, MBAs may not get exactly the job
they want when they emerge from their
studies. It was likely, one panelist suggested, that they would have to take a lower
salary to begin with than they might be
hoping for. But the skills they were learning in their degree program would serve
them well.
What specific skills? Interestingly, many
of the skills panelists emphasized are not
usually mentioned on the MBA curriculum: Hard work, focus, ingenuity, risk taking. These are real-world skills that MBA
students learn these through the project
work they do and through the pressure of
meeting deadlines.
In addition, panelists recognized the
value of the business tools MBA students
learn, but several speakers argued that
these were not the main point. There was
great value in learning how to deal with
people: Again these skills were often
learned implicitly in study teams, but also
through courses in leadership. What was
particularly significant was that the value
of these leadership skills may not be seen
for some years again underscoring the
importance of taking a long view.
Students also raised questions about the
value of entrepreneurship, a particularly
useful topic as there were several successful entrepreneurs on the panel. The advice
here was a) to learn while working for
someone else; b) find a mentor, and c)
remember that all entrepreneurs fail along
the way to success and not to give up.
For many MBA students, networking
with potential employers can be particularly intimidating. Here, students were
advised to flip the situation on its head,
recalling the words of John F Kennedy:
Think not about what you get from the
encounter, but what you are bringing to it.
Networking was not about competing to
see who could collect the most business
cards, but about selectively developing
high-value relationships that will last a
lifetime.
It was obvious that the students were
intensely curious and attentive. Each in his
own way was a role model, a picture of
what they could become in the future. It
was clear that they benefited enormously
from the discussion.
I benefited from it too. What a privilege
it was to see how the students absorbed
these ideas and hung on to every word.
There is nothing like real-world experience to put things in perspective.
After the discussion, everyone reflected
on what they had just heard, what it meant
to them and how they saw their future
unfolding, over a delicious mix of South
Asian and Italian food. The real heroes of
the day? The kitchen staff, who were invited to come forward and were warmly
applauded by all present.
Professor David Dunne teaches at the
Rotman School of Management,
University of Toronto.
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EXPERTS BRAINSTORM
MBA students are all ears at the India Abroad
Center Stage symposium
Face your fear

An MBA is a lifetime tool to help in a rapidly changing world, experts and entrepreneurs
tell students at the India Abroad Center Stage symposium panel discussion
AJIT JAIN
rofessor David Dunne of the Rotman School of

Management moderated a panel discussion that was
part of the symposium on the value of MBA education in the global economic scenario that India
Abroad organized March 21. Students from three
business schools the Rotman School of Management, the
Schulich School of Business and the Wilfrid Laurier School of
Business and Economics actively helped in organizing the
event, which was attended by about 75 students.
The panelists Bob Dhillon, president, Mainstreet Equity
Corporation; Professor Mitali De, associate dean, Wilfrid
Laurier School of Business and Economics; Peter Sutherland,
former high commissioner to India; Aditya Jha, president,
Karma Candy; Hari Panday, president, ICICI Wealth
Management; John Palumbo, executive director, Schulich
School of Business, York University; and Kasi Rao, consultant
with several Canadian universities agreed that despite the
global economic downturn, it is worthwhile doing an MBA but
one has to be more flexible now in terms of salary expectations
and job openings.
Here is a transcript of the discussion:
David Dunne: If we have said in different ways that MBAs are
valuable resources, which parts of MBA skills are most valuable

in the current economic times?
Joseph Palumbo: One of the reasons we [Schulich School]
recently went to India to sell admission into the MBA program
in our school was to provide to students there the cross-cultural communications ability, a kind of soft skill which is not
soft, which is quite hard to achieve. When you move up into the
management chain in your organization, it is less about managing numbers and projects and things like that. It is more
about managing people. The challenge is to see others as the
leaders and I think thats what you learn in your MBA program.
Thats why an MBA is a long-term play.
I often have the pleasure of talking to a number of our alumni from all around the globe. So, I will say I will look for their
communications, I will look for the strategy, their bigger picture thinking, the thinking that helps communicate, that helps
you understand your colleagues with whom you are working
but also helps you to understand the strategy and the direction
in which the company is going, the skill to get underway and
then get the job done.
Aditya Jha: I think one area would be how useful you are to
the company which is trying to reemerge. Let me explain what
I mean. Theres a massive amount of corporate leakage in terms
of money. And there are problems in other areas as well, which
EXPERTS BRAINSTORM
Aditya Jha, president, Karma Candy, right
and Wilfrid Laurier Business School Dean
Ginny Dybenko at the event
are important for the company. I have

run companies conveying the message to
key people. Typically, let us say you make
10 percent, which is your bottom line in
the company. Every time you let $10 go,
basically you are wasting $100 revenue.
If you can bring that kind of focus, that
kind of usefulness to your organization,
you could be the darling of the senior
management.
Peter Sutherland: There can be something useful [in] what we did in the law
school the first thing could be the
whole process of usefulness. You students have to meet the companys standards and thats possible only if you have
achieved success academically in the
school. Your degree of confidence is very
important. Second, your skill set is very
important. A lot of black and white that
you learn either in the law school, as
myself, or in the business school as
you are learning may not be used
again. Your skill set and the foundation
stones are important. The whole experience of going to MBA school, like law
school, teaches you about the short deadline, working hard, focus, etc. All these
skills are very, very important and are
transferable to your business career. You
[students] have your networking advantage as you are South Asians, and the
South Asian network is global in the
business community, not just in the
graduate school where you are now
studying.
David Dunne: The next question is the
whole question of shifting careers. I
think everybody in this room is in the
process of shifting careers. Somebody
with an undergraduate science degree

wants to shift into business. But in these
economic times, it seems to be tougher
than in the past. Where do you think the
challenges are and where theres reasonable expectation to change careers in the
current economic climate?
Mitali De: The real good business models are going to survive. Therefore, I
would suggest if you can align yourself
with the surviving business models, you
have a good opportunity.
Peter Sutherland: The skill set involves
a certain flexibility. In the past the economy might be booming but you joined
companies, as in my time, for life. Not
anymore. As the companies flat out, people go somewhere else. It is a little more
difficult now as the opportunities are
shrinking but over time it is going to be
normal again. There will be changes.
Bob Dhillon: I think flexibility is everything. You go from kindergarten to high
school, then you get your undergraduate
degree, you work for a couple of years
and then you say how do I improve my
income by $10,000? And so you say, get
an MBA. By the time you get your MBA,
you are in a box. Flexibility is everything.
It doesnt matter, as my colleagues said
here, recession or not, you are changing
lots of careers in your life. So, you are
going to think along these lines as to
whats my career, where I am going. It
doesnt matter which country you are
going to go, what profession you are
going to choose.
Joseph Palumbo: I want to build on
this. Look where the money is going.
Look at the center of excellence. It is not
Canada. I am a Canadian. Be a
global citizen. Go where the
money is going. What the heck, go
out of Canada! If it is Mumbai, go
there. If it is Shanghai, go there. If
it is Singapore, Dubai, London, go
there. You have to know where the
centers of excellence are. It is not
just for money. It is also to be surrounded by absolutely the best.
The companies are investing in
people. I went to Hewlett Packard
in California. Next week, I went to
Reliance in Mumbai and the comparisons were incredible. I know
where I will work for not at HP
even though they are one of the
partners. I will work for Reliance
because they are investing in people and they are expanding.
Thats number one. Number two
is to remain absolutely flexible.
Think of the long term. Think
what you will bring to the company. Think that you are going to be
a professional manager and also at your
work you will be managing your expectations, managing your boss, managing
your organizations and managing your
career as well. Managing your career
happens not only once or twice. It is a
lifelong venture. The second [thing is],
you are happy in your job thats what
you should be thinking about. How big is
my network? When is the last time I was
quoted in the paper? How am I getting
my brand out there? Do I know what my
brand is? How can I reach persons like
Bob Dhillon, the successful developer
from Calgary whos sitting with us on this
panel? Those are the questions which
should be popping in your mind all the
time. Whats important is when you are
happy and successful, you are ready for
the next move. If people want to offer
you a job, they will call you. So, dont put
yourself down. You have amazing credentials.
The importance of risk
David Dunne: Follow the line is a
provocative statement.
Follow the
money is another intriguing statement.
Bob Dhillon: I strongly believe, go in
the direction before the money gets
there.
Whether you are a wholesale
buyer or a retailer, if you go where the
money is, it is too late. You go there
before the money gets there. Go to
Mumbai, but money is already there.
Canada is a pretty easy place to make
money. Look at me. I would say if I were
to look at my crystal ball, the money is in
Canada.
Joseph Palumbo: When I say follow the
money, I dont mean where theres high-
EXPERTS BRAINSTORM
Aditya Jha: I would like to add one
est salary. I imply where the money is
being invested by the government, thing to Bobs general notion about riskmaybe in infrastructure, in building taking. We entrepreneurs take larger
bridges, roads, in the ports. The business risks much more than an average perat such places will take off eventually. son who takes risk in his job. So, riskDuring the current bad economic times, taking is working double the time and
a lot of MBAs are thinking of entrepre- you dont known what happens in terms
neurship, thinking of starting their own of managing it and the complexity of it.
business. It will, however, be a challenge But risk is not about risky behavior, but
for somebody whos relatively new to being prepared to take a larger risk.
Bob Dhillon: I want to add one story to
Canada as this person doesnt necessarily have a network of connections to build this. It was my second year in the MBA
class. I took two years of marketing. I
on.
David Dunne: What kind of advice went for a PowerPoint presentation for a
would you give to South Asian students multinational corporation in Louisiana
or an international student starting their and discussed the rates about distribuown business after they have
graduated or while doing their
MBAs?
Students asked the experts sharp
Aditya Jha: I dont think
questions, and got sharper answers
entrepreneurship is a clearer
option. You may like to be
behind
an
entrepreneur
because that way you will have
that learning experience of what
an entrepreneur goes through.
If I was looking at a crystal ball,
I would say that in a few years
entrepreneurship will not be a
unique thing. It will be mainstream. Most people will be
entrepreneurs sometime in
their life. So, you guys will be
tested.
Bob Dhillon: It is a textbook
case study you have to read anyway it is a recession, I am
looking for a job, so, I become
an entrepreneur. What does an
entrepreneur mean? Hes a risk
taker, hes an action taker and
hes willing to work 100 hours a
week. If you dont have these
three things, it is not a god-given thing tion of Tabasco sauce for South Asia. I
that I want to do it. It is not an intellec- had no money and I had no intellectual
tual capital that you get on the street. It capital. I took a chance. At that time,
is not something you will say you are foreign goods were almost banned in
willing to work for free.
India and the finance minister was Dr
I will give you an example of my pub- Manmohan Singh who started opening
licly traded company Mainstreet Equity the country as the time went on. I was
Corporation based in Calgary, Alberta. lucky as a week after my presentation, it
For the first 10 years of starting the com- was an open product to bring into the
pany, I never drew any salary. I had country. What I was trying to do was to
resources and so I was fortunate that I get rights for distribution of a branded
could do it for the first 10 years without product for the whole of South Asia
any salary. Now I have a multibillion- because it was a recessionary market.
dollar company. I have an island in Nobody wanted these rights because you
Belize that I am currently developing. couldnt import such products in the
India Abroads Power List calls me The country that time.
Joseph Palumbo: I have three pieces of
Merchant of Belize. Now I have reached
a stage when I can do whatever I want. advice for our student audience: First,
These are some of the things you have to learn while you are working for someone
look into yourself. These are the ingredi- else. Do it on their dollar. Take advantage
ents you need before you think you can of their training as the training doesnt
end when you finish the MBA.
become an entrepreneur.
Second, please dont go alone. Try to

find a mentor. Find someone who can
help you along the way. The third, entrepreneurs have failed along the way.
Networking, the right way
David Dunne: The question was also
asked about networking.
Aditya Jha: This notion about going to
too many events, shaking hands and collecting business cards, will serve you very
little. You are here today. Try to identify
just one person with whom you can do
more than just to get to know that person so that that person remembers who
you are. Otherwise, it will be a fleeting
kind of connection. I have over a period
learnt this that over time there are too

many persons there. You have to zero in
on just one or two persons and thats it.
That means if I can do that, I have
accomplished more than what I could
have otherwise accomplished.
Joseph Palumbo: When you go to an
event, expect to be curious. Ask some
questions, why you did this, what about
your job, how did you first start business,
etc, and then all these givers of business
cards, if they remember you, they will
call you. Give some information about
yourself, your business, and leave it at
that.
Kasi Rao: My take is based on personal experience. True networking is often
used in a highly transactional way. It is a
long-term thing. I would encourage you
this as an exercise you will undertake for
the rest of your life. If you can follow it as
a matter of outlook look at advancing
EXPERTS BRAINSTORM
David Dunne of the Rotman
School, University of Toronto,
with students
the other persons agenda, not so much as your agenda for

five, 10 to 15 years from now, there will be a way that you will
be able to cash in on that.
My own journey has been from Bangkok, to Bangalore, to
Delhi to Moscow, to Zurich, to New York. All these years I have
been staying in touch with people. I dont ask them for anything, but just stay in touch with them. These people just open
the doors for me when I am in Delhi or Bangalore or wherever.
It is because I have stayed in touch with them. So, my advice is
treating this networking as a long-term exercise, and look at
the future. If you can help advance the other persons agenda at
some point, it will help your agenda too.
Hari Panday: Some very good points have been mentioned,
points about giving, and certainly about other peoples agenda.
When our company decided to start ICICI Bank in Canada and
I was brought on board to commence the Canadian operation,
we were able to get our license to start the bank here in nine
months. Thats the fastest a license has been granted in the history of this country. And that happened because anyone we
called for assistance gave us positive support and response.
There was no doubt whatsoever that I got value from each and
every of my relationships. And these relationships were cultivated over 20-odd years. You water the plant and flowers come
out. So, thats something you have to keep in mind. As Aditya
said, in a networking forum you dont simply go across and say
let me see how many cards I can walk away with. That alone
doesnt help.
Joseph Palumbo: Theres a technique or a method that I have
used in the past, with some success. People ask me about networking. There are many, many senior executives like Hari
Panday who will be prepared to give you some time if you do
not abuse it. So, he calls you to give two minutes of his time, but
you dont show up there and say here is my resume and give me
a job. It is really about industry and doing research about
industry and finding out what is this all about. You can ask for
some other connections that he could provide and contact
them. If you can do that, you are building your knowledge
about that field and you are developing some contacts. You do
not need to ask for a job because the job which is appropriate
for you somebody, will eventually come up with the suggestion
and at that time you might have your resume in your briefcase
ready.
MBA and the downturn
A students question: Whats missing in

the MBA program, especially during these
hard economic times?
Joseph Palumbo: Whats missing from
most MBA programs is, in general, students are too focused on jobs. You have to
think about if I am not getting the skill for
this market place I should do something
about it. We at the Schulich School bring in
companies all the time. If thats not happening, you go to them. You have to learn
by experience, by doing internships, by
doing case studies and projects outside the
classroom.
Aditya Jha: I would say theres disproportionate amount of premium around MBAs.
Let us say theres an engineering student
from the University of Toronto and an
MBA from the Rotman School of
Management. I would be more inclined
towards an engineering student in terms of
the basic knowledge. Whats lacking from a
business point of view is you guys have more exposure tools and
you have been acclimatized as if you are on the base camp or
you are still climbing. I have hired some MBAs from premier
institutions and I wonder why I spend that $75,000. You are
basically innately smart, but I havent seen anything that special. So, theres this sense of premium and you have to evaluate
yourself individually whats that premium you have to offer.
Another students question: Is timing is everything?
Bob Dhillon: I was an entrepreneur before I did my MBA. So,
the MBA didnt help me to become an entrepreneur. What the
MBA did was to make me learn the language and structure of
business. I did my business model right through my two- year
MBA program. When I graduated, I went public. My company
Mainstreet Equity Corporation was listed on the Toronto Stock
Exchange the day I graduated from Richard Ivey School.
Hari Panday: I think there was a question earlier about where
are job opportunities in industries during this time of recession. It is not a very pleasant thing to suggest that the area of
growth is insolvency it is very hot. Insolvency is a unique
practice at this juncture. It is the best chance during this economic cycle you have to apply your talent and get rewarded
in an area that you may not have considered.
David Dunne: As I listened to the themes as they came about,
I felt a certain anxiety amongst you: Should I make the big
[MBA] investment? Is it worth my while? And the answer to
that was a resounding yes. But the real part is, you wont get
your $75,000 investment back in the first year. It is a lifetime
investment, something that will pay over your career as a
whole. I believe amongst the panelists theres a consensus that
you are doing the MBA for yourself and it will show the results
over time.
To follow from that is the whole issue of flexibility and pretty
much all of panelists said in different ways, yes, you have the
MBA but you have got to be very flexible in terms of your salary
expectations because of the economic downturn.
The other question was what really is the worth of MBA in
contrast to the value of an engineer or a doctor? And whats the
difference? The difference is that a doctor sees people, an engineer builds bridges and it is very obvious what they do. MBAs
are generalists, and so MBAs are in all kinds of industries every
where, and they have to have skills to make them flexible and
adaptable to those industries. The real strength of an MBA is
that you are capable of fitting in so many different things.
ALUMNI ADVICE
What I learned at Stanford
s an engineering undergraduate, I always felt that there

was missing knowledge for
me in terms of how businesses
operated, or should operate.
This was my primary motivation to opt
for an MBA. Looking around my workplace in the construction management
industry, I knew things needed improvement and I had some thoughts on how to
solve them, but I was hungry for some
formal knowledge in this regard.
Although I had little practical or academic business knowledge, I was filled
with a deep desire to learn. I
also wanted to equip myself
with something that would
give me the freedom to
choose in my future professional life. Some would
argue that they didnt need
the knowledge they gained
from the MBA experience although the
network of friends and professors was
invaluable.
I would argue that attending a top
business school gave me both. I expect
that in the future, if I choose to start a
company or acquire one, I will seek out
advice from my classmates, who are
now located in many parts of the
world and involved in every conceivable industry.
I believe any business school can
teach you finance, accounting, operations, etc. But at the Stanford
Graduate School of Business, we
learned from faculty that had taken
part in the dotcom boom, sat on the
boards of very successful companies,
and invested and led successful
companies of their own.
So, what did I learn at Stanford?
Stanford immersed me, obviously,
in the classroom learning environment but for someone with a nonbusiness background, being surrounded by risk takers and entrepreneurs teachers and my classmates alike was inspirational. In
the classroom we were taught how
to quantify the value of a company
but the Stanford MBA environment told
us that we could acquire one ourselves.
My past professional experiences had
taught me that leadership was autocratic. But at the business school, we were
taught the concept of shared leadership.
The idea that every member of a team
can feel like a leader and contributor was
AJIT
MOHAN
JAIN
a truly innovative concept for a person
who had worked in the construction
industry.
I learned that in order to achieve your
dreams you have to be audacious. On a
personal or financial level, the safe and
secure path, if there is one, is rarely the
ones. In the business context, I think of

challenges and solutions from a broader,
long-term perspective. A decision today
can have implications well past the execution and implementation date, both
good and bad. Therefore, any short-term
high-value perspectives can have negative results and vice-versa.
I also think big. Some people go to
business school to move up in their corporate careers because theyve hit a glass
ceiling. For me, the MBA was also a tool
I felt I needed to make it to the next level.
Through the Stanford experience, however, I realized just how big one can
dream. Thats the best part about reading so many business cases and listening
to so many guest speakers, many of
whom are Stanford alumni. It was all the
more inspiring knowing they were given
the same opportunities I was given,
when Stanford opened its doors for me
in 2002.
I now smile when I think of my preMBA life because my views on how to
operate a business were so limited and
my dreams were hardly that. The reality
is that there is no one rule when it comes
to successful leadership but the one
thing I believe in most is that every
member of an organization, event,
team must feel like a leader in order
for continued, fruitful successes.
Financial compensation should be
fairly distributed but what many
forget is that it must be coupled with
a shared leadership mentality. I was
first exposed to this mindset
through my MBA experience.
Although the world economy is
facing uncertain times, I truly
believe that things can only improve
and this might very well be the best
time to return to a university campus and pursue an MBA. The turmoil in the economy makes for some
fascinating academic learning
through relevant and real world
examples. If nothing else, an MBA
from a top-tier program will equip
you with a pedigree that enables you
to stand above the competition in a
tight job market and inspire you to dare
to do things you never even contemplated before.
MY PAST
PROFESSIONAL
EXPERIENCES
HAD TAUGHT ME
THAT LEADERSHIP
WAS AUTOCRATIC. BUT
AT THE BUSINESS
SCHOOL, WE WERE
TAUGHT THE
CONCEPT OF SHARED
LEADERSHIP
most satisfying one.
How have I applied my skills after I
graduated?
What I developed from my two years at
Stanford was a way of thinking about
business, leadership and the world. I
now approach problems differently, both
business challenges and non-business
Ajit Mohan Jain is developing a start-up

Internet service intended to streamline
college admissions for high school students in the United States.
ALUMNI ADVICE
More than just a higher salary
completed my MBA from the

Richard Ivey School of Business
in 2003 in an economic climate
quite different from todays.
When I graduated, my classmates
and I had many opportunities available
to us there were multiple companies
recruiting on campus, and in general,
the hiring had occurred earlier in the
school year for most students. There
were some students who had multiple
offers and there were also a number of
students who were looking for the right
career fit for their next role and the
process took a slightly more drawn-out
route.
I happened to fall into this
second category.
I had pursued my MBA to
change careers from
structural engineering to
the investment side of the building
industry, more specifically the investment in commercial real estate. To
be on the transaction side of this
business, I needed more than the
ability to design the support of
buildings. I needed to understand
the language of commerce and
finance. I also wanted to have a
broader understanding of management and strategy, and that is why
I chose to go to Ivey for my graduate education.
A big plus for me was that there
were many companies in need of
individuals with my understanding
of construction and who had also
had an understanding of finance. I
was fortunate and found my first
post-grad position in an investment advisory firm within a couple of
months of graduating. I continue to
work for that firm to this day, almost six
years later.
I could not have reached my current
position and management role without
attaining the necessary training in
accounting, finance and general management. My engineering skills were not
adequate on their own, so I had to pursue further education. Certainly, new
grads from the class of 2009 will be in
those same shoes transitioning from
one career into something related but in
a totally different role, or in some cases,
moving into a totally unrelated role.
Given that there will be fewer roles available and the ones that are available will
have numerous qualified candidates
SALMAN
HIRANI
a driven and ambitious group they are

not satisfied with the status quo and are
always looking to improve processes,
strategies, operations, revenue generation and commercialization of new innovations. Sure, there may have been some
MBAs and non-MBAs as well who
might have contributed to some of the
slip-ups that played a part in where we
stand today, but I feel that MBAs can
also be part of the solutions to todays
economic woes. Now, more than ever,
the world needs people who have the
training and ambition to lead companies
out of turmoil, to transform plummeting
sales by introducing new business lines,
to advance new technologies to the stage
where they can reach the mass market
through new channels. The MBA is not a
be-all and end-all solution, but it is certainly a particular way of thinking, a
process to solving problems and that is
what the economy we are faced with
today requires a strong base in fundamentals with the energy and creativity to guide a way through this.
New grads who can demonstrate
that they have an ability to help tough
decision-making will be the ones that
will succeed in todays job market.
Before Ivey, I thought the MBA was
a silver bullet that could magically
launch me into a prosperous career
with a much higher salary. Luckily for
me, I quickly realized success in my
future required more than just the
three letters it required hard work,
perseverance and an ability to adapt
to changing times. I truly believe that
any grad that can come into todays
marketplace and offer these three
ingredients coupled with a can-do attitude will fare well and find the right role.
They just have to be able to figure out
that their degree was not the goal, but
rather a tool in reaching their next goal.
Similarly, the first role out of grad school
is not the end game, but the first step on
a long road ahead to becoming a future
business leader.
I just hope that along the way, the valuable lessons being presented to us on a
daily basis in the news are not lost on
this group of MBAs and that we can
learn from any mistakes that we have
made.
NOW, MORE THAN

EVER, THE WORLD
NEEDS PEOPLE WHO
HAVE THE TRAINING
AND AMBITION TO
LEAD COMPANIES OUT
OF TURMOIL
applying, the question arises, does an
MBA degree have value in todays economy?
In my view, it most certainly does.
I realize that there are jokes floating
out there that the current situation was
caused by a lack of oversight of MBA
grads and there is inadequate emphasis
in todays curriculums at business
schools on good governance and attribution of risk which were major factors
in the global economic meltdown.
Regardless of the jokes, I do believe some
schools fail to address these issues altogether, but for the most part, business
education, like all higher education,
plays a very important role in opening
new avenues and driving creativity in the
business world. On the whole, MBAs are
Salman Hirani is a senior real estate

analyst, asset manager, at Blackwood
Partners, Toronto.
ALUMNI ADVICE
A useful tool for business
do not think the value of a good

MBA experience has changed
because of the current economic
downturn. If pursued for the right
objectives, I think the MBA is a
valuable graduate stream which holds
relevance in many aspects of business
and various types of careers.
What I valued in my MBA from the
Stanford Graduate School of Business
was an opportunity to make a career
change, in my case from operational
product marketing/engineering to
venture capital/private equity; an opportunity to meet and learn
from incredible people
classmates, faculty, guests
faculty/speakers, leaders
that would come to school
and speak in public forums
as well in smaller settings with accomplished and diverse backgrounds and
learning from their experiences; getting
exposed to academic frameworks of business and management; carrying a brand,
credibility and networks from the MBA
experience, which hopefully will continue to open doors for a lifetime.
Given these objectives, I would pursue
an MBA in 2009 from a
good business school
because these would
hold relevance even
today.
Other than the career
change the MBA
added credibility in my
making this change to
private equity I have
found my MBA has
enhanced my risk-taking ability and confidence in my own capabilities. While I had a
great job in New York in
my field of choice, just a
year after graduating I
decided to move back to
India with very little visibility of what I would
do next, as my move back to India was
driven largely by a family situation. This
decision has worked to my advantage
because I am professionally and personally satisfied with what I have achieved
in the years after moving back. The relationships I carried from my business
school have helped me on several other
occasions in meaningful professional
events in the last five years like help-
MANISH
KHETARPAL
ing strike a joint venture

in a family business with
a former classmate, making an important job transition, and using tools and
skills learned at Stanford especially
soft skills of negotiation and leadership
in a messy family business situation.
These skills also come in handy in my
day to day job of principal investing as
well as working with management teams
as an active shareholder/investor.
Its important for
students, say international students
from India who
take $50,000 to
$60,000 annual
bank loans to study
in North America,
to look upon doing
an MBA as a serious,
long-term
investment.
Therefore,
one
should not compromise on the
quality of the experience, if one has
the choice and
opportunity.
It is a personal
choice for a student
to travel from India to North America to
study in a prestigious business school in
the United States or Canada. The trip
and the money you invest are worth it
because you may be going to a better
school.
There are some very good business
schools in India now. One has to weigh
the pros and cons of the business school
offering versus the cost involved. It is
DOING AN MBA
AND CHOOSING
THE SCHOOL IS
AN IMPORTANT
QUESTION OF
COST-BENEFIT
ANALYSIS AND
LONG-TERM
OBJECTIVES
widely known that a good US business

school can open many more career/job
opportunities in the US. So, depending
upon ones preference of post-MBA
locale and target job, the choice of business school could be different.
If I compare 10 years ago with today, I
can say that the business schools in India
are much better in the globalization of
their MBA programs as well as opportunities they offer after the degree. If one
has a very specific objective of, say, working in the Indian fast moving consumer
goods industry after the MBA, it may not
make sense to pursue a more expensive
MBA from a North American business
school compared to the best of the breed
from India. These are also comparatively
less expensive. But if ones goal is to work
on Wall Street or in the Silicon Valley, it
is clearly better to pursue an MBA from
a good business school in the US.
Deciding about doing an MBA and
choosing the school is an important
question of cost-benefit analysis and
long-term objectives. What does a student want to derive from this degree,
from this two-year experience at the
graduate business school? The top
MBA degrees or top international
MBA programs whether in the US,
Canada or
India definitely have something special to offer compared to an average or
below average MBA school. One can settle down in India long-term by pursuing
either path because there is no set template for that. But if the objective is to be
in India in the short-term, then one has
to think carefully the cost aspect of a top
American business school and whether
one will get the appropriate return on
investment.
Theres also now a middle path. There
are alliances between top US business
schools and Indian business schools. As a
result, theres an opportunity to pursue
an Indian cost MBA from a top US business school.
I hope if the trend continues one day
student in India will be able to pursue a
Stanford or Harvard MBA in Gurgaon,
Pune or Mysore. The international business schools are waiting in anticipation
as the Indian regulators are discuss and
analyze such proposals.
Manish Khetarpal is vice president,
Providence Equity Advisors India Pvt
Ltd.
ALUMNI ADVICE
Unlock your potential
dont often take the

time to reflect on the
experiences and decisions Ive made that
have led me to where I
am today. The recent economic meltdown has given me
some pause to reassess
whether Im on the right path.
I am convinced that I am, but
only time will tell.
This isnt the first time Ive
been through a tough economy. After completing my
undergraduate engineering
degree from the University of
Toronto, I spent several years
consulting, the last four of
which were at a software company that I joined at the
height of the dotcom boom in
2000. A month into my new
job, the boom went bust, and
my company started laying
people off in droves.
Every quarter, a new
batch of employees
were let go, and I
was constantly wondering if I would be
the next.
It wasnt just the looming
threat of losing my job that
kept me up at night. My quality of life was less than optimal I spent five or six days a week on
the road, working more hours than I
liked to admit, and I was increasingly
unhappy about how my companys management seemingly dropped the ball on
several strategic initiatives. In fact, there
were several missteps that could have
been prevented if management simply
took a broader view of the market when
formulating its strategy to cope with the
New Economy.
While I was doing quite well in my role
I was leading several go-to-market
initiatives I felt like I was on a sinking
ship and needed to quickly decide
whether it was worth it anymore.
Fast forward a couple of years, and I
found myself immersed in an MBA education at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Sloan
School
of
Management, learning about the very
thing that I had wished my former company had employed sound management. Life was great I was broadening
my horizons and learning a lot about
TEJAS
MEHTA
I AM CERTAIN
THAT THE MBA
HAS GIVEN
ME THE
FUNDAMENTALS
TO ACHIEVE
MY CAREER
ASPIRATIONS,
GOOD ECONOMY
OR NOT
things I always wanted to pick up:
Finance, strategy, marketing and opera-
tions. For me, the MBA

experience was about gaining the tools necessary to
achieve my long-term
career aspirations of general management.
I graduated almost three
years ago and joined
Microsoft in a marketing
and business strategy role. I
have held multiple responsibilities, including market
opportunity
analyzes,
financial forecasting, pricing and licensing strategy,
product launches and marketing campaigns. Each
project that Ive undertaken relied to some extent on
the education I received at
business school. Of course,
I would be nave to say that
I couldnt do my job without the MBA I am confident that I could. What the
MBA unlocked for me was
a way of thinking. It provided a solid framework for
analyzing and solving problems that would otherwise
be more challenging.
This has been especially
true in this weak economy.
Increased
uncertainty
around budgets, resources
and headcount can lead to irrational
business decisions if youre not careful,
especially if objective means are not used
to assess merits of alternatives. I believe
the frameworks I have picked up in my
MBA have allowed me to make better
decisions faster than I would have otherwise. The MBA has also helped me take a
broader and more strategic view of my
career, where I apply the same objective,
analytical process to determine the next
step for me.
So here I am in 2009, having spent the
better part of three years as an MBA in a
big corporate environment. I have been
happy with the experiences Ive had so
far, and look forward to the career ahead
of me. While I am not sure what the
future might bring, I am certain that the
MBA has given me the fundamentals to
achieve my career aspirations, good
economy or not.
Tejas Mehta, an Indo-Canadian, is a senior product manager with Microsoft.
ALUMNI ADVICE
Devaluation of MBA? Huh?
am always amused by articles that attempt to

demonstrate the devaluation of an MBA degree,
especially in tough economic times. The number of
applicants to MBA programs
actually increases significantly
when the economy takes a tumble and jobs are harder to come
by. Is it partially because people
want a two-year respite from the
professional world to regroup
and ride out the economy?
Maybe. But it is also that people
see an opportunity in getting
more education and learning
how to still thrive.
When I applied to business
school in 2002, applications had
soared at many campuses as the
tech industry saw its bubble
burst. Unlike many of my peers, I
only applied to three carefully
researched programs all were
top 10 schools and had equally
strong graduate schools of education affiliated with the larger
university. I knew that I would
not attend a lower tier school so
did not even bother to apply. Was
I that confident that I would get
into one of my three chosen
schools? Of course not! But I
realized the value that comes
with attending a top
school, especially for
an MBA program. If I
was not accepted, I
would have worked
harder and reapplied
the following year. I chose
Stanford for many reasons: Its
fostering of the entrepreneurial
spirit, its residential program, its
smaller size, and its focus on public
management, global leadership,
and leadership. I was one of the few
Indian students who did not have a
background in technology, even
though I was raised in the Silicon
Valley. I was also really excited to be
on a campus that had nearly onethird international students. Many
of these classmates went back to
their home countries after graduation and are accomplishing amazing feats. Other classmates traveled
to new countries to set up shop and
try their hand at a new venture. It is
PURVI
MODY
BUSINESS SCHOOL
TAUGHT ME HOW TO
SEARCH OUT THE
RIGHT RESOURCES
AND TO THINK ABOUT
BUSINESS PRACTICES
DIFFERENTLY
always so inspiring to hear from

classmates about their new
adventures and their great
business ideas that are literally
changing the way that many
people live their lives.
In my own business, running
an educational venture, the
Stanford MBA has served me
well. It has opened the door to
partnerships, contacts with
other experts in the field, and a
set of skills that will serve me
well throughout my life.
Business school taught me how
to search out the right
resources and to think about
business practices differently.
In a class of 60 peers, I learned
how people with diverse professional backgrounds from the
largest firms on Wall Street to
the smallest garage start-ups
would have approached a problem differently. In many situations, where there is no one
right response, being able to
develop unique solutions is
invaluable. Business school, for
me, was more than just learning about EBITDA and the four
Ps of marketing. Through classes like interpersonal dynamics
and negotiations, I learned
about the effect of perceptions
in business situations and how
understanding cultures can be
the difference between a successful negotiation and a lost
cause.
An MBA will always have
value in strong economies
and down ones. Business
schools teach people how to be
strong leaders in small organizations and in the global marketplace. And as countries and business
become increasingly integrated, it is
important that classes continue to be
made up of a diverse set of individuals that represent many countries,
backgrounds and interests. Now
more than ever, business schools
play a role in developing the leadership that will guide the world to a
more stable global economy.
Purvi Mody is president of Insight
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The
MBA
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THE DEGREE THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Mary Camello, MBA CMA 2008

Senior Auditor
TD Bank Financial Group
The part-time Toronto weekend MBA allowed me to
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completing the MBA I have changed jobs and I have
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Ronald Bell, MBA with Co-op 2009

CO-OP PLACEMENTS:
It Advisory, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Project Co-ordinator, Imperial Oil
The integrated teaching style and team-based approach
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senior management. My Laurier MBA has proven
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>
Mona Prasad, MBA 2006

Chief Operating Ofcer
Gourmantra Foods
I was introduced to the world of entrepreneurship at
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STUDENT-SPEAK
The way forward

A
s many business students today feel
uncertain and pessimistic about the
future of employment opportunities, Center
Stage 2009, the India Abroadsponsored symposium, provided encouragement to MBA students in Canada, particularly
those of Indian origin. The discussion between business students and renowned guest
speakers at this event was productive and inspiring. More
than just a discussion on the
current economic downtown,
the speakers took a very holistic
approach on current issues,
which gave all those who
attended some food
for thought.
The
discussions
revolved around how
the ongoing global
slowdown has created
new challenges for
students all over the world, and
forced them to make informed
decisions regarding their career
choices. In particular, speakers
focused on the scrutiny the
MBA degree has come under during these recessionary times.
Surprisingly, some still question the
true value of an MBA degree. It is
argued that an MBA is merely a
ticket to a higher salary rather than
a means for attaining advanced
business skills. In my opinion, the
MBA degree is still valuable. I
believe that MBA graduates possess
a well-rounded view of the big picture and have the ability to think
and plan on a long-term basis. As
businesses consolidate and evolve
due to the economic slowdown, so
will the expectations of MBA graduates. MBA graduates will be
expected to work towards assuming
more accountability for their
actions as well as developing sustainable
business structures. Opportunities will
exist for graduates with a strong understanding of management concepts like
leadership, business ethics and longterm sustainability.
The current financial meltdown has
ANAND
BHALLA
AS BUSINESSES
CONSOLIDATE AND
EVOLVE DUE TO THE
ECONOMIC
SLOWDOWN, SO
WILL THE
EXPECTATIONS OF
MBA GRADUATES
prompted many business schools to reevaluate their priorities and examine
their curriculum. I believe that the business essentials core courses taught
in business schools at present are not
going to alter even in these times.
However, these times present excellent
opportunities
to
further
strengthen
the
academic
prospectus. In order to better
understand the causes that led
to the crisis, MBA programs
should further reinforce their
ties with the corporate world so
that professors can consult and
work closely with companies to
develop case studies pertinent
to the global meltdown. Also, in
light of the current downturn, I
see courses like business ethics
and risk management becoming
more pivotal to the business
curriculum.
At the event, academics and
business speakers agreed that
the downturn is part of the business cycle and an upswing will
soon follow. Most of the speakers highly valued the power of
networking and advised students to network with a focus
and purpose in mind. Some
speakers noted that those MBA
graduates who are willing to
work outside of their comfort
zone, that is, work in a different
function or industry or geographic region, will open up
more doors for themselves. In
addition, most speakers saw the
future of small and medium enterprises in Canada to be very bright
and urged students to consider
entrepreneurship as an option.
The event brought into perspective
the endless opportunities available
to MBA students. Business students
with connections to emerging India
understand the cultural and business
issues associated with both Eastern
and Western worlds and therefore
are well poised to benefit from globalization.
Center Stage 2009 reconfirmed my
belief that although there may be a
slight shift in perspectives, the MBA
degree is still as relevant, if not more,
in todays economic climate. MBAs
will have to remain patient and optimistic as they were during previous
economic downturns.
Anand Bhalla is an MBA and CMA student at the Wilfrid Laurier University in
Waterloo, Ontario.
STUDENT-SPEAK
An experience to cherish
t was a great experience to be at

Center Stage, the India Abroadsponsored symposium in Toronto.
The key experiences I personally
got was the opportunity to network with other Indian MBAs and listen
to successful entrepreneurs from the
community.
One of the messages which came out
strongly was the emphasis on going
where the money is.
The phrase was explained as going
where the money is to be made, and not
necessarily going where the money has
already been made.
I personally interpreted the phrase as
going where the opportunity is.
As was mentioned by one of the speakers, the world is our oyster and the future
professionals will be global citizens.
Having adopted Canadian citizenship
after immigrating from India seven years
ago, this comment resonated with my
beliefs.
I felt the need to remain mobile in pursuit of success.
The other message which stands out in
my memory is the
view of Aditya Jha.
I was impressed
with his life-story
and his philanthropic
philosophies. I was impressed to see the amount
of work he is doing through the POA
foundation, which is funded by him. He
has truly demonstrated his commitment to his beliefs.
I heard similar overtones from our
Dean Ginny Dybenko, when she
emphasized on entrepreneurship
and inter-preneurship and the idea
of business schools to look beyond
business objectives and look at
social objectives.
Wilfrid Laurier University is
renowned for strong student focus
and a deep sense of community. Her
views resonated with the vision of
the university.
I feel that the social objectives
should be in the portfolio of every
manager since they indirectly
impact the business objectives in
the long run.
In fact, with the advances of technology and networking of society,
the influences now have a more
direct and a quicker impact on the
ASHWANI
NANDRAJOG
SOCIAL OBJECTIVES
SHOULD BE IN THE
PORTFOLIO OF EVERY
MANAGER SINCE THEY
INDIRECTLY IMPACT
THE BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES IN
THE LONG RUN... I FELT
AMBITIOUS AFTER
ATTENDING THE EVENT
business.
Overall, I felt ambitious
after attending the event
and enjoyed the experience.
I suggest that the network of
the South Asian community
which was initiated should
continue to come together
and host more events like
this.
We could continue to
remain in touch with the
participants and build a
forum where more students
could join and benefit from
the collective learning.
Ashwani Nandrajog is an
MBA student at the Wilfrid
Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario.
STUDENT-SPEAK
The lure has declined,

not the value
decided to take up an MBA

degree a year ago, to gain
insight into business management skills. After doing
my bachelors in engineering, I worked in the information
technology industry for over three
years. My work experience gave
me good IT technical and product
knowledge. It was a very exciting
and rewarding experience. At that
stage in my career, I wanted to
move to the management position
within the IT services industry
and in the next 10 years, I wanted
to see myself in an executive role
making key decisions for the company. I did not see myself developing the required skills and perspective for such a career progression without a
business education.
More than a year
into my MBA program, I have gained
presentation- and
decision-making skills. I could not
have gained these skills necessary
for my career progression otherwise.
The current economical crisis is a
difficult time for everyone. The job
market is dull and depressing and
finding employment is very challenging. Many of the companies have
frozen recruitments and those recruiting have reduced the number significantly. With increased employee layoffs, fresh MBA graduates have to
compete with many experienced professionals who have lost their jobs.
With the reduced job prospects and
difficulty in getting loans, the number
of admissions for MBA programs has
come down. So, the lure of MBA has
declined. But MBA still is a valued
qualification. There could be a shortterm decrease in MBA prospects but
when long-term career development is
considered, an MBA degree will still
add value. It empowers the individuals
with the skills and knowledge necessary
for the business world, especially for
those who are not from a business background.
Business schools can see the current
UMA
DOMA
A CLEAR
DISTINCTION
NEEDS TO BE MADE
BETWEEN LEGAL
AND
ETHICAL
DECISIONS. ALL
THAT IS LEGAL NEED
NOT BE ETHICAL
situation as an opportunity to better prepare future MBAs to face such economic
crises. The MBA curriculum can focus
more on the financial risk management
concepts in a global perspective. This
will help future financial professionals to understand the decisions leading to such economic
crises and avoid making such
decisions. Also, there is a need to
focus more on business ethics in
the curriculum. Students should
be able to understand and apply
ethics once they are in the real
world. A clear distinction needs to
be made between legal and ethical
decisions. All that is legal need
not be ethical. This will encourage
the students to reconsider the
ethical questions involved in
financial sales and understand the
fact that it is important to be
socially responsible while keeping
shareholders interest as the
focus.
MBA students graduating this
year cant wait for things to get
better. For many MBAs, internship might not lead to a full-time
job. Students will have to change
their approach. It is necessary to
broaden the horizon and reevaluate the job and industry preferences. Until now the finance sector, especially investment banking, has
been the top preference for MBAs. But
currently there are fewer opportunities in the financial sector. Therefore,
students will have to consider other
specializations like consulting, human
resources, IT analysts, etc. It is necessary to remember that the employers
are looking for more than just a qualification. Therefore, extra effort may
have to be made to distinguish oneself
from others.
Amidst this crisis I still have the
same enthusiasm in pursuing my
MBA. The refined approach and constant and determined efforts for the
job search will definitely help me sail
through the tough economic time. I
believe that the solid business fundamentals gained from the program coupled with my industrial experience will
help me achieve my long-term career
goals.
Uma Doma is an MBA student at the
John Molson School of Business,
Concordia University, Montreal.
STUDENT-SPEAK
Schulich School students, from left: Rishikesh Misra, Abhishek Bhasin, Bharath Narayana Reddy, Gaurang
Deshmane, Mugunathan Ganesan, Vikram Kumar, Sanju Jain and Manas Bhatia
The real MBA lessons
any have often questioned

the value of an MBA education and the contributions from its students to
the society. The high cost
of the education and the perceived high
returns for its students have been key
reasons for this criticism. Critics argue
that business administration with the
exception of a few quantitative and statistics courses can be learnt from practice and that such costs and return do
not justify an MBA program. As students
of the program at a prestigious school
like the Schulich School of Business, we
strongly believe that the MBA program
prepares students and equips them with
tools to face the challenges of the business environment. An MBA is a valuable
education with a lot of extrinsic value,
unlike engineering and medical degrees
that impart hard skills and possess
intrinsic value.
South Asian students at the Schulich
School of Business come from a variety
of backgrounds information technology professionals, electrical engineers,
sales and marketing professionals, and
have work experiences ranging from two
to 20 years. All these different individuals made a decision to leave their progressive careers to pursue an MBA program based on their strong belief in the
value additions that the program will
bring. The value from the program is in
terms of increase in compensation,
opportunity to change careers, and general personality development and growth
required for business management. The
big picture education of various aspects
of business administration broadens the
perception of students and enables them
MUGUNATHAN
GANESAN AND
ABHISHEK
BHASIN
to take informed decisions

making them better managers and future leaders.
While we do agree that
not all successful business
leaders are MBA graduates,
we also believe that most of
us do not have natural, gifted business acumen and we require a
formal business education. However, we
do want students to think of the MBA
program as another full-fledged education and look at the long-term benefits
from the program rather than immediate
financial returns. Such a change in perception will enable students to gain more
from the education and reduce disappointments from lack of enough highpaying employment opportunities.
The current global economic downturn, triggered by the subprime crisis in
the United States, is one that is the
gravest seen since the Great Depression
in the 1930s. Jobs are being lost at an
alarming rate and signs of recovery are
mere rumors with the bottom yet to be
seen. MBA students graduating this year
and even students in the first year of
their program are finding it difficult to
find jobs and internships that suit their
interests. Despite this, as students of the
MBA program who understand the
nature of the business cycle, we must
realize that this recession like its predecessors is an opportunity for newer skills
and jobs. It is important for students to
recognize this and look at various skills
to be developed in order to position
themselves well in the post-recession
economy. Some of the areas that we
believe are key to the current economy
and post this period are risk manage-
ment, corporate
social responsibility, sustainability,
and
Marketing
2.0, to name a
few.
If there is one
development that
will emerge even stronger coming out of
this recession, it is the phenomenon of
globalization. The future business world
requires global leaders who can plan and
run their businesses across the world,
understand and work with different cultures, and build global business powerhouses. An MBA program with a strong
international focus and having students
from various countries is undoubtedly
the best playground to practice and
develop global business management
skills. Furthermore, students from South
Asia pursing their MBA program in
North America and elsewhere have the
potential to be the most sought-after talent in the coming years. With increasing
opportunities
in
the
emerging
economies of our home countries, we are
looking at prospective careers in the
future and the current recession is only a
short blip in the radar. It is important to
recognize this, reset out targets and
plans, accept opportunities that are closer to our interests, and work towards the
larger goal of becoming a global business
leader in the future. If not for an MBA
program, we would not have been able to
recognize these opportunities and grab
them.
Mugunathan Ganesan and Abhishek
Bhasin are students at the Schulich
School of Business, York University.
Thoughts to ponder
I
ndia Abroad published a special
on business schools in Canada in
March 2006. A number of academics shared their views on the
value of an MBA, many of them
calling the business degree a path to success. Some of what they said is still relevant.
Professor Harjeet Bhabra, John Molson
School of Business, Concordia
University, Montreal.
The first question that pops into the
mind of every prospective student who is
considering an MBA is very often, What
is the value of an MBA to me? The
answer to this simple question is, however, not so simple. The answer varies and
depends on whos asking this question

the aspirant student or the employer.
I have been asked a very similar question many a times. I have always
responded by saying that the value of an
MBA to any aspiring student depends on
the value each one of us assigns to it.
Better opportunities for career advancement, enhanced reputation, flexibility and autonomy in career
choices, better financial rewards
and the ability to do challenging,
innovative and interesting work.
The answer could be any one or a
combination of these.
Despite recent criticisms, a business degree today offers as much,
if not more, value as it did a generation ago. The value that each
person derives from the MBA is
very individualistic.
Management, University of Toronto.

Is it worthwhile getting an MBA?
What do MBA programs have to do to
overcome
the
barriers and the
criticisms? What
does an MBA
teach and what
should it teach?
The
MBA
world is still
struggling
to
define itself along
these challenges.
In an effort to be
different, some
schools tried to
gain more depth
and expertise in certain functional areas
for example, finance, or marketing
but that has created as new set of concerns. Business education tends to get
too soiled and we are producing too
many experts that can do their particular
job well, but dont have a broad understanding of the whole business the very
reason why an MBA degree was born in
the first place.
Business schools must take a long and
hard look at their curriculum and ask
what the essence of their experience is.
Do they want to simply be providers of
textbook knowledge and the MBA passport? Or do they want to accomplish
something more meaningful for both
their students and for the business and
community at large? The more the number of schools that want to do the latter,
the brighter is the future of MBA education.
Professor Paul Bates, dean, DeGroote
School of Business, McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario.
Dilip Soman, professor of marketing, Rotman School of
In a business school theres a strong

need for students to have exposure both
to academic theory as well as industry
experience and the split could be 75 to 25
percent. Industry experience or case
studies mean live discussions of the case
with someone who has lived through it in
a very personal way.
My approach as a teacher is to give
MBA students analytical tools to really
ensure that theres deep dialogue about
the cultural issues, the ethical issues,
which they will face as they go into the
marketplace.
I favor experimental learning becoming a critical part of the learning methods.
Professor Vern Jones, dean, Haskayne
School of Business, University of Alberta,
Calgary.
An MBA is an excellent degree.

Theres no question about it.
We at the business school
create opportunities for students to experience what
they are doing. We deliver
some lectures but are more
committed to case-based
learning, problem solving,
experiential learning and
simulations. At Haskayne,
we have a highly interactive
learning environment where
business leaders themselves
increasingly interact with
students throughout their
program.
The Schulich
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Ind a Abroad

Is a business degree the right career path

This advertorial is prepared by Scotiabank.

I migrated to Canada in March 2008

For me, this job is like

In recognition of Canadas multicultural diversity -

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From the Editor

he idea for this special magazine was

gious Wharton School of

Vishal Singhal, left, Nikhil Venugopal and Apar Jain

3 India Abroad June 2009

MBAs, you have all the aces

4 India Abroad June 2009

with reason, is regarded as a

everything. So at the age of 32, I spent

Heres an example. Calgarys Forest

5 India Abroad June 2009

profit gainers, with a 15,791 percent

Innovation is the key

s the world struggles with a

6 India Abroad June 2009

nology management, business strategy,

MBA curriculum in the

n ongoing debate among

forefront management issues that are

prise that this economic meltdown has a

7 India Abroad June 2009

maybe with specialized knowledge to fill

8 India Abroad June 2009

larly important to maintain the quality of

Managers for the future

9 India Abroad June 2009

examination of the social and ecological impacts of business has been

Learning from the meltdown

hat did the great

both the multiple perspectives

10 India Abroad June 2009

What companies are looking for

irst up, some questions to ponder: What are South Asian

corporate social responsibility. In the

11 India Abroad June 2009

your value and cultural preferences,

2. Match your head and heart and you

12 India Abroad June 2009

Joseph Palumbo is executive director,

Focus on the future

he changes taking place in

13 India Abroad June 2009

then! Time management is in

14 India Abroad June 2009

Ajay Virmani is president, Cargojet

he current economic environment has put tremendous

15 India Abroad June 2009

employee. It is no longer someone elses

MBA: Looking back,