Industry Leaders and Top B-School Faculty Gather at XIME Conference

The National Conference on Indian Management Education at the Xavier Institute of Management and
Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore was inaugurated by Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman IIM,
Bangalore and Founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya. The Conference will discuss the imminent changes
necessary in Indian Management Education in the near future.
A line-up of dignitaries including Directors and Deans of top B-Schools in the country were present on
the occasion. The Inaugural Address was delivered by Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty while the Keynote Address
was delivered by Prof. John Camillus, The Donald R. Beall Professor of Strategic Management at Katz
Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh.

In his Inaugural Address Dr. Devi Shetty pointed out the way in which digitization is revolutionizing the
healthcare sector, with changes ranging from the fundamentals such as how one understands
‘diagnosis’ to the way resources in hospitals including time and expertise of doctors is being optimized.
He highlighted that such disruptive changes are happening in all sectors and have wider implications for
management profession across all sectors.
The theme of imminent disruption continued in the Keynote Address by Prof. John Camillus. Prof.
Camillus highlighted that disruption is the key characteristic of the present environment and one needs
a strategy to manage the transformation. Drawing from his latest book, Wicked Strategies, Prof.
Camillus outlined the increasing prevalence of wicked problems, that is, problems that are complex and
entangled and where Corporates have no precedence to fall back on. Management Education needs to
take note of these issues and prepare its students to handle complexity and uncertainty. Ability for
visioning transformational scenarios and robust actions that work in multiple scenarios will be an
important skill set in the years to come.
Prof. J. Philip, Chairman of XIME and the Conference Co-chair, delivered the welcome address during
which he spoke of how the Indian MBA, typified by the IIMs, embodies the good and bad features of
Indian learning – high in merit, conceptual skills, retentive knowledge, but still lagging in innovativeness
and performance. According to Prof. Phillip, the conference aims at a “comprehensive review of
management education in the country”. This conference will also be addressing the ways to go about
this transformation and take on the challenge of creating a better MBA which produces graduates of
great professional and personal caliber.
Mr. Muthuraman, Former Vice Chairman, Tata Steel Ltd. and the Conference Co-chair gave the industry
perspective on the gap that exists between industry requirements and the present MBA curriculum. He
attributed this gap to four reasons: a lack of contemporary knowledge, skills that cannot be taught,
disruptive changes like digitalization and finally a misplaced admiration and imitation of the unmitigated
capitalistic model of the US which is solely profit-oriented and ignores the social and inclusive aspect.
CII, Karnataka, is one of the co-sponsors of the event. Dr. N. Muthukumar, Chairman, CII Karnataka
briefly touched upon CII’s focus on inclusive growth and development and of how joining the discussion
on creating employable management graduates is an important part of this process.

The Conference Industry partners for the conference are BEML, BPCL, HDFC, TCS and Volvo. The Hindu
group, Careers360 and Pagalguy.com are the media partners. The institutional partners include CII
(Karnataka), ACBSP, Association of BRICS Business Schools, Karnataka Association for Autonomous
Business Schools (KAABS), XIME Alumni Association, and Xavier Association of Management Institute.
The inaugural ceremony came to a close when the vote of thanks was proposed by Prof. Anantharaman,
Provost, XIME.