When I thought about what should be the “one learning” from my nearly two decades of work experience in industry as well as academics, which I can share with future managers, I was reminded of my marketing professor, who once said “Kotler is Bible of Marketing”. In my first semester, that statement had a profound impact on my barren mind – barren because being a science graduate, I was as clueless about marketing as a rabbit is about the road in the beaming headlight of a fast approaching car. But fortunately the reading of the Kotler book had such an impact on me that I found out that marketing is no fun, partially because of my love with numbers and the lack of numbers in marketing subject. To my utter dismay, marketing in real world was only about numbers. So I thought why not share my experiences with the business management books and how I had to learn, unlearn and relearn to survive in corporate world.

It is not that I am blaming Kotler book or my marketing professor’s love with the book for my entry into the world of finance, but what I have found over the years is that in Indian business education there is an over-emphasis on the usage of books, primarily text books. What has happened is that the business education in India has been primarily influenced by the Indian education systems – both secondary as well as higher and laid a culture of book reading to score good grades in various courses. Let me stand corrected, I am not advocating that there is no need of books for business education, but what I have realized that books cannot be the focal point for business education. 

To prove my point of view, I will focus on certain basic requirements of and/or from management students and explain how books fail to deliver on those fronts:

Writing Skills: There are numerous books on business writing, yet none of these focus on how to write professional emails or reports; unfortunately there is no book to explain how to write a sales proposal or a monthly department report. In corporate world, good writing skills are considered equally important as oral communication, believe you me, I have found that writing are far important that oral because oral may be forgotten after some time, but writing is always available in records. 

As a finance professional, I was once asked to prepare an appraisal report and present the same to the approval committee (dreaded PowerPoint presentation). After devoting more than a week, what I was able to produce was a 30-page document and 50-slide presentation deck. When I went to my manager for review, he simply looked at the thickness of the documents and politely said (in the managerial tone) that anything more than 5-page appraisal report and 10-slide presentation would be a waste to time. What I found disturbing that when I prepared a project report of 10 pages in my MBA days, my faculty said how you will survive in corporate world if you can’t prepare detailed self-explanatory report and was given a “repeat” remark on the report. 

Cross-relationship among various disciplines: I opted for finance specialization. During my stint with a consulting firm, I was working on an engagement to prepare a business plan. I was very enthusiastic about the same as I would be working and playing with numbers. But for the first fortnight we were just working to understand the market dynamics…just wait, which finance book covers market dynamics and its impact on financial projections. If a student opts for finance and marketing dual specialization, he/she ends up studying subjects like Marketing of Services, Advertising & Sales Promotion, Financial Engineering, Security and Portfolio Management and so on. Which one of these subjects focuses on cross-relationship between marketing and finance? To add one needs to have operational and human resources knowledge also to be successful.

Another school of thought would say Strategic Management subject covers these cross-relationships, but what most strategic management books focus on is an extension of marketing and economics and fails to properly address financial and operational domains.

Start a Business: There has been a change in the way management students look at future in the current economic environment. When I ask my students “What are you future goals?”; majority would always answer “to start my own business.” However, the MBA books are focused on how to manage an existing multi-million dollar company. For an entrepreneur, it’s more important than ever to separate their product from the rest of the pack, to create a niche. Such an approach is not properly documented or focused on in the management books. Their differentiation is focused on how to manage existing business and innovate for the same.

It is very commonly said about management students that they should have entrepreneurial skills and focus on creating jobs rather than doing one. To manage such a trend, it is very necessary that the management books which are written 15-20 years ago also change the direction and provide what is really required in the corporate world to survive – for example, a marketing manager’s tool kit is not only complete by having knowledge about various Ps, but key ingredient of success is to know how to use these Ps for developing marketing strategies by understanding relative and critical importance of various Ps.

Mr. Ashish Kumar is the Deputy Director, Amity Business School, Jaipur, Amity University Rajasthan