Excerpt of a talk by Dr.M.Islam Barbaruah at Tezpur University highlighting corporate expectations from MBAs

1. Director, Vet Helpline India Pvt Ltd. E-mail: barbaruah73@yahoo.co.in
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Campus to Corporate: Meeting Expectations
(Excerpts of the speech by Dr.M.Islam Barbaruah*)
It is an immense pleasure for me to share some of my thoughts pertaining to corporate
expectations from MBAs. For an institution of excellence like Tezpur University, it is
imperative to device a mechanism that can pull in resources for continuous monitoring of
the corporate and societal expectations. It should not be a one time activity. I think the
best way to do this is by assigning alumnus working at different level or industry to act as
stringers. We may consider a reward mechanism to motivate these stringers. Feedback
from stringers thus can be edited and fortified for internal circulation. The need is to
change continuously so as to inculcate appropriate skills and values to MBAs for meeting
the expectations.
To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often
-Sir Winston Churchill
Besides an analytical brain, being innovative or having the ability to think out of box is
the foremost quality the corporate world is looking for. In my career, I have given
immense importance to this particular quality and have been trying hard to polish my
observation skills. The opportunities for traveling and close interaction with diverse
group of people came handy to me. I have forced myself to start my professional career
as a research scholar conducting mostly experience surveys to understand the need and
the gap in the industry that I dreamt to serve in the future. Companies do prefer to hire
MBAs with relevant industry exposure. It is a fact that many MBA graduates hired
during recent years served as interns at the companies where they landed permanent jobs.
Cultural sensitivity, environmental awareness and rural exposure are some of the qualities
that are giving dividends to working executives and fresh MBAs as companies are
increasingly realizing the importance of global, rural markets and societal marketing.
Techno-savvy, polished personality with an edge on communication and soft skills has
always been crucial selling points for MBAs. Of late much importance is given to written
communication. Many of us do very little to improve our language skills. Companies
globally look for managers who are skilled in integrating information and report writing.
Instances indicating ethical conduct, adaptability, initiative and risk taking ability and / or
examples of making swift decision with imperfect information are few important
qualities that have been rated high in various surveys conducted globally to know the
expectation of the corporate world from MBAs.
The Indian job market showed promising growth in recent years. There is a growth of
numerous small companies with limited employees. It has been seen that these companies
are increasingly hiring MBAs from reputed B-schools. Individual potential impact on the
bottom line is magnified at smaller companies because of lesser number of employees

2. Director, Vet Helpline India Pvt Ltd. E-mail: barbaruah73@yahoo.co.in
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and this is probably the reason why smaller companies are increasingly opting for MBAs
with quality and appropriate skill set. Many big companies on the other hand too are now
focusing on productivity of individual employees and are opting for ways to bring in
efficiency and preserve tacit knowledge for competitive advantage. Under such situation,
it is a challenge for fresh MBAs to acquire the requisite skills and meet the changing
expectations of the corporate world.
Facing the challenge……
Now a day because of intense competition, being good in anything we do is not
sufficient. One must work hard for excellence (e.g. fineness, brilliance, distinction,
quality, superiority etc.) in every sphere. If you can recollect your last visit to any
museum, think of master ancient Indian art and craft works. Most of the people who
made these craft pieces believed “excellence for the sake of excellence”. No one forced
them to make those marvelous craft pieces. Think of the amount of time they have
devoted in making such excellent crafts! The commitment for excellence should come
from within us or other words excellence comes from an all consuming passion to do
one’s best. For excellence you need to be creative too. Creativity is nothing but thinking
of novel and appropriate ideas or doing something that has not been done before.
“See what all see, think what none think”.
During early years of my professional life, the concept of “data wisdom chain”
influenced me a lot. Students need to understand and apply this concept in their lives to
be successful in the corporate world. The concept can be explained in the following lines
of Eliot.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in Information?
T.S Eliot, “The Rock” Faber & Faber 1934
Thank you very much.