India bug bites top-notch foreign universities

For India right now, it’s not just raining, It’s pouring.  The serves are bulging, BPO’s booming, and Indian companies are globalising.  Now, comes the icing on the cake. 

If you thought only FIIs and transnationals were moving resources to India, thing again.   Top-notch western universities are ginning to allocate their most precious asset - intellectual capital – to India.  For years, they have attracted some of the country ‘s best minds as students and professors; now they are contemplating bringing their campuses and research centres of India.

ET recently reported that the London School of Economics (LSE) has been exploring the possibility of tying up with an Indian academic institution to offer course here.  And while a number of other universities contemplate this move, it’s the research centres that perhaps represent the high end of the value chain at universities.  Because, that is where the cutting edge research happens.

And it’s all happening here.  After a decade – long involvement with Corporate India, Michigan Business School, one of the world’s foremost in management thought, it setting up a research centre in the country.

This will be the first time an international B-school has taken such a step in India.  “ We are probably ahead of others.  We are saying that his is a core issue of our business school in Michigan,” Says Prof CK Prahalad, the Harvey C Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan and one of the world’s leading management gurus.  It’s big vote for India, because it implies that the B-school believes the country’s important enough from a global business perspective to merit management research.  Till now, it was perhaps China (and before that, Japan) that was the object of such academic interest.

The India opportunity has become a matter of concern for the global community.  The compulsions of global industry go beyond just hype.

“It’s not a fad,” says Prof Prahalad.  It? “The global restructuring of industries based on a new form of globalisation and the capacity for remote delivery and supply chain dynamics.  “So, whether it’s software development, low – value call centre work or high – end research, the significant factor is the availability of large, quality, easily trained workforce:  The India global connection is flexible but secure.  And at this intersection, emerge a number of challenges and opportunities, which Michigan’s India research centre will address:  The centre will speak to both sides of the divide.  No longer is it, India companies versus global companies.  Today, India companies are global companies and the issues of leveraging global resources as a transnational are equally relevant.

“Now, as India is being recognised, it is going to be important for professionals to know the opportunities and challenges in India,  “ Says Prof Ms Krishnan, the Mary and Mike Hallman e-business Fellow, Michigan Business School.

It’s taken 10 gan to take this step.  “The problem is not money, “ says Prof Prahalad.  “We worry about how to allocate the most scarce talent.  Is this the right way to allocate our research capabilities?

The challenge, first, was to convince leading academics that India is where the action is.  “You attract the best talent when they know they’re doing cutting – edge research,” says Prof Prahalad.  Two years ago, there were questions about whether India met this demand.  “ Today China is not off our radar screen, but India is on our radar, “ says Prahalad.  Over the next years or so, Michigan will locate 20 of its top academics and Ph D students in its India centre, whose location is still being finalized, for varying periods of time.

 “You cannot have graduates who do not understand the implications of a successful India and China in the global economy,” Says Prof Prahalad.  Already, a large part of the Michigan MBA class makes a trip to India.  Now, “we are trying to make this a formal requirement, “ says Prof. Krishnan.