Manoj Kohli, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Gurugram-based Masters’ Union, a modern technology and business school, has had an enviable and impactful career of more than four decades. Former CEO and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel, he also led SoftBank Energy and SoftBank in India. Edited excerpts:
What are your priorities as chairman of the Masters’ Union board?
At the board, we support Masters’ Union founder Pratham Mittal in five major areas. One, to help him build a strategy for the long term based on a clear vision and mission to be among the top 10 business schools globally by 2030. Two, help create a unique differentiation by focusing on entrepreneurship; we would like all our students to become entrepreneurs. It blends with the vision of the PM to create entrepreneurs and employers and not just employees. Three, review and discuss new programmes like that of family business management, technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. After review, some of these we hold and, others, we expedite. Four, we believe that content and faculty knowledge need to be constantly refreshed. After the MBA, when a student enters the corporate or industrial world, he or she should be acclimated to the real world. Finally, we believe that technology will be core to the personal or business life of a manager and that we should help each student blend business aspects with technology: for better, faster, more efficient, and profitable business outcomes.
What are the three major challenges the school faced in the five years since it started?
The first challenge was how to spread the word about Masters’ Union. Early on, we decided that we will not advertise because we wanted to establish the foundations of the school first. Today, Masters’ Union is known to potential students and parents, though not fully. The second big challenge has been the journey of regulatory recognition and accreditation. Without a certain number of years of experience, the school cannot get recognised. The process of recognition both in India and internationally has commenced. The third challenge has been to refresh and update our content including case studies when compared to the top 10 or 20 business schools across the world. All the case studies that we teach are current.
Obviously, you are aware of the many limitations a government recognition will come with. Are you comfortable with that?
The parents of the students are keen to have recognitions both from within the country and internationally. We have said that we will get it. We will comply 100% with whatever rules and guidelines that are given to us. We will never do anything else. At the same time, I don’t think our internal method of education, or our mission will change because of that. But it will definitely bring a certain degree of reassurance to the parents. They are very important stakeholder for us.
What is the profile of the students and their parents?
Most of them are from a middle-class background. But luckily, they have a diverse profile: businesspeople, professionals, entrepreneurs, and traders. They are spread geographically too from the National Capital Region, the South and West of India and even from the Middle East.
The case study method in management education was pioneered by Harvard Business School way back in 1921. Do you not think it is outdated now?
At Masters’ Union we employ many models of teaching, and this is one of them. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this model except when very old cases are taught. That is one of the problems I have seen in some schools. Today, when a corporate case study is taught, the students are able to relate very well because they can get information very quickly from the company showrooms, from friends of theirs in those companies, research material and newspapers. They are thus able to analyse that firm much better and give good ideas and solutions to the CEO or the founder.
Masters’ Union has raised Rs 250 crore to invest in the school. Where has the money been deployed?
One major shift in our business model is in our approach to investment in real estate. We have seen in India and abroad that a major portion of money is being invested into building large campuses. We felt that building and maintaining campuses is not our core competence. On the other hand, if we lease high-quality space that is equivalent to let us say 5% of our revenue and focus our investment only on what we teach, in terms of content, upgrading skills of our faculty and our teaching methodology, that is a much better investment compared to investing in real estate. So, that is a big shift from the traditional model.
We follow a new model that is basically a commercial one aimed at generating profits. The objective is that we should be able to stand on our own feet, without any incentives or subsidies. We are trying to prove this new model in the world.
