Improvisation Required in Use of Technology in Management Education - a Third Eye View

Article No.7

IMPROVISATION REQUIRED IN USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION - A THIRD EYE VIEW

Gopalan Ramachandran Sr.Vice President & Project Director, Polaris Consulting Services Ltd, Hyderabad

Abstract: The main objective of this Research paper is to provide an overview of the existing level of technology penetration in providing the management education by Management schools in India and to take a deep dive in the immense scope and potential available in the Technology space including identifying a host of open source tools & accelerators that can supplement in making the class room sessions more interesting, realistic and tech-savvy. Capitalizing untapped analytical & software development skills vested with our Engineering & Non- engineering graduates getting into Management streams will go a long way in developing software tools for Operations Research (Simulation, Queuing system), Finance (Portfolio Performance, What-if analysis) Strategic management (Evolve Strategy, Cap Investment) to name a few. The students may be encouraged to contribute for developing newer Software tools and accelerators as part of their Course work / Project Assignment in any of the management topics duly guided by an IT team that will fold under the Institutes‘ IT Department. Given the ever growing expectation of the overall Industry in general and IT Industry in particular from our Management Graduates to have strong analytical and problem solving skills, involving our students in sharpening their programming & Software Development Skills, IT Project Management skills in this approach will equip them to meet the job- demands when they move into Corporate sector.

In this fast-growing IT world where Capital Investments in Hardware, Licensed Software are becoming a thing of past and replaced by SaaS (Software as a Service), Pay and Use Model Licensed tools, Cloud Computing, Environment Virtualization et al, Management Institutes will be in a comfortable position in developing their in- house Software & Tools for meeting the management course pedagogy, Data Analytics, MIS Reports etc. With this change-in-mindset of our academicians & Management Boards, our management institutes will be able to proliferate into IT space and exploit the potential available both internally within the students‘ community and externally from whole lot of open source tools & technologies through Internet.

Ignited by the above thought process & out of the box approach, a sincere attempt is made in collating the responses from the IT professionals with management back-ground, recent pass-outs from management Institutes, through formal discussions and questionnaire and a research analysis is done to share the research findings on: a) how to make the existing management education system more technology centric, b) how to make the learning of management concepts simpler and getting aligned to real-time, problem solving situations of the Corporate world.

Keywords: SaaS, Cloud Computing, Environment Virtualization

1. Introduction

Current System of Management Education in India

Management education has seen a shift from class room based monologue teaching to tools aided mode of teaching in the last 10-15 years more specifically after the advent use of Microsoft Office (MSO) tools, that has opened up a vistas in our management education in using power point, MS word, MS Excel to name a few. While MSO supported tools still support richly our class rooms in the management education, not much dent has been created in utilizing the vast Information Technology enabled tools available in the market nor our have management institutes spearheaded any tangible initiatives towards building the same internally for their own use or consumption. Given this backdrop, the author having vast experience in the IT arena for last 2 decades, attempts to bring out the scope and potential available both internally and externally that would open up new vistas for management institutes to improvise our management education and make it more lively, pragmatic and bringing the board room to the class room situations, thereby contributing towards creating a host of IT enabled tools & accelerators that will aide our management teachers in the coming years by reaping the benefits of vast potential of IT available around.

Current system of management education as prevalent in most of the management schools including top notch institutes can be depicted as below:

Evaluation of existing system by the respondents : 2.25 / 5 (1 being lowest and 5 being highest) Drawing a parallelism with integration of IT in Banks 2 decades back

Commercial Banks in India were challenged with the same situation in the early 90s, when IT was creeping into the Banking sector at which time Banks had neither expertise in developing IT nor were the Bank staff receptive for introducing IT in their day to day operations. However, foreseeing their future at stake devoid of IT in their operations, Banks had ventured into IT, started setting up their own IT Departments, invested in infrastructure, resources considering their scale of operations and now are reaping the benefits of the same. Today‘s Management institutes are exactly where Banks were languishing 2 decades back, saddled with host of manual set of activities and reeling under constraints from financial investments and an urge to invest in IT not realizing the need of IT and the resultant benefits likely to accrue in the coming years. With small investment of 5-10 member from its own staff pool, involved in general banking operations, Banks ventured into IT Development, IT Systems maintenance, Back office operations automation etc and slowly started expanding to automation of its Head office, Zonal office functions through in-house developed desk top based applications and then expanded to Client-server technologies, then main-frame based applications for high volume data & transactions and then took up in-house developed Software applications or Market products like Finacle, Flexcube, B@ncs etc for their branch banking operations.

Management Institutes may catch up with current impetus on Digital Transformation Strategy advocated by our Government of India as more often disruptions are coming through Digital routes and management institutes need to bend towards creating that disruption in the current situation. We should not forget that major disruptions that had happened in the past are: Steam power, Electricity and Information Technology and we are living in the current IT era hence every opportunity is available in front of us to catch up with this wind of change.

2. Scope For It Integration & Expansion In Management Institutes

The author suggests with fast growing IT Industry especially in the Services & Product segment, academicians need to look for various 3rd party products readily available in the market and plan to introduce them in their teaching methods including research tools like – Euromonitor, Datamonitor. For Data Analytics – Nextgen tool like R apart from xls and should be leveraged for imparting education. Using R tool, a widely used statistics programming language, students will be able to do live simulations to make inferences from complex data sets in addition to better understanding of whole gamut of statistical concepts, data analysis, data interpretations etc. This not only helps in learning but also adding to their experience as organizations demand skill sets in such products/tools for working in real time Project implementations.

Decision on Buy Vs Build Often management institutes may end up in a dilemma of whether to buy the tool or to build the tool that is required to supplement our teaching methods. While no straight forward binary response will fill the gap, based on the availability of lead time, resources, infrastructure and financial budget, a conscious decision may be taken on case to case basis. For some of the generic and widely used tools, it is apt to procure the tool as an off-the-shelf product, use it directly for our class room sessions and allow the students to have hands-on practice as the tool is available for use on 24*7 model. For Build option, institutes need to necessarily evolve a

planned approach towards assimilating all the resources including budget approvals and then assign to a core IT team to work on the same with a planned delivery time line.

3.What Our Management Institutes Need To Achieve

Institutes need to plan for developing the necessary software for enhancing the teaching methods in the class rooms by use of digital technologies. For example:

 Trade lifecycle cannot be taught theoretically. It has to be experienced via a live trading portal/product  SAP covers 360 degree view of a business hence management schools will be able to use this to impart education in all areas of business  Guest lectures can be easily conducted through the web  Gamification of courses  Set up data pools for Indian/Asian Businesses  Use of device based real time collaboration tools  Leverage social feeds to generate ideas and understand current business markets

4. How The Need To Be Achieved

While IT Industry being a pioneer in the Services sector catering mainly to international clients around 83% revenue in IT Sector is from IT exports while paltry 17% revenue comes from Indian market. Management Institutes need to set up a dedicated IT Solution Centre (IT-SC) within the purview of their existing IT Department, that will own up for developing software and tools in addition to evaluating 3rd party products in the market and recommend to appropriate committee for procuring the tool that meets their internal requirements.

PROPOSED IT-SC ORGANISATION STRUCTURE

5. Key Challenges & Their Mitigation Plans

What Are The Key Challenges? Management Institutes are engulfed with umpteen challenges in integrating Information Technology for imparting higher quality content in their class rooms. Lack of knowledge and availability of necessary IT tools, required IT infrastructure supporting development of required tools or testing of 3rd party tools to evaluate its fitment to their academic requirements are the main challenges facing our academicians in today‘s scenario. Not having any dedicated IT set up or IT environment within the Institute for easy access by the academicians either for development or for testing the software is a major challenge facing the academicians in the management institute.

How To Mitigate The Challenges? While the challenges stated above have been continuing for years, time is ripe for institutes to start addressing the challenges in all earnestness by forming a Core IT committee in each institute that will primarily own up for: a) Setting up a dedicated IT environment within the ambit of their IT department, called IT Solution Centre, primarily to support in understanding the functional requirements from the teaching community, evaluating the option IT for Build or Buy, suggesting for development of appropriate tools in-house or to procure from market. Look at Start-ups for developing newer solutions using new technologies that are cost effective and tailor- made to their current & future needs. b) Continuously interact with internal stake holders (faculty, IT team, infrastructure support team), external stake holders (other management institutes, 3rd party vendors) and suggest for bringing out more and more IT tools that will improvise the quality of teaching within the institute

c) Evolve plans to involve students having strong domain / technical skills in developing the required software wherever feasible d) Encourage students to explore options for using open source tools, Operating Systems, Data Storage available in the market, do research on its limitations, brain-storm on the limitations and if found viable, then encourage to use them extensively in the internal development e) On continuous basis, improvise the tool utilities, plan for its enhancement or enrichment in terms of technology, business functionality etc f) Explore options for using cloud based infrastructure (environment virtualization) for development, data storage etc in order to minimize the capital investment towards hardware set up, IDE set up etc g) Since most of the Operating Platforms, high priced licensed software are available on Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) model, it is advisable to minimize the cost investment in these software platforms and packages, rather use them on need basis with less impact on the financial budget h) Create IP on the tools internally developed and showcase the same in the common forums and make it available / usable by other management institutes on cost plus basis there by reaping back the initial investments made i) Evolve monthly / quarterly tool development plans and obtain necessary budget approvals and ensure meeting the goals j) Conduct review of its internal functions, evaluate how far the stake holder expectations are met and plan to keep expanding the scope of IT – Solution Centre‘s role, responsibility, research & adding value.

6. Approach & Methodology

As applicable in any SDLC Projects, IT-Solution Centre will identify any teaching aide or tool, management concepts related demonstrable tool, simulation of real time situations, case studies, role play etc. Do further research on its feasibility for development internally or procure readily available market product and then arrive at build or buy decision. Then prepare appropriate feasibility & commercial budget, evolve Development plan or Procurement plan, implement the plan, test the final product with the support from end-users and then implement the tool for bringing value to the students. IT-SC will create prototypes wherever possible, get the buy-in from the end-users of the tool for the prototypes developed, and then proceed to develop the tool or procure the tool if the cost advantage prevails over. IT-SC will collect the requirements and prepare Functional Specifications Document (FSD), get buy-in or sign-off from end-users on the FSD, prepare Design Specifications Document (high level & low level design specifications), prepare the technical architecture diagram including identification of appropriate technologies, then start developing the tool with the support from students & IT-SC team developers, test the tool and then implement the tool.

Towards providing more insight into the specific issue of integrating Information Technology in our management education, the researcher has brought out a snippet of a few management concepts wherein use of technology will bring more liveliness in the class rooms and students will be able to experience the simulated environment of real time situations in the class room.

Computer simulation  Blender; 3D modeling software written in C, C++ and Python containing cloth, hair, fluid and rigid body simulation techniques  SimPy; queue-theoretic event-based simulator written in Python  Flightgear is an open-source flight simulator written for Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux

Finance  Adempiere — Enterprise resource planning(ERP) business suite  Bitcoin — Peer-to-peer decentralised digital currency.  Bonita Open Solution — Business Process Management  Compiere — ERP solution automates accounting, supply chain, inventory, and sales orders  Cyclos — Software for microfinance institutions, complementary currency systems and timebanks  Dolibarr — Web-based ERP system.  Frontaccounting — Web-based Double-entry book-keeping and ERP system  GnuCash — Double-entry book-keeping  Ino erp — Dynamic Pull Based System ERP  JFire — An ERP Business Suite written with Java and JDO  KMyMoney — Double-entry book-keeping  LedgerSMB — Double-entry book-keeping  OrangeHRM — Commercial Human Resource Management  Postbooks — Integrated Accounting and ERP Business Suite  QuickFIX — FIX protocol engine written in C++ with additional C#, Ruby, and Python wrappers  QuickFIX/J — FIX protocol engine written in Java  SQL Ledger — Double-entry book-keeping  SugarCRM — Commercial Customer Relationship Management  TurboCASH — Double-entry book-keeping for Windows  Vtiger CRM — Customer Relationship Management(CRM) software with Sales force automation, marketing management,Customer Service/Support,Inventory Management  WebERP — Web-based ERP system Risk Management  Active Agenda — Operational risk management and Rapid application development platform

Statistical software  Data analysis software  Data mining and machine learning software  Econometrics software  Free statistical software  Plotting software  Regression and curve fitting software  Statistical programming languages  Statistical survey software

 Time series software

Educational suites  ATutor — a web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS)  Chamilo — a web-based e-learning and content management system  Claroline — a collaborative Learning Management System  eFront — an icon-based learning management system  FlightPath — academic advising software for universities  Gnaural — Brainwave entrainment software  ILIAS — a web-based learning management system (LMS)  Moodle — a free and open-source learning management system  OLAT — a web-based Learning Content Management System  openSIS — a web-based Student Information and School Management system  Sakai Project — a web-based learning management system  SWAD – a web-based learning management system

File Systems  OpenAFS — a distributed file system supporting a very wide variety of operating systems  Tahoe-LAFS — a distributed file system/cloud storage system with integrated privacy and security features  CephFS — a distributed file system included in the Ceph storage platform.

"Free Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)"

A few open source IDEs available out of 77 categories available in a google search:

Android Studio Basic For Qt Cameleon (software) Dev-C++ EasyEclipse

Anjuta Bluefish Climacs Dev-Pascal Eclipse

(software) (software)

Apache Flex BlueJ Cloud9 IDE DJGCC EDI (software)

Aptana Code::Blocks DJGPP EiffelStudio

CodeLite DogmaModele Emacs

Codenvy Eric Python IDE

CWEB

SharpDevelop Thonny WaveMaker YAKINDU

Statechart Tools

SLIME TIGCC Ultimate++ WideStudio ZeroBrane Studio

SmallBASIC ZGameEditor Spyder

(software) Stani's Python

Editor

7. When The Need To Be Achieved

Management institutes need to evolve their IT Strategy considering their current level of IT usage, evaluate potential available to integrate IT in their day-to-day operations and then plan to develop short, medium and long term strategies, create necessary IT budget and then implement the strategies through their IT department and IT Solution Centre. Essentially, management institutes need to evolve their Short term IT strategies around – developing teaching aides / tools, developing small applications around any management concepts or procuring off-the-shelf products that are implementable within 9-12 months, medium term strategies considering the implementation cycle of 12-24 months and long term strategies having an implementation plan of 24-36 months. With this approach, it is easier to segregate their IT requirements into one among the three IT strategies and then start evolving Goals, Objectives, Plans around these strategies and then track them against each parameter,

8. Evolve Appropriate I T Strategies

Management schools without losing further time, spruce up towards setting up a dedicated IT- Solution Centre under the fold of existing IT Department, and support in evolving short/medium/long term strategies for the IT-Solution Centre, with a clear focus on integrating Information technology in the management education system. This IT strategy will then be converted into business goals by the IT Solution Centre, with clearly defined measurable goals, time lines and responsibilities for achieving the same. The IT-Solution Centre may undertake a detailed study of analyzing the current level of IT penetration in imparting education within the class room, scope for further proliferation of IT in the class rooms, conduct a SWOT study and then plan to evolve its IT strategies.

A sample set of short/medium/long term goals may be on the below given lines. Short term goals o Dedicated IT team to manage the infra, tools, etc o Install enterprise software such as SAP and hire a small team of 2 or 3 SAP consultants to help students learn various facets of SAP implementation in an Industry. o Use of device based collaboration tools of lower complexities o Availability of licensed data sources like Hoovers database etc o To develop or procure market tools for virtualising Simulation models in the class room o The power of data analytics through use of data analytics tools o Guest lectures and daily lectures through the web o Procure licenses for research tools o Incentivize students from multi-disciplinary backgrounds to participate in competitions Medium term goals . Use of device based collaboration tools of higher complexities . Digital mindset in teachers

. Gamification of courses to make the learning more interactive and thus effective. . Incentivise teachers and students to interact, research and create material which can enrich the learning experience (e.g. white papers, case studies) Long term goals  Networking and access to local businesses and convincing them to share their data, problems and case studies which can be built into repository  Use of licensed and open source tools for statistics and data modeling  Moving class notes, data sources, exam, results and case studies to web and make them available over devices with a single sign-on  Frequent and intense collaboration using IT tools with foreign universities' students & faculty to get a wider perspective  Use of research and analytical tools for generation of high quality research material

9. Findings And Recommendations

 All the respondents in general agree that the level of integration or use of Information Technology in today‘s management schools in India is less than the average level and strongly express the view that the potential available to introduce IT in providing higher quality management education is very huge and time is appropriate that the management schools give a serious through to introduce a dedicated IT Development Unit within each Institute and explore options of developing many innovative teaching aides / tools, webcast of guest lectures, collaboration with other management schools & Universities in experiencing the teaching methods as followed in other B-Schools, Use of Data Analytics tools, Simulators for providing better insight into certain management concepts like – Trade life cycle, Portfolio performance analysis, mergers & acquisitions, OR techniques etc.  A dedicated experienced IT team and a full-fledged IT infrastructure is needed which can guide students to create such applications/simulators. Students need to get practical learning as much as possible. Use of licensed and open source tools for statistics and data modeling  Get licensed tools, qualified professionals and setup a development team to make students co-create the tools/simulators for practical learning  Instead of considering IT as enabler, management schools need to consider it as core of management education. Everything else such as theoretical learning will come second.  All management teachers should get IT training from industry experts in the relevant fields  Hire a qualified IT team to drive the agenda towards setting up a dedicated IT – Solution Centre with well defined KRAs, Operational freedom with right level checks & balances in-place  Indian schools depend heavily on American Case studies (Harvard, Stanford etc) we need to develop a repository of cases which relate to indian context of doing business which is very different from American. Networking and access to local businesses and convincing them to share their data, problems and case studies which can be built into repository

 In the absence of appropriate IT tools availability, specific data relating to Indian business context, business leaders‘ strategy & thought processes, their approach towards evolving relevant business strategy for their operations, mechanism to align to regulation, entry barriers are all missing. If IT integration happens properly in our management schools, and if their business data is broadcast, it adds value to students. What strategy a Walmart uses might be very different from a Reliance Fresh strategy same as southwest airlines vs spicejet etc  Use of device based real time collaboration tools  Leverage social feeds to generate ideas and understand current business markets  Moving class notes, data sources, exam, results and case studies to web and make them available over devices with a single sign-on  Focus on extensive use of research tools like EuroMonitor, DataMonitor, R-tool in the real time situations in the class rooms  Incentivize teachers and students to interact, research and create material which can enrich the learning experience (e.g. white papers, case studies)  Gamify the management courses to make the learning more interactive and thus effective.

10. Conclusion

The researcher strongly recommends that every management institute in India takes the conducive climate available in India wherein major impetus is given for Digital transformation and start setting up a state of the art technology Solution Centre within their campus, identify a team of highly skilled IT professionals to manage the Solution Centre, plan to hire a handful of technical architects having strong flair for extensive use of open source tools & technologies, involve students having right attitude and aptitude for developing software applications as part of their academic Project assignments and provide right level of operational freedom for the Solution Centre to meet their business objectives and planned goals. The current trend in IT that has opened up a wider vistas of use of open source technologies, use of licensed software and operating platforms on retail basis (pay as per use model), the management institutes are provided with abundant opportunities in terms of availability of IT infrastructure, highly skilled technical professionals, hardware & software resources with very less capital investment. Riding on these positive trends, management institutes should catch up with the Information Technology boom and strive to integrate IT with our conventional model of imparting management education in our business schools and bring out a face-lift to improvise the quality of our management education before end of this decade, so as to compete with other top notch Business Schools of the West.

While the noble lot of academicians associated with our management schools & the ever innovative, intellectually strong management students together form 2 eyes of the management institutes, a third eye view from the perspective of management graduates completed their management studies from various B-Schools and moved into Information Technology powered Indian Corporate entities in the last 5-7 years with special focus on how they view the current management education system, compare it with the vast potential available in the Information Technology space for introducing IT tools & accelerators in the management education at a relatively low capital investment and suggested ways and means to integrate the digital world

with the management education world, thereby to improvise the quality of our management education and start producing still better B-school graduates from our business schools, there by meeting the Corporate world expectations from our management graduates.

11. Literature Review

The issue of integration of Information technology in the management education in India can be associated with the management education practices followed in Indian educational system and for want of collaboration between our management institutes and managements schools in the West. Prof. Goutam G Saha, Associate Professor & Dean-Academics, MGM‘s Institute of Management, Aurangabad, in his Research article ‗Management education in India – Issues & Concerns‘ quotes ―Now a days learning has become more students centric. Branding has made in-roads into management education. Top B-Schools are continuously changing the contents & delivery modes. It is equally imperative to Indian B-Schools to make management education context specific. On this back ground, Prof.Saha comments that curriculum pedagogy and innovation is negligible in management schools in India‖. With the opening up of trade & commerce across borders there is an imminent need to improvise the quality of our management education and management training for our business schools and for which, higher level of integration of Information Technology is a pre-requisite. In addition to 11 major issues identified by Prof.Saha, the aspect of introduction & integration of IT to a greater extent in imparting quality education to our management students needs to be added to make it a whole sum lot of 12 major issues.

In a study conducted at University of Minnesota, ‗how technology and learning analytics are transforming education‘ suggests following are the key aspects in integrating technology in management education:

 Access to technology increases flexibility (ex. MOOC – Massive Open Online Course)  Increasing contextual awareness (ex. Mobile technology can afford students new ways of engaging in learning)  Collaborative knowledge building (Technology plays a critical role in sustaining collaborative environments for students to develop cognitive, metacognitive and emotional skills crucial for a knowledge society)  The Power of Learning Analytics (that brings in so many different viewpoints and encourages design thinking to apply analytics to influence learning and teaching from many different angles)

Conclusively, this study narrows down on 2 guiding principles for using technology in education as:  Look beyond Best Practices in order to create a better education for this century  Work as a Team by involving researchers, educators, administrators and students

12. Bibliography

http://cehdvision2020.umn.edu/cehd-blog/technology-and-learning- analytics/?gclid=CMyu2eClvssCFUShaAod0Q4F_w#sthash.MG8NjhNW.dpuf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_software_packages