Industry Collaboration Program - ICP
Converting Today's Uncertainties into Tomorrow's Possibilities through the Industry Collaboration Program. Stratecent Consulting aims to bridge the gap between the Industry Needs and Employability of Fresh MBAs through the Career Development Program (CDP). We build specialized skills which help new recruits make an easier transition to their new role, and deliver sustained performance with minimal guidance and faster time to market.
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Introduction Are your new recruits delivering as per your expectations? When was the last time you hired your employees based on hard, tangible, deliverable skill sets? Cookie cutter programs are producing look-alike MBAs who are low on skills and output, require more effort and training, and find it difficult to deliver and sustain high-performance consistently. Contemporary companies want creative, collaborative thinkers and leaders who make things happen. The question you should be asking as a recruiter is, 'Do these schools equip their students with a set of skills that is going to serve them well over their careers ?' Whether your company is a bank, a financial institution, a consulting firm, manufacturer or retailer, or any other sort of business enterprise, the current MBA education at most Indian graduate B-Schools does not adequately prepare candidates for the tougher than average challenges they will face when they start careers at leading companies. By how much does today's MBA education fall short? How do companies bridge the gap between what they need and what B-Schools provide?
Reducing this gap is how Stratecent Consulting helps organizations. We help create a network of highly specialized and trained employees. Employees who are loyal, profitable, having specialized skills and capabilities needed to sustain in a highly commoditized market. You gain competitive advantage by better selection, lower training and attrition costs with zero investments by hiring participants who go through our rigorous, performance based Leadership Development Program.
The Big Gap Companies today demand good collaborative thinkers who cooperate to solve problems. Too often, schools deliver good analysts who compete to apply business school formulas. Furthermore, companies demand specialized knowledge useful to particular professions. Schools, however, are more likely to deliver generalists who have trouble digging into special fields that can distinguish them and their employers. Companies demand leaders who can powerfully articulate ideas, orally and in writing, to motivate and guide their people. But schools tend to train people to simply assert their ideas; they don't sensitize them to the critical value of being an excellent communicator. In April 2004, global accrediting organisation of B-Schools (AACSB) issued a report questioning the relevance of B-School Curricula in today's market place. Among their recommendations, teach: Basic Management Skills such as communication, interpersonal skills, multi-cultural skills, negotiation, leadership development and change management... And prepare managers for bigger responsibilities. In the Inaugural issue of Academy of Management, Learning and Education, the authors argue that with the exception of perhaps a few top schools, MBA programs provide little use in the real business world, and are specially lacking in on-the- job experience of leading and managing others. A big gap separates what graduates offer, from what most employers need. Many MBA graduates arrive at new jobs unprepared for the often multicultural, multiunit, and politically charged decision making they will be required to handle; in our own firm, we find this forces us to engage in training, we believe, the business schools should have provided. We believe that the industry would be better served if new MBAs had stronger skills in selling, marketing, channel management, building new channels, maintaining customer relationships, writing, public speaking, building and running teams, supervising and delegating, and sharing leadership in ways that motivate and inspire subordinates. Further, we would like more students to arrive at their new jobs with a better grasp of scientific methods and how to apply it practically. |
Our Solution After years of extensive research, we have built the Career Development Program, which is designed keeping the industry needs in mind and working it backwards. The program is designed on the lines of some of the world's best Leadership Development Programs run in some of the largest companies in the world. It includes a very large clinical and practice component, which imparts lasting knowledge that affects the MBA's overall performance in the real world of business. Stratecent Consulting, in partnership with B-Schools, runs the Career Development Program, a comprehensive, performance-based leadership development program, spread over a period of one year. The program helps prepare students for the tougher-than average challenges they will face, when they start careers at leading companies. The program is designed to reduce the gap between the demands of the industry and the students' skill sets. The CDP has a very large practice component, which provides lasting knowledge that greatly enhances students' performance at the workplace. Apart from lectures and reading, it also involves collaborative projects and assignments that emphasize the development of people skills through experiential learning. The program has been designed to emphasize applied learning that forces students to question, think deeply, weigh alternatives and give solutions. CDP work also involves management skills like listening, influencing, judging and selling. Sustenance in the program is purely on the basis of merit and consistent performance, which are evaluated on a weekly basis. Only those students meeting a high criteria are allowed to continue the program in Phase II. On successful completion of the program, the students are classified into various grades and certified by Stratecent Consulting. Phase - I
Phase - II
In 2004, a poll conducted by Financial Post, 141 CEO's and Senior Executives rated MBAs as lacking in commitment to hard work, oral communication, written communication, understanding industry and customer needs, and even skills in marketing and sales. The CDP, with its rigorous and experiential learning methods, ensures that MBA students arriving at new jobs are fully prepared for the multi-cultural, multi-unit, objective, performance based culture prevalent in most contemporary companies. |
To understand how we can create value for you by providing pre-trained employees with specialized skills, contact our sales advisor, or email us at: sales@stratecent.com.