It’s Time to Put the "Business" Back in Business Schools
29th October 2025
Where Are the Business Schools? It’s All About Management — Isn’t It?
For decades, India’s B-Schools have been the backbone of management education — shaping brilliant consultants, sharp bankers, and visionary leaders. They did exactly what they were built for: serve the nation’s need for skilled managers and engineers in an era when industrial and infrastructure growth was booming. Those were the demands of their time — and they delivered remarkably well.
But times have changed.
The System Doesn’t Need Replacing — It Needs Upgrading
Our higher education system isn’t broken. It was designed for the 20th-century economy — one built on mass employment. The founding business houses and entrepreneurs of that era laid the foundation for India’s economic rise, and management schools trained the workforce that powered it.
However, today’s economy runs on innovation, adaptability, and business creation. The old frameworks of management are no longer enough. We need to upgrade our focus — from managing what exists to building what’s next.
The New Reality: Entrepreneurship as a Life Skill
When I graduated from the Indian School of Business (ISB) in 2011, entrepreneurship was a short 20-hour elective — a side note in a curriculum built for creating top-tier managers and consultants. It made sense then. But in today’s world, the ability to build a business is as essential as communication or problem-solving — it’s a life skill.
Modern management education must evolve to include entrepreneurial thinking as a core competency — not an optional module.
Bringing the ‘B’ Back in B-Schools
At The CareerTrek Company (MBAtrek 2.0), we’ve been working with progressive campuses, ed-techs and corporates across India, we’re designing programs that prioritize entrepreneurship, equipping students with not just management skills, but the mindset and tools to build impactful businesses from the ground up. We’re helping institutions reimagine their purpose — beyond placements and pay packages — to create entrepreneurial outcomes that match the realities of today’s market.
Because offering better placements alone is no longer sustainable. Rising fees, shifting job structures, and evolving career aspirations demand something more transformative: graduates who can build, not just apply.
From Job Seekers to Job Creators
Our experience shows that when a single entrepreneur succeeds, hundreds benefit — directly and indirectly. That’s the power of entrepreneurship-driven education. It’s not about rejecting traditional management; it’s about expanding it.
The Question for the Future
So, here’s the challenge for all of us — educators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and students:
How can we design a modern B-School that focuses purely on entrepreneurship and business creation?
Should it be domain-driven, industry-specific, or scale-oriented (local ventures, MSMEs, or VC-backed startups)?
Or do we need a completely new model that blends business creation, technology, and impact into one?
Because the future of management education isn’t about abandoning the old — it’s about upgrading it to meet the ambitions of a new generation.
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