SubscriberWrites: IIM-owned business publishing can be crucial educational tools for students in tier 2, 3 cities

Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.

Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/

Every IIM Ahmedabad graduate pays a fee of 30 lakhs rupees for tuition fee. In the 2 year MBA study period, each student approximately goes through 200 Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) case studies across all of the courses. Each Harvard Business Publishing cases cost an average of $5= 350 Indian Rupees. For a total of 200 HBP taught in IIMS cost around (200 x ₹350) = ₹70,000 per student + Taxes. So, an IIM graduate pays 2.5% of the total fee to Harvard for an Indian Degree granting Institution. I’m not against it, as I fundamentally believe knowledge wields its power through sharing.

A team of professors belonging to a particular field like accounting or finance, interview stakeholders, collect data, analyze over a period and publish a HBP case study. If the case becomes a hit and purchased, professors get royalty just like a book author and the rest of the money goes to Harvard Business Publishing. Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) makes ₹2,000 crores every year selling these materials to business schools across the world.

Now let’s shift gears and talk about the power of distribution channels and let me use some examples. 1) Government as a distribution channel: We all have Aadhar cards, PAN cards, Voter cards, Passports all sorts of cards. Why? Because our govt mandated them and we all must use it. Tomorrow if a new card comes, we will all use it. Government will use policy as a distribution channel. 2) Google account as a distribution channel: First we have Gmail. Because we all have Gmail, it is very easy to use any new service Google comes up with, whether it be Google Pay, Google Maps etc. We use Google Chrome browser over others because it comes preinstalled and as a default browser in android. Google is using Android as a distribution channel saving huge marketing costs for it to publicize any new service they come up with! 3) US Dollar as a distribution channel: Since most of the global trade is executed using dollars, currencies are valued against the dollar. We say things like, “Rupee has appreciated against the dollar. Ruble has depreciated against the dollar.” In fact, many currencies don’t even have a direct relationship with each other. Imagine having to calculate the value of the Indian rupee against the currencies of over 190 other countries every single nanosecond. It would be a nightmare! That’s where the dollar comes in as a reference. It makes life easier. US Dollar is a platform and a distribution channel. Microsoft Windows, Apple App Store and iOS, Reserve Bank of India, Federal Reserve and many more. 

Why am I talking about distribution channels suddenly shifting gears from IIM graduates and Harvard Business School Publishing? You must understand that Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) is also a powerful knowledge distribution channel.  They have gained monopoly over business school education publishing and we know that if you are monopoly you can control prices. Whatever is published in HBP, all the B-Schools subscribe and buy from it paying  ₹350 per case study. But what about our tier -2 and tier – 3 colleges in India? They cannot charge high tuition fees like IIMs so they cannot afford to pay ₹70,000 per student to access HSP case studies. So they resort to other options.

Why can’t our IIMs and ISB come together and create a business school publishing like that of Harvard? I believe knowledge has nationality. Yes, Indian professors publish cases in HBP and there are Indian specific case studies in HBP but they can only be enjoyed by IIM graduates because of high price tag. Creating our own B-School publishing bring down the price so that quality content is available for tier-2, tier-3 colleges for a lower price tag. Most of the knowledge in India is lost. IIM Professors spend years before publishing a case in HBP, because of the geographical distance, communication is slow, peer reviewing takes time and ultimately losing productivity. 

So, what do you say Varun? Is the Govt. sleeping or the administrations of IIMs lazy? No, there has been some progress made on this.  A few IIMs have websites where everyone is just publishing their own cases. Too many distribution channels like these can’t help. We need a common distribution channel by clubbing all of these into a central repository and creating a sound business model, leadership team chasing goals every year.