FORE Delhi director: ‘Indian B-schools have become overtly placement-driven’

Subir Verma, director, FORE School of Management, New Delhi, in conversation with Academia360 shared that Indian business schools focus too much on placements and not enough on curriculum and expansion.He also spoke about placements, management school rankings, changes at FSM and why Indian B-schools need to focus more on Indian businesses.

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What new initiatives have you undertaken at FORE School?

Since I joined, our campus has been evolving rapidly, driven by growth, stronger branding, international collaborations, and a focus on industry relevance. Our aim is to create a learning ecosystem that prepares graduates for an AI-driven, data-centric, and socially complex world.

Modern business education extends beyond traditional management skills. Decision-making and problem-solving remain important, but data-driven insights, critical thinking, adaptability, and collaboration are equally essential. Leaders today must navigate global disruptions, integrate diverse perspectives, and demonstrate creativity, curiosity, and ethical judgment.

Our graduates are shaped by the EAGER framework: Entrepreneurial, Agile, Global-minded, Empathetic and Responsible.

Through this approach, we cultivate leaders who are accountable not just to their organisations, but to society, the planet, and themselves — redefining management education for a rapidly-changing world.

Many Indian students aim for top management schools abroad. Where do our schools lack?

Management education has historically followed the trajectory of capitalism. Wherever capitalism has been strongest, management education has flourished. The United States, as the current bastion of capitalism, naturally hosts top-tier B-schools like Harvard and Wharton. These institutions have deep, continuous engagement with industry — they face real business challenges daily, and both faculty and students are often directly involved in consulting and practical problem-solving.

However, what the Western model doesn’t provide is contextual relevance. Indian businesses operate in a very different environment. We are more diverse and face unique socioeconomic realities. We need to equip students to become leaders in this distinctive context. In fact, this is evident in the global success of Indian executives leading some of the world’s largest companies — something that speaks volumes about the strengths of our system.

Where we are falling short is in the MBA curriculum itself. Too often, we rely on western case studies and examples — teaching Google, Amazon, or Walmart — rather than focusing on Indian businesses and entrepreneurs. Understanding why domestic companies succeed, struggle, or make strategic decisions is crucial.

For example, studying the trajectory of groups like Future Group could provide insights into the challenges of scaling, entrepreneurship, and strategic decision-making within India.

Another limitation is how we approach entrepreneurship. Many of our entrepreneurs excel at selling early or exiting businesses rather than building enduring brands, partly due to resource constraints. Western companies often have deep pockets, R&D budgets, and marketing power to dominate markets. For Indian entrepreneurs, selling to a larger player is often a strategic decision, allowing them to innovate and create new ventures.

What should we add to our curriculum to compete with top global business schools?

In terms of curriculum, I believe we are already on par with the best. We’ve aligned our programmes with global competency frameworks recommended by organisations like the World Economic Forum, McKinsey, Deloitte, and LinkedIn, focusing on the skills needed for tomorrow’s managers. Most top business schools learn from each other, and we do the same. Unlike government institutions, we have the flexibility to adapt our curriculum quickly to changing global and industry trends.

Where we’ve introduced new emphasis is in areas like social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and developing globally-minded managers. We integrate AI, data analytics, and emerging technologies just as other leading B-schools do.

One advantage we have that many global schools cannot match is our location — right at the heart of corporate and administrative India, whether it’s our Delhi or Gurgaon campuses. This proximity allows us to partner directly with industry which allows us to update our curriculum on a real-time basis. Every day, students engage with professionals, gaining real-world insights that are difficult to replicate elsewhere. Among Indian institutions, only a few, like IIM Bangalore or IIM Mumbai, can claim similar advantages.

That said, one challenge we face is a cultural bias toward global brands. Students are often drawn to foreign institutions, even when the faculty, industry exposure, and practical learning opportunities are limited. While these global names carry prestige, our schools offer far richer engagement with the Indian business context. The task is to help students recognise and leverage the unique strengths of our system.

You mentioned the importance of case studies in business schools. While rankings often emphasise research publications, they rarely account for case studies.

I view management as a social science, not an engineering discipline. Unfortunately, management education has often been dominated by engineers who prioritise publishing research papers over practical learning.

The real value in management education lies in case studies — they provoke critical thinking and teach students to analyse real business challenges. Students learn best by examining what works and what doesn’t in actual organisations. For example, studying a company that implemented a particular strategy and succeeded versus one that failed provides far deeper learning than reading theoretical articles.

Even simple examples, like applying statistical concepts to real-world scenarios, are more meaningful when presented in context. Case studies create a bridge between theory and practice, encouraging students to explore, question, and innovate. This is the core of management education, and it should be prioritised over metrics that focus solely on research publications.

Many students are now gravitating toward sector-specific MBAs, such as supply chain management or finance, because of the belief that these lead to better placements. What do you think?

Specialising in a specific sector can be risky, especially for fresh graduates. Sectoral specialisation makes sense for those who already have work experience and understand the domain they want to focus on.

Since everyone looks at ROI in management education, what’s your approach to placements?

Although I was the placement head for nine years at MDI, from 2002, and having served at IIM Ranchi, IMI, New Delhi and Nirma University, I’ve realised that the focus has shifted. Today, companies don’t just hire talent — they hire institutes. Schools have become overly placement-driven, which is problematic.

Business schools are not placement agencies — our primary role is to educate and prepare students to be market-ready. Unfortunately, many schools today have become almost entirely placement-driven, and this mindset will hurt the government’s long-term vision.

When placements become the ultimate goal, everything — from academics to electives — is chosen with jobs in mind. Students often don’t truly understand what they need to know; they only know what companies want them to know. This creates a gap in depth compared to programmes at international institutions, for instance, in marketing.

Also, we tend to “teach too much” in a mechanical way. For a three-credit course, we may provide only 30 hours of in-class instruction, but the real learning includes self-study and preparation, which isn’t accounted for. True teaching happens when classroom learning and self-learning integrate, and we’re not allowing students enough time for that.

We need to rethink our approach: adapting teaching to our conditions, use cases to illustrate theory, and show what happens when concepts are applied differently. This is especially crucial because we have freshers whose needs differ from experienced students.

Your perception score on the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is low. Although the parameter carries little weight, the score hurts your ranking. How do you see this?

Perception depends on whom the question is asked and how visible the school is in the public domain. For instance, institutes that advertise heavily or are part of large multi-disciplinary and multi-campus universities automatically get higher perception scores.

For me, what matters more is the quality of students, placements, and academic standards. If my cutoff scores are improving and applications are increasing, it reflects actual quality, even if perception scores lag.

Also, NIRF rankings are based on past data and may not reflect current improvements in research output, faculty achievements, or placement quality. The perception score is just one small component, weighted at 10, and while it matters, it does not define the school.

Placements and graduate outcomes seem crucial in management rankings.

I agree, placement and graduate outcomes are indeed very important. But this is only meaningful if the placement data is accurate and verified. Ideally, there should be an independent audit of the placement reports submitted by every institute. Right now, that is not the case. Most institutes simply provide claims, which remain unauthenticated unless someone challenges them.

This issue is somewhat unique to India. Elsewhere, data integrity and penalties for misreporting are strictly enforced. For instance, faculty retractions, data misrepresentation, or malpractice carry consequences, but in India, we often don’t have audits or strict penalties.

At our institute, we do not engage in malpractices, do not manipulate placement data, and we prioritise transparency and ethics over chasing rankings.