In the
previous article, we have already learned a lot about the administrative responsibilities of Prof. Suresh. In this article, we will explore his contributions towards academia in his 20 years long tenure, including his journey through Hel(L)!
5. You are a Fellow from IIM Lucknow and it has a reputation to have the most rigorous management programmes in India. Many even call it hell. So did Hel(L), I mean IIM-L, live up to its reputation of extreme and unparalleled rigor? What survival strategies must be followed by the students in the top B-Schools?
Yeah, IIM Lucknow has such a formidable reputation no less due to the academic requirements, which were strictly enforced. They believed in following the rules already laid and published; no halfway measure there. But Hel(L) has also been a great place to be in. Those were exciting years, though challenging.
Imagine a 39-year old ‘daddy’ fighting it out with 22-something kids fresh out of the premier technical institutes of the country. I faced the usual jitters – ‘MANIAC’ and Quants of course and several other speed-breakers. Survive I did, listening to the sage words of advice from my then 12-year old daughter who famously asked of me if I had a timetable. The dumb father that I was, replied that the PGP Office had published the timetable.
It was then that I realized that I needed a personal timetable to help me wade through the ‘byzantine lanes’ of a premier business school. Management education is certainly not rocket science. If you were to put in about forty hours of effort per week outside of classroom contact hours, any student can breeze through the two-year programme with aplomb.
This first-hand survival experience has come in very useful when I mentor academic probationers at IIM Trichy, several of whom I have mentored since its launch. This year a probationer I am working with, having made some progress in her academic performance pointed fingers at me as the cause of the improvement! She spread positive word-of-mouth (w.o.m.) and now I have two probationers under my wing. Wow, the power of w.o.m.!
We never had lectures. Even many of the Finance & Accounting, and Quantitative Methods courses in the 1
st year were ‘taught’ using case pedagogy. One memorable moment was when Professor asked me to teach a case in the ‘Marketing Management I’ core course I was attending in the 1
st year. I was ‘lucky’ that I had prepared the case and so could take up the challenge that was thrown at me at very short notice; that was indeed a privilege to teach my own classmates. That confirmed my status as the ‘daddy’ of the class of 2004.
I am so happy that kids with whom I spent those two years at L have gone places over the last fifteen years. By assisting faculty in the Marketing Area, I had opportunities to grade courses, teach ‘Marketing Management I’ almost in full, and a few sessions of ‘New Product Development’ elective.
(At my study table at the FPM Hostel, IIM Lucknow)
Having come from a university background, I was very much fascinated by the systems and processes at L. During my 4-year stint at L, I had very close interactions with Faculty and Administration, which gave me ample opportunities to learn what makes for a successful business school. Going beyond, I was very keen to learn the philosophy that drives those systems and processes. This learning opportunity certainly did help me greatly during my several stints in administration at IIM Trichy.
Outside of academics, campus life at L is very vibrant with many student clubs active all through the year. It was certainly a happening place what with 3.4 the music band, the INDEX fair, dramatics, fine arts, dance and so on. The campus had all the amenities required by students, faculty and their families except for a fuel station!
The large 185-acre campus is a dream with lots of green cover and well-maintained gardens and fountains that soothe the mind and eyes. The campus had its fair share of wildlife, though the star was the Nilgai. A lot of murals were also drawn across the campus. Each building block has a well-thought-out name; for instance, Chintan (Faculty), Bodhgriha (PGP), Manthan (MDP), Gyanodaya (Library) and so on.
In the initial years, we had a shuttle service that would make hourly trips to the city office at Aliganj. Later on, UPSRTC (Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation) commenced regular trips from the campus to the city. We also had Saturday market trips to Hazratganj where we would get full with the ganjing spirit.
6. What was the driving force behind moving to academia?
Right from my CEAT stint, I was involved in training. I was one of the dozen mentors across the company who were assigned fresh recruits who had to spend about two months with the mentor undergoing office and field training. I was also actively involved with the Technical Services Division that delivered training sessions on the ‘interplay of tyres and the automobile’ for technical institutes, and major customer accounts like State Transport Undertakings, and large fleet accounts.
The next stint with the automotive industry also saw me further my interest in training with dealers and their staff, as well as my own team members not only on brand values but also on selling skills. My responsibilities as branch head in the financial services industry, also gave me several opportunities to coach as well to be coached. The major driver of the direct selling activities for Time-Life was on continuous training of the team.
The final stint with the music industry also had major components in training. By then, I had realized that I enjoyed the training and coaching more than the marketing and selling activities. I was about to be promoted as the National Head when I finally decided to make the major mid-career shift to academics in 1999. With the active support of my family, I took a significant cut in my earnings and found my true calling in academics.
I must say, it was unusual then, for a practitioner to turn academic. Now I see a lot more people making mid-career changes into another profession. May their tribe increase!
7. You held academic and administrative appointments in a total of over 10 years, at XLRI Jamshedpur, the IIM Kozhikode and Thiagarajar School of Management Madurai - some exciting incidents you would like to let our readers know?
After serving industry for 14 years when I made the shift to academics, my first teaching assignment was at Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai (TSM). The first year of teaching at TSM was a near-death experience. Having lost touch with academics, I badly struggled in my first year of teaching. The elective course ‘Product management’ I taught was an unmitigated disaster. I rued at my decision to make a mid-career move to academics.
I realised that I need to brush my basics, which I did on a war footing. This preparation helped me qualify for the National Eligibility Test for Lectureship in the first attempt itself. That gave me the confidence to further my learning and not just acquire a Ph.D. This quest took me to IIM Lucknow, where I obtained admission for the Fellow Programme in 2002. My employer Thiagarajar School of Management (TSM) encouraged me to learn further. I even wrote a policy on this and was its first beneficiary when I went off to Lucknow on a half-pay leave.
Besides reading and reflecting on the literature in marketing and related domains, the L experience taught me several lessons in curriculum management, and programme administration. It was gratifying that by the time I left TSM, the elective ‘Product management’ had been voted the best-taught course.
IIM Kozhikode gave me a wonderful opportunity to try my hand at synchronous learning platforms in addition to learning and teaching a new course on retailing. What I had experienced at IIM Lucknow as a student, I was now privileged to obtain a faculty perspective of IIM Kozhikode, which had robust systems in place in programme management.
With its beautiful green and compact campus, XLRI was a learning experience in itself with multiple programmes, diverse student audiences, and multiple campuses. It also has a well-oiled system in place that was time-tested. What was challenging was to fine-tune teaching to different student audiences like the Defence Officers, Insurance Officers, Entrepreneurship Programme, and the one-year General Management Programme.
In addition to teaching at Singapore and Dubai on several occasions, one other major learning was the MAXI Fair which I once mentored along with two faculty colleagues; the marketing fair, which XLRI pioneered several decades ago is an innovative tool for conducting market research and consumer behaviour.
While serving at XLRI, I also taught at IIM Lucknow; two sections of the elective ‘Product management’ and several other MDPs. I continue to be associated with XLRI as a Guest Faculty. This summer too I shall teach ‘Services marketing’ in the one-year General Management Programme.
8. You also have held visiting academic appointments at the Asian Institute of Management, Manila as well - how is the pedagogy different there than those prevalent in the IIMs? Which one do you think is better? Why?
At the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), over a term, I taught the elective course ‘Product management’. AIM has very close ties with the Harvard Business School (HBS) and so the heavy reliance on the case method. I taught the course in 16 cases. This was very challenging indeed. I had my first exposure to a truly global multi-cultural student audience plus the lecture hall, a Harvard clone, with its intimidating multiple sets of boards, which could go up and down. Does that ring a bell? I had shared my experience with the community at IIM Trichy and we pursued with HBS, which shared their classroom design, which we have attempted to replicate at our new campus.
What is more important to know is that AIM does not have an end-term exam. Class participation and discussion has a very large proportion of the assessment not less than 50% and could go up to 80%. The challenge for the course instructor is to keep tab of the discussion happening in class, as students are also so intent on making a point.
The IIMs also use the case method extensively, but maybe not to the levels it is used at schools like HBS & AIM. Each of these pedagogies has its own merits and demerits. My personal belief is that we need to have a mix of pedagogy and not solely rely on one method.
It is said that explicit knowledge (the know-what) that resides in documents is only the tip of the iceberg as it were. On the other hand, it is critical to recognize the role of tacit knowledge (the know-how) that resides in people and their practices. Further, on instructional design and learning processes, Edgar Dale proposed that learners retain more information by what they “do” as opposed to what is “heard”, “read” or “observed”. This “learning by doing” has come to be known as “experiential learning” or “action learning”.
To summarise, the Dale Cone of Experience states that at the bottom of the cone lie the most effective methods - “action-learning” techniques – that result in up to 90% retention. The lesson for us faculty members is to design instructional activities that build upon more real-life experiences, in whatever form it may take, be it cases, or simulation or in-class exercises. So, it is critical that the educational outcomes desired, including the target audience, along with other constraints like size, time and space should dictate which pedagogical tool is to be used.
I got to mentor a 7-member cross-functional team of senior executives from Merck Serano in the ASEAN region on an action-learning project. I also delivered a brown bag seminar to faculty colleagues on the demographic transition at the Malaysian Room at AIM. At the Philippines, I delivered the keynote at the National Conference of the Philippine Academy of Management where I explored the concept of demographic transition from their perspective.
India has many lessons to learn from the Philippines model of caregiving. Besides, I got ample chances to explore the scenic beauty of the Philippines archipelago. I even got to experience many typhoons first-hand, the most magnificent being Typhoon Nesat also known as Typhoon Pedring that made landfall in September 2011.
(Prof. Ricardo A. Lim (Dean, Asian Institute of Management), Prof. SPA, Prof. Edilberto C. de Jesus (President, Asian Institute of Management), Manila, The Philippines)
9. The feedback about the course Product and Brand Management that you generally take in the fourth term here is highly positive. How do you manage to connect with the students so well?
Thank you for sharing that feedback. I offer two elective courses – ‘Product and brand management’ in Term IV and ‘Strategic marketing in action’ in Term VI, both with large enrolments – about 100 each. I have also team-taught Marketing Management to the early batches of the PGP and also at PGPBM. In addition, I have team-taught two courses ‘Advanced Marketing Management’ and ‘Seminar on Consumer Behaviour’ and taught fully another ‘Seminar on Services Marketing’ for Ph.D. students. Since the past few years, I have disengaged with 1
st year PGP teaching. The two electives with the large number of teams and debrief sessions, keep me on my toes.
Over the years, building on my experiences at IIM Lucknow and AIM Manila, I have made several changes to the course. I firstly transformed ‘New product development’ course into a ‘Product management’ course. Several, periodic and on-going consultations with industry experts have led me to believe that the course needs to weave together the product and brand stories, which is what I attempt to do in the elective ‘Product and brand management’. It has taken several modifications and iterations for the course outline to reach here and I still believe it is a work-in-progress.
I am not sure if I have connected well with the kids in my class. But I would like to believe that I am a reflective practitioner, always looking for ways to make improvements even if it is in small increments.
I attended the Global Colloquium on Participant-Centred Learning and the Case Workshop at Harvard Business School in Boston and Shanghai. That had also motivated me to experiment with more learner-centered methodologies than solely lecture modes, not that lectures have solely been my favorite pedagogy. In this quest, a few years ago I traveled to Paris to acquire certification from StratX that runs several popular simulations like Markstrat and BrandPro.
In the process, I have reduced excessive dependence on cases and have managed a more balanced mix of cases, in-class exercises and simulation in this course. Plus, the strong industry connects, which I continually refresh by engaging with guest speakers and other experts from industry, helps me to ensure that the content is contemporary and relevant. I also serve on the board of a start-up that seeks to popularize the concept of micro-stays in our country, which helps me to stay connected with practice.
‘Strategic marketing in action’ is a relatively new course for me, the 2
nd edition of which was offered to the senior batch this year. Being a capstone course in the last term, it draws on the learning of courses across the marketing domain in particular and seeks to integrate learnings. The course has a major bias on the action that is participant-centered learning. Simulation pedagogy is a major component with a handful of cases to drive home essential concepts. Students learn to work in teams and teams compete against each other.
Over 10 rounds (each round represents a year of operation) they launch, position and reposition brands, manage R & D projects, borrow capital, set prices, plan for production and inventory, set communication objectives, manage their distribution and so on to ultimately increase the value for the firm. The debrief sessions held after every round is where much of the learning takes place.
Having said that, my teaching philosophy is that in this age of distributed learning, the focus of the teaching-learning process has to be on reflection and application rather than on just recalling facts. So, all my exams are open-book. Furthermore, I term myself as a senior learner and the students as co-learners or junior learners, in the spirit that the knowledge so co-produced in the classroom, is ultimately owned and applied by each student independently. I hope to further improve on this philosophy all the time.
Therefore, I actively solicit feedback from participants, reflect on them, make appropriate modifications in the course and seek to moderate the expectations, if needed.
(With Mr. Sumant Sood (Head-Innovation, Titan Company Limited) and students of the ‘Product and brand management’ course, IIM Trichy)
10. Please share some of your experiences from your presentation on ‘Attitudinal Responses of Elderly Consumers to Marketing Variables’ in Australia & New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Doctoral Consortium & Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand.
It was serendipitous that I stumbled on this topic of ageing. It was an observation about my father that triggered a series of discussions with Prof. Prem Chandra Purwar my guide and guru at IIM Lucknow, and two other supervisors – Prof. Neelam Kinra and Prof. Janakiraman Moorthy. I was intrigued that my father’s behavior as a consumer had changed significantly over the years, especially the manner in which he would respond to marketing messages.
As I waded into the topic with curiosity, I realized that the world was growing old rapidly. India is in the middle of its demographic transition. Since independence, while her total population more than trebled, the elderly population has quadrupled. In the next 50 years, while her working population and also her total population would increase by half, her ‘child’ population would essentially not grow. In contrast, her elderly population would once again quadruple. The elderly population of about 335 million, would be significantly larger than the child population of about 302 million.
Drucker notes that demographic transition and changes in population age distribution have far-reaching implications for public policy and society, and business and marketing as well. I have written at length on this phenomenon of demographic transition as applicable to India in a chapter titled ‘India: Opportunities and challenges of demographic transition’ in a book edited by Kohlbacher & Herstatt and published by Springer-Verlag.
In my presentation at Dunedin, I argued that since age-related differences in the antecedents of behavior are fairly well-established, differences in behavioral outcomes would also be evident. The study of ageing is challenging, as age-related differences are best suited for longitudinal studies than cross-sectional.
In addition to meetings and intense learning, I drove around the South Island with a group of friends to experience the sights and sounds of the land of the Kiwis with their well-preserved heritage, pristine beaches, unique flora and fauna, and clean waters and of course the bone-chilling icy winds from the South Pole.
11. Please share some of your thoughts on your research work – for instance, ‘Dimensions of job advertisement as signals for achieving job seeker’s application intention’.
In this conceptual paper, grounded in the concept of signaling theory and instrumental-symbolic framework, we have developed a model to examine the impact of print job advertisement dimensions and organizational familiarity on a job seeker’s perception of attitude, organizational attractiveness, and application intention. The study offers guidelines to recruiters on how to design a recruitment advertisement to enlarge the pool of potential applicants. These could be extended to several other contexts like for instance admissions.
A case I wrote ‘SliceRooms: A slice of time, a cut of profits!’ was published last year in ‘Marketing Management: Indian Cases’. This is offered as a supplement to the 15
th edition of Marketing Management by Kotler & Keller. Under the ‘Diagnoses’ column of Vikalpa an analysis of the case ‘Mortein Vaporizer: What lies beneath Brand Positioning?’ was published in 2013.
The research on ageing is still work-in-progress. As I said earlier, studying age-related difference is very challenging. But this is an issue, the management of which will test the mettle of our society. The problem of aging has two critical concerns. Galbraith so eloquently said, “The first is how the individual should respond to the mature years. The second is how the larger community, including the government, should respond to the needs of the old”.
As service to the profession, I have examined several Ph.D. theses at IIT Bombay, IIM Kozhikode, XLRI Jamshedpur besides serving on Doctoral Advisory Committees at other leading schools, and delivering talks on marketing related topics. I also am a reviewer for the IIMB Management Review. I am currently supervising a Ph.D. thesis at IIM Trichy based on which I presented a paper on counterfeits at the ANZMAC (Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy) Conference in Adelaide in December 2018.
12. You have more than 14 years of hands-on customer interface experience in the automotive, financial services, direct selling, and music retailing industries, and across both business and consumer markets. Are there any significant experiences that you would want to share? Insights from the industry that you would like to give to the budding managers?
My career in the industry started in 1985 much before the winds of liberalization had arrived on our shores. After an initial stint in consulting with a former ILO consultant, I moved to CEAT Tyres. CEAT gave me several learning opportunities, though the most significant was marketing planning. My tyre industry days also gave me a ringside view of those exciting times when Dunlop, CEAT and finally MRF took turns to become market leaders one after the other.
I was also privileged to witness first-hand how what was once a b2b (business-to-business) product transformed itself into b2c (business-to-consumer) and reached the drawing rooms of the consumer, unwittingly as it were. In the process, life lessons were learned in managing competition, reading consumers, managing business-to-business and government accounts, estimating market potential, managing depot operations, lead generation, portfolio management, formulation of strategies and the like.
One other significant experience was in setting up two CEAT Shoppes, both of which were one of CEAT’s earliest experiments with retailing. Such a near entrepreneurial experience in location selection, and in recruiting, training and motivating staff, managing inventory, setting up allied automotive services like automatic tyre changer, wheel alignment, and balancing, customer interface, went into the formulation of the Brand ‘Common Identity Programme’ for CEAT Shoppes across the country.
(Mr. AJ Udayakumar (Regional Manager, CEAT and former Wimbledon player), Mr. MO Varghese (CEAT Shoppe franchisee), Mr. Benny Varghese (rally enthusiast in livery), SPA (with cap) at Kochi, India)
A major challenge I faced was to rein in a depot operator, who also was a b2b customer in a major city. Many other b2b customers, who were sorely unhappy with our decision to appoint him as our depot operator, had by then boycotted our products. In the process, this depot operator became all the more powerful, as our dependence on him increased to his advantage. A vicious cycle indeed. A tricky situation had to be salvaged in the short term and we implemented a long-term strategy without much collateral damage and formulated a policy as well.
From automotive tyres, the move to the automotive industry seemed natural. The experience with the pioneering new-generation scooter Kinetic Honda and in the market-making activities of the moped range was a great learning experience. I was also involved in a market-making project targeted at below-poverty-line citizens in the rural areas of Jalgaon District in Maharashtra, working closely with lead banks and NABARD.
I moved on to head the branch of Integrated Finance Company Limited then a major NBFC (Non-Banking Finance Company). This stint also gave me wonderful opportunities to learn. Among several, the most significant was that even as I got to market several financial products on both the asset and liabilities side like hire purchase, leasing, factoring, stock broking, and deposits the ‘marketing’ person in me got well-needed schooling in finance and on the imperative to maximize value for the firm.
The next stint was managing the direct selling activities for the India franchisee of Time Life. With very high attrition rates, it was truly a challenge to recruit, motivate and retain a large group of independent women associates and through them market the Time-Life multi-volume encyclopedia box sets. In addition to people management, I learned first-hand lessons in SPIN selling, the technique made famous by Neil Rackham. This popular selling methodology has four different types of sales questions designed to move a prospect into interest, desire, and action through to a sale (Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff).
In my last industry stint with the EMI Music and Virgin Records labels, it was all about bringing together the learnings gleaned over the previous assignments – managing artists and repertoire, market planning, coordinating marketing activities, team management, inventory management, and production planning and so on. The most significant change that I could bring in was formulating a product return policy for the Indian operations.
All through my 14-year stint across five diverse industries, I was so particular that I would never serve the competitors of the brands that I was privileged to serve. When I look back now, it all seems that it was planned so seamlessly. Many of my friends and past students often question how I did manage this ‘feat’. It is important for each one of you to identify the ‘transferable skills’ that one possesses. Students many a time tend to overemphasize industry-specific skills and knowledge.
It is only transferable skills that can help an individual rise in the corporate world. For instance, I would like to believe that I consider people more important than things. Or it is critical to nurture relationships with people to get results. Or that I see some value in continuous education and am fascinated with the process of acquiring knowledge or skills. Or that I periodically consider skills that might upgrade me to be a better trainer or coach. Or that I sometimes volunteer to do things rather than wait to be asked to assume more duties. Or I would like to be known as someone who keeps promises.
I find that students sometimes get bogged down by technical specifications and data, and fail to go beyond and connect these technicalities with the user experience. There is also a tendency to write off management education as distanced from practice. It is important for us to realize that what we learn in our classrooms is distilled from practice over multiple data points, diverse contexts of time and space. In the process, they become generalizations and students who mostly start their careers at entry-level positions, become disappointed that the theory does not address specific vocational kind of issues at the workplace.
It is said that a theory is a mental model of perceived reality. Therefore, even as you handle the nuts and bolts of your job, please find some time and energy to read the essential texts and classics, and more importantly reflect on the theory and the practice that you are witness to.
Closing comments from Prof. SPA:
Thank you, Apurva, for this opportunity to retrospect. I feel a little exhausted having to reflect on much of my past spanning a 34-year period.
I must say that I am extremely grateful to IIM Trichy, our Director Dr. Bhimaraya Metri, our founding Director Dr. Prafulla Y. Agnihotri, faculty colleagues and staff in the various offices I have served for the golden chance given to make some contribution to the institute, and for having reposed confidence in me.
Students are always very dear to us. I hope to see many more batches graduating from the portals of IIM Trichy with utmost confidence to face the world. And may they make our world a better place.
Jai Hind!
(As told to Apurva Sharma)
Read Part 1 of the interview here.