Strategy is not what Business Schools Say; Strategy is What Business Schools Do!

The discipline of strategy in business is a young discipline. The discipline has made a lot of progress over the decades. However, the discipline faces numerous challenges, including a high failure rate and shortening sustainability of competitive advantage. Also, unfortunately, strategy is the most widely misused and confused word in business management.

One of the reasons for high failure rates and shortening of competitive advantage is the gap between what organisations claim to be the strategy and what they do!

For example, these days innovation is a major theme in strategy. So it is fashionable to claim to be an innovative organization but in reality, many who claim so are not innovative! It is fashionable to claim to be a sustainable organisation but in reality, many who claim so are not following sustainable business practices!

Business schools in India also have strategies with ambitious vision and mission statements! It is a good thing to have a strategy and have written vision and mission statements. However, are business schools following what they are stating as their strategy?

For example, when business schools claim the aspiration or strategy to be innovative, are they actually making innovations? If yes, what are the main innovations in the last 10 years or so by such business schools in India? How innovative are the long-term and short-term programs offered by these schools? How innovative are the courses, course contents and methodology in the short and long-term programmes?

All these questions are asked in this article around teaching and training because these two activities contribute more than ninety per cent of the earnings of the majority of business schools!

Look at it from another perspective. When a business school is claiming to be innovative, are they following it up by putting a significant share of resources into innovations or does the majority go to the routine teaching and training programs?

Education, including business education, is a noble profession. Business schools need to lead by example. The medicine they are prescribing for others, they should also take it! To be fair to business schools, some are trying to do so, but that needs to be done much more. For a successful strategy, the gap between what is claimed to be the strategy and what is done in practice needs to be reduced.

Globally, over the last few decades, business schools are already being questioned repeatedly on the value addition done by them! In such a scenario, the gap between what many business schools say as strategy and what they do, does not help the case of business schools.

(The author is a Professor of Strategy at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.)