E-Paper
Rethinking the MBA: Why domain expertise and practical learning matter more than ever
As industries transform, B-schools must equip students with practical skills, adaptability and cross-disciplinary knowledge to prepare them for emerging careers
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A student entering a management programme today may graduate into a role that barely existed when the application was submitted. New technologies can transform industries within months, start-ups can disrupt established markets, and geopolitical or environmental developments can redraw business priorities almost overnight. In such a world, knowing how organisations worked yesterday is no longer enough; future managers must learn how to respond when the rules themselves are changing.
This reality is reshaping management education. Aspirants are looking beyond a broad qualification towards programmes that provide specialised knowledge, meaningful industry exposure and opportunities to build new ventures. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 estimates that 39% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030, making adaptability and continuous learning essential management capabilities.
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From generic managerial roles to specialised expertise
Organisations once hired management graduates for broad functional roles and developed their sectoral knowledge internally. Today, industries such as fintech, healthcare, sustainability and digital commerce increasingly require contextual expertise from the outset.
A healthcare manager, for instance, must understand patient experience, regulation and digital health ecosystem being developed under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission alongside conventional operations. Similarly, a fintech professional in India must understand how UPI's scale shapes product design, how RBI's digital lending regulations shape compliance, and how a single data breach can erode customer trust. As industries become more complex, employers increasingly value candidates who can combine sound management fundamentals with sector-specific expertise.
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Yet specialisation must coexist with cross-disciplinary learning because contemporary business problems rarely respect functional boundaries. Management programmes must therefore develop both domain depth and cross-disciplinary thinking. Future managers need not become experts in every discipline, but they must be able to collaborate across fields and evaluate the commercial, social and regulatory implications of their decisions. This combination can provide aspirants with clearer pathways into emerging careers without reducing management education to narrow vocational training.
Why entrepreneurship programmes have taken off
The rise of entrepreneurship education must be viewed within India’s changing policy and business environment. Two decades ago, starting a venture was often perceived as a risky alternative to established employment. The environment is markedly different today. Initiatives such as Make in India and Startup India have brought entrepreneurship, innovation and domestic enterprise to the centre of the national development agenda. The scale of this shift is evident: from around 500 DPIIT-recognised start-ups in 2016, India crossed 2 lakh by the end of 2025. Incubators, accelerators, seed-funding avenues, tax incentives and institutional networks have made the ecosystem more enabling for aspiring founders.
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Technology has simultaneously democratised entrepreneurship. Digital payments, online marketplaces, cloud-based tools and social media have lowered entry barriers that once favoured established companies. A young venture can now identify a niche audience, test an offering and reach prospective customers without investing heavily in mass-media promotion. Although building a successful venture remains difficult, and failure is an inescapable possibility, developing a scalable enterprise, or even aspiring to create a unicorn, no longer appears as far-fetched as it did earlier.
Entrepreneurship programmes must therefore extend beyond writing business plans. Students need to practise customer discovery, test assumptions, build minimum viable products, evaluate unit economics and learn from unsuccessful experiments. This reflects the logic of effectuation: beginning with available means, testing possibilities and adapting as uncertainty unfolds. The resulting entrepreneurial mindset is valuable not only to founders but also to family businesses, social enterprises and established organisations seeking innovation.
Experiential learning as an employability imperative
Industry increasingly expects graduates to possess an application-oriented mindset, the ability to recognise which ideas are relevant, adapt theoretical frameworks and conceptual models to unfamiliar situations and implement solutions within real organisational constraints. Live projects, internships, simulations and field immersion expose students to the complete problem-solving process. Instead of responding to neatly defined case-study questions, they must identify the actual problem, gather evidence, engage with stakeholders and revise their recommendations when confronted with operational realities.
For recruiters, this experiential learning has tangible value. Graduates with prior exposure to real business situations may require less time to understand workplace expectations, reducing recruitment uncertainty, search costs and initial training efforts. Furthermore, it provides a richer signal of a student’s analytical ability, communication and professional judgement than grades alone.
However, such experiences must be integrated into academic coursework rather than treated merely as resume-building activities. Faculty guidance, industry feedback, and structured reflection are essential for converting experiences into learning.
Preparing managers for an interconnected world
B-schools must consequently rethink what being “industry-ready” means. The external environment is changing quickly, while the emerging Gen Z workforce brings different expectations regarding flexibility, purpose, technology, learning and career progression. Management education must respond to both transformations: the changing nature of industry and the changing nature of the workforce entering it.
Alumni can be invaluable partners in this evolution. Working across sectors and career stages, they can help institutions identify emerging skill requirements, review programme structures, mentor students, and create opportunities for live projects and industry immersion.
The future-ready B-school will not choose between theory and practice, or between general management and specialisation. It will integrate them. Its purpose will be to develop graduates who possess domain knowledge, practical judgement, entrepreneurial initiative and the ability to keep learning in a volatile world. That is what will prepare students not merely for their first managerial role, but for careers that will repeatedly require them to adapt, innovate and lead.
(The author, Madhu Mandal, works as an Associate Professor, XLRI Delhi-NCR)
