He began his career in 1975 with Tata Motors. Thereafter, he went on to join the Eicher Group, where he found Eicher Consultancy Services (ECS). As the CEO of the firm, he shaped ECS as one of the Indias leading management consulting Firms. Then, Mr Sachdev, founded the Grow Talent Company Limited, a management consultancy firm running operations with four offices in South Asia. His clients include Global firms such as Unilever, American Express, Reckitt and Benkiser, Cadburys, Pepsico, Dell, Microsoft, Oracle, Citicorp, Electrolux, Seagram and several others in South Asia such as John Keels Group and Brandix of Sri Lanka and Tatas, Aditya Birla Group, Godrej, Larsen and Toubro of India.
Mr Sachdev has been adjunct faculty to leading business schools in India such as Indian School of Business, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM A), and some of the top business schools abroad like the Kelly School of Business, Indiana University; GMI, Flint Michigan; Antioch University, Seattle, Washington; and Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
Mr Sachdev has recently established a B-school SOIL, which stands for School of Inspired Leadership, to train students in leadership (Business & HR). Even in times of slowdown, SOIL has received tremendous support from several big names of the corporate sectors including TATA Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Group, and many others.
MBAUniverse.com interviewed Mr Anil Sachdev on several key issues related to management domain that include new trends in management education, various aspects of HR and Consultancy, role of HR & Consulting in current crisis, Soils collaboration with top Industry brands and many others. Excerpts from this exclusive interview by Mithilesh Jha of MBAUniverse.com:
Q: You are recognized as a thought leader in the HR, leadership and consulting domain in India. You have set up several business ventures successfully. And now you have setup SOIL. How do you see this long journey?
A: During my college years, I used to hear about corruption and tainted reputation of Indian businessmen and wrong practices in the Indian industry. At that point of time, I realized that Indian business model needs not just business strategies and management guidelines, but an ethical way of conducting business. In my case, my family values always came handy in my career; these values taught me to stand by my own principle and self-belief even in tough times. I always felt that Indian industry had a shortage of people who could think business in a principled manner, guided by spiritual values.Now coming to my corporate journey, I joined Tata Motors at the start of my career; but during my brief stay, I thought the company was too big and would not give me space to work on my own. So I decided to join a much smaller organization. I went on to join Eicher Group in 1978 and grew up as a leader and worked on multiple assignments to hone my skills. One day, I let the board members of the company know about my desire to set up Eicher Consultancy Services (ECS). We started with a small corpus, and went on to be very successful. I told my founders that I would step down after serving 10 years and spend rest of my life in human development. I started Grow Talent in 2000, which scaled up well in just five years. And after waiting for all these years, finally in 2006, I decided to launch my long-cherished dream of establishing a B-school -- School of Inspired Leadership or SOIL. So, its been a fascinating journey as I could manage to act as per my inspirations while keeping my ethical values intact.
Q: How do you look at the current trends of management education in India?
A: While the management education space has boomed to about 1800 B-schools in India, there are a lot of concerns. What I have observed in my long career is that the worst of MBAs go for teaching in India. My point is that teaching is not perceived as a lucrative career and because the brightest lot of students do not go into this profession, so it ultimately degrades the quality of education and value addition in whole education system. So in that order, B-schools in India need to develop that kind of infrastructure and curriculum to attract best brains towards the teaching profession. Another important aspect is that in past, Indian business schools used to emphasize on teaching subjects in silos without giving students the holistic view of management education. But, fortunately the trend seems to be changing as new business schools are coming up with holistic approach to teach management lessons to students. At this point of time, business schools across the country need to differentiate the leadership qualities from managerial qualities. Unfortunately, most of the management institutes leave leadership aspects untouched while imparting training to students. These B-schools must know that the leadership is all about cultivating humility, developing courage, making deep emotional connectivity, and garnering creative ability in an individual. I have a strong feeling that there is a need to change the selection procedures for entering in B-schools like quantitative oriented CAT entrance exam.
Q: How do you see MBA education in times of recession? What are your suggestions to aspirants who are skeptical at this point of time?
A: No doubt the current recession has impacted mindsets of all quarters including the student fraternity. Because the market is undergoing immense changes; so students need to analyze the current trends and prepare themselves accordingly. In these tough times, just possessing an MBA degree will not do the trick. They should go for acquiring extensive knowledge and skill sets to run longer in the race.It is important for students to evaluate all important aspects of the business school where they go to seek admission. They must evaluate infrastructure, faculty and methodologies adopted by that particular institute. So the concern is that students should take MBA education as a long-term investment and take every step carefully in this regard. I must say its a good opportunity to go for an MBA programme in this recession because after two or three years when market gains might, these students will be ready to grow with the booming economy.
Q: SOIL has tie-ups with some of the leading corporate in India. What is the nature of involvement and how can the students benefit?
A: A select consortium of corporate firms who share SOILs vision and ethos is invited to partner with SOIL. This network of accomplished professionals would help impart overall direction to curriculum design, participate in the admission process, review the quality of teaching, learning & industry research and lead the placement process. These companies are ABB, Anand Group, Aditya Birla Group, Avantha Group, BPCL, Dr Reddy Lab, GSK, Hindustan Unilever, Kohler, Mahindra, Max, SAS, Schneider, SRF and Tata Steel.
Q: How are you meeting the challenge of attracting quality of faculty?
A: We have tried to introduce best of faculty to students, who will undergo training at SOIL. We want to give student quality faculty, who have taught across the globe and given valuable insights to explore new paradigms in learning and innovation. We have introduced three kinds of faculty:
1) Faculty from international authority in domain like HR, Consultancy, strategy and change management, some of the names in the first category are Dr Francois Dupuy, Mercer Delta; Dr Patricia A. Evans, European R&D Practice of Strategic Decisions Group (SDG);
2) In the second category, Practitioners from Indian corporate sector like Former BCG Chairman Mr Arun Maira and Mr B Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel; and
3) Permanent full-time faculty teaching at premier B-Schools some of the names are Ohio Universitys Dr Ashok Gupta, and Dr Ramnath Narayanswamy, IIM Bangalore.
Q: What are the programmes you have launched and with what rationale?
A: The Leadership programs in HR, Business are designed to prepare students for a career in Human Resources, and Global Business. We have come up with business leadership programme like Indian School of Business, Hyderabad,and Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, are running. Then we have leadership programme in HR on the same line as of XLRI Jamshedpur, Xavier Institute of Social Service Ranchi and Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai.
Q: Where do you see SOIL ten years down the line?
A: In next 10 years, my aim is to produce 5,000 global leaders who will make difference in times to come. They will be role models for many because of their qualities to conduct business in an ethical manner. If I am able to achieve this figure in these years, I will be satisfied with myself. We have to increase the intake of seats to reach the figure of 5000 as of now we are offering 120 seats in total for the two programmes in HR, Business Leadership. So, somewhere we have to change the trajectory in this regard.
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He began his career in 1975 with Tata Motors. Thereafter, he went on to join the Eicher Group, where he found Eicher Consultancy Services (ECS). As the CEO of the firm, he shaped ECS as one of the Indias leading management consulting Firms. Then, Mr Sachdev, founded the Grow Talent Company Limited, a management consultancy firm running operations with four offices in South Asia. His clients include Global firms such as Unilever, American Express, Reckitt and Benkiser, Cadburys, Pepsico, Dell, Microsoft, Oracle, Citicorp, Electrolux, Seagram and several others in South Asia such as John Keels Group and Brandix of Sri Lanka and Tatas, Aditya Birla Group, Godrej, Larsen and Toubro of India.
Mr Sachdev has been adjunct faculty to leading business schools in India such as Indian School of Business, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM A), and some of the top business schools abroad like the Kelly School of Business, Indiana University; GMI, Flint Michigan; Antioch University, Seattle, Washington; and Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
Mr Sachdev has recently established a B-school SOIL, which stands for School of Inspired Leadership, to train students in leadership (Business & HR). Even in times of slowdown, SOIL has received tremendous support from several big names of the corporate sectors including TATA Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Group, and many others.
MBAUniverse.com interviewed Mr Anil Sachdev on several key issues related to management domain that include new trends in management education, various aspects of HR and Consultancy, role of HR & Consulting in current crisis, Soils collaboration with top Industry brands and many others. Excerpts from this exclusive interview by Mithilesh Jha of MBAUniverse.com:
Q: You are recognized as a thought leader in the HR, leadership and consulting domain in India. You have set up several business ventures successfully. And now you have setup SOIL. How do you see this long journey?
A: During my college years, I used to hear about corruption and tainted reputation of Indian businessmen and wrong practices in the Indian industry. At that point of time, I realized that Indian business model needs not just business strategies and management guidelines, but an ethical way of conducting business. In my case, my family values always came handy in my career; these values taught me to stand by my own principle and self-belief even in tough times. I always felt that Indian industry had a shortage of people who could think business in a principled manner, guided by spiritual values.Now coming to my corporate journey, I joined Tata Motors at the start of my career; but during my brief stay, I thought the company was too big and would not give me space to work on my own. So I decided to join a much smaller organization. I went on to join Eicher Group in 1978 and grew up as a leader and worked on multiple assignments to hone my skills. One day, I let the board members of the company know about my desire to set up Eicher Consultancy Services (ECS). We started with a small corpus, and went on to be very successful. I told my founders that I would step down after serving 10 years and spend rest of my life in human development. I started Grow Talent in 2000, which scaled up well in just five years. And after waiting for all these years, finally in 2006, I decided to launch my long-cherished dream of establishing a B-school -- School of Inspired Leadership or SOIL. So, its been a fascinating journey as I could manage to act as per my inspirations while keeping my ethical values intact.
Q: How do you look at the current trends of management education in India?
A: While the management education space has boomed to about 1800 B-schools in India, there are a lot of concerns. What I have observed in my long career is that the worst of MBAs go for teaching in India. My point is that teaching is not perceived as a lucrative career and because the brightest lot of students do not go into this profession, so it ultimately degrades the quality of education and value addition in whole education system. So in that order, B-schools in India need to develop that kind of infrastructure and curriculum to attract best brains towards the teaching profession. Another important aspect is that in past, Indian business schools used to emphasize on teaching subjects in silos without giving students the holistic view of management education. But, fortunately the trend seems to be changing as new business schools are coming up with holistic approach to teach management lessons to students. At this point of time, business schools across the country need to differentiate the leadership qualities from managerial qualities. Unfortunately, most of the management institutes leave leadership aspects untouched while imparting training to students. These B-schools must know that the leadership is all about cultivating humility, developing courage, making deep emotional connectivity, and garnering creative ability in an individual. I have a strong feeling that there is a need to change the selection procedures for entering in B-schools like quantitative oriented CAT entrance exam.
Q: How do you see MBA education in times of recession? What are your suggestions to aspirants who are skeptical at this point of time?
A: No doubt the current recession has impacted mindsets of all quarters including the student fraternity. Because the market is undergoing immense changes; so students need to analyze the current trends and prepare themselves accordingly. In these tough times, just possessing an MBA degree will not do the trick. They should go for acquiring extensive knowledge and skill sets to run longer in the race.It is important for students to evaluate all important aspects of the business school where they go to seek admission. They must evaluate infrastructure, faculty and methodologies adopted by that particular institute. So the concern is that students should take MBA education as a long-term investment and take every step carefully in this regard. I must say its a good opportunity to go for an MBA programme in this recession because after two or three years when market gains might, these students will be ready to grow with the booming economy.
Q: SOIL has tie-ups with some of the leading corporate in India. What is the nature of involvement and how can the students benefit?
A: A select consortium of corporate firms who share SOILs vision and ethos is invited to partner with SOIL. This network of accomplished professionals would help impart overall direction to curriculum design, participate in the admission process, review the quality of teaching, learning & industry research and lead the placement process. These companies are ABB, Anand Group, Aditya Birla Group, Avantha Group, BPCL, Dr Reddy Lab, GSK, Hindustan Unilever, Kohler, Mahindra, Max, SAS, Schneider, SRF and Tata Steel.
Q: How are you meeting the challenge of attracting quality of faculty?
A: We have tried to introduce best of faculty to students, who will undergo training at SOIL. We want to give student quality faculty, who have taught across the globe and given valuable insights to explore new paradigms in learning and innovation. We have introduced three kinds of faculty:
1) Faculty from international authority in domain like HR, Consultancy, strategy and change management, some of the names in the first category are Dr Francois Dupuy, Mercer Delta; Dr Patricia A. Evans, European R&D Practice of Strategic Decisions Group (SDG);
2) In the second category, Practitioners from Indian corporate sector like Former BCG Chairman Mr Arun Maira and Mr B Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel; and
3) Permanent full-time faculty teaching at premier B-Schools some of the names are Ohio Universitys Dr Ashok Gupta, and Dr Ramnath Narayanswamy, IIM Bangalore.
Q: What are the programmes you have launched and with what rationale?
A: The Leadership programs in HR, Business are designed to prepare students for a career in Human Resources, and Global Business. We have come up with business leadership programme like Indian School of Business, Hyderabad,and Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, are running. Then we have leadership programme in HR on the same line as of XLRI Jamshedpur, Xavier Institute of Social Service Ranchi and Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai.
Q: Where do you see SOIL ten years down the line?
A: In next 10 years, my aim is to produce 5,000 global leaders who will make difference in times to come. They will be role models for many because of their qualities to conduct business in an ethical manner. If I am able to achieve this figure in these years, I will be satisfied with myself. We have to increase the intake of seats to reach the figure of 5000 as of now we are offering 120 seats in total for the two programmes in HR, Business Leadership. So, somewhere we have to change the trajectory in this regard.
| Check Top MBA Colleges in India by Cities | | |
| Also Read Important Articles on MBA Admission | ||
| Top MBA Colleges in India | MBA Admission | MBA Entrance Exam |
| MBA Placements | MBA Ranking In India | GD Topics |
Recognized as a thought leader in talent management, leadership development and organizational transformation domain, Mr Anil Sachdev has had an interesting journey.