For years, academia and industry have been operating in separate domains. The complex nature of business and fresh challenges in new economy have made it imperative for both the parties to come closer, work together and create synergies. The better opportunities in industry in terms of career development and pay and perks attract the best talent to the corporate sector. Very few people from the industry join academics. Most of the faculty members in B-Schools are pure academicians without any industry experience and even many PhDs also do not have any industry exposure, leading to further widening of the gap between industry expectations and classroom learning. This article focuses on the importance of industry experience in management education and further strengthening the industry-academia interface.

As Assistant Director, Corporate Affairs and Placement Bureau, I always interact with the industry people closely and organize a formal feedback session once the interview is over. In my college, some of the top-notch companies executives visit every year for MBA placement. These companies include: Oracle, Emerson Network, Caritor, Ceasefire, Café Coffee Day, ICICI, Wockhardt Hospitals, and Diffusion Knowledge Solutions (a KPO) to name a few. Feedback focuses on three board areas:

Typically, over the years, B-Schools have been trying to address these issues. Soft skills programs have been a part of curriculum to improve the communication skills and develop a pleasing personality. Most of the B-Schools have language centers as well. The last two areas are really hard to improve upon. Having low confidence is not solely an outcome of a poor attitude. It is much more. It links to the third point. Most of the questions asked in interviews are fundamental and have relevance to industry practices. A few companies have now started giving case studies in interviews to judge analytical skills and industry-readiness of the candidates.

These challenges lead us to one question, "How to bring industry in the classroom?". There are many ways to address this concern; industry experience should be mandatory for recruiting teachers (minimum five years), strong industry-academia interface through guest lectures, common knowledge sharing forum, CEO interaction, panel discussions, industry internship, consultancy, industry visit, etc., can also help meet this need.

At the PG level, students can study themselves whatever is there in the books. What matter most is how teachers can bring real-life experiences in the classroom? Towards this direction, most of the business school have now adopted the case study based teaching and lot of other activities like business games, role play, syndicate exercises, panel discussions, student associateship programs, learn while you earn, which has bridged the gap to some extent. Teaching through simulation has become very fruitful, and many B-Schools have already established Business Simulation Laboratory (BSL).