B-Schools, Universities in India. It’s time to Include Digital Marketing in the curriculum

Wish you aCrash Courses and Guest Lectures on Digital Marketing Bangalorell a happy new year. I am writing this first post in 2013 after reading a nice blog post written by Amanda Eichmann from www.blueglass.com titled “What I Wish I Learned in Business School” http://www.blueglass.com/blog/business-school-lessons/

For the past 3 years I have been evangelizing Digital Marketing to various B schools and universities in Bangalore and other parts of India, discussing with the HOD’s, Directors about why Digital Marketing is an important part of MBA especially Marketing. Finally here are some of the universities that include Digital Marketing as part of the curriculum. Also love what Kiruba Shankar is doing, the way he teaches. B Schools should learn a lot from people like Kiruba

Symbiosis, WLCI and Christ University. Prof Kshetragna HOD for MBA, Marketing is a good friend and who understands the importance of Digital. After a year of discussions and educational norms, designing the curriculum etc, next week I will be taking (updated November 2013) we are providing a 30 hour Digital Marketing Program for MBA Marketing students. Pretty excited to share my 10 years experience with almost 200 students in 4 batches.

This 30 hour program will be  is interactive, hands on and based on real business projects. Will be gathering everyone in groups and each group will be taking a real business.(Encourage students to take small scale business or rural marketing, how to integrate digital marketing for small shop owners: a tea shop, local barber or any small scale business) and come up with the digital marketing plan. Will explain the concepts, advantages of SEO, Google Adwords, Social media marketing/advertisement, Blogging for businesses, content marketing, Local business listings in Google Places, Four Square, mobile marketing, Digital analytic.

In practicals, they would be setting up websites, Local, blog, SEO, PPC, Social media and measure the success. The evaluation will be based on the performance of the project.

In August, shared my experience with WLCI MBA students, even though the students were less than 10, this 30 hour program gave me and the students good exposure. Just to learn from others I invited Ranjan (Head of Marketing, Vayama India who is an expert in PPC) Rajesh (SEO specialist) Arnab (The Mobile Marketing Guy) Students had a good interaction and happy to see that a few of the students got placed and practice digital, right after the 30 hour program. This is one of the joyful moment when a student comes and shares that he got placed, practising digital and how that 30 hour program was helpful.

I do hope all of the b-schools in India at least give some exposure in Digital Marketing and share how and why digital marketing is important for the students to face the real world.

Just look at the rate of successful e-commerce start ups and the amount of funding each start up gets. When Indian start ups, e-commerce, mobile apps are growing at a rapid rate, there is a lot of opportunity for those who understand Digital. According to a Forrester research: E-Commerce in India to grow at 57 %, reach $ 8.8 billion by 2016. Read the report here: http://www.iamwire.com/2012/04/india-to-be-the-fastest-growing-e-commerce-market-in-asia-pacific-market-set-to-grow-to-8-8-billion-by-2016/

Another article from Forbes : http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2012/02/19/startup-india-flips-out-over-e-commerce/

With this growth rate, these e-commerce sites are always looking for talents and their entire business model is Digital. E-Commerce sites are spending a ton of money in Display ads, video ads , social media ads and re marketing.

Will the MBA Marketing student ready to handle this when they graduates ?

As Amanda points out, “I think it’s important to better integrate the business of digital marketing into the curriculum. This will not only be helpful to current students looking for jobs, but the alumni who need to continue their education in this ever-changing industry”

What is your opinion about integrating digital marketing into the curriculum, what did you wish you learned in your college ?

Don’t you think it’s time for Business Schools in India to include Digital Marketing in their Curriculum, Share your thoughts.

We would love to hear from you and love to help you, your organization to integrate digital into traditional marketing.

Like to share our views, speak to your audience ? or book a workshop on digital marketing, talk to our CEO Suresh Babu, directly at 9731388721 and email : suresh@webmarketingacademy.in

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