‘There’s no hard skill you suddenly apply to different scenarios’: Kashyap Dalal

ALMA MATER, IIM Lucknow (2004)

Kashyap Dalal, Co-founder and COO, Simplilearn

ONE OF THE biggest challenges I’ve seen in management education is keeping the classroom relevant to what’s really happening outside. This is increasingly becoming difficult because of the faster acceleration of technology, business models and markets. In the last 20 years, I’ve witnessed large changes sweeping across sectors—the telecom revolution, smartphones, 3G-5G, rise of digital payments and fintech. Many industries and GTM (go-to-market) models have been disrupted. It’s difficult to capture management learning in static models and apply them to such changes.

More than ever, management education needs to be more industry aligned. There should be an expiry date on case studies—most don’t apply for more than five to 10 years. Online content from founders, policymakers and thought leaders can be powerful classroom tools. One positive change is the increasing immersion of industry leaders in education. Many professionals are moving to top b-schools as faculty. Executive education programmes on topics like AI is another positive.

Management and technology education are about exposure to new experiences. Such experiences alongside a competitive peer set builds confidence to tackle challenges. Management education sometimes helps in the first five to seven years of work life because it gives you frameworks and structures. After that, it’s extremely critical to break out of these same frameworks, else they can block problem solving.

My early years at HUL were more enriching than management education because of my exposure to business across different functions. I didn’t use anything specific from my education initially. Peers without management education did equally well.

After HUL, I started Inkfruit.com, an early e-commerce venture. Many frameworks and theories of management education are designed for resource-rich businesses. In a bootstrapped startup working through cash flow issues and building a viable business model with sustainable unit economics, most learning was common sense driven.

My journey at Simplilearn has been different altogether. Looking back, there’s no hard skill you suddenly apply to different scenarios. Business is 50 per cent common sense and 50 per cent gut. Common sense is applying your mind to new situations with first-principles thinking. Gut is about navigating tough situations, conflicts, disruptions and staying focused.

AI is going to change things fundamentally. Learning what AI is capable of and how it will evolve is very important. One skill often not taught is the art of building new processes, designing new metrics and developing new organisational structures. This differentiates successful companies from those lagging.

My advice to today’s management students: Give 100 per cent to whatever you do while having fun. Learn as much as you can about AI—it is a generational technology shift, similar to the steam engine or electricity. It will change things in the next 30 years in ways we can’t imagine.

—As told to Abhinav Singh