Indian B-schools aren’t producing enough managers. The evidence? According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, there are 1,125 companies in India whose turnover exceeds Rs 100 crore, comprising 74 banking corporations, 30 financial services companies, 886 manufacturing companies, and 135 service-providers. And their collective appetite for new managerial resources is greater than the supply.

Of the 74 banks, 80 per cent — the nationalised banks — can be assumed to be uninterested in hiring MBAs. Let us guess that the average requirement of the remaining 15 is likely to be between 5 and 10 managers a year. Assuming a mean of 7.50, the banking sector’s annual requirement of entry-level managers can be placed at 113. Given the state of the financial services sector, only about 50 per cent of the firms are likely to need entry-level managers in the medium term. And the annual requirement of each of these 15 companies can be pegged at between 3 and 5. Taking a mean of 4, the sector’s annual requirement is 60 MBAs.

Companies involved in manufacturing and marketing consumer products traditionally constitute about a fifth of the total number of players in the manufacturing sector. All 177 such companies need entry-level managers, and their requirement is likely to vary between 5 and 10. Taking a mean of 7.50, their requirement of MBAs totals 1,328 per annum.

Of the remaining 709 companies involved in manufacturing industrial products, about half could be assumed to be in the market for MBAs. Their requirement can be estimated at 3 MBAs per company, translating into an annual requirement of 1,064. Assuming that about 75 per cent of the companies classified as service companies are actually holding and investment companies, the remaining 34 service companies are likely to require 5 MBAs every year. Or 170 annually.

Thus, the total number of entry-level managers needed by corporate India every year stands at 2,735. Apart from the IIM-L, which turns out 120 grads, all the other IIMs have a class strength of 200 while the other institutes have an average class strength of 60 each. But, the 21 B-schools which scored more than 40 per cent in the BT study produce about 1,740 managers every year.

The gap, amounting to about 36 per cent of the total requirement, proves why the corporate competition for MBAs will only get swifter, higher, and stronger.