THOSE ASPIRING to be in corporate corner rooms in the future are now faced with some critical questions. How do they prepare for a business environment that is unpredictable and volatile? As tomorrow’s managers and business leaders, what are the key attributes they must have as rapid change engulfs the global economy? What are the lessons that they need to learn now, which will empower them to face tomorrow’s business environment with confidence? In this VUCA environment, the B-schools these aspiring managers go to must then be equipped to prepare them well enough for success amid this uncertainty. That’s the key issue B-schools are grappling with as well. Are they in tune with the changing times where a mere MBA degree no longer guarantees success in the corridors of corporations? Do they know how to ensure their students are not just using AI prompts, but truly know how to harness artificial intelligence without killing curiosity?

Our special India’s Best B-schools issue comes to you amid these disruptions. A management degree must do much more today to equip tomorrow’s managers with the tools needed to navigate this new ecosystem than ever before. And B-schools are increasingly realising that they need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant. As Suresh Narayanan, the former boss of Nestlé India tells my colleague Ajita Shashidhar who helmed this issue, B-schools today must groom leaders who are able to navigate volatility and technological disruptions, and still ensure growth is happening. Let’s also look at it from the perspective of those who will be recruiting these students. As Rajkamal Vempati, CHRO of Axis Bank, tells us, industry needs critical thinkers, those who understand context and can deal with multiple stakeholders with ease. B-schools must do what it takes to ensure these attributes are ingrained in tomorrow’s leaders. The question, therefore, is, are they doing enough?

Clearly, one of the biggest disruptions today is AI. It is all-pervasive and is changing the way we work and live. Amid the raging debate on how AI needs to be harnessed for the greater good, and how its negative aspects need to be reined in, B-schools today must ensure students understand this balance early enough for them not to be overly dependent on it such that it takes away from their own critical thinking. As Varun Nagaraj, dean of SPJIMR, writes in his column, “AI is eroding human qualities, and we must take conscious steps to address that.” Nagaraj points to the influence of social media, where the ability to concentrate for long periods of time is diminishing and curiosity is reduced, and says AI is exacerbating all this even more. The answer, he says, is not to say, ‘don’t use AI in the classroom’. Instead, B-schools must rethink curricula to ensure that human attributes don’t get lost.

Coming to the Fortune India-ACRA B-school rankings of 2025, this year, too, the Top 10 is dominated by the IIMs, which take six slots. IIM Ahmedabad tops the charts, followed by IIM Calcutta and IIM Lucknow, with IIM Kozhikode and SPJIMR occupying the fourth and fifth spots. These rankings are also unique in that one of the key parameters is the ‘distance to frontier’, which shows how far a B-school is from the one topping the list. As government-run- and private B-schools reinvent themselves for the new age, business education in India is set to undergo a tectonic shift in the days ahead. Because disruption is now a way of life.