For the 7,000-plus MBAs graduating from India’s leading 26 business schools, the 2017 placement season came with its own set of challenges in the immediate aftermath of demonetisation . Companies went cautious on the hiring front; salary packages across campuses saw an average 5-10 per cent increase and the mood, in general, was more subdued than in the preceding few years.Amid all this, however, for blue-chip recruiters, MBA talent continued to be a key driver of their India growth story. Digital transformation of businesses and the emerging opportunities that arose from the current dynamic business environment was one of the primary areas B-school graduates were hired for this year.“For us, digital transformation continues to be a strong driver for demand,” said James Lennox, chief people officer at Cognizant, which snagged the numero uno position once again in the top recruiters list, after losing out to Deloitte last year.“As physical value chains give way to more agile value chains, where data and digital capabilities are infused at every step of the process, winning requires a new engagement model and different capabilities,” he said. “This trend is creating significant opportunities for B-school graduates, as clients look for advice on leveraging next-generation technologies to optimise their businesses and drive innovation.”The company said it had hired close to 600 MBA students from the 2017 graduating batch. Over the last three years, in fact it has hired more than 1,700 MBAs to help propel business growth across roles as varied as management and business consulting, client relationship management, business analysis, analytics and insights, solutions portfolio expansion, corporate development, M&A, change management and business integration. Cognizant Consulting has been the biggest recruiter of management graduates, with more than 6,000 consultants globally.“Our consulting business continues to take a lead role in many of our transformation deals, helping architect the deals and driving change in our clients’ businesses,” Lennox said. “We have been a pioneer in having realised the value that B-school graduates bring to the table and have constantly reinvented ourselves to engage in the best possible ways to identify premium business talent that is relevant for Cognizant.”Rubbing shoulders with Cognizant in the top three were ICICI Bank and Deloitte, both of which have been fixtures in the top 10, since 2011.“As we embark on the next wave of transformation and strengthen our culture of being dynamic, agile and customer centric, we will continue to hire top-quality talent from premier business and engineering schools as a part of our strategy,” said TK Srirang, head of human resources at ICICI Bank. The bank said it has recruited 223 candidates from B-schools this year.Now in its seventh year, the ET Top Recruiters survey was based on data collated from 26 leading business schools across India: IIM Bangalore; IIM Lucknow; IIM Indore; IIM Kozhikode; XLRI-Xavier School of Management; Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon; Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi; Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi; SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR); IIM Shillong; Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS); IIM Trichy; IIM Rohtak; IIM Udaipur; Xavier Institute of Management (XIM), Bhubaneswar; Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM), IIT Bombay; WESchool; National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai; Great Lakes Institute of Management; Goa Institute of Management; Institute of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University (earlier FMS-BHU); IIM Kashipur; International Management Institute (IMI), Delhi; Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune; Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune; and Department of Management Studies (DoMS), IIT Madras.Consulting giants dominated the list this year, a testimony to their growing need for MBA talent that can be rapidly deployed to meet clients’ needs. “Increasingly, several firms continue to explore options to set up global development centres in the country, and this too could be fuelling this metric,” said SV Nathan, chief talent officer at Deloitte India.Deloitte slipped to third position on the ET Top Recruiters list, but the company said it has hired over 1,000 graduates from the Class of 2017 across business schools as in past years. MBA graduates were hired across business vertical and services.B-school hiring has increased by over 45 per cent at IT services consultant Capgemini , a move that has catapulted the company into the top five of the top recruiters’ list after a four-year gap. Nearly 25 per cent of the offers made at B-schools include students from the IIMs. “Capgemini in India is today a 100,000-people organisation and is the delivery backbone of the group. As we grow in India, it is important for us to identify and train young potential leaders for the future,” said Anil Jalali, chief of human resources for India at Capgemini.Digital disruption today needs companies to approach client needs in a very different manner. “Management students come trained with business acumen and a holistic understanding of the industry and have a perspective of various functions due to specialisation in key subjects like marketing, finance, operations etc. This allows us to train them for key roles across sales, pre-sales, consulting,” Jalali said.IT company Wipro, which hired more than 200 students from premier B-schools this year said demand is primarily driven by business needs and organisation dynamics.“IT / ITeS industry is going through a transformational journey of providing higher-value services to their clients,” said a spokesperson. “Wipro has been making investments in emerging technologies so as to enable clients to become future-ready in this era of digital transformation. To fuel this investment, we continue to attract and retain MBA graduate talent who contribute in the disruptive fields of consulting, digital, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, etc.”Even as e-commerce hiring fell sharply, Amazon continued its upward journey in the top recruiter rankings. Rival Flipkart went off campuses, but Amazon, which visits about 30 campuses yearly, stepped up its hiring from campuses by 15-18 per cent this year.“As we grow, we have made significant progress in attracting top MBA talent from top B-schools in the country. Our MBA hiring is not only about numbers but also the quality and diversity of talent we bring in. We hire in triple digits every year and that number is only increasing,” said Priti R, director, talent acquisition, APAC “Our focus is to offer students career choices in multiple areas. We offer career choices across 20+ roles which is unique to Amazon. Our focus is also on diversity with 25 per cent of our hires being females.” Amazon hires for roles in retail, operations, HR and finance and said it’s not the pedigree of the institute that’s critical but a combination of student interest and ability to meet the company’s hiring bar.“Our offer decline rate is about 6 per cent today, a testimony to the fact that we are focusing on building careers and not just offering jobs,” Priti said.According to her, students make for the customer base of Amazon and the company wants to provide them multiple career options. For this, it has also expanded ACE – its top B-school competition for schools in Asia, thus building a community that goes beyond India and allows MBA students to get to learn more from other schools in the region.Consulting firm EY, which entered the ET top recruiters list for the first time in the seven years of the survey, said it had hired around 300 MBA students, up 15 per cent from last year.Consulting companies have played a strong role in hiring this year and EY has hired for roles in advisory, transactions and digital and analytics.The company is focusing strongly on summer internships, which becomes the future hiring pipeline.“We have a robust summer internship programme with an outlook to convert pre-placement offers and so far, we have seen a conversion ratio of 60 per cent at our target premier schools,” said Sandeep Kohli, talent leader, EY.“B-school hires form an integral part of our overall strategy and bring in fresh insights relevant to the ever-changing business, customer and technology landscape,” he added.For professional services organisations, the current market presents a range of opportunities in light of the fact that the dynamic business environment, changes in law and regulation, evolving business models, and the impact of technology related innovations and disruptions, has most industries and companies working toward addressing the emerging opportunities and challenges.In order to respond to the market needs, skilled and agile talent continues to be a requirement that drives the need for management skills across specific growth areas, said Shalini Pillay, head, people, performance and culture at KPMG in India.In keeping with the trend of consulting firms soaking up big numbers across B-schools this year, KPMG, too, has recruited a sizable 350 students from the 2017 graduating batch. In the past two years, across all businesses, B-school hires have increased by more than 50 per cent , Pillay said.The company hired for management consulting, risk consulting and deal advisory. These teams work across a wide spectrum of clients – large multinationals, promoter-driven companies, startups, the government and regulators.“Our MBA hires represent diversity of academic backgrounds, work experiences and skills,” Pillay said. “To be able to respond to the market with innovative solutions to complex business challenges, one does require good diversity of skills in the talent repository. The MBA talent certainly enhances our ability to do this and they play an important role in our growth strategy.”(Additional Inputs: Rica Bhattacharyya, Brinda Dasgupta, Prachi Verma Dadhwal)