Showing posts with label ISB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ISB. Show all posts

Friday, December 2, 2011

Indian business schools: Best practices

Leading schools such as the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and the Indian School of Business are identifying best practices to help them benchmark with foreign schools and attract the best students and faculty.


Accreditation, evaluation and grading of programmes, as is the norm with business schools in the West, are a few of the things being considered.


International accreditation help students get their degrees recognised globally, while the business school is successful in securing more foreign partnerships and linkages.

The Indian School of Business (ISB) recently announced its accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), an US-based accreditation body.

Ajit Rangnekar, Dean, Indian School of Business said, “We are delighted to have received the prestigious AACSB accreditation, which is regarded as the hallmark of excellence in business education. The AACSB is unique because of its mission-driven approach, evaluating the applying schools against peer schools with similar missions.”

Other top Indian b-schools such as the IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore have received approval from European agency EQUIS. IIM Kozhikode has applied for accreditation from AMBA (Association of MBAs), a UK-based organisation.

According to media reports, even newer business schools such as the Chandigarh-based Aryans Business School have become members of the AACSB.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The rise of the one-year MBA in India

Tarun Mehra, an analyst at a Gurgaon-based knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) firm, wanted a management qualification that would add a competitive edge to his resume and help him move up the professional ladder. As his academic credentials were impressive, Mehra could easily have taken his pick from any of the top business schools within India. Instead he enrolled for a one-year MBA at local business school, SOIL (School of Inspired Leadership).

“I did not want to spend two years studying for an MBA so I chose a one-year program. This is value for money. I am not paying for that extra year, yet the course curriculum is the same.”

In the words of Bala V Balachandran, founder and dean of Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM) in Chennai, “the monetary value of time, or opportunity cost, is more important than the time value of money.”

In a bid to cater to professionals who do not want to devote two years of their work life to earn an MBA, an increasing number of business schools have started offering one-year accelerated, full-time courses. The one-year program, popularized by business schools in Europe as an alternative to the predominantly two-year US-style MBA.

Says Bani Wadhwa, an HR manager in Chennai, “I wanted to take up an MBA program but did not have the time or the inclination to do a two-year. So I opted for a shorter, one-year at GLIM. The course content was the same, only shorter. What’s more, my company sponsored me, so it all worked out well in the long term.”

Professor S Sriram, executive director, Great Lakes Institute of Management explains: “People increasingly feel pressured for time these days. For working people, taking two years out proves to be expensive and difficult. If one can get the same value in one year, why not?”

Management experience matters

Schools such as GLIM, the Indian School of Business, SOIL, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) among others offer the one-year program with a focus on applicants with at least a couple of years of work experience. In fact, it was the Indian School of Business that pioneered the one-year format in India, an experiment that turned out hugely successful for the business school.

One-year programs teach students to analyze situations quickly, think on their feet and apply their skills to real business situations. Students learn to combine their industry expertise with the fundamentals of management that are acquired over the year. Career interruptions are minimized for students while companies encourage promising employees to prepare for leadership roles. One-year programs have a great advantage over the two-year model because of the tremendous savings in opportunity costs.

It is an ideal platform to recharge before returning to the corporate world. Typically, a one-year MBA can cost anything between Rs 750,000 and Rs 1,700,000 (US$15,000 and $34,000) depending on the school.

“One year programs are fast track courses with shorter duration terms. You need to have students who have exposure to how things work in real life. So typically, one year MBAs admit students with work experience,” explains Sriram.

The average experience of the current batch at GLIM is around four years. According to Sriram, these students are also very clear about the kind of industry and job they look for post MBA, which is not usually the case for students with little or no work experience, who are more open and less focused in terms of career choices.

The one-year full-time postgraduate program in management (PGPM) at GLIM helps students understand the interactions between the various functional areas of a business system and thereby appreciate the need for developing cross-functional perspectives in business. The intensive program demands students with a proven record of academic brilliance along with an ability to demonstrate vision, initiative, leadership and hard work.

“The one-year program at SPJIMR is different from the traditional two-year model on the following counts. The participants are more experienced, have a clear idea about what kind of job they want to have after their MBA in terms of role and the industry, have reached a stage in their career where they are ready to manage people besides managing issues which was their sole concern in their pre MBA career,” says Dr M L Shrikant, honorary dean at SPJIMR.

Shrikant adds that another group of applicants for one-year programs includes individuals who would have worked on pursuing an MBA program earlier and have realized the importance of a formal degree for career growth and also may have acquired financial strength to do the same.

“In fact, given the opportunity cost of having to give up a job to do the MBA, the one year students are also much more hardworking, focused and serious about utilizing every minute of their stay at the institute,” notes Professor Sriram.

Specialized MBA course content

The fact that the course is of a shorter duration does not mean that the curriculum is more difficult or not extensive enough. The course has been tailored to meet the needs of business and industry. For instance, the post-graduate program in management (PGPM) offered by SPJIMR is an 11-month, full-time course. The SPJIMR program is an intensive course that has been designed to meet specific skill requirements of industry.

The ISB’s program has been ranked 13th in the Global MBA Rankings 2011 released by the Financial Times. It also recorded the highest salary percentage increase among all the top 100 schools. During the last four year period, ISB’s class size grew by over 35% to a current size of 570 students.

Despite these statistics, there are some aspirants who are clearly not bitten by the one-year bug.

Take Mani Sharma, a digital marketing professional from New Delhi for instance. “I don’t want to take up a one-year MBA program as these are more expensive and without company sponsorship, do not make economic sense. One-year works for students who have a background in business or a company sponsorship. Also, one-year programs do not allow students time to network or intern with companies. In the long-term, these are valuable experiences and help in professional development.”

Be that as it may, with the growing popularity of the one-year format in India, it is likely there will be an increase in the number of business schools switching over from traditional two-year MBA program formats to offer this shorter route to professional development.

Source: Published in TopMBA

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Wharton’s programme for Indian leaders

“Learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” (Peter F Drucker)

As Indian companies scale for global aspirations in a rapidly changing economic environment, good business strategy demands that senior executives and managers are trained in specific skills to keep pace with the organisation’s growth plan.

In recent years, India’s executive education sector has been growing by leaps and bounds. With economic growth creating a need for skilled human capital, leading business schools such as the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Indian School of Business at Hyderabad are focusing on executive education programmes. International schools such as Harvard Business School, Oxford University and the University of Western Ontario are also making a beeline for the market.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has announced the launch of a new non-degree business certificate programme in India beginning January 2012. Called the Accelerated Development Program (ADP), this new certificate is designed to meet the current needs of global business leaders with high potential in India.

"The Accelerated Development Program exemplifies Wharton's commitment to global business education as it will bring Wharton's world-class faculty and thought leadership to business executives in India," explained Wharton Vice Dean Jason Wingard who made the announcement of the programme yesterday at the School's Global Engagement Series event held in Mumbai, India.

Harbir Singh, Wharton's Vice Dean of Global Initiatives and the Mack Professor of Management, says the present is an ideal time to launch such a programme in India. "There is a growing emphasis on internationalisation for organisations in India," Singh says. "Business leaders must be well aware of the need to build globally competitive enterprises, and how today's highly interconnected world affects everything from innovation to finance to leadership. You can't create and maintain a competitive advantage without a global perspective."

The Accelerated Development Program is designed to bring that perspective to India's global business leaders with high potential. The certificate programme will offer courses in Mumbai and Gurgaon, India in topics such as Strategic Thinking, Finance, Marketing, and Leadership.

What distinguishes Wharton's Accelerated Development Program from other business school programmes currently offered in India is that it will go beyond the classroom sessions to help participants become more reflective and proactive in managing their careers. All participants who choose to complete the certificate will receive coaching and professional assessments. Also, they will be eligible to attend an executive education programme at the Wharton School's Philadelphia campus in the United States. No other business school in India currently offers these types of additional benefits.

"Business leaders today need a higher level of proactivity and self-reflection during their careers," says Singh, who will teach in the Accelerated Development Program. "The pace of change demands a take-charge approach, and coaching is an important component."

To be awarded the certificate, participants must complete three of the courses within two years.