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LATEST
NEWS |
17th
February 2010 / Times of India / Mumbai Edition
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 MBAs globe-trot as part of curriculum
Students Get First-Hand Feel of World Business
Mumbai: For years, an executive MBA (EMBA) meant little more than going back to school. Like most other courses, it was time sliced into semesters and split among texts for senior managerial fellows.
Now, with borders getting blurred, more and more B-schools around the world are redesigning their curricula. EMBA is shifting from being a classroom experience to a journey. Literally so, with management institutes taking students on world discovery expeditions to understand businesses and markets around the globe.
Come June and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, will launch what it calls PGM-MAX , a post-graduate programme for senior executives who can squeeze the maximum out of a management course. It will take them to two neighbouring, but rather distinct worlds USA, a developed economy, and Brazil, an emerging market. Its for functional leaders. Apart from what texts have to say, we want our executives to understand how different markets function, said Deepak Chandra , associate dean at ISB.
The 15-month part-time course costs Rs 25 lakh, apart from the travel expenses that executives will have to pay for additionally. At IIM-Ahmedabad , the four-year PGPX course for executives has evolved over time. Samir Barua, director there, told TOI that the B-school had managed to tie up with a variety of institutions across the world and students could select one market they were interested in looking at closely. When executives travel abroad, they not only spend time in class, but also take up a short-term internship. Close to 1,600 applications come in for the 85 seats that IIM-A has on offer for this one-year programme. It charges Rs 17.52 lakh, but the travel and living expenses for the course are charged extra.
Despite the fees, the idea of executive education has caught on after well-known Canadian academic Henry Mintzberg in his book Managers not MBAs trashed the idea of an MBA and promoted the concept of training working professionals. The three Indian Institutes of Management, which saw sense in what Mintzberg propagated, started offering executive education to senior management professionals. In 2009, IIM-B introduced international immersion as a part of its EPGP course (priced at Rs 20 lakh) and close to 70 executives travelled to China, to study the engines that powered the worlds fastest growing economy. But by 2009, China was an already known growth story and most executives had been there. So, there was a plan to take them to Brazil and Russia, but the logistics could not be worked out. We plan to take the next batch there, said an IIM-B faculty. The India story also brings home scholars and the B-school plays host to such executive programmes.
The International Masters Programme in Practicing Management founded by Mintzberg gets students to IIM-B where they observe how business in done in India. George Washington Universitys World MBA executive programme takes executives to India, China and Europe for close to Rs 40 lakh. On the Trium programme at the London School of Economics, students split their time between London, Paris and New York. Companies are once again sponsoring their executives to go back to class and comprehend the world of business.
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