Executive education programes designed by premier buisness schools was once a must-go destination for India Inc's blue-eyed boys. They still are — but with a difference.
Among many other things, the slowdown a couple of years ago has taught companies to seek better return on investment from B-schools. So while companies are ready to invest in executive education, they also want demonstrable value.
B-schools say this has prompted them to rethink their executive education business model. And how – Gurgaon-based Management Development Institute, for example, is teaching executives to review new management books, or Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) which is planning to demonstrate value for what companies are paying for.
“Companies are turning to book reviews and presentations to keep their executives abreast with contemporary management literature. Else, the executives are used to a very casual reading. Making a book presentation is one way of analysing the book's content,” says Professor S Chatterjee, Dean continuing education at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.
Chatterjee, has recently had a request from Areva, a mining an energy company, to include book reviews in the executives education programmes he delivers.
The B-school is also conducting evaluation tests with companies giving theme projects (which is of interest to the company) to its executives.
"Many companies including Bharat Electronics and Areva want the training sessions to be end oriented with some kind of an evaluation criteria. They want new ideas from the young minds. They give a time frame of two to three months before people submit their project report. Faculty concerned of the institute where these executives have been trained will also be involved in the project," says Chatterjee.
The B-school says it receives a lot of requests from companies spanning across sectors including hospitality, power, electronics, software and oil and gas to conduct programmes in this manner.
ISB's experience has been no different. The institute calls it impact of the slowdown and says companies have become demanding and better return on investment. So while companies are ready to invest, they want value to be demonstrated.
The institute says it has put in place an entirely new system by creating an organisation structure which is a lot vertical focused on industry segments with verticals like banking and financial sector, manufacturing, oil and gas and government companies.
Post the vertical system, the school says, it has seen an increase of 25 per cent in enrolments for executive education.
“We have to focus on industry and segments. Having a vertical system means a person's understanding of the industry and organisation increases dramatically and thus the learning that you bring to that particular industry is based on the industry and organisation's needs,” says Deepak Chandra, Deputy Dean, ISB.
Companies in almost every sector are asking B-schools to measure what their executives have learnt at the end of the programme. The B-schools however, say they are not charging a premium for including action learning methodology in their curriculum.
At ISB its as clients have begun asking for action based learning, it has included the same in teaching methodology in both--- open enrolment and customized programmes.
"You demonstrate value via right content, application and measuring. One of the changes we are bringing in is looking at pedagogical approaches to bring in more contextualisation and relevance in terms of the content and the learning," adds Chandra.
According to Chaitanya Kalipatnapu, director, Eruditus executive education, more and more companies are moving away from open or off the shelf programmes to customized programmes.
“Custom programmes based on Action learning projects (ALPs), as they are called, are new. They typically run for six to eight months and the projects are based on strategic initiatives of companies. These programmes address the specific learning requirements of the companies while delivering inputs to the ALPs. However, ALPs requires a lot of commitment from companies, which many professors complain that its hard to come by,” says Chaitanya.
Eruditus, promoted by alumni of INSEAD and Harvard Business School, delivers executive education programmes to Indian corporations and participants. The company is at present working with INSEAD and Tuck School of Business in India.
