B-schools upbeat on executive education courses

As the Indian executive education market increasingly recognises the value of world-class executive education programmes and is eager to invest in the same, several Indian and foreign B-schools are gearing up to offer tailor-made courses for the industry and academia alike.

Deans and professors from the best business schools are jostling for appointments with executives and companies to offer tailor-made programmes.

Institutes like IIT-Kharagpur and XLRI Jamshedpur, for instance, offer around 30 executive education courses per year. Till a few years ago, the figure was half of that. A key factor that has made B-schools flexible is that the price per programme has gone down by 60 per cent, while the bigger challenge is keeping the content relevant.

"In the face of rapid technological advancement around the globe, it is important for engineers and scientists to continue to learn new technologies, update and upgrade their knowledge, much after completing formal education in the college," said a professor of IIT-Kharagpur.

Moreover, as an IIM-Calcutta professor pointed out: "There is a shortage of 20-40 per cent in the leadership positions across sectors. Although many companies have found internal training to be a substitute, after a point it becomes expensive."

The seriousness with which Indian companies are taking executive education can be measured by the demand for customised programmes and partnerships with B-schools in co-designing curriculum. And that too at competitive prices. Harvard Business School (HBS) just completed its first five-day executive education programme in Hyderabad.

If a similar course was taught at the Harvard campus, it would have cost $10,000 (around Rs 400,000) upwards. However, an Indian executive gets it for as low as Rs 180,000.

At IIT-Kharagpur, XLRI Jamshedpur, and IIM Calcutta, around 200 executives take the executive education programmes every year, with course fee ranging between Rs 5,000 and Rs 35,000, while a few courses could cost up to a couple of lakhs. For example, the Danish embassy of Dhaka had sent people for a four-month management course at IIT-KGP at a cost of approximately Rs 60 lakh.

The level of importance of executive education has reached outside profit-oriented companies too. The Ranchi-based Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS) too is in the process of drawing up a calendar of topics for training of non-government organisations (NGOs) keeping in mind the priorities of small and middle level NGOs.

"Every year we draw up a number of new courses for executives and managers as well as NGOs and social activists. These courses are either suggested by XISS or designed on requests from companies, NGOs, state government, funding agencies and other organisations," said R K Biswas, dean of XISS.

XISS executive education courses, usually range between Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000, and address current topics and concerns ranging from general management to specific functional areas that include human resource, rural development, information management, marketing and finance.