New Delhi: As the economy transits through a painful downturn, it’s not just businesses that are learning to adapt. B-schools are adapting, too, in tailoring programmes for company executives.
Deepak Chandra, associate dean of the Centre for Executive Education at the Indian School of Business, or ISB, in Hyderabad, says, “We started focusing on those industries and sectors which are more serious investors in learning and where the impact of the economy may not be so high, and on programmes that focus on (the) particular issues they are facing in that period”.
Step forward: Students at IIM Lucknow’s Noida campus, adjacent to Delhi. The location was chosen to cater to working executives. Rajkumar/Mint
For a telecom firm exploring additional markets to tap in the slowdown, for instance, Chandra says ISB designed a programme to work out strategies that would help expand its individual customer base to one that includes large businesses. And for an information technology company that wants to expand the high-end services for which it can charge more, ISB created a co-branded academy to train different levels of managers. Such an academy, Chandra says, not only builds skills, but also works as a retention tool because employees stay on to finish the course.
Executive education in India isn’t a new concept—Faculty of Management Studies, in New Delhi, started a part-time programme in 1954, and Management Development Institute, or MDI, in Gurgaon, began its short-term courses in 1973— but it’s a field that has gone through major changes to keep up with the country’s demand for skilled, trained managers.
Also See In Demand (Graphic)
Programmes come in many durations—from the two-year master of business administration programme squeezed into a one-year course for students with more work experience, to six-month crash courses in marketing, finance or project management, or intensive two-week workshops on business strategy to three-year, part-time courses for working executives. If Indian managers 10 years ago were older, more experienced and knew their roles and industries well, today’s managers are young and enthusiastic, but lack experience.
“The amount of change (the country has seen) in the last 10 years, the country hasn’t seen in the last 50,” says Raj Bowen, managing director in India of leadership development firm Personnel Decisions International Corp. The older generation of executives tends to stick to old habits. For example, Bowen says, there are still thousands of senior managers at Indian companies who get emails, print them, write comments on them, and then give them to someone to type. Adaptability is key, he adds.
In order to cater to new demands, executive education programmes are focusing on teaching skills that companies are looking for their managers to acquire.