The Hindu Business Line : Indian biz school in London

Pune-based Tasmac (Training and Advanced Studies in Management and Communications Ltd), is all set to admit students to its brand new campus in London. The institute is gearing up to begin operations in October, providing students with a choice of getting a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration, an MBA full-time or an MBA part-time (no diplomas).

The obvious question is: why should students either in the UK or those going all the way there from other countries (including India) choose Tasmac’s London School of Business when they could enrol in a host of other educational institutions in the UK itself or in other places? The answer is simple, namely, not only has Tasmac established for itself a brand name in India but is also fully prepared to battle the competition that it expects in London — competition provided by some of the best management institutes in the UK and abroad.

Alongside receiving the ISO 9001:2000 Certification, Tasmac has also been nominated for the 2008 UK Trade and Investments annual award, for “the latest market entrant”. This award, in its second year, is for Indian companies established in the UK.

Within India, Tasmac operates four institutes at Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata from where 8,000 graduates have already passed out. At the end of the various courses, it awards a University of Wales degree in the subject concerned.

Giri Dua, the affable and businesslike CMD of Tasmac, says it has been a great satisfaction for his institute to have crossed the strict hurdles placed in its way by the British Accreditation Council for Independent Further and Higher Education (BAC), which enabled it to set up shop in the UK.

The first batch at the Tasmac London School of Business is expected to comprise 100-120 students; the next group will be taken in February. The infrastructure is in place, and the school is headed by Prof Marshall Hall, whose enthusiasm is infectious as is his sense of humour. The faculty is more or less in place, comprising a complement of full-time staff and those visiting. It expects to enrol about 400 students in October 2009.

The London school is being run by a separate private limited company, which is a fully-owned subsidiary of Tasmac Ltd in India, with the bulk of the shareholding held by the Dua family. Asked about future growth, Dua said there was a clear opportunity for venture capital being involved given the interest already being evinced in the company. He said the project cost in London was about £1 million (Rs 8 crore). Half of this has been generated internally while the other half has been borrowed from the Wembley branch of the Bank of India.

In a vision statement drawn up in 2003, the Tasmac board had said that the institute aspired “to be an internationally recognised and renowned institute providing quality education and educational services through its multiple campuses first in India, then South Asia and finally extending its boundaries to the rest of the world”. Clearly, for the time being, the UK has stolen a march over South Asia although it is more than likely that the London school will in future find a large number of its students coming from South Asia and perhaps also parts of Europe. After all, the degree will be a Wales University one and the service-provider basically Indian. As Prof Hall says, “We are expecting great results over the next few years, and all the reactions we have received so far indicate that those expectations are realistic. From a business perspective it makes sense and from the student’s perspective it’s the best of both worlds.”

Perhaps unknown to those running the business school is nature’s icing on the cake in the shape of a rambling, tree-dotted park across the road in Kingsbury which, a hundred years ago, belonged to the Duchess of Sutherland — a typical English space for relaxation which Tasmac students could resort to after taxing their brains in the classrooms.

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