The Hindu Business Line : Executive learning back in demand

Executive MBA programmes, which have received poor patronage from corporates and working professionals during the last one year, are once again evoking interest, if the insights from academic institutes are any indication.

“During the last couple of months, we find that the hesitation to go in for executive MBA programmes is slowly disappearing. Serious investors in learning are now coming back to study,” said Deepak Chandra, Associate Dean, Centre for Executive Education (CEE), Indian School of Business (ISB).

He told The New Manager that till recently (during the last one year), the economic meltdown had impacted many corporate programmes.

“Companies were cutting their expenses on learning/development. This was more pronounced in the private sector than in the public sector,” he said.

However, the Hyderabad-based business school has attempted to tide over the impact of the slowdown by focusing on public sector enterprises and on sectors in the private sector which have been relatively less impacted by the slowdown, such as telecom, he added.

“However, things are appearing brighter again,” Chandra said.

In a way, ISB degree programmes can also be seen as executive management programmes as they accept students who have some experience in the corporate world. The student strength at ISB has gone up to over 570 this year from 437 last year, which can also be interpreted as an increase in the demand for executive MBA degrees at a time when slowdown concerns were at their highest!

Experts from other business schools also see a similar trend. “After a slight decline during the last year, we see demand picking up for executive MBA programmes now. However, serious professionals will never ignore the importance of learning and, to that extent, I don’t think there was ever any major reduction in interest in these programmes,” he said.

It is very important for working professionals to augment/update their skills, especially in the economic downturn, due to the increasing demands and expectations on the professional front, he added.

IBS, Hyderabad, is also seeing a return of interest in corporates sponsoring their employees for relevant programmes.

Sita Ramayana, Director, IBR Institute for International Business Relations, said: “Compared to the last year, admissions have definitely picked up. Senior officials from Microsoft and insurance companies have been taking up our project-based executive management education programmes.”

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