The Chennai School of Business Excellence, to be set up by the CBS Trust, which was established in 2007, has set up a campus in Sri City, the integrated business city in Tada near here.

The school has come up on an area of around three acres (which is a part of a 10-acre plot) and will be operational next month, when classes are expected to commence. So far, the parent, Chennai Business School, has been operating out of a building in Velachery, offering one-year programmes.

The Sri City EPZ is spread over 6,000 acres and hosts several large multinational companies such as Kobelco, Colgate-Palmolive, Alstom and Lavazza.

CSBE will offer two-year AICTE-approved PGDM courses with a dual specialisation – one vertical (functional) and one horizontal (industry) specialisation. Every student will specialise in one of the three areas: finance, human resources and marketing. The student will also specialise in one vertical, choosing from retail, telecom, manufacturing and banking and financial services.

J.N. Amrolia, one of the trustees of the CBS Trust, says that an USP of the courses will be the close interaction with personnel from industry. Given the background of the five trustees, who have long years of experience across various industries, the learning at CSBE will definitely be ‘real-world’, says Amrolia.

There will be a judicious combination of classroom sessions and field-work/projects to ensure that the learning is not just academic but focused on providing solutions to business problems.

With CSBE being established, the CBS group would have addressed the needs of all segments of the market for management education, he adds. Those with work experience or those who prefer a fast-track management course would be able to pursue a PGPM at Chennai Business School in the city. Those students who wish to pursue a career in research and teaching or who wish to do a traditional two-year MBA would be able to pursue a PGDM at CSBE in Sri City. The two-year course will cost Rs 3 lakh a year while its one-year course will cost Rs 5.5 lakh.

The other trustees of CBS are Pradipta Mohapatra, K. Krishnan, Mohan Menon and N. Sathasivam.