The best Long-Term Executive Education (LEEP) programs

MANAGEMENT is neither a science, nor a profession. It is a practice – it has to be appreciated through experience, in context,” wrote Prof Mintzberg, when he introduced International Programme of Practicing Managers (IMPM), a leading executive education programme.

It is this realisation that an MBA is not necessarily a management ‘brahmastra’ that’s led a steady stream of executives to make their way back to schools, at different stages in their careers, to acquire new skills, learning new tools and concepts – even rethinking their very understanding of management. Says Prof Sriman Narayana, Head of Satellite Programmes at XLRI, “Executive education is a reality. For an employee to remain attractive in the long term, it’s a must.”

Thus far, the short term programmes, the venerable Management Development Programmes (MDPs), have been the best route for time-challenged executives to learn new models, theories or concepts, or acquire actionable skill sets. Now, the changed environment and complexities of running businesses across geographies and managing multicultural teams while handling new stakeholders, has led to the emergence of a new animal – Long-Term Executive Education (LEEP).

By definition, the ‘executive’ in LEEP refers to programmes for working professionals. And, for quite some time now, it meant the Part Time, and the PG diplomas in different fields of management offered by All India Management Association (AIMA) and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, among others. Vikrant, a manager at Dell, says, “To my mind, even now EE means the diploma you get from AIMA.” In fact, the first step in management education in India was taken by Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), which offered – hold your breath – a three-year PT MBA programme in 1955. But EE has come a long way since then. As Amit Kapoor, Associate Professor, Management Development Institute, says, “The range of EE offered in the country is diverse, no doubt enabled by the presence of very strong IT-based delivery mechanisms.”

PT MBA

EE in India comes in various flavours. The plain vanilla PT MBA continues to be a winner. Of the Top-30 management schools, nearly 12 offer PT variants, especially the Mumbai-based schools – Narsee Monjee, Jamnalal Bajaj, KJ Somaiya etc – which offer a range of PT MBA programmes in different fields of management. When IIM-L launched its centre for executive education (CEE) in Noida, its first offering was a 3-year PT MBA programme. At the last count, nearly 650- odd B-Schools out of the 900 AICTE approved schools offer this programme. For a working executive, this remains the best way to earn a management degree. Specialised degrees are offered by Jamnalal Bajaj (JBIMS) and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), among others.

The PGPX programs

The desi answer to Executive MBA was the PGPX (Post-Graduate Programme in Management for Executives). The PGPX aims to “develop bright, enthusiastic, and aspirational executives into management leaders and change-agents in the global arena,” claims IIM Ahmedabad. As Prof Arvind Sahay the programme director, said in a recent interview, “The programme is offered with a general management perspective. Though candidates develop competency over a range of subjects, the primary focus appears to be one on building leadership capabilities.” But the ‘grand old man’ of the PGPX is offered not by the IIMs, but by the leadership school of the country, Management Development Institute (MDI). The National Management Programme (NMP) was India’s answer to EMBA and became a byword in the country. NMP, structured over 12 months at MDI, and six months in the parent organization of the executive, offered one of the best Executive Education Programme money could buy. Now rechristened as Consortium EMBA, it offers an executive a choice of international immersion at ES-ESCAP (France). A whole host of schools have now jumped onto the bandwagon.

Last word

The largest and most popular LEEP programmes are the certificates, diplomas and PG diplomas in different disciplines offered by a host of institutions. About 40% of the total programmes on offer are on-line. The leading player in the game is Hughes SW Systems with nearly 29 programmes, followed by NIIT with around 20 programmes. Reliance web world is the third largest player. While the certifications offer the candidate an affordable credential from a leading university, their value for securing employment is iffy. Kris Lakshmikant, CEO of Head Hunters, says, “They are desserts which you could use, to add value to your resume.” But they cannot be a replacement for regular courses. Prof Sriman concurs, “The peer learning one gains in an on-campus programme is not matched by the distance programmes, but they do have their place, a very good one at that.” 
 

Best Executive MBA Courses

Compressing core managment lessons, into actionable strategies, EMBAs, help   experienced functional managers morph into effective CEOs.

An EMBA is a long term programme, offering tangible skill sets for an experienced professional, with functional skillsets.

 

Learning amidst peer group provide an unparalleled learning ,experiance and a 360 degree prespective

Sixty-six years ago, it all began in Chicago University. ike its counterparts in the economics department which gave birth to the free-market ideology, the Graduate School of Business (GSB) began a new trend – continuous education for executives. This was important, especially in 1943, when demobilised war veterans came back home, looking for skills and jobs. Their recipe – plain vanilla Executive MBA (EMBA) – a truncated MBA, focusing on essential skills and concepts to make these individuals employment ready. EMBA has traveled far and wide since then. 

 

In essence, the Chicago University’s EMBA was a plain burger, with additional cheese and different sauces. Different specialisations were taught at three campuses – Chicago, London and Singapore -but the degree remains quintessentially Chicago.   
 

Fish and chips was the model adopted by Kellogg’s.  The fish, of course, is Kellogg’s. With partnerships in Europe (WHU), Middle East (Recanati Business School), Asia (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and Canada (Schulich Business School) offeraing the chips, the degree addresses different geographies, but once again, through a US lens.
 

Lately, though, it is the Indian ‘thali’ that has gained ascendancy and at present rules the roost. From Purdue to Stern School (NY), from Fuqua to Cass, three, four or even five institutions tie-up and offer joint-degrees, a selection of residencies and dual-degree options. It is a delectable spread, and choices are aplenty. And, costing over $100,000 at the lowest scale, they do not come cheap.Welcome to the buffet called EMBA.

 

The spread
An EMBA is a long-term programme offering tangible skill sets for an experienced executive. While some, like Chicago University, tout “one programme, one faculty, global campuses”, at the other extreme we have International Masters Programme in Practicing Management (IMPM), which touts five campuses and five different themes. Either way, the spread primarily revolves around contextualising, skills, knowledge and environment to enable better business decision-making. 

The IMPM programme, for instance, focuses on mindsets. So, each residency would examine one mindset – reflective, analytic, worldly, collaborative and action. The learning is based on situations faced by the participants and enables evolution of an integrated perspective of a very high order.  
 

On the other hand, a programme like Kellogg’s-HKUST lays emphasis on specific management skills, behaviours in learning organisations, managing groups for international competitiveness, etc. But all of them, like the famous Trium Global MBA, do have a focus on the economic, social and political context within which business decisions are made. 

 

Long-term executive education programMEs offered by top-20 B-Schools
Institution	Location	Name of Programme	Duration (months)	Mainly For whom	Fees (Rs)
IIM-A	Ahmedabad	Post Graduate Programme in Management for Executives	12	Executives with substantial work experience	19,50,000
IIM-B	Bangalore	Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management	12	Professionals with 7 years work experience who wish to focus on emerging economies	18,75,000
IIM-I	Indore	One Year Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management	12	For senior management positions; executives/entrpreneurs with minimum 5 years professional experience	15,00,000
IIM-C	Kolkata	Post Graduate Programme for Executives	12	Middle level executives	14,00,000
IIM-L	Noida	International Programme in Management for Executives	12	Middle/senior level professionals with minimum 6 years of experience to prepare for leadership roles	12,00,000
IMI	New Delhi	Executive Post Graduate Diploma in Management	15	Executives with 5 years or more work experience having the potential to be leaders in international business	9,00,000
ICFAI (IBS)	Hyderabad	Executive Post Graduate Program	12	Executives with more than 3 years of work experience	8,50,000
IIM-C	Kolkatta	Visionary Leaders for Manufacturing (with IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur)	12	Techno-managerial leaders with focus on manufacturing having minimum 5 years of work experience	7,00,000
IMT	Ghaziabad	Post Graduate Diploma in Management	15	Working executives with professional experience of at least 5 years	6,62,000
IIM-I	Indore	Executive Post Graduate Programme	18	Executives/entrepreneurs with minimum 5 years of managerial/entrepreneurial experience	5,50,000
MDI	Gurgaon	National Management Programme	18	Class-I officer/self-sponsored with minimum 5 years of executive work experience	5,14,000
S P Jain	Mumbai	Family Managed Business Programme	24	Graduate family members with a significant stake in the family business	5,00,000
MDI	Gurgaon	Post Graduate Diploma in Public Policy and Management	24	Civil services officers and Officers of Govt. of India/PSU	4,87,250
XLRI	Jamshedpur	Executive Post Graduate Programme	30	Working Executives with at least 5 years of managerial Experience	4,47,000
IIM-L	Noida	Post Graduate Programme in Business Management for Working Managers	36	Professionals with minimum five years of experience	4,20,000
S P Jain	Mumbai	Executive Management Programme	21	Working Professionals with 5 years of experience	4,00,000
Welingkar	Mumbai	PG Diploma in Family Managed Business	22	Working Executives with minimum 2 years in family business	3,75,000

Eating out experience

What make an EMBA special are not the dishes, but the locations where they are offered. The campuses across the globe, coupled with transnational peer groups, provide an unparalleled learning experience and even open up new markets. For instance, Zenzar’s CEO, Ganesh Natrajan, claims that the network he gained out of the Advanced Management Programme from Harvard Business School (HBS) gave him business worth $20 million. A typical EMBA class is a crosscultural melting pot that spurs new ideas, opens new markets, and, more importantly, opens up mindsets. And it’s the last that Dr Prem Chandrani, Dean, SP Jain says, is the most important takehome skill.

 

EMBA Global Ranking

Rank	FT 2008	WSJ 2008	Business Week ‘07
1	Columbia/ London Business School	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	Northwestern University
2	Kellogg/ Hong Kong UST Business School	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
3	Trium: HEC Paris/ LSE/ New York University (Stern)	Thunderbird School of Global Management	University of Chicago
4	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	University of Southern California (Marshall)	University of Michigan
5	IE Business School	University of North Carolina (Kenan Flagler)	USC (Marshall)
6	INSEAD, France	University of Michigan (Ross)	Columbia
7	University of Chicago (Booth)	Cornell University (Johnson)	Emory University
8	Washington University (Olin)	Columbia University (NY Program)	UCLA (Anderson)
9	London Business School	University of Chicago	Duke (Fuqua-Global)
10	Columbia Business School	Duke University (Fuqua)	UNC Chapel-Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
11	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Emory University (Goizueta)	Southern Methodist University (Cox)
12	Kellogg/ WHU-Otto Beisheim School	University of California-Berkeley (Haas)/ Columbia (Joint Program)	Georgetown (McDonough)
13	City University (Cass)	Columbia – London Business School (EMBA lobal)	Cornell (Johnson)
14	IMD	New York University (Stern)	Ohio State (Fisher)
15	Purdue/ Tias/ CEU/ GISMA	University of Texas-Austin (McCombs)	IE Business School
16	UC Berkeley / Columbia	Southern Methodist University (Cox)	IMD
17	Duke University (Fuqua)	University of California-Los Angeles (Anderson)	IESE Business School (Navarra)
18	New York University (Stern)	ESADE	INSEAD
19	ESCP-EAP European School of Management	Vanderbilt University (Owen)	New York University (Stern)
20	National University of Singapore School of Business	Rutgers University	London Business School

As the director of Trium wrote on the EMBA website, “It is about the people – a cohort of senior business executives – global citizens who aspire to look at business from a 360o perspective. Consider this: a class of 65 seasoned leaders from around the world. Different cultures and ideologies combine to create a global and entrepreneurial environment that stimulates a whole new way of thinking.” In addition to world-class content generated by top-notch faculty, he may as well have added. 

Asia connection

As Asia steadily turns into a hub for the global economy, can B-Schools be far behind? What started off as an Asia campus (in Singapore) in 2000, by Chicago GSB, is now a floodgate. Some, like Kellogg’s, launched joint-degree programmes, while most offer an Asia residency. Not one to allow the grass to grow under its feet, INSEAD is offering a TIEMBA with CEIBS, and claims to provide a happy marriage of Chinese dynamism and western economic principles! 

 

Even the venerable HBS has caught on and is establishing a China-specific programme, while a host of institutions in India now offer EMBAs with residencies in Europe, Latin America, and of course, the United States.

The bill

The cheapest EMBA retails at $90,000 and could go up to about $160,000, which is what a Wharton EMBA would set you back by. So, it is very important to take into account the benefits of such a course, before paraping into one of these campuses. And, mind you, EMBA is not all that useful for a career-switch either. As Kent, an alumnus of INSEAD, says in a blog comment, “At the end of the day, your previous work experience and track record matter just as much. MBA and EMBA won’t solve all the problems. They are a valuable help, though.” 

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LEEP: What and Where

From strategy to supply chain, business education spans a diverse array of themes and disciplines. An average MBA in an Indian school does between 24 and 42 courses, depending on the format and the institute. Most of them are introductory and concise and are very discipline-oriented. Academic rigour and depth dominate the classrooms, though case-based instruction does try to bring in an element of realism, however constrained it may be. On the ground disciplinary boundaries vanish, and conceptual knowledge gets careers360_cmsered by the reality of the marketplace. As Prof Henry Mintzberg identified in his classic, Effective Manager, executives realise most of their time is spent on responding, analysing and communicating. They realise that external environment affects their business substantially and in ways unknown to them. It is in reshaping the knowledge terrain that long-term executive education comes into picture. It comes in different formats, gives you different credentials (some recognised, some not) and provides you an ideal peer group – but above all, great learning that has immediate relevance to your profession. Based on rigorous methodology (See Box), we examined the offerings and have presented them thematically, so as to enable you to decide where to do what, when it comes to Executive Education.

 

General Management	57	Strategic Management	07
Human Resources Management	15	Sales and Marketing	15
Business Environment	13	Sectoral Studies	20
Finance and Accounts	17	Operations Management	11
Entrepreneurship	11	Systems Management	6

General Management programmes

General Management XLRI 6 NMIMS 6 IIM-C 5 MDI 4 SP JAIN 4 IIM-A 4 IIM-I 4 Others 24 Total 57

 

xLRI offers six business management courses, of which three are conducted at Jamshedpur and the rest overseas. The costs for these programmes vary from Rs 1.75 lakh to 4.47 lakh and require 2 years of experience. General management courses like Business Administration, Executive Management and Post Graduate Diploma in Management are commonly offered everywhere. For instance, courses are offered by all IIMs (ranging from Rs. 0.53 lakh to Rs.19.5 lakh for 4 -36 months), MDI, Gurgaon (Rs 1.75 lakh to Rs 5.14 lakh for 6-36 months ) IMI (Rs 3.24 lakh to Rs 9 lakh for 15-36 months) Symbiosis-SIMS(Rs 1.5 lakh to 2.0 lakh for 30 months) amongst others.

 

 

Human Resource Management XLRI 4 TISS 1 IIM-A 1 IIM-C 1 JBIMS 1 Others 7 TOTAL 15

Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations and Labour Law courses are offered at XLRI, and range from 12 to 16 months at Rs 1,65,000 to Rs 2,50,000. TISS (Mumbai), Symbiosis (Pune), NMIMS (Mumbai), IIM Ahmedabad and IIM-Calcutta also offer courses from 6-24 months.

 

 

Business Environment IIFT 7 IIM-C 2 SP Jain 1 Symbiosis 1 XIM 1 LIBA 1 Total 13

 

Business Environment
For an institution mandated to focus on foreign trade, IIFT delivers. Accounting for nearly seven out of the total 13 programmes on offer, IIFT programmes focus on international business and export-import management, the duration of which varies from 4 to 18 months. Fees range from Rs 47,000 to Rs 1,50, 000 per course. IIM Calcutta, on the other hand, offers courses in international business and business analytics for one year, lightening your pocket by Rs 2 lakh. These programmes are most suited for executives with 2-3 years of work experience. At present, business environment in this country is mostly equated with international business.

 

 

Finance & Accounts   IIM-C 3 Welingkar 2 Symbiosis 2 LIBA 2 Others 8 Total 17

Finance and Accounts

IIM Calcutta is a good place for accounts and finance professionals. The fee varies from Rs 1-2.5 lakh, for 6 to 18-month duration courses that put emphasis on accounting practices, applied finance and financial reporting. At Welingkar and SCMHRD, specialised programmes on Tax and Regulatory Management and Global Commodity Markets and Derivatives are offered for 6 and 9 months respectively, for Rs 50,000 and Rs 1,00,000. IIM Bangalore also offers a certificate programme in Advanced Financial Risk Management for 12 months, at Rs 2,40,000. 

 

 

 

 

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship EDI 6 SP Jain 2 NMIMS 1 Symbiosis 1 Welingkar IM 1 Total 11

 

Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) at Ahmedabad, true to its name, is at the forefront here. Its offerings include courses in business entrepreneurship, and in microfinance. These programmes are highly affordable at Rs 5,000-6,000 per module/ course. SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR, Mumbai), SCMHRD (Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune), Welingkar (Mumbai) and NMIMS (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management and Higher Studies, Mumbai), all located in the western part of the country offer different programmes on entrepreneurship, But it is SP Jain and EDI, which offer specialised programmes for family business management, marrying entrepreneurship and management together.