IIM executive education courses gather steam

IIM executive education courses gather steam

With the economy looking up, companies appear to be loosening their purse strings and sponsoring more executive training. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), for instance, are expecting more participants and better revenues from their executive education programmes.

At all IIMs, executive education are designed by faculty members, based on their expertise and market needs. The management development programmes (MDP) formats are company-specific where needed. While company programmes target mid-management level employees, open-enrollment programmes cater to functional managers across levels. The programmes are short-term, and are offered for durations ranging from three days to a month.

At most IIMs, calendar year 2008-09 was difficult due to cost-cutting measures adopted by companies. The scenario improved in 2009-10 but with some help from the IIMs who offered early bird, group and combined discounts to participants. The ploy proved successful. IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) raised Rs 12.21 crore by offering 52 programmes last year, compared to Rs 11.5 crore earned in the thick of the slowdown in 2008-09.

For calendar year 2010-11, IIM-A is offering 68 programmes of which 11 are new, compared to 52 offered last year. It hopes to attract more participants this calendar year. As many as 1,536 participants have enrolled for the programme in a year, compared to 1,032 participants in 2008-09.

Likewise, IIM Indore expects 2,500 participants during 2010-2011 and expects to raise approximately Rs 16 crore from executive education programmes during the year. For 2010-2011, the institute would offer around 80 executive education programmes, says Ashraf Rizvi, chairman - executive education, IIM Indore. Last year, for 2009-10, the institute offered 68 executive education programmes and raised Rs 9.5 crore from executive education programmes. Number of participants for the institute also increased to 1,991 during 2009-10, up from 1,740 in 2008-09.

Rizvi of IIM Indore says: "Our management development programmes are specifically designed to reflect the evolving realities of business and management practices and applications so that they add knowledge and skills to the participants, facilitating their personal contribution to the future success of their organizations. In addition to the open enrollment programmes (MDPs), we offer tailor-made short-term and long-term executive education programmes for organisations."

IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), on its part, is planning to offer 62 MDPs in the current academic year, up from 36 MDPs last year. R K Das, manager-CMDP, says the course fee for MDPs vary between Rs 20-50,000 per course. Each MDP usually sees between 10 and 50 participants, depending on the course. "We need around 15 participant to breakeven for a course," said Das.

IIM-C has seen an increase in the in-company programmes as well. These programmes are tailor-made for companies for their specific needs. "There are usually 20-25 participants for the in-company programs. We have just finished a course for SAIL, and the future in-company programmes are for companies like Nestle, NTPC, ONGC, among others," Das said. While last year, IIM-C conducted seven to eight in-company programmes, this year it has slated around 11 programmes, which may increase to 13.

IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K), on the other hand, will conduct ‘leadership’ clinic this month with 50 participants, which is the highest enrolment for any programme so far. Debashish Chatterjee, director, IIM-K, said, "This is a programme for CEOs over three days. We will have participants from companies like Nokia, RBI, Coal India, among others. The course fee per participant is Rs 50,000." Usually, executive education at IIM-K cost Rs 20,000 on average with 10 to 20 participants. The breakeven per course for IIM-K, on an average, is at least 12 participants.
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