With a significant chunk — almost 40 per cent — of its revenues earned from executive education, IIM Bangalore is further investing to broaden its portfolio of offerings. A significant portion of a planned ₹150-crore investment will go to develop more facilities for executive education at its second, 110-acre campus, 27 km from its present Bannerghatta road campus.
Among the facilities being developed is an 84-room residence, three classrooms and kitchen and dining complex, entirely focused on executive education programmes. Currently, there is a latent demand for some of its programmes for which accommodation is not provided or given off-campus. Executives in such programmes can now be provided facilities to stay.
Prof G Raghuram, Director, IIM-B
“Sometimes we have to forego certain programmes as the executives insist on staying on the campus. Also, now we can shift a few programmes from the existing campus to the new campus, releasing capacity for other academic activities,” explained Prof G Raghuram, Director, in an interview.
Meeting industry requirements
The executive education numbers have been going up at IIM-B. For instance, in 2017-18, it had around 5,100 participants while in 2018-19, the number went up to a little above 6,000 — a 17 per cent increase. “Executive education is a critical and strategic offering for us. It enables us to make a significant impact on practice; it enables our faculty to be in touch with industry; and it provides us a much required surplus to fund research, which is a largely cost-driven activity,” said the Director.
Most companies want their executives trained in general management, including issues related to strategy and leadership. This is followed closely by specialisations in digitalisation, new-age business models, innovation, digital strategy and marketing, business analytics and supply chain.
“There are also sector-specific demands like hospital management, aerospace and aviation management and banking,” added Prof Raghuram. There is no single course fee since courses vary in duration from three days to 40 days. They also vary in the extent of customisation required and the levels of the participants.
One of the new courses that IIM-B will be offering is an MBA in Business Analytics, starting in the academic year 2020. “This is in response to our understanding of industry requirements and the high-quality intellectual capacity that has been built among our faculty,” said Prof Raghuram.
Continuously overhauling content
Asked how IIM-B will fund the ₹150-crore investment, Prof Raghuram said it will have to come from internal resources and hence its thrust on executive education programmes is all the more important. “IIM-B does not get any funding from the Ministry of HRD. It has been quite a while since both opex and capex stopped coming in from the Ministry and this is true for the six older IIMs. IIM-B is a self-financing institution,” the Director explained.
On the overhaul of its course content, Prof Raghuram pointed out that it a continuous process at IIM-B. “Our faculty are always reviewing their courses, in terms of positioning, structure of the sessions, content of the sessions, and choice of material,” he elaborated.