IIM, ISB offer new courses for professionals

Professionals are making the most of the short and full-term courses to keep pace with changing trends at the workplace.

Educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Management, Indian School of Business (ISB) and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) are launching new courses to cater to working professionals who want to hone their skills and rise up the corporate ladder.

Consider this. After the International Programme in Management for Executives (IPMX), Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L)'s Noida campus will start its new programme titled the International Programme for Financial Executives(IPFX) in October 2010. Manoj Anand, faculty, IIM-L, says: "We have already invited applications for the course and the last date for admissions will be February 1, 2010. The programme will cost Rs 15 lakh, with a seat capacity of 45-50 students."

The IPFX programme is a full-time, one-year residential dual-degree post-graduate program in finance, which helps develop careers in finance with an emphasis on the Indian and international business environments through a comprehensive curriculum jointly delivered by the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Canada and IIM-L. The IPFX programme integrates advanced financial theory and quantitative methods with real world business practice.

Earlier this month, ISB launched PGPMAX - a post-graduate programme in management for senior executives. The programme incorporates practices and knowledge from Kellogg School of Management and The Wharton School.

It will be offered part-time over a period of 15 months and is specifically designed for senior industry executives with an average work experience of 15 years, mostly high-performing employees who are being groomed by their organisations to move into leadership roles.

PGPMAX is intended for senior executives who have excelled in functional domains such as finance, marketing, sales, operations, healthcare, information technology and customer service and are now aspiring to move into general management positions.

The part-time model of the programme supports these senior executives to pursue a post-graduate programme in management equivalent in rigour and content to an executive MBA without having to leave their jobs.

The programme will commence from June 2010 onwards at the ISB campus at Hyderabad, six days every six weeks, over the 15-month duration.

The PGPMAX "is a very low cost and high value opportunity" for the participants, according to ISB dean Ajit Rangnekar. He added that the programme fee of Rs 25 lakh was less than half of what was being charged for similar "world class" programmes.

He was expecting 60 executives to join the first batch of the programme, which would commence from June 2010.

With liberalisation and growing economic activity, according to Rangnekar, there will be a spurt in the demand for senior business leaders in India. "I am surprised that nobody else had started such a programme in the country so far," he said, adding  PGPMAX was the first-of-its-kind to be introduced in the country.