Business Today Net Special

Playing Prometheus

It's been a glorious first six months for the Hyderabad-based ISB. But just how much of that sheen it will be able to retain as it goes up against B-school biggies such as the IIMs remains to be seen.

By E. Kumar Sharma

ISB Campus, Hyderabad

Dressed in a formal business suit, a beaming Andrew Siu Kai Poon, the first and only foreign student of the one-year post-graduation course at the Indian School of Business (ISB), had a lot to feel happy about on the morning of December 2. First, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was there in person at the school's formal inauguration along with the Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and a host of big-time CEOs---many of them on ISB's governing board. Second, and perhaps more important to Andrew, he has just been selected by the school to go to the London School of Business under a student exchange programme for a three-month period starting January 2002.

Andrew, who has been nominated and sponsored for the course at the ISB by Citibank Hong Kong, where he was working before and expects to go back after the completion of his course at the ISB, is among the 130 students of the first batch and one among the four students chosen to go to foreign schools under the student exchange programme. Two are going to LSE and two to Kellogs School of Management. The students are, in fact, mid-way through the course, which began in July this year and are anxiously awaiting the placement season. While many seem confident of their saleability, there are still fears that ``many of the companies are still testing the waters and feel they have not yet seen the product, as is the case with an IIM''. A profile book of students is being circulated among the governing board members and the school claims the response has been good so far. ``We have been assured that there are at least 60 positions available in the companies of the governing board members,'' says one student.

The Prime Minister told the students about how the Bhagwad Gita had elevated management to the status of a yoga. He said: ``The Bhagwad Gita says `Yogah Karmasu Kaualam', which means that yoga is action executed with skill. And management is the acquisition, organization, and deployment of diverse skills to achieve specific results.''

The Rs 300-crore ISB project that the Prime Minister inaugurated and inspected is almost ready. The school, with its state-of-the-art wired class rooms in a building designed by renowned archtects Portman & Associates, embraces elements of traditional Indian architecture. Explains one student: ``At least the academic section is almost fully ready, but the recreation facilities are still to get fully ready and the next batch will get the full recreation benefits.''

The ISB's governing board comprises business leaders, entrepreneurs, and academicians from some of the world's leading business and management education institutions. The ISB has formal affiliations with the Kellogg School of Management, the Wharton School, and London Business School. The Indian School of Business offers a one-year Post-Graduate Programme in Management and a series of Executive Programmes.

The first post-graduate programme began in July 2001 with 130 students from drawn from diverse academic and professional backgrounds ranging from a Kargil veteran to a doctor. The programme is designed to cover ``contemporary curriculum, networking with business leaders, and cutting-edge research''. It focuses on a comprehensive development of both professional and personal skills, through a faculty drawn from some of the best business schools, such as Kellogg, Wharton, LBS, Stanford, and the University of Chicago.

The ISB recently launched its Executive Programmes that offer reality-based learning to senior and high-potential managers. The faculty comprises Dipak Jain from Kellogg, Sumantra Ghoshal from the ISB and London Business School, Harbir Singh from Wharton, and Lynda Gratton from London Business School.

``ISB's mission is to become a research-driven international management institution that grooms future generations of leaders for India and the world,'' says Pramath Sinha, Dean of the ISB. ``I believe, with the ISB's exceptional students, world-renowned faculty and the continuing support of our founders, we will create a school that exemplifies excellence in every aspect,'' he says.

The ISB aspires to create synergies between India, Asia and the global business environment through creating a global community of students, faculty, and business leaders. It aims to teach its students a distinctive set of skills and capabilities to capitalise on today's opportunities and to face tomorrow's challenges. The bottomline being turnung out not just capable management graduates, but "true global business leaders''. But, with the economy in the doldrums and the recovery still some time in coming, it remains to be seen just how much of these dreams will be fulfilled in the short run.

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