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One year, 3.5 months after bagging the project, AP begins work on dream B-school

Our Correspondent in Hyderabad

Work on the Indian School of Business, promoted by the world's leading corporates and top-ranked business schools -- the J L Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the Wharton School -- commenced here on Monday. (On September 6, 1998, Hyderabad was chosen ahead of other Indian cities for setting up the prestigious project).

Andhra Pradesh Governor Chakravarthy Rangarajan laid the foundation stone for the ISB complex on the outskirts of the city, in the presence of Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu.

The ISB's promoters include 23 of the Fortune-500 companies and leading Indian business houses.

Rangarajan said, "The city of Hyderabad enjoys a high reputation as a centre of advanced learning. We warmly welcome the addition of the Indian School of Business to this family. The ISB will soon emerge as a centre of excellence in management education, grooming the future business leaders not only of India but of whole Asia."

Naidu hoped that the ISB would be the pride of Hyderabad and indeed this part of the world.

Rajat Gupta, chairman, ISB and managing director, McKinsey & Co Inc, said, "As the millennium approaches, global patterns of uncertainty and change herald the emergence of a new world. Our vision is to create an institution that will groom the leaders of this New World. It is once in a lifetime that you build an institution that has been conceived by the world's most respected corporations in collaboration with the best of the academia. I am proud to be a part of this endeavour."

In its focus on managing companies in transition, the ISB will emphasise teaching and research that enables managers to respond to the challenges and opportunities created by rapid advances in the information technology age.

Dr Pramath Sinha, chief executive officer, ISB, said, "Starting in 2001 AD, the ISB will offer three programmes: a one-year post-graduate programme in management; executive education programmes and a doctoral programme. The ISB is now admitting 120 students for its June 2001 post-graduate class. BY 2005 AD, the ISB will have an intake of 480 students in the MBA programme."

Rajat Gupta said, "We are well on the way to raise $130 million (Rs 5.65 billion) required for setting up the ISB. In the last six months, we have raised the minimum corpus of $30 million (Rs 1.30 billion). We have all the funds in place for the initial construction and starting of the ISB in 2001 AD. We have many, many people coming forward to help our project."

A "gift tree" is being planned whereby foreign and Indian corporates will provide donations for specific departments of the new school.

The ISB will have visiting faculty from Wharton and Kellogg schools. The ISB will develop exchange programmes for students and faculty with the affiliate schools.

The International Academic Council, comprising 20 leading faculty members from top-ranked business schools, including the vice-deans of the affiliate business schools, will focus on developing an academic curriculum, defining areas of research focus, determining faculty recruitment and governance procedures, besides detailing the student selection, admission and placement procedures and providing advice on cooperation with industry and other business schools.

The ISB will have state-of-the-art information technology and communication facilities to enable global connectivity. The facilities will include "wired classrooms", video-conferencing, and high-speed data communication networks. This will enable students and faculty to participate in joint courses, projects and research programmes with partner institutions.

The ISB will offer a post-graduate management programme to provide a foundation in general management over a period of 12 months. It will be equivalent to a Master of Business Administration programme. The curriculum will focus on shaping business leaders through courses such as managing corporate growth, global strategic management and managing organisational change.

The curriculum will include about 700 hours of teaching (contact hours) which will be comparable to the contact hours of leading two-year MBA courses in the West. The programme will have a modular design with eight terms of five weeks each. Students will be required to take 32 courses to graduate.

Enrolment is expected to grow from 120 students in the first year to about 480 students after six years. The first batch of 120 students will be enrolled in 2001 AD. The students will be drawn from all parts of the world, providing an international context to student interaction, course-work and projects.

The unique emphasis of the ISB will be on instilling the skills required to manage in emerging economies and in companies that are facing discontinuous transitions, particularly those arising from the fast-paced developments in information technology and the Internet. The curriculum will focus on enterpreneurship and e-commerce, among other things.

The ISB will enrol the best students from across Asia and the world. The admission criteria will be similar to that of leading business schools and applicants with two to five year work experience will be given preference over those with less experience. The admission process will emphasise leadership and entrepreneurial attributes, in addition to superior GMAT and under-graduate performance.

The tuition fees for the one-year post-graduate management programme is expected to be about 25-30 per cent of the costs of equivalent two-year programmes in the United States. The ISB will provide financial aid to a small number of deserving students. The one-year programme will cost roughly between Rs 600,000 and Rs 800,000.

Several banks, such as ICICI, Standard Chartered Bank and Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation, are ready to offer loans at competitive costs to cover the entire funding for students during the one-year programme.

The permanent faculty of the ISB will be hired from the top schools world-wide. The faculty will work closely with Asian corporations and governments on research and consulting assignments. The ISB will have a student to faculty ratio of 14:1, comparable to that of top-ranked American and European schools. The core permanent faculty will be supplemented by visiting faculty from leading international schools and leading figures from industry.

The ISB will have all the infrastructure needed to provide distinctive education: a well-stocked library, computer centre, an 800-seat auditorium and classrooms that are planned with inputs from faculty members. Recreational facilities will include a swimming pool, tennis, squash and basketball courts and a fully-equipped gymnasium. The housing facilities will include accommodation for post-graduate and doctoral students as well as modern apartment complexes for students, executives and faculty.

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Andhra Pradesh