Ratan Tata inaugurates Harvard's classroom

Take the space of a gym, invest Rs 12 crore in renovation, and what you have is an amphitheater-style classroom where companies and B-schools will deliver lectures to executives in days to come.

This classroom, closely fashioned after the one at Harvard Business School in Boston, was inaugurated on Friday by Ratan Tata, Chairman Tata Sons and Nitin Nohra, Dean, Harvard Business School at the Taj Lands End, Bandra in suburban Mumbai.

With a space of 2,400 square feet and a seating capacity of 82 students, the classroom took a year for the Taj Group to build.

"We began to work with Harvard almost two years ago on this idea. They were very keen to have a classroom in India. We had the idea. We see it as a facility where executive learning can take place. Though it has specific technology that HBS can use to teach their case study method, it is a classroom that anyone can use. said Raymond Bickson, managing director, Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL). IHCL and its subsidiaries, are collectively known as Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces.

A team from India went to HBS and spent time with its facilities team at Boston to reviewed all the schematics. It replicated the same here in Mumbai.

Bickson added that the classroom will be used by companies and universities across, to deliver classes.

Harvard Business School has been looking at having a permanent facility to conduct its executive education programmes in India. HBS will, in the next few years, take its number of executive education programmes from the present three to around 10.  

“At present, we conduct programmes on and off. I expect them to be more systematised. Also,other schools at Harvard will naturally gravitate to using this facility,” added Das Narayandas, Senior associate dean, director of Harvard Business Publishing.

Bickson added that based on the response for the educational programmes, IHCL intends to have more such classrooms at its other properties at a later stage. It has already had bookings from three companies for the facility.

"If it works well we will probably look at doing it in other cities. The facility is also available for other schools. Its a classroom which anybody can use, its the same as renting a ballroom or a conference room," said Bickson.

Harvard Business School is also building a new executive education facility in Boston.

The building is being funded, in part, by a $50 million gift from philanthropic subsidiaries of the Tata Group-- the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and the Tata Education and Development Trust.

Ratan Tata, head of Tata Group for the past two deacades and a 1975 graduate of the school’s advanced management program for senior executives.