HEC Paris ties up with IIM-Bangalore

Hautes Études Commerciales will be collaborating with the premier B-school to launch a one-week student exchange programme.

Paris-based Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC Paris), a premier B-school which has a major presence in France and Europe, will be tying up with India’s premier B-school — the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) — to launch a student exchange programme this September. The programme called HEC-IIM B exchange programme (hiep) will be a one-week student exchange programme beginning September 2009.

“There are lots of international institutions we are looking at and trying to develop a mechanism of interaction. We are interested in research and are looking at opportunities to address the challenges in this area. These programmes also provide students with global exposure,” said Pankaj Chandra, director IIM-B. HEC already has long-term collaborative agreements with three Indian business schools: IIM Bangalore (since 2004), Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (since 2005), and IIM Ahmedabad (since 2007). The collaboration covers exchange of students and cooperation at the faculty level in terms of teaching and research. With one Indian student out of every five student in the management programme, the school is one of the preferred destinations for Indian students in Europe.

As of 2008, 90 Indian students are on the HEC Paris campus within different degree programmes — Msc MBA and Trium Gobal EMBA. The 16-month programme is four months longer than most European MBA programmes. In Europe, HEC is planning to launch a campaign to raise around 200 million euros (Rs 1340 crore) to fund its various initiatives. The school’s turnover is around 90 million euros (Rs 600 crore).

Earlier, HEC Paris had also signed a five-year contract with Indian Railways, the world’s largest commercial employer with 1.4 million staff, to provide international training programmes to its middle and senior management. The first set of programmes will train managers in a range of key markets around the globe including Australia, China, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea. Under the agreement HEC will become Indian Railway’s biggest supplier of external training for managers.

Increasingly, European business schools are looking at tapping the growing Indian education market. While few B-schools are looking at forging academic tie ups with Indian B-schools, another French B-schools, CERAM Business School is planning to open a campus in Bangalore, India. The school says its in talks with the authorities in India to set up an Indian branch. It has three international campuses so far at: Sophia Antipolis, Suzhou (China) and in Paris.