IIMB centre to launch online courses

To tie-up with Universitas 21 Global to design programme for family-run businesses

The traditional family-run business houses, which lack modern management skills to compete with professionally-run enterprises, can now acquire them systematically through a management programme. This has been designed for them by the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).

The NSRCEL has come out with a one-year master of business administration (MBA) course for owner-managers of family-run business houses.

It has shortlisted Singapore-based Universitas 21 Global, a conglomeration of 16 business schools, to offer the courses online or offline, said S Sundararajan, professor, finance & control area, IIMB and chairperson of NSRCEL.

"We are presently in the final stage of talks with Universitas 21 Global to design the curriculum and the mode of offering the course.

It will be either in an asynchronous or synchronous mode, mainly targetting owners of family-run business houses across the country," he told Business Standard.

Synchronous mode means the course will be conducted in a classroom with two-way audio and two-way video, or one-way video and two-way audio communication with the faculty, who may be located anywhere across the globe.

Asynchronous mode means the course will be offered via the Internet.

The programme, which will be advertised and launched by June 2006, will initially have 200 students. There is no age limit for candidates and no pressure on them to achieve high grades.

At the end of the course each of them will be given a certificate of completion jointly by the NSRCEL and Universitas 21 Global. Though the course fee is yet to be worked out, it will be around Rs 2 lakh, added Sundararajan.

"Universitas 21 Global of Singapore has in its bouquet several general management programmes. We want them to create a suitable programme targetting small and medium enterprises. There are a large number of family-owned SMEs in the country that will benefit from the programme. It will help them expand their business with modern management tools in their portfolio," he said.

If the programme succeeds, its will be extended beyond Bangalore and India to take in entire Asia.

Set up with a Rs 10 crore donation by N S Raghavan, former joint managing director and founder, Infosys Technologies in association with Global Internet Ventures (GIV), NSRCEL also runs an incubation centre for nurturing and promoting entrepreneurship at the startup level.

Presently, six business ideas are being incubated at the modern 18,000 sq ft centre at the IIMB campus.