Post slump, IIMs resume focus on MDPs
Management Development Programmes at IIMs are becoming popular once again as the economy recovers.
Now that the impact of the economic slump appears to be waning among corporates, the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have resumed their focus on Management Development Programmes (MDPs) as an alternative source of revenue.
While some of them had witnessed a decline in the number of participants last year, due to the downturn, others had more or less maintained a status quo. However, with a resurgent India Inc looking at increasing its efficiency, especially in the strategic-cost management area, IIMs hope to see a rise in the number of participants, leading to introduction of more MDPs this year.
“Not just the fees, but we are also looking at other sources of revenue and MDPs are one of the important tools for us. Last year, we had seen a decrease in participation but this year we have begun receiving a lot of enquiries on these programmes from corporates. Moreover, we will be introducing elective courses and MDPs on the lines of strategic-cost management and cost-cutting measures, among others,” said Samir Barua, director of IIM, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).
“The downturn had resulted in lack of participation last year. Yet, this year we are expecting to conduct 54-55 programmes again and indications are that from September, MDPs will pick up. Earlier, India Inc was not bothered about cost and efficiency but the slump has forced them to increase their competency in these lines. This will definitely boost our dwindling corpus,” said S Manikutty, chairperson, MDP, at IIM-A.
As against last year, when IIM-A earned a revenue of around Rs 10 crore through MDPs, Manikutty said the institute is expecting the number to go up to Rs 13 crore this year.
At IIM, Bangalore (IIM-B), while the number of participants had more or less remained same last year, this year the B-school is looking at new areas. “MDP is our window to the industry and they are an important source of revenue for us. We have not experienced any downturn in the registration for the programmes. We have remained at the same level as last year,” said Pankaj Chandra, director of IIM-B.
“However, we have re-looked at what are the new areas and ways of doing the programme,” he added. Between 30 and 40 per cent of IIM-B’s revenue comes from MDPs.
Through a set of diverse programmes, IIM Lucknow (IIM-L) has tried to maintain a status quo in terms of participation in its MDPs. “We had taken care of MDPs by introducing diverse programmes which is why IIM-L didn’t experience any cut down in the number of these offerings. Not just programmes for clients, we were also doing open programmes, senior level, as well as middle level MDPs. However, we also didn’t want to over do,” said Devi Singh, director of IIML.
This explains the number of MDPs ranging between 65 and 70 every year. Singh agreed that cost consciousness among corporates has increased but added that none had so far approached the institute for an MDP in that area. Roughly 20 per cent of the IIM-L’s revenue comes from MDPs.