Senior execs take up over half the seats at MDPs, to stay relevant: Survey

Most enrolments come from 15-year-plus experienced seeking upskilling following digital disruption

Digital disruption has prompted a larger number senior executives -- those with 15 years of experience or more -- to go for upskilling and re-skilling and training in virtual learning, finds a survey.  Conducted by executive education provider Emeritus Institute of Management, the survey has found that middle and senior management personnel with 8-15 years and 15-20 years of experience are seeing highest enrolments. 

Emeritus offers management education programmes in collaboration with top-ranked global business schools such as MIT Sloan Executive Education, Columbia Business School Executive Education and Tuck Executive Education at Dartmouth College in India. 

Emeritus offers both offline and online courses on behalf of its reputed international partners such as MIT Sloan and Dartmouth.  The survey had a total of 3,154 respondents, of which 1,045 were Indian. 

It's back to school for senior executives

Over 50% seeking reskilling or upskilling have over 15 years of experience

VPs, SVPs form highest number of participants in executive education, as per survey

Sector-wise, BFSI (28%), Consulting (24%) and IT (16%) see highest participation

72.3% of courses self paid by participants, 27.7% company sponsored

Female share at 18% and 14%, lowest in 15-20 years and over 20 years experience bracket

In terms of enrolments by people with work experience in India, it was found that at 39 per cent, the bracket of 15-20 years saw the highest participation, followed by 8-15 years at 23 per cent, 3-8 years at 15 per cent, over 20 years at 14 per cent and less than three years at nine per cent, respectively. 

Combining the 15-20 years and over 20 years bracket, the executive education provider found that over 50 per cent of its respondents with a work experience of more than 15 years are opting for new upskilling and re-skilling methods, as well as pursuing training in virtual learning. 

With rise in experience, gender gap was highest at 15-20 years bracket and over 20 years bracket where female share of participants was lowest at 14 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively. On the other hand, at 28 per cent, the work experience bracket of 3-8 years saw the highest share of female participants engaging in reskilling or upskilling through management development programmes (MDPs).

The survey also found that courses on digital strategies for business, leading organisations and design thinking have seen the highest uptake among participants. However, the work experience brackets of 15-20 years and over 20 years have seen the lowest gender diversity with only 14 per cent and 18 per cent female candidates participating in the programmes.

In the role-wise break-up, it was found that vice president (VP) and senior vice president (SVP) formed the largest portion of participants at 31.1 per cent, followed by managers & senior managers at 24.5 per cent, general managers (GM) at 18.7 per cent, individual contributors at 15.5 per cent and CXOs at 10.2 per cent, respectively.

In 12 months, Emeritus conducts 50 batches of 12 programs, which see an overall participation of 7500 executives of various levels.  According to Ashwin Damera, Executive Director, Emeritus Institute of Management, digital disruption in sectors like banking, retail, IT and consulting have affected senior and middle managers the most since they run the company and are, hence, mandated to take up such training.

While some of the popular programs are conducted in digital marketing, design thinking and digital business strategy, executives from sectors like BFSI at 28 per cent, consulting at 24 per cent and IT at 16 per cent has seen the highest participation.

Conducted in a duration of 2-3 months, the programs charge a fee of $750-900 (nearly Rs 50,000-60,000 approximately). What's more, the programmes have seen a 125 per cent rise in enquiries since January 2017.  

Meanwhile, 72.3 per cent of the courses were self paid for by participants while 27.7 per cent were company sponsored.