"Look at the 'Indian corporate mafia' ruling the American corporate world now - they all fundamentally come from IIMs."

Mr Aiyer's "Indian corporate mafia" consists of graduates of the institutions who have become ambassadors of the IIM brand in industry, finance and academia, both within India and abroad.

This makes the six IIMs in India - like their counterparts in technology education - renowned institutions with world-class standing.

Now IIM-B - the business school in India's Silicon Valley of Bangalore - hopes to export its strength in business strategy and finance by offering an online EMBA programme, targeted for November or December, at its Singapore campus.

The initiative will be hosted at Bhavan's Indian International School, with the institute sharing its lecture halls, seminar and conference rooms, library and computer centre.

At the moment, there are plans to offer only a virtual, part-time EMBA course, which can be completed over a year and a half. However, more courses may be added as the school establishes its presence in the city-state.

"The EMBA course modules would be taught online, with nearly all the faculty members, in terms of teaching staff, working out of our Indian campus," says Prakash Apte, director of IIM-Bangalore, which counts the UK engineering company BAE among its long-standing clients for executive education.

"But we're also looking at hiring locally-based faculty members depending on demand," he adds.

Admission procedure, course content and evaluation are the same as those of IIM-Bangalore. However, in terms of credit equivalence, the course is structured to lead to an EMBA certification, rather than a full degree.

Mr Apte says this is because the course focus is on broadening the outlook and strengthening the skills of practising ­managers.

This is achieved by discussing the latest developments in management thinking and their applicability in the Indian and global context. Participants also obtain valuable insights from extensive online interaction with their counterparts from other organisations.

"Even though it may lead to just a certification, I strongly believe there would be demand for it given our brand equity," says Mr Apte.

"In any sense, the certification would be of very high value since the quality of the education will match the high standards of the teaching at the institute."

One of the notable features of an IIM education is the rigour of its teaching methods and processes. For the institute, one way of building on these strengths has been to widen its mandate with the launch of international student exchange programmes.

IIM-B runs exchange programmes with 20 global centres. The school says every year nearly 25 per cent of its graduates are headhunted or poached by multi­nationals and offered sky-high salaries.

"The teaching you get there [at IIM] is value for money," says Mr Aiyer.

"The rationale behind the education system is not money-making. For them it's not about running a profitable organisation, but rather the aim is to create intellectuals. Therefore, the teaching staff is very dedicated. The pedagogy and curriculum are comparable to the best globally, while the fee is at a fraction."

As an overseas Indian national, Mr Aiyer fits the profile of the type of candidate the institute hopes to attract for its first EMBA. The initial enrolment target for this year is about 40 to 50 students.

IIM-B officials say that although there is growing demand from south-east and north-east Asia for Indian education because of the alluring status of IIMs, Singapore was chosen primarily for having a large Indian population.

"Although we're reaching out to the entire region, a large proportion of the students are likely to come from the Indians living and working around the region," says Mr Apte.

He adds: "Singapore is an excellent market; we are familiar with the business environment and the industry. Our MBA students are continuously engaged in exchange projects there. But more than that, there's a sizeable overseas Indian community working in Singapore who know us and our value."

While he would not comment on the cost of the EMBA, saying that the committee is still ironing out the pricing strategy, Mr Apte did say the tuition would be "priced competitively and is not going to be very high" when compared with other foreign institutions in higher business education.

IIM-B's biggest competition in Singapore will probably come from Insead and the Chicago Graduate School of Business. Both have well-established campuses in the city-state, offering full-time and part-time MBA and EMBA courses.

Insead charges about $108,000 for its EMBA, while the same course at Chicago costs about $103,000.

The standard fee for a two-year MBA graduate programme at any of the IIM schools in India is about $7,500, which administrators say is about half the actual cost incurred by the college. IIMs make up most of the difference with revenues from executive training programmes and government subsidies.

Although the regional market is large enough to accommodate many leading players, IIM-B's entry into Singapore is likely to up the ante for Insead and Chicago.

While the brand equity of IIM-B is strong and its reputation precedes it, the key challenge would be positioning itself distinctly from its heavyweight rivals, says Mr Apte.

"Of course, we would be seen as some degree of threat," he says.

"If you look at the global environment now, India is fast becoming an economic powerhouse. There is a great interest in the knowledge of the Indian economy, in Indian companies and the peculiarities of the Indian market. And this is what we can provide better than ­Chicago or Insead. Fundamentally, this is where our strong value-proposition lies."

Did you know

96,000 FT readers in Europe visited Asia on business in the last 12 months and 84,000 on holiday. 43,000 FT readers in the UK visited Asia on business in the last 12 months and 39,000 on holiday.

Source: Europe 2004

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