Reach, Affordability & Scale: Why online MBA courses are witnessing high demand

Management education in India has evolved and how—starting off as a post-graduate diploma in the 1960s and ’70s, to getting a boost from the country’s economic liberalisation in the 1990s, to IIMs’ MBA degrees coming into play in 2017, to withstanding the Covid-19 disruption of the 2020s, to the current post-Covid-19 hybrid work paradigm that has shaken up the management education ‘industry’. Today, an MBA is not necessarily only a two-year programme. Why, you could even do it fully online, if you so wish, albeit its merits are as yet debatable. 

With Covid-19 awakening B-schools to the benefits of flexibility in course delivery, and edtech firms joining the management bandwagon, the already diverse universe of management courses and formats has further expanded. Today, a student can choose from a one-year MBA (a career pivot tool for a working professional); an executive MBA (shorter programmes designed for experienced professionals to move into leadership roles); a host of online certifications from edtech firms and, of course, the good old full-time two-year MBA. And these courses are being delivered in different ways—on-campus, hybrid, and even fully online 

While the pandemic’s soothsayers predicted that management education would go fully online, the verdict three years since is that a fully online programme cannot offer the whole breadth of experiences that an on-campus programme can—peer-to-peer learning and networking being chief among them. And so, with both formats likely to continue, many institutes have retained some degree of online learning as they plug the crucial gaps of reach, affordability and scale in traditional methods. 

US-based online learning platform Coursera says it now has 17 Indian university partners, including top B-Schools schools such as IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA) and IIMC. Three years ago, it had just two. For instance, SPJIMR’s online two-year PGDM on Coursera costs a quarter of what the on-campus programme does, says Raghav Gupta, MD, India and APAC, Coursera. The course combines synchronous and asynchronous courses (online courses; the former runs in real time, the latter can be followed using recorded videos) with on-campus experiences.  

“There is certainly demand for hybrid learning like this where you can learn when you want without losing the on-campus experience,” he says, adding that IIMA saw more than 100,000 online enrolments in its open courses on the platform within six weeks. In contrast, the limited seats available means that only a tiny fraction of the 200,000 CAT takers make it to India’s top schools. 

As India and its corporate landscape are set to occupy the pride of place in the world economy over the next few decades, the face of management education is also changing with a multitude of options for students. As IIM Bangalore Director Rishikesha T. Krishnan puts it: “There’s this whole spectrum [of programmes]. And there are all these options. We will need to configure them in various ways to meet the needs of the target group.” That can only be good news for aspiring managers and CEOs. 

Also Watch: Hot stocks for next week: Adani Group, Tata Communications, Welspun India, SBI and more

Also Watch: Time Travel with Wadia Group: A 286-year journey of India's oldest conglomerate with iconic companies like Bombay Dyeing, Britannia