ISB’s one year Post Graduate Programme (PGP): Pioneer Then, Leader Now

ISB May Be The Most Interesting B-School in the World, said Prof. Rajendra Srivastava, the Dean of ISB, in an interview with poetsandquants.com in 2018. According to Dr. Srivastava, the Class of 2019 has been very successful in their placement efforts. With 1301 acceptable offers in hand, it is a 16% growth in the number of offers from the previous year. This year’s average CTC of INR 25.09 lakhs per annum is the highest average CTC of any class at ISB so far. “When it comes to sourcing world-class talent in a growth market, ISB is the preferred partner for many companies, says Srivastava. In some cases, ISB is the only campus where some of these companies visit for their India placements. ISB has been ranked three amongst the top 100 global B-Schools, for a 164% increase in salary of its alumni (177% increase for women), three years after completion of PGP, as per the FT Global MBA rankings 2018.

ISB has from the day one tried to project itself as different from other business schools in India by introducing a one year MBA and the success of this program has inspired other business schools to follow the innovative business model of ISB. The ISB’s one year MBA model in India has worked wonders in the business education market in India as other top business schools such as IIMA, IIMB, and IIMC…etc have started the one year MBA programmes which are running successfully. ISB’s impact on one year MBA was such that the one year MBA program offered by IIMA, IIMB, & IIMC were also ranked among the FT Global MBA rankings. That is the revolution ISB has brought in the business education market in India.  Also when ISB was established in 2001, no school in the country had accepted the GMAT score, but now nearly 150 schools accept GMAT score to admit students for their MBA programs. ISB students’ GMAT score is also on par with any top international business school. ISB’s one year MBA program was a big innovation, particularly in the context of India and it has become very popular in India and elsewhere too. 

Snippets about ISB:

Conceived in 1995, the Indian School of Business (ISB) is one of the subcontinent’s leading management and executive education providers.

ISB was born out of the vision of a group of idealistic business leaders led by Mr. Rajat Gupta, whose desire was to build a world class business school in India.

Indian School of Business Company was founded on October 03, 1997 as a nonprofit section 25 company; soon after; on November 26, 1997, the name was changed to Indian School of Business.

First meeting of the governing board meeting of ISB was held in McKinsey’s New York office on October 13, 1998.

Novartis (its then chairman Daniel Vasella) had given US$ 2 million to the school and this was one of the highest gifts the school has received.

The founders of the ISB looked back to the experience of other successful startups like INSEAD, IMD, which were founded a couple of decades earlier in Europe, and drew inspiration from them.

On November 21, 1997, a Memorandum of Understating (MoU) was signed between the three institutions – ISB, Kellogg, and Wharton. This MoU spelled out in detail what the partners would provide to the ISB.

Cities considered to establish the school were – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. ISB had the choice of starting campus in Mumbai and Bangalore, but finally the City of Pearls was chosen.

On September 06, 1998, ISB and the government of Andhra Pradesh signed a MoU, and the government agreed to sell 250 acres in Gachibowli to ISB at the rate of INR.25, 000 per acre.

ISB is the first institution in South Asia to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) in 2011.

 The ISB offers the Post Graduate Programme concurrently at two campuses – Hyderabad and Mohali. Besides PGP, the school offers other programmes from these two campuses.

About ISB PGP Programme:

ISB being ranked amongst the top twenty in the world in its first year of eligibility is a rare phenomenal. In 2008, the school broke into the top 20 of Global MBA Ranking in the prestigious Financial Times and this is the only school that has been ranked very first time from India. Since 2008, the ISB has consistently featured in the FT Global Top MBA rankings

ISB is the youngest institution to be ranked consistently among the world’s best schools.

As per the Times Higher Education Wall Street Journal MBA Rankings 2018 released in 2018, ISB’s PGP ranked #2 globally among one-year programmes and #1 in India

ISB’s PGP one year programme was designed based on the survey at the time of establishing the school. Many MBA aspirants at that time had favored the one year programme because the fees were lower and they could get into the job market earlier, and within a short span of time, this program became successful.

ISB’s one year MBA model, developed based on the models of western business schools has got huge success in India as it has proved to be entirely adaptable in India; many students have reported this as being a key factor in their choice of ISB. The admission trends and placement reports reveal that the MBA program has been most successful.

ISB has one of the largest MBA programmes in the world. Each year ISB produces around 850 leaders through its flagship Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP). ISB is behind only INSEAD (that admits around 1000 students) when it comes to producing large number of graduates each year.

ISB’s PGP is the fastest growing business school in the world: from 126 students in 2001 to 907 (highest number of students so far) in the Class of 2017 and 896 (second highest number of students so far) in the Class of 2020.

ISB’s PGP is not officially an MBA program & the MBA offered by ISB was not recognized by the AICTE, yet these hurdles have not proven to be a major obstacle for the growth of the programme.

ISB does not offer an MBA program. Instead, it provides its own custom one-year ‘Postgraduate Programme in Management’ (PGP). The ISB PGP admissions process is much the same as it would be for a normal one-year MBA. Applicants must have a degree, valid GMAT/GRE score, two years of full-time work experience, and proof of English language proficiency. Candidates are graded on academic achievement, leadership potential and personal attributes, forming a complete profile for each applicant.

Even when it comes to placements, the PGP Co ‘19 has set a new records with a 46% jump in Week 1 offers compared to last year.

ISB’s alumni have started nearly 500 ventures so far, and some have become successful in entrepreneurship. For example, in this year, 35 Students of Class of 2019 Opted out of placement process to pursue Entrepreneurship, and this is the highest compare with other top ranked business schools in the country.

ISB was listed among the 50 business schools in the Financial Times Top MBAs for entrepreneurship , Top MBAs for finance , Top MBAs for women & Top MBAs for entrepreneurship,  Top MBAs for finance in 2017.

The graduates of Indian schools (IIMA, IIMB, IIMC, and ISB) receive the highest salaries on par with their counterparts from American and European and Chinese business schools and the high score the Indian schools get in the category of Salary Today (US $) helps much to the Indian schools to keep maintaining top positions among the top schools in the FT Global MBA rankings. Salaries offered to ISB graduates are industry’s best. Career progress ranking of the ISB graduates are also good.

Career progression of the women graduates of the ISB has been incredible. Women graduates of ISB receive highest salaries and good roles on par with their male class mates.

The percentage of women students at ISB was 34 % in 2019 and this is the highest so far. Interestingly, for the first time, both the merit and all-rounder top awards have been bagged by women students in the just graduated class of 2019. So far, ISB has produced more than 2500 MBA graduates, who have held senior executives and leadership positions in various national and international corporations, and some have become entrepreneurs.

Besides the flagship PGP MBA programme, ISB also offers ten other long duration programmes that would help the executives in the country to study and enhance their business knowledge and skills. In the recently released FT Executive Education 2019 rankings, ISB has made an entry by adding another feather into its cap.

Article is written by Mr. Ramesh Kotnana. 

I acknowledge referring the Indian School Business website, and other sources such as web links/websites/newspapers while writing this article. 

An Idea Whose Time Has Come: The Story Of The Indian School Of Business by Dr. Pramath Sinha was also referred

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