RBC daily (St. Petersburg), April 24, 2008

BENEFICIAL AND NOT FOR A LONG TIME, Dmitry Shevchuk

SHORT-TERM PROGRAMS FOR PROFESSIONALS REPRESENT A VERY PROMISING MARKET FOR BUSINESS SCHOOLS OF ST. PETERSBURG

So far, MBA programs bring the main revenue to majority of them, whereas in Europe everything is vice versa (see the graph). In any case, we are on the right path. Companies invest more and more money in education and become increasingly demanding to evaluation of its efficiency, which shifts the demand towards qualified providers of this kind of services.

Short-term programs of business schools are divided into open ones to which anyone fitting requirements of the school can be enlisted and into corporate ones where the level and the content of the courses are determined by the customer. The main goal of the short-term programs of business schools is broadening of professional knowledge and competences of managers. In other words, students are already professionals and wish to learn about new problems and solutions appearing in the industry, to get distracted from the routine, to look at their work "from outer space" and to ask questions addressed to a lecturer very authoritative in this area or to his colleagues. For this a participant or his company may pay from 10 to 30 euros per one academic hour in open programs. A corporate course per one student may cost approximately 50% cheaper.

In Europe and in the US bitter competition on the markets creates a significant demand for such programs among managers of all specialties. For potential students and companies to stand in a queue schools make two things: they maintain an MBA program that is sometimes or often unprofitable (it creates the circle of future students of short-term programs), do research independently or permanently invite outside researchers and experienced managers for specialists even with big experience and good education to be able to learn as many new things as possible during the programs and advise companies in development of human resources if necessary.

EVERYTHING IS MOVING TOWARDS THIS

Anastasia Korshunova, deputy director for international development of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Campus St.Petersburg, says, "Demand for short-term educational programs and programs of corporate education has been growing steadily lately. This is connected with the dynamically developing market, significant growth in requirements of companies to quality of the offered programs and training, as well as a wish to receive an educational program corresponding to goals and tasks of a certain company to the maximum extent, and readiness of companies to invest in education of employees ensuring additional motivation and creating the so-called human resources reserve."

The biggest demand for education is registered in highly competitive industries where human capital starts determining success of companies. Vladimir Pletnev, director of the corporate development department of the Open School of Business, comments, "According to our research, representatives of the following industries- retail and wholesale trade, construction, food and tobacco industries, mass media and media – planned to pay much attention to "corporate training" in 2007."

At any rate, we have a very long way to go to the developed market of short-term programs still at least because majority of Russian companies does not view education of staff as an investment with measurable results yet and they do not always understand what they wish to teach and why. Along with this, education itself is taken primarily as incentive for employees. It may be even combined with leisure or tourism. Probably that is why not all schools are enthusiastic about the market of short-term programs in Russia, especially the opened ones. Anders Liljenberg, rector of the Stockholm School of Economics in Russia, remarks, "The Stockholm School of Economics in Russia has a big experience in organization and implementation of corporate programs and training that constitute an important part of its educational product on the Russian market. However, we prefer putting a bigger emphasis on long-term educational programs." IMISP has a similar strategy. Dmitry Pavlov, pro-rector for development and external relations of IMISP, explains, "Our school works mostly with corporate programs having duration starting from three months focusing its efforts on long-term interaction with a company and offering comprehensive programs for staff development. For this company the company should be "sufficient" in size, solvency and, what is the most important, should have a strong service of human resources that diagnoses the need for education in a systematic way for years ahead taking into account general strategy of the company, dynamic of growth of the company and the industry." The center of programs for managers of the Higher School of Management implements programs of professional re-training and improvement of qualification on the open market and for corporate clients and also organizes short-term seminars and master classes. However, it implements predominantly the certificate programs (more than 500 hours in auditorium) and does not offer training programs at all. Nonetheless, in the current educational year the share of short-term programs of improvement of qualification amounted to about 10% in its portfolio.

IF THE MOUNTAINS DOES NOT COME TO MAHOMET

If a company feels a need for education only intuitively yet, schools start acting in the role of consultants and researchers who study situation in the company and offer ides how it is possible to increase productivity of the staff with assistance of education. Anastasia Korshunova says, "We conduct a series of preliminary meetings with a customer company trying to help determining the goals and tasks faced by the company and its owners. Afterwards we tailor an educational program together with the top management relying on preliminary analysis. Evaluation of efficiency of education together with management of the company is the final stage after accomplishment of the program. For this purpose we offer the students to fulfill a business project strategic goals and tasks of which are determined directly by the customer. Thus, the educational program may become a necessary momentum for permanent process of movement and development of the company." The Open School of Business evaluates efficiency of education too but with bigger emphasis on figures. Vladimir Pletnev explains, "Ideally, for evaluation of efficiency it is necessary to evaluate knowledge/understanding/skills before and after the education and to track changes in activities and results of work (leading to a monetary payback ideally). As a rule, all levels of evaluation of education (according to classification of Kirkpatrick) are used seldom because evaluation turns out to be more expensive than education (education is a group process and evaluation is an individual process). That is why in practice we always conduct a poll of opinion of participants of education about quality of a program (see graph 1) and remaining levels of evaluation remain up to the customer because we cannot watch the students in their activities. In the Studio of Business Training of the Higher School of Economics of SPbGUEF efficiency of training is evaluated according to the feedback provided by participants of the training after the end of the event, as well as by managers of the customer company. Yulia Anoshkina, project manager, says, "We also evaluate efficiency of training according to return of the client for whom this program has turned out to be useful."

MOVEMENT FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Look at the companies being leaders in their industry. Many of them already measure efficiency of work of majority of their employees, which lets them track consequences of their education. Maria Potapova, education specialist of Lenta, reports, "We see efficiency of education in permanent reduction of employee turnover, increase of parameters of fulfillment of standards of services provision to the buyer (according to results of research "Mysterious buyer"), as well as career growth of our employees inside of the company. All educational programs are also evaluated according to the level of satisfaction of the students and the knowledge that they have received as a result of education (levels 1 and 2 according to the model of D. Kirkpatrick). The ROI parameter is used for evaluation of efficiency of accomplished education in some cases."

When companies start measuring efficiency of educational programs they encounter very low (according to them) results of many outside providers. This is usually applicable to the narrow specialized programs that require big experience in a certain industry from a lecturer. That is why companies establish their own educational centers at a certain stage of development. Nadezhda Maximova, director of the human resources management department of Farmacor, explains, "Experience of our work shows that educational programs on the basis of our own educational center are more efficient than efforts of the hired agencies. Coaches being on the list of permanent staff have a possibility to fully submerge into the area of the company’s activities and to offer the knowledge taking into account specific of work of our specialists. This does not mean complete giving up of outside providers. In each case a company has to choose what is more beneficial: attraction from work of its own manager suitable according to the level of knowledge and teaching skills or to outsource a program even if efficiency of education is slightly lower. In the later case it will also be necessary to spend money on search for a suitable offer. Maria Potapova explains, "External providers are invited for organization of training in functional education. They are chosen on the basis of a tender won by a provider that offers a program fully complying with requirements, has a big experience of organization of such training and offers the best commercial terms." By and large, it is possible to expect that accumulation of competence and expertise both inside of companies and on the open market will progressively develop the market of short-term programs for managers and specialists. In turn, this circumstance will enable business schools to offer MBA programs of higher quality gradually solving the human resources problem in Russia and making shareholders sleep better worldwide.