| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : OCTOBER 2, 2000 ISSUE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| COVER STORY
A Global Report Card France's INSEAD tops the list in BUSINESS WEEK's first ranking of European and Canadian business schools Niall Wass, who graduated from France's INSEAD business school last winter, loves that London-based grads get together once a month in a pub to exchange ideas and contacts. But what really impresses Wass, co-founder of London video-streaming technology company Visuma, is that his alma mater's intricate web of alumni seems to spread from one side of the globe to the other. ''Even if they have no idea who you are,'' says Wass, ''when you call senior executives and tell them that you went to INSEAD, they're really helpful and hand off five contacts to you.'' Wass has a lot of company. In BUSINESS WEEK's first ranking of European and Canadian schools, INSEAD won hands down, with students raving about its close-knit yet diverse student body. INSEAD may be located on the edge of Fontainebleau, a town south of Paris known for its 17th-century chateau and a forest where France's kings once hunted. But of its 697 students, 90% hail from beyond French borders, with many students attending from the U.S. and others from Africa, the Middle East, and South America. Indeed, like many other popular European business schools, INSEAD has a distinctly American flavor. With deregulation sweeping through Europe, U.S.-style, market-based business practices have been a fact of life in Europe for some time now. And that's put MBA-trained executives in hot demand. Plenty of American students, moreover, eager to start their careers abroad, are heading overseas for their degrees. For all these reasons, BUSINESS WEEK decided to launch its new ranking of non-U.S. schools. We surveyed close to 1,000 students from 15 schools in Europe and Canada, as well as 247 recruiters from around the world. After crunching the numbers, BUSINESS WEEK was able to rank the top seven schools. ANYTHING BUT OLD WORLD. A common thread runs through the winners: providing a home away from home for overseas students while offering up top-notch teachers who can impart skills for New Economy jobs. The London Business School and Spain's University of Navarra's IESE in Barcelona won the No. 2 and 3 spots, respectively. London students, 80% of whom are from other countries, liked the wide range of elective courses. Spain's IESE students gave the school high marks for networking.
The sorts of jobs MBAs are landing in Europe these days are anything but Old World. Sure, about 10% of the students surveyed went into investment banking, a fairly traditional post-B-school career choice. But 32% of the students opted for consulting, particularly for technology startups. ''We're now competing with entrepreneurs to hire MBAs,'' says Philippe Masson, vice-president of human resources for consulting firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Paris. That, he says, is a relatively new phenomenon for Europe. European business schools are competing for students who are increasingly selective. And, on that score as well, INSEAD, comes out strong. Last year, outgoing Dean Antonio Borges capped his seven-year run by overseeing the school's opening of a new Singapore campus. About 100 students are enrolled in Singapore for the upcoming year beginning in January 2001, that's 50% more than the current year. And Borges' successor, veteran INSEAD investment banking professor Gabriel Hawawini, a native of Egypt, wants to push that number much higher. He also intends to open a U.S. campus by 2003. ''Our goal is to create a global business school with a worldwide campus,'' he says. To lure students, Hawawini is determined to make his school as appealing as possible with the help of $100 million INSEAD raised during a five-year funding campaign. That includes an endowment that has grown from $2.5 million to $36.6 million. Putting those riches to good use, the school has already hired 63 teachers, a 50% increase since 1995. There's also a new multimillion-dollar executive education facility under construction. And a new loan program in 2001 with ABN-AMRO Bank will guarantee that all enrollees will be able to come up with the $25,300 tuition for the one-year program. That's a big deal, students say: Loans for European and Asian B-schools are a lot tougher to come by than they are in the U.S. for American MBA programs. ''INTERNATIONAL CROSSROADS.'' France, though, isn't the only country with a hot U.S.-style MBA program. Under the direction of Dean John Quelch since 1998, No. 2-ranked London Business School has recruited 21 new faculty members from the U.S. Says Susanna Khavul, assistant professor of entrepreneurship: ''I'm in the middle of an international crossroads of thought and of practice.'' A PhD from Boston University, Khavul says she'll focus her research on Israeli high-tech startups. Indeed, the vibrancy of the school's faculty helped place it first in our intellectual-capital ranking of the non-U.S. schools. London Business School also boasts a hefty endowment of $23 million. And alum Vijay Uttarwar, who recently sold his Silicon Valley Internet business for $360 million, has given over office space at his new company, UnwiredSoft Inc., as a sort of Valley home base for London students and teachers. THUMBS DOWN. One surprise in the international survey was the relatively poor fourth-place showing of the prestigious Swiss B-school, International Institute for Management Development (IMD). Its students gave IMD two thumbs down for downplaying the MBA program in favor of its executive education program for older students. The faculty spends just 10% of its teaching time on the MBA program, according to IMD Dean Peter Lorange. Students also were dissatisfied that most course work was geared toward Old Economy jobs. As for MBAs landing at high-tech startups, ''that seems to be taking care of itself,'' says Lorange, shrugging of student complaints. Recruiters, however, ranked IMD's curriculum as the best, helping to shore up the school's ranking. Even with all their strengths, European B-schools could face some tough competition. U.S. B-schools, such as University of Chicago and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, are opening up or teaming with European and Asian schools. ''The competition from U.S. business schools is a wake-up call,'' says Kai Peters, dean of No. 6-ranked Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands. ''If you don't grow, you'll be eaten.'' That's less of a worry for Europe's top B-schools. Like their graduates, Europe's business schools are, for the most part, thriving in a booming economy. INSEAD grad Wass credits a lot of his early success with his London video-streaming business to the help he got from his friends at INSEAD. And with its diverse and growing student body, a new Asian campus, and a fat bank account, BUSINESS WEEK's top-ranked non-U.S. school will be minting plenty more bright MBA grads before sending them out to all corners of the globe. By Mica Schneider in London _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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