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DECEMBER 28, 2000 B-SCHOOL NEWS Crafting a Custom MBA Program for Intel Babson is betting its flexible MBA -- taught by its professors in Intel's offices and via the Web -- will turn into a sizable revenue stream
That's what the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College is doing for Intel Corp. Managers in the chipmaker's engineering and new-business departments decided that some of their star employees would benefit from an MBA. But they didn't want to lose them while they studied. So Babson will ship its MBA program to the company's offices in Portland, Ore., and Santa Clara, Calif. -- something Intel's long-standing B-school partners at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University wouldn't commit to. Over 27 months, Babson, based in Wellesley, Mass., will deliver its regular MBA program to Intel employees, adding some company-specific electives. "HOMESCHOOLING." For major corporations trying to keep their top employees on the job, such an option can be appealing. And it can enable a prospective MBA to achieve academic goals while working and earning money. Companies save money, too: The cost of an on-site MBA program is cheaper than replacing a valuable employee, Intel says. For Babson, Intel will provide the classroom space and the students. "Homeschooling" may become more popular with companies and B-schools if the Babson-Intel MBA program is successful. The initial agreement will span at least three years and will be reevaluated annually. The degrees awarded to Intel employees will hold the same weight as a full-time Babson MBA, but the process of earning it will be quite different. The 27-month program (Babson's full-time program is 18 months) will bring Babson professors to Silicon Valley for about four days each month. Babson will accept employees based on scores from the B-school entrance exam, the GMAT, and will assess them on the same criteria used for its other students, such as essays, interviews, and work experience. About one-third of the program will be delivered online, says Thomas Moore, dean of Babson's school of executive education and chief executive of Babson Interactive, the school's for-profit arm that will help create and market Babson courses for the Web. "This will be the same degree you'd get in two years at Babson, and it will be almost the same curriculum," Moore says. "This gets our [flexible] MBA off to a fast start. It will be important for us to deliver a high-quality program." The school already offers a one-year-old Masters in Finance program for Lucent employees, but the Intel deal will give Babson a chance to showcase its MBA program in a bigger way. ENTREPRENEURIAL ZEST. For Intel, it's a way to keep valued employees on the books. And the company's divisions will expect to "capitalize on [the students'] education on an ongoing basis," says Alan Fisher, the company's director of employee education. Still, Babson wasn't Intel's first choice. Fisher says the company looked first to its current education partners and checked out several other schools around the country before deciding on Babson. "Other programs didn't really have what we wanted," Fisher says. Moreover, he adds, the other schools weren't as willing or able to create such a flexible MBA with components taught via the Web, and Intel was attracted to Babson's entrepreneurial zest. Since Babson doesn't have its own operation to create an online course, the school has hired e-learning company Cenquest in Portland, Ore., to create Intel's courses. The first classes could meet as early as April, 2001. The plan is for new classes to start every six months or every year, depending on demand. Intel officials say they'll also open the program to employees of other, noncompeting companies nearby. This broadening will make it harder for Babson and Cenquest to come up with company-specific electives. Retooling Babson's 49-year-old MBA program and shipping professors across the country once a month will cost the school a pretty penny. Developing the online portion of the MBA program alone will come to several hundred thousand dollars, Moore says. But the program's tuition, $52,500 a head, has Moore expecting to pay off the investment within a few years, especially if more corporations follow suit. If the Babon-Intel marriage works, the program -- and the others like it that may follow -- will eventually provide a revenue stream, perhaps as soon as five years down the road, Moore says. TOO MUCH, TOO SOON? Babson isn't the first school to bring its professors to corporate offices. Kennesaw State University has a three-year-old on-site MBA program for Bell South. The B-school also will begin an executive MBA program with Heidelberg USA in May, 2001. Kennesaw's associate dean for graduate programs, Rodney Alsup, says the program runs smoothly, but if Bell South ever decided to scale back, he'd be left with more faculty members than he could pay. The University of Georgia offers a program for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Georgia and over the Net, and the University of Texas at Austin offers a program for Texas Instrument employees that it hopes to expand. Babson could solidify its reputation and strengthen its brand name with the MBA program. But it could also get ahead of itself. If the flexible MBA isn't captivating -- especially to employees at Intel -- then the program could flop, putting an end to the deal and sending Babson back to the drawing board. The online portion of the program also could founder. Moore admits this is a concern. But he says Babson chose Cenquest to develop its online content because the company -- which has crafted similar programs for the University of Texas at Austin's IC2 Institute and Adelaid University in Australia -- has a reputation for quality. So, is Babson on to something? "The very top schools were not interested in making a deal like this with a company," Moore says. That's because most other schools that are venturing into the flexible MBA market are taking a more measured approach, but one that Moore and his colleagues believe will leave their competitors in the dust if the Babson model takes off. Still, it won't be clear for a few years whether the school can capitalize on its lead with Intel -- and its investment.  By Jennifer Merritt in New York  | | [an error occurred while processing this directive] Learn about your online education options |
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