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DECEMBER 23, 1999 B-SCHOOL NEWS Harvard's Bold New Moves Into Executive Education The school is setting up shop in Stanford's back yard. And within a year, it hopes to go online
Harvard, which ranked No. 1 in Business Week's 1999 ranking of the top 20 nondegree executive education programs, has been making tentative forays into Silicon Valley for a couple years. In 1997, the school established a research beachhead with its Palo Alto-based California Research Center. It's an outpost from which HBS faculty members write case studies of Valley startups for the school's MBA programs and its 69 executive education courses -- as well as for purchasers of the six million case studies Harvard sells each year to schools, companies, and individuals. The Palo Alto center has churned out 50 cases, which HBS officials believe is enough of a foundation to start executive education courses in Silicon Valley. The first course, to be held in the Silicon Valley Conference Center in San Jose, will include 50 to 60 executives and will focus on doing product development in Internet time. HBS plans to add two more courses by 2001. Harvard's move is a challenge to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, also located in Palo Alto. And developing a toehold in Silicon Valley could deliver big bucks for the school's fast growing executive education arm, which delivers courses ranging from 3 days to 10 weeks in duration to corporate execs. The school's 1998-99 revenues from nondegree executive education programs were an estimated $65 million, up 124% from 1993-94's $29 million. (Stanford's executive education revenues increased by 42% to $11 million over that same period.) NOT STANDING STILL. Of course, Stanford hasn't been standing still. According to Haim Mendelson, a professor of information systems and management, Stanford recently opened its own Center for Electronic Business and Commerce, and will unveil an exec ed program on e-commerce that is targeted at the dot.com set in the Fall of 2000. It also plans an interactive distance learning program for entrepreneurs, and will sell a Web-based case study -- based on a real project at Hewlett-Packard. Harvard is well aware of Stanford's strength in e-business. Clark says he approached Stanford about working together on developing HBS's Palo Alto research center. But Stanford officials declined to participate. Since the completion of Harvard's center, however, a number of HBS and Stanford professors have teamed up to develop some of the center's case studies. And Clark hasn't ruled out the possibility of a future partnership in e-business with Stanford. In addition to its Silicon Valley initiative, Clark says, Harvard has a three-step plan to transform the school into an e-learning powerhouse. Among other things, it's creating online courses in quantitative methods for first-year MBA students. It's also working more closely with Harvard Business School Publishing to sell more of its business cases -- the school writes as many as 700 per year -- to online programs at other universities. And within the next six to 12 months, HBS will do Web versions of some of its executive education courses. "Offering courses online allows us to access many more people from the elite, niche market," says Clark. And bring in more revenue, too. International Data Corp. projects that online learning will generate $7.1 billion in sales by 2002. Over the past three years, such U.S. business schools as Duke's Fuqua, the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler, and the University of Texas at Austin have established Web learning programs. All of these are now running their programs in conjunction with such technology partners as Pensare, Cenquest, and University Access. Harvard, by contrast, is developing all of its technologies in-house. "We've invested, in the last five years, about $100 million in technology infrastructure," says Clark. If that, plus Harvard's name, won't buy you an e-learning franchise, then probably nothing will.  Nadav Enbar  | | Learn about your online education options |
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