The key benefit offered by the one-year full time MBA, we believe, is that the course gives you time to discover yourself before you manage others. In Indian society the pressure to rise above the neighbour’s kid is a constant one. The one-year full time MBA at business schools in India such as XLRI, SP Jain, MDI, IIMs, ISB, IMT and IMI, by adhering to the original mission statement of an MBA as defined by the Association of MBAs – to “enhance and develop previous relevant experience” – gives you on an average five years to pursue what your heart desires and will accept you with open arms whether you chose to spend those years becoming a Ranji cricket player or a DJ at a club. Diversity and experience is respected and encouraged in a one-year full time MBA.

Secondly, as discussed earlier in the series, the learning environment offered by the course is incredible. The class pursuing a one year MBA is full of people who have seen work life inside out. With close to 1000 years of collective corporate wisdom available in a typical class of 100 candidates in a batch of a one year MBA, the peer learning that the course offers is amazing.

Students at Great lakes institute of management, Chennai

Third, from a pure economics view, the opportunity cost of a one-year full time MBA is half that of a two-year PGP programme. You save one year’s post qualification salary and join work faster.

Fourth, the one-year full time MBA’s placement process is better equipped to place experienced professionals as opposed to the placement process of the two-year PGP at business schools in India. Since the bulk of the two-year PGP students, on an average, have less than one-year of work experience and almost forty percent of the students have zero work experience, most of the companies that come to recruit two-years PGP students offer them management trainee profiles – an entry level position. Many two-year PGP candidates with 4-5 years experience struggle to find suitable profiles.

Such candidates with greater than three year’s experience may be better of pursuing the one-year course after gaining some more work experience.

Fifth, candidates pursuing a one-year MBA receive a qualification that is recognized globally as an MBA as opposed to the qualification earned through the two-year PGP course which is recognized as a Masters in Management internationally – a course for candidates without work-experience.

As discussed in depth in earlier articles in the series, at certain business schools, the one-year course offers global exposure for the entire batch through an international immersion, a higher salary and senior roles after graduation as opposed to those gained from a two-year PGP course and the academic rigour of a global two-year MBA in a year’s time.

However, in case you are interested in pursuing management education right after college, without gathering any work experience, the two year course will probably serve you better as the extra year will give you more time to absorb concepts.

Also, because the one year course crunches a significant portion of the two year syllabus into a year, it becomes a bit heavy. Extra-curricular activities take a hit and students find it difficult to participate in festivals on campus or indulge in sports. I hope that going ahead the contact hours for the one-year course are reduced in line with those of its counterparts in Europe so as to give students more time to appreciate the nuances of their subjects.

A clear advantage the two-year course enjoys over the one-year course in India is that it has been in existence far longer. The industry in India has well established frameworks such as the Management Trainee programme to induct the graduates of the two year course into the workplace – this makes the placement process smoother.

As opposed to this, many companies here are still figuring out how to best utilize the experienced talent coming out of the one-year full time MBA at the IIMs and are establishing new frameworks for absorbing MBAs at senior positions. These frameworks have existed in companies abroad from the day the MBA degree was created. A student at an international B-school is simply not awarded an MBA degree unless he has substantial work experience – HR processes at companies abroad therefore have well developed processes to induct these senior hires.

The cost of the course is also a factor to consider when deciding which MBA to go for. The fees for the one-year course at the IIMs, for instance, ranges between Rs 14 lakh and Rs 21.5 lakh. The two-year course is subsidized by the government and the average fee across the IIMs ranges between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 14.5 lakh.

Lastly, in case you are planning to pursue an MBA at an IIM, be informed that there is no reservation in the one-year full time MBA as the course is wholly financed by the candidates. The two year course on the other hand reserves approximately 50% of the seats for OBCs, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. In case a candidate is applying under a reserved category he should keep this in mind when planning his applications.

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Many B-schools in India offering a One year MBA have tweaked the ‘student exchange’ offered in a two year PGDM/PGP to a international immersion. For instance, instead of a student exchange for a few candidates, the entire batch of the one-year full-time MBA at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) spends a substantial period at an international B-school, to gain a global perspective of business. Students get immersed in a class consisting of candidates from around the world. In an era of globalization and inter-cultural working, this experience is highly valued by the students.

At IIM Indore, for instance, those pursuing the one-year full-time MBA (EPGP) spend an entire term (eight weeks) at the University of Pittsburgh, US. The term includes a mix of classroom lectures and visits to prominent businesses.

The classroom component opens subjects such as global macroeconomics and cross-cultural dimensions of business for debate in an environment which is  intensely multi-cultural. MBA students at the University of Pittsburgh come from various countries.

The discussions that ensue gain considerably from the vast international work experience of students of IIM Indore’s one-year batch. The students of the batch of 2013, on an average, have close to two years of international experience, spanning 29 countries across four continents.

IIM Indore’s One year MBA batch (EPGP) at the University of Pittsburgh where they attend classes with the MBA batch at U.Pitt

Debating, discussing and finally coming up with solutions to business cases in such a multi-cultural environment prepare IIM students for international business assignments after graduation. Upon completion of the international immersion, they tend to become more empathetic to different communication and managerial styles and possible conflict points in an international workplace.

A big part of the learning is gained through visits to premier companies such as Bombardier and PPG, as well as studying management techniques in non-corporate environments such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, one of the largest hospital chains in the US.

Students tour factories and labs to understand international manufacturing techniques and interact first-hand with a foreign workforce. Most tours end with invigorating discussions on business strategy with the management at these companies.

As part of the term, beyond classroom work, learning is also encouraged through observing local culture through guided tours of culture repositories such as the Carnegie Mellon Museum. Understanding the culture that makes a nation is often the first step to understanding the people that make the nation. Local art and theatre is, hence, seen as a window to the minds of men and women that students at IIM Indore might soon engage with in a business environment.

On completion of the term, students are awarded an Executive Leadership Programme Certificate from the University of Pittsburgh, an additional qualification on the CV.

Similar tie-ups exist at XLRI, SP Jain, IIM A, B, C and L, IMI, IMT etc and this is a unique feature of the one-year full-time MBA.

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The one-year full time MBA at IIM A, the one-year courses at ISB, Hyderabad and SP Jain School of Global Management, Dubai are the only MBAs from India to have been ranked in the global ranking of MBAs by Financial Times, London – widely regarded as the foremost ranking in the world.

In 2011, IIM A’s one-year full time MBA (PGPX) debuted on the MBA rankings at No.11 in the world. It maintained its ranking in 2012 at No.11 – ahead of the flagship two-year MBA of Kellogg, NYU Stern, Yale, Tuck, Cornell and the flagship one-year MBA of Oxford, Cambridge, and ISB.

The same ranking establishes IIM A’s one-year full time MBA (PGPX) as the No.1 MBA in India and the No.2 MBA in Asia. (http://bit.ly/iimacommunique)

In 2012, ISB’s one-year MBA (PGP) was ranked at No. 20 and SP Jain Dubai’s one-year MBA (GMBA) at No. 91 in the world rankings.

While SP Jain School of Global Management, Dubai is listed as a Dubai based school in the rankings, I mention it in the article as its parent organization SP Jain Institute of Management & Research is of Indian origin.

One Year MBA (Global MBA) students at SP Jain Dubai (all copyrights belong to respective owners)

Importantly the PGPX at IIM A has been ranked No.1 in the world in ‘career progression’ by Financial Times – ahead of Stanford, Harvard & Wharton. The most recent rankings released by Financial Times in 2013 had IIM A’s PGPX and ISB’s one-year PGP lose some ground and SP Jain, Dubai’s Global MBA exit the rankings – the PGPX has however maintained its No.1 rank for career progression. Additionally, IIM A retains its ranks as India’s No.1 MBA.

Financial Times requires a course to have been running for a minimum of four years  and the alumni of the one-year course expect the one-year full time MBA at IIM I, IIM B, IIM C and IIM L to join the rankings once it passes this mark.

As shared earlier in the series, the two-year PGP at IIM A is ranked in a separate list by Financial Times – the Ranking of Masters in Business Management (MIM or MBM). IIM A’s two-year PGP is the only two-year programme from India to have made the MIM ranking.

The MIM is a course in management theory for candidates without work experience and is ranked separately by Financial Times because it considers only post-experience programmes as MBAs. This is in line with the definition of the MBA by global MBA accreditation body Association of MBAs (AMBA).

The strict stipulation mandating substantial work-experience of participating students for a course to be considered an MBA reflects in the list of accredited MBA programmes from India. As links to the accreditation page on Association of MBA’s website show, the one-year full-time MBA at IIM Lucknow (IPMX), the same course at SP Jain, Mumbai, called PGPM, and the same course at MDI, Gurgaon, called NMP, are accredited as MBAs and the two-year PGP at these places as Masters in Business and Management. The links are (http://bit.ly/iimlaccreditation), (http://bit.ly/spjainaccreditation) & (http://bit.ly/mdiaccreditation)

These one-year full time MBA and two-year programme at these institutes are currently among the select few courses from India to have received an Accreditation by AMBA in their respective MBA and MIM categories.

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Top notch salaries reaching a new high are falling into the laps of one-year full time MBA graduates.

Let’s consider the salary statistics for IIM Indore’s one-year full time MBA class of 2011 (EPGP), which requires students to have a minimum five years’ work experience. Cost to company (CTC) figures in the 2011 EPGP and PGP placement reports for IIM Indore tell a compelling story.

The mean domestic salary for the people graduating the one-year full time MBA (EPGP) is Rs 17.75 lakh and for the people graduating the two-year full time programme (PGP) is Rs 14.06 lakh. The complete placement report for EPGP can be read at http://bit.ly/plepgp.

The contrast in salaries is starker at IIM-A, where the minimum work experience required is closer to seven years. An all-time high international salary of Rs 1.35 crore ($300,000) was offered to a one-year full time MBA (PGPX) graduate in 2007 http://bit.ly/plhigh.

The detailed 2011 PGPX (http://bit.ly/plpgpx) & PGP (http://bit.ly/plpgpa) placement report for IIM Ahmedabad shows the following CTC figures for graduates of the one-year full time MBA and the two-year PGP:

• One-year full time MBA (PGPX) mean domestic salary – Rs 27,13,974
• Two-year full time programme (PGP) mean domestic salary – Rs 16,36,346

• One-year full time MBA (PGPX) minimum domestic salary – Rs 18,40,000
• Two-year Full Time programme (PGP) minimum domestic salary – Rs 8,00,000

• One-year full time MBA (PGPX) maximum domestic salary – Rs 42,02,997
• Two-year full time programme (PGP) maximum domestic salary – Rs 37,00,000
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In 2011, the average salary received by the one-year batch at IIM C was Rs 19.66 lakh and at IIM B it was Rs 20 lakh. Indian School of Business, which popularized the one-year format, quotes an average CTC of Rs 17,92,000 for its 2011 batch. SP Jain, Mumbai mentions a 15.63 Lakhs average salary for its one-year MBA (PGPM).

You may like also:- BEST EXECUTIVE MBA IN INDIA – COMPLETE APPLICATION GUIDE

Graduating Class at ISB

Companies recruiting from the one-year full time MBA include all the prestigious firms that recruit from the two year programme. So for instance at IIM A, companies such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, KPMG, McKinsey & Co., Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, GE, Ernst &Young, Arcelor Mittal, General Motors, HSBC, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Unilever, Google, and Ericsson pick up talent from campus.

The placement process of the two courses is, however, different. While the two-year course has a ‘placement week’ and talks about ‘day zero placements’, the one-year course follows a rolling placement model, as is the practice at most international schools. What this means is that recruiters visit the campus throughout the year to pick suitable candidates. This is because the candidates of the one year course are hired for leadership roles, not entry level ones, and this requires a different approach to hiring.

For example, the typical scenario is that a single company may come to a B-school and pick up 20 two-year full time PGDM/PGP students as management trainees and later assign them specific tasks on induction. The hiring from the one-year full time MBA instead will be for candidates with very specific skill sets and for senior slots, such as General Manager & Vice President. For this kind of recruitment, interactions between candidates and recruiters happen over a longer period, with recruiters engaging closely with the candidate they would like to hire.

Placements for both the two year course and the one-year full time MBA are student driven. The institutes provide no more or no less help to the one year candidates than they provide to the two year ones.

However, I would like to add that, at times, one or two candidates from both the two-year course and the one- year course do not get the kind of role they are looking for. In the context of a student of the one-year course, this can happen when a candidate is looking for a drastic career change for example, from IT to finance, after seven-eight years experience in IT. This kind of transition is difficult, not because of any shortcoming in the one-ear course, but because after this quantum of experience in a specific area the recruiter can place the candidate neither at a senior level in a new role nor at a trainee level in a fresh role. A candidate facing such a situation might chose to rejoin his previous employer in a higher role.

Building managerial skills on a base of past experience is the stated goal of an MBA and the one-year full time MBA  deliveres well on that promise.

I would advise students to change their approach to judging the worth of an MBA course – from a single-minded focus on placements offered by the course to the ability of the course to transform them into leaders. You would be surprised to know that no international B-school promises placements. This is primarily because their class profile, similar to the class profile of the one-year full time MBA at Indian B-schools, consists of candidates suited to highly specific roles – roles that are sometimes not available. It may come as an eye opener for many that at Harvard, considering data from 2007-2012, on an average, 20 per cent of the MBA class was not placed at the end of the course and 10 per cent was not placed even 3 months after graduation! Does that change the standard of the MBA at Harvard? Not at all!

Click here to read the original article in Business Standard