In-House B-Schools Give Firms MBAs With the Skills They Want

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Each year, EY hires about 200 to 300 MBA graduates well-versed in the foundations of finance, marketing, and economics who inject a dose of enthusiasm—and youth—into the accounting firm’s global workforce of 312,000. But the new hires are not always equipped to respond to rapid changes in the business landscape, so EY last year introduced an in-house MBA to teach tech-centric skills that traditional programs sometimes gloss over. “Technologies are changing so quickly that it had to be future-focused,” says Trent Henry, EY’s global vice chair of talent.

EY is among a growing number of companies developing bespoke MBAs after concluding that university programs aren’t keeping pace with their needs. Employers want B-school graduates to be equipped to tackle broad-scale digital transformation, according to executive education consultant CarringtonCrisp, which recently published a survey of international employers finding that 77% believe the traditional MBA needs to change.

“There’s been a growing divide between what companies want and what business schools have grown accustomed to offering,” says Luiz Mesquita, dean of graduate programs at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, which designs custom MBA courses for companies. “Corporations are taking a more active role, investing in rather than just hiring talent.”

Core capabilities are still vital for businesses but so are specific skills such as redesigning trade flows and supply arrangements in an era of pandemic-related disruptions. Corporate MBA programs allow employers to tailor the instruction to a business’s particular needs, Mesquita says.

W.P. Carey developed its corporate MBA after creating an online corporate executive education program for equipment manufacturer Deere & Co. in 1997. Now the school’s corporate education business has clients including Salt River Project (an Arizona utility,) consulting firm Chemonics International, and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.

EY collaborated with Hult International Business School for its MBA program, covering tech-focused skills not taught in traditional schools, such as using artificial intelligence, blockchain, and robotic process automation in business. In the first graduating cohort in March, 25 EY employees earned an MBA. The goal, Henry says, “is to foster a culture of curiosity and to upskill the organization.”

As well as teaching different material from traditional MBAs, EY’s program allows students to put their learning into practice quickly in the workplace, says Henry. “The knowledge is relevant immediately,” he says. “We know from apprenticeship models that things work best where you study a topic and practically apply that to a real-life situation. That’s where learning really sticks.”

Graduates of the program can take their degree with them—like any other business school graduate—should they leave the company, and last month EY launched a similar accredited masters in business analytics focused on data and artificial intelligence literacy.

The rise of online learning has made it easier for employees to fit classes around meetings and family life, Henry says. “If you’re 28 and want to have a family, you’ve got elder-care issues, or you’ve got other aspirations,” he says, “you may want to do this over six or seven years.”

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