MANILA BULLETIN
Business & Society
June 23, 2008
ASIA WILL NEED MBA GRADUATES
In both the academic and business worlds, there is an ongoing debate about whether or
not the traditional approach to a business education perfected by business schools like the
Harvard Business School and the Asian Institute of Management is still relevant to a
constantly changing environment that needs more than anything else flexibility and a wide
range of conceptual tools.
While the skepticism about the problem-solving, formulaic
approach to management may be valid in the context of very developed economies such as
can be found in the U.S., Europe and Japan, it seems that the demand for the traditional
MBA education is now exploding in the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, Eastern
Europe and Africa.
Thanks to the executive search firm, My Global Executives, managed by Francis
Sebastian and Ray Canilao, I recently gave an economic briefing in Ho Chi Minh City to a
group of some 50 mostly Filipino executives running multinational enterprises in Vietnam. I
had a feeling of dejavu that brought me twenty years back to Jakarta and Surabaya,
Indonesia, when I used to give economic briefings to Filipino executives who were at the
helm of numerous Indonesian companies. The majority of these executives were holders of
MBA or Executive MBA degrees and were facing rather simple business problems of a
consumer market that had only recently evolved from a predominantly agricultural economy.
I was impressed with the number of Filipino executives that are now the expats in Vietnam in
such multinational enterprises as Citicorp, Glaxo, Nestle, Johnson and Johnson and
S.C.Johnson. There were also the Filipino managers running Filipino multinationals like
United Laboratories, San Miguel Corporation, Jollibee, and Oishi. Like Indonesia twenty or
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more years ago, Vietnam has now an increasing demand for Filipino executives because the
country will take time to produce their own indigenous managers. Even today, there are still
a good number of Filipinos managers running Indonesian enterprises.
During my sabbatical at the IESE Business School, I have seen at close range the
surging demand for an MBA education from young professionals from Asia. To cite the
example of the Philippines, just four years ago Filipino students admitted to the full-time
MBA program of IESE were very few and far between. Today, there are four or five
Filipinos admitted every year to the program which admits yearly some 220 participants. As
a whole Asia represented less than 5 percent of the MBA population at IESE just four years
ago. In the school year that will start in September 2008, the ratio is close to 20 percent. In
fact, if there is no quota for every nationality that is imposed to have a desirable diversity of
countries represented in the student population, many more Indians would be admitted
because of the propensity of university graduates from India to score very high in the GMAT
test. The number of qualified applicants from the emerging market is rising much faster than
those coming from Europe because of the demographic crisis that most European countries
are facing today. It is only the Americans that have maintained the number of applicants
because of the swelling immigrant population in the U.S.
In an article by Beth Gardiner that appeared in The Wall Street Journal (June 1, 2008),
another reason is being given for the increasing number of MBA graduates going to Asia. As
the article comments, "With Western economies sagging, many European business schools
say they are seeing a jump in the number of M.B.A.'s and other students looking East for
opportunities...The number of Asian students studying at European B-schools has risen
significantly over the past several years. But until recently, many used their degrees to secure
jobs in the West. This year, those at the schools say more Asian students are seeking to take
their diplomas back home."
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Filipino professionals in their mid or late twenties should seriously consider European
business schools if they want to obtain an MBA degree that will prepare them well for the
emerging markets of Asia. From my experiences at both Harvard and the IESE Business
School, I find the environment in the latter better for cultivating a global mind. The student
body is a lot more diverse in terms of nationalities and cultures. People are more multilingual. Professors come from more nations. Teaching materials and cases are not too
focused on the U.S. There are more opportunities in European schools to be immersed in
Asian languages and cultures. As the Wall Street Journal article reported, "At Nothingham
Business School in central England, there has been a noticeable shift away from the study of
European languages and toward Asian ones, and a growing number of students are studying
abroad in Asia or doing internships there, said Simon Mercado head of the department of
strategic management and international business. Many MBA students are doing consulting
projects for Asian clients as part of their academic work."
For at least the next ten years, such emerging Asian markets as China, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar will need the traditional MBA graduates to run
multinational as well as national enterprises. These countries will not be able to produce
enough of their own managers. They will have to import expats from such countries as the
Philippines and India who have been pioneers of business education in the Asian region I
would suggest that some of our business executives plan for an international career in the
region. Those who are interested in getting information on the opportunities for working in
these emerging markets may contact Mr. Ray Canilao at rnc@myglobalexecutives.com.ph.
Those interested in a European MBA program may consult the website of the IESE Business
School, www.iese.edu.
For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.
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