With supply chain management becoming increasingly important to companies, business schools are fast catching up with the flow to bridge the gap between demand and supply of trained supply chain managers in the industry.
The Xavier Labour Relations Institute at Jamshedpur has also taken this opportunity to take its supply chain management course overseas.
XLRI is all set to take its 14-month satellite courses in general management, human resource management and supply chain management to Dubai, Muscat, Bahrain and Singapore. In Dubai, it also plans to launch an on-campus course in supply chain management alongside the satellite version.
At present these courses are available to students residing within the Indian territory through 77 centres. Lectures are delivered from the institute's studio on campus at Jamshedpur. Hughes Telecom and Reliance Web World are XLRI's technology partners in this venture.
"We are in the process of finding franchisees in these foreign destinations where we want to launch our satellite programme. The supply chain management programme with also be offered as an on campus course at our Dubai campus a there is a great demand for supply chain managers in Dubai because of the large volume of trade that happens there," said N Casimir Raj, director, XLRI.
He was speaking on the sidelines of Ensemble 2007, the annual festival organised by students of XLRI.
The satellite supply chain management course, which was started in the 2006 academic session, already has 120 students in the first batch. The pre-requisites for admission to the course requires two years' work experience and a minimum 50 per cent of total marks in graduation. This means that applicants are necessarily from the industry.
"The response to this course has been very encouraging. Although number of applicants last year were only around 200, we are expecting a considerable leap in number of applications this year.
"In India, we are already present in metros and tier I towns. We are now looking at expanding our centres in tier II towns as well. There are enquiries that keep pouring in from different corners. In Dubai, we will be taking in 40 students for the on-campus course," Raj said.
The fee for the supply chain management course is Rs 1.45 lakh, payable in three equal installments.
