Michigan's Ross School of Business offers innovative executive education to India's TVS Logistics

Michigan's Ross School of Business offers innovative executive education to India's TVS Logistics

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Executives at TVS Logistics Services in Chennai, India, will take part in a unique, comprehensive general management program conducted by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, beginning May 27.

The Ross School of Business has offered an exclusive 10-day Global Program for Management Development to executives from India's top organizations and business groups since 1994, and has conducted customized executive education programs for several leading Indian business groups, including Tata and Mahindra & Mahindra. The new TVS program is distinctive because it is a customized executive education program with a heavy dose of action learning that is spread out over three years.

M.P. Narayanan, professor of finance at the Ross School of Business and faculty director of the TVS General Management Program, says the program is custom-designed to meet the needs of TVS Logistics Services.

"A unique feature of the program is that executives will be expected to immediately apply what they learned in the classroom to resolve problems and issues that are relevant and important to their company," he said. "The program aims to create changes in attitude, perspectives and behaviors of the executives to align with the strategic objectives of TVS Logistics."

TVS Logistics has more than a quarter billion dollars in revenue and plans aggressive growth to reach a billion dollars in revenue by 2015. Company leaders believe they can meet their goal with a better understanding of the global supply chain market.

"Logistics is an up-and-coming field in India, but the explosive rate of growth is not commensurate with adequate standard professional learning systems in this domain, and most of the professionals are experts by virtue of their experience over the years," said S. Ravichandran, executive director of TVS Logistics Services. "To overcome the non-standardized approaches to issues and problems in logistics, TVS will partner with the Ross School of Business through its Executive Education program to provide a framework for improving organizational effectiveness and enhancing organizational capability."

The TVS/Ross School program will consist of three parts: 1) General Management Essentials; 2) Core and Domain Skills; and 3) Individual Professional Development.

General Management Essentials (GME) will feature seven two-day learning modules offered every three months. The first module, Customer Co-creation, will take place May 27-28 in Chennai. Other GME modules over the next year-and-a-half include: Business Accounting; Communication Management; Corporate Strategy; Decision-Making for Value Creation; Human Resource Management; and Information Technology.

The second part of the program will offer another six core skills modules and domain workshops ranging from two to four days every three months upon completion of the GME. These include: Negotiation and Influencing Skills; Pricing and Cost Structures; Operational Effectiveness; Global Supply Chain Management; Asset Utilization; and Warehouse Management.

TVS employee participants will maintain contact with Ross School faculty as they complete action-learning team projects in the weeks between modules during both the GME and Core/Domain parts of the program.

The final part of the program, Individual Professional Development, will require each TVS executive to attend one or two open enrollment programs offered by the Ross School's Executive Education program either in Ann Arbor or Hong Kong.

R. Dinesh, managing director of TVS Logistics Services, says the partnership with Ross is a significant step for the company to take as talent in the supply chain industry is difficult to come by in an extremely competitive market.

"The key intention for this (partnership) is to build capability internally to cater to the future leadership requirements of the organization, which has seen phenomenal growth in recent times. With some new acquisitions and joint ventures, the rate of growth is expected to accelerate further."

Melanie Barnett, chief executive of the Ross School's Executive Education program, says it's hard to imagine a more exciting endeavor for Ross Executive Education.

"The opportunity to work with TVS, a renowned company that is committed to the growth and development of its leaders, to do that work in India—a country in which the Ross School has long been deeply engaged—and to create a multi-year action-based learning experience that has TVS managers immediately apply new approaches makes this an optimal partnership for Ross," she said.