DJ Selects: A Japanese MBA Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

Education is very hard to disrupt.

That’s both good and bad. Education is so important to both individuals and society, it should not be changed on a whim, but over time it seems that our institutions of higher education have drifted away from meeting students real needs.

Yoshito Hori, founder and CEO of Globis, is making radical changes. He turned a small training school into Japan's first independent and fully accredited business school with an MBA. Less than ten years later, Globis became Japan’s most popular MBA program.

We talk about the need for change in education and about the successful, real-world pilot program Globis is running to modernize Japanese higher education. Yoshito also shares insights on how to teach innovative thinking and explains why such a high percentage of Globis MBAs go on to found starts or join them.

It's a fascinating discussion and I think you'll really enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why most Japanese do not want to attend full-time MBA programs How to make an advanced degree both exclusive and inexpensive How to groom MBA students to start startups How Sumitomo missed out on a multi-billion dollar business Why Japanese higher education is so resistant to change This difference between SPOCs and MOOCs, and why it's important How drinking in front of your computer might save higher education

Links from the Founder

Check out Globis Yoshito's blog on entrepreneurship in Japan Follow Yoshito on Twitter@YoshiHoriGLOBIS Connect with him on LinkedIn Yoshito's article on 100 Actions to revive Japan The G1 Global Conference

[shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript Disrupting Japan. Straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. I’ve got another great select show for you today.

I really like this particular episode because it highlights that disruptive innovation does not have to be about the technology, If fact, even when disruption seems to be about technology, it’s really not. It’s about changing systems, changing the way people and businesses interact with each other. Of course, that often does involve technology, but when it does, the technology is only the conduit.

Nowhere is that more clear than in my conversation with Yoshito Hori, the CEO, and founder of Globis. In fact, I would say that at least so far, Globis has brought far more genuine change to Japan’s education market than all Japan's edTech startups combined.

So please enjoy the episode and I’ve got some important updates to our story for you after the show. -----

You know, education is hard to disrupt. And as long-time fans know very well, that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because education is so important and foundational not only to how well a given child will do later in life but also because in the large developed nations, the educational system forms the basis of society itself. It provides us all with a shared set of experiences.

So the fact that we don’t change the rules every few years is a good thing. On the other hand, this lack of disruption leads to educational systems that don’t really meet the needs of today’s students and today’s societies for that matter. So clearly, there must be a better way of doing things than what we’re doing now.

Well, today, I’d like to introduce you to someone who’s found a better way. Yoshito Hori founded Globis as a small business training school and grew it into Japan’s first independent and fully accredited business school offering MBAs. And then, Globis became Japan’s most popular MBA program.

Yoshito’s strategy for innovation is fascinating. Unlike similar schools in the US, Globis does not compete on cost. In fact, the Globis MBA is more expensive than similar degree programs at Todai or Hitotsubashi. No. Globis is doing something unique and something that is making a lot of people rethink how university and post graduate education is done in Japan.

But you know, Yoshito tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview.

[pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So we’re sitting here today with Yoshi Hori of Globis. Thank you so much for sitting down with me.

Yoshi: Thank you very much as well.

Tim: Globis has about 7,000 students per year. It’s the most popular MBA in Japan. It always does well in the national business school rankings here. But what seems most unusual, it’s a truly international MBA program. You have students both from Japan and overseas now, right?

Yoshi: Yeah.

Tim: What sort of ratio?

Yoshi: Well, we have English MBA program and Japanese MBA program. Japanese MBA program is a part-time program. English MBA program, we have part-time, full-time, and online. We have roughly about over 100 English MBA program students. We have about 800 Japanese MBA programs.

Tim: That’s interesting. So you have more Japanese students but it sounds like there’s a lot more flexibility in the English language courses.

Yoshi: That’s right, yeah.

Tim: Why is that?

Yoshi: Well, our vision is to become number 1 business school in Asia. In order to become number 1 business school, we need to have full-time English MBA program. But in case of Japanese, we don’t need to have full-time in Japanese MBA program because not many people quit jobs to get MBA in Japan. Therefore, in Japanese side, we have Japanese MBA program in five locations with Mito and Shin-Yokohama at Yokohama station for hop campuses and also online. Most of Japanese students participate and enroll into MBA program as a part-time MBA program. In case of English, we need to have full-time MBA program so that quite a few students come from overseas. There are roughly about more than 50 different nationalities within Globis MBA. More than 90% of Futa MBA program is non-Japanese. So it’s a very truly international MBA program.

Tim: Moving forward, do you think there will be more and more international students fueling the growth or more Japanese?

Yoshi: We feel that there will be more and more non-Japanese international MBA students coming in. The reason is that we have not been into English MBA programs until 2009. We have been around only for about 8 or 9 years and we just started full-time MBA program in 2012. We have a lot more room to grow.

Tim: MBA programs in the US tend to be quite expensive and Globis as about 4 million yen per year. How does that compare with MBA programs at Waseda or Keio?

Yoshi: Well, Waseda and Keio are almost about the same. But difficulties in Japan is that we have national universities like Hitotsubashi and Tokyo University which is roughly about one-quarter of tuition compared to Globis and they are highly reputed as well. So therefore, it’s difficult for us to raise our tuition simply because we are dragged down by those national good university in Japan as for tuitions.

Tim: Are their tuitions so low just because of the government subsidies towards those universities?

Yoshi: Yes. 70% of those revenue for those national universities are tax payers’ money. So it’s highly subsidized, mostly run by the tax payers’ money.

Tim: Okay. It does make it difficult to compete.

Yoshi: Well, you know, we cannot raise our tuition higher and we have to appeal to our potential students that our quality of education is three times or four times better than those who are run by tax payers’ money.

Tim: Before we get too deep into the program and the school and Japan, you’ve got a traditional MBA and you became an entrepreneur. What percentage of your MBA students go on to become entrepreneurs and what percentage would you say take the more traditional career path?

Yoshi: I would say roughly about 10% becoming entrepreneur and 20% more are joining entrepreneur companies. And then roughly about 20% will be changing jobs to consulting or other foreign affiliate companies. I think roughly about half remain in their companies.

Tim: Are those numbers pretty similar for both the Japanese students and the non-Japanese students?

Yoshi: In case of non-Japanese students, it’s difficult to compare because quite a few of them come from overseas to study here in Japan and most of Japanese students are living here in Japan, and therefore it’s difficult to compare. But in case of non-Japanese students who come to Japan, some start their own companies here, some change their jobs, and some go back to their home countries.

Tim: So that 30% of Japanese Globis MBAs are either starting a new company or joining a startup company?

Yoshi: Yeah.

Tim: That’s fantastic. That’s really high.

Yoshi: It’s quite high.

Tim: Excellent. Well, listen, before we talk more about Globis, let’s take a step back and talk about you.

Yoshi: Okay.

Tim: So you went to Harvard Business School. This was back in 1992, when you were graduating, and this was before the last internet bubble. What made you decide to start a new company rather than just join a consulting firm or going to a very high-paying job at a Japanese firm?

Yoshi: I was sponsored by Sumitomo Corporation to get my MBA. I feel thankful for my sponsor company, Sumitomo that I had never thought about changing my jobs. I was planning to come back and I did come back to Sumitomo but I really wanted to start up mu own companies and I want to become an entrepreneur. So I came up with 30-40 business ideas and I shortlisted it into 2, and I raised 2 business plans within Sumitomo Corporation for the new businesses to be done and executed by Sumitomo Corporation. But those two business plans were rejected by Sumitomo and therefore I had to do either of them by myself and I chose this Globis idea. I raised capital from my friends, small capital only about $8,000 and I started Globis from scratch.