Preparing for the Rebound, Part III

June 8, 2009

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Ironically perhaps, many of the top executive education programs around are finding that, despite Pham's theory of maintaining an aggressive marketing strategy during tough times, marketing companies are cutting back on various levels, including executive education budgets.
    Pham's colleague, Pierre Faller, the director of marketing and communications for Columbia's executive education programs, said the school, like many others, must constantly reinforce the notion that a recession is precisely the time when companies should be thinking about the strategies that will help them grow their businesses once the economy starts chugging along again.

    "These programs can be viewed as discretionary at some companies," Faller says. "That's why we are continually fighting to get our message out there to these companies that this is the time to be sending your executives to programs like this that will help make them the leaders of the future."

    Back at Stanford, Srinivasan would agree: "Unfortunately, I think a lot of companies tend to scale back on their executive education efforts during a recession, which really isn't the smartest thing to do when you consider that the best marketers are the ones that that want to position themselves for the future."

For more Executive Education coverage:
Preparing for the Rebound, Part I
Preparing for the Rebound, Part II
Preparing for the Rebound, Part III