INSEAD

It normally takes two years to earn an MBA at an American school. At many European schools, including IMD and Insead, it only takes a year.

Adams says his time at Insead was the best year of his life, and a "critical step in making it possible for me to do what I'm doing now" .

"I'm someone without a strong national identity, and I feel more multicultural that way, and that's what the school feels like. "

However, it was some of the marketing courses that were probably the best part of his time at Insead, he says.

France's INSEAD has opened a campus in Singapore to put it at the heart of the Asian miracle.

At Insead, training the next generation of leaders is at the forefront of the MBA programme.

"It's one of the most entrepreneurial schools, with real practitioners, or ex-entrepreneurs, teaching a lot of these courses, " he says.

"Time was of the essence, so the Insead MBA, being one year, was going to allow me to make a career change very quickly, " he says.

One of the world's leading business schools, INSEAD's main differentiation factor lies in its global perspective and cultural diversity.

Although the Paris Chamber of Commerce gave the fledgling business school seed funding, Insead had to pay its own way through accrued fees.

At many European schools, including IMD and Insead, it only takes a year.

For although I would be attending Insead in Singapore, all the accounting is handled from Fontainebleau.

At Insead, the MBA programme has participants from more than 70 countries, with no country representing more than 14 per cent of the total.

INSEAD (phonetically pronounced in-say-ad), is an international graduate business school and research institution.

With his background, the Insead campus "really felt like home because everyone else there was international" , he says.

But now the heat is on for INSEAD, as a crowd of rivals has come forward, including a new, generously funded school in Berlin.

Prof de Meyer says that when he first moved to Singapore with Insead there were no local high-quality schools to attract younger faculty.

Sharjah, another of the seven statelets making up the UAE, plans to host an outpost of INSEAD, a Paris business school.

Both Insead and London Business School in Europe say their custom client business has been hit harder than their open enrolment business.

A range of scholarships exists, offered by both INSEAD alumni organisations and by other non-affiliated organisations.

INSEAD is recognised as a source of individuals with proven academic excellence and strong managerial potential.

It decided to launch a single EMBA that spans Insead's campuses, in Singapore and France.

But Anil Gupta at INSEAD, a business school, does not think the continuing restrictions on ownership will be a big deterrent.

Insead has tried to overcome this through close contact with business and alumni.

Going to Insead was not an eight-hour drive away, neither was it an eight-hour flight away.

Half of Insead's alumni go on to start a business or purchase one.

The average age of students at Insead, by comparison, is 29.

According to Sandra Schwarzer, director of business school Insead's careers service, some introspection is in order.

The International Business School Insead is, today, joining the ranks of online educators.

However, this does not mean that Insead demands a formal minimum score.

One INSEAD insider says that the school is "rattled" by the latest rankings and by all the new competition.

"Democracy and demography are India's big assets, " says Anil Gupta at INSEAD, a business school in France.

After earning a PhD from Insead, he became associate professor of marketing at HEC, specialising in selling from one business to another.

INSEAD has two fully fledged campuses in Europe (France) and in Asia (Singapore).

The INSEAD MBA curriculum comprises a range of required core courses and electives.

We're still not a major international business school like London or Insead, but when people look at Asia, they consider us.

Prof Jain intends to build up Insead's programmes in Fontainebleau and Abu Dhabi and launch a stream in Singapore next year.

Insead does not intend to stop there.

Not surprisingly, then, the past year has seen both Insead and LBS appoint business people rather than academics as deans.

Insead tries to manage applications so that no more than 10% of its students hail from a single country.

Some business schools have built campuses on the other side of the world. INSEAD, a French school, has led the way.

In software spending relative to GDP Japan ranks 35th, around the level of Saudi Arabia, according to INSEAD, a business school.

And Mr Brown says Insead has been at the forefront of developments in the virtual world Second Life.

He expects applications for Insead's full-time M. B. A. program to go up by 25% this year.

To be sure, a class of 30 students is puny compared with the 920 going through INSEAD this year.

"Self-checkout has worked better in countries where labour is expensive, " says Serguei Netessine, a professor at INSEAD, a business school.

Sixteen leading foreign universities including INSEAD and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business today call Singapore home.

The funds raised will be used to improve three areas of Insead life.

INSEAD has two equal status, fully equipped campuses.

For Insead, Second Life has provided a new way of teaching.

Though INSEAD has campuses in both France and Singapore, no purely Asian school makes our top 20.

Though INSEAD has campuses in both France and Singapore, no purely Asian school makes our top 30.

At Insead, which graduated 460 MBAs in December, it was tougher.

Insead's M. B. A. is a general management program that doesn't offer different majors.

Prof Schmitt has been teaching in Asia for the past 20 years, while Prof de Meyer founded Insead's Singapore campus.

This is a pattern repeated on the Tsinghua-Insead MBA programme that began in June this year in Beijing.

However, it appeared, even after I had made the decision, that I was not yet through with "pre-Insead" preparations.

Approximately 9, 500 executives from over 120 countries undertake courses or programmes at INSEAD each year.

Dipak Jain, the dean of INSEAD, believes that strong Western schools might still have an advantage for as much as 20 years.

Ms Ibarra looked at more than 20, 000 assessments of INSEAD's executive students.

The percentage of women in this year's graduating class at Insead , for instance, is 34 per cent, up from 23 per cent in 2000.

Insead burst into the top 10 in the custom ranking, climbing 15 places from 20 in 2008 to number five this year.

For these, he concludes, Insead needs to raise between ? 5m and ? 00m.

This month, INSEAD's Global Innovation Index for 2011 ranked China just 29th overall in innovation [Switzerland #1, U. S. A. # 7].

At the same time I was offered interviews at both IMD and Insead.

Close behind at number two is its near neighbour Insead, and the top three is completed by London Business School, last year's runner-up.

Of Insead's January graduates, 93 per cent had a job within three months, according to Sandra Schwarzer, Insead director of career services.

I am taking this risk because of what Insead offers.

"A common misconception is that you have to have 700 to go to Insead. "

Last year Brazil fell 18 places in Insead's annual innovation index, from 50th to 68th.

INSEAD (phonetically pronounced in-say-ad), is an international graduate business school and research institution. INSEAD

INSEAD officially characterizes itself as neither a French nor a Singaporean, but as a global school. INSEAD

INSEAD has a reciprocal agreement with Wharton, Harvard and Stanford to share career services. INSEAD

Imitation to Creation: China Wakes to the Challenge--Thoughts Provoked by INSEAD China Forum

The writer is professor at Insead and the University of California, Berkeley

European Institute of Business Administration-INSEAD