Three years ago Cass Business School and Lovells, the international law firm, launched a business education course for newly qualified solicitors. Divided into two levels, introduction and masterclass, the training was going to be preparation for the Cass executive MBA.

As 25 lawyers completed their masterclasses this summer, Lovells reviewed the programme and decided to abandon the MBA syllabus for a more pragmatic approach. To be relevant and engaging, education has to align itself to the needs of the business, says Chris Stoakes, director of knowledge research and training.

“This is about content, not paper qualifications,” he says. “We have decided, with Cass’s help, to design and deliver modules that completely reflect our practice.”

Now that Lovells is no longer concerned with matching the MBA accreditation the firm has found that it can include a hefty slice of customer relationship management as well as masterclasses in actuarial practice and insurance — two key areas commercial lawyers need to understand. Stoakes is delighted: “The new training will contain a lot more of what Cass has to offer. It will be more relevant.”

This is business education made to measure. And there is evidence that many other firms are looking for business schools to deliver a more bespoke offering.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, runs a business diploma with London Business School, a qualification usually regarded as the first step towards an MBA. With 80 to 100 managers going through the five-year training programme, the course is now under review and a change of direction is likely.

“The diploma as envisaged has changed in the five years since we launched it,” says a PwC spokesman. “We are looking at a wider context for the accounting qualification and broader themes such as leadership and commercial awareness. The diploma is being designed around our business needs.”

Higher up the food chain, the tailored, company-specific MBA is holding its own with large corporate sponsors who value the control it gives over their investment. Hugh Evans, the director of corporate learning at Henley Business School, part of Reading University, says: “Where tailored MBAs extract most value is that the student assignments can all be addressing key issues in the business and looking for resolutions.”

However, under Association of MBA accreditation, business schools that deliver company-specific programmes have to control entry qualifications and assessment and stick to the core Harvard module content.

Charlie Wilkinson, head of executive education and MBA director at Bournemouth University Business School, would rather not go down this road. “Single-organisation MBAs are unlikely to provide the breadth of coverage of a general MBA,” he says. “Everything would inevitably be from the perspective of that company.”

The single organisation focus is not necessarily a weakness in a company as large and as diverse as IBM. The Warwick Business School IBM MBA is designed to cater for the needs of a distributed workforce drawn from across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. With Warwick faculty flying out to run residential courses across Europe, IBM regards the programme as a way to bring its teams together.

Rachel Killian, marketing and recruitment manager for Warwick, says: “IBM executives need to network and this MBA has them all working in teams across countries.”

The other made-to-measure feature of IBM’s MBA is its blended learning, a mix of residential weekend classes and online learning.

Killian adds: “We worked closely with IBM on the design of the programme because it was concerned about employees completing the course.”

Legal opinion

Steven McEwan began the Lovells/Cass business foundation course at Cass in 2007.

McEwan specialises in financial services and his work brings him into contact with legal departments and commercial managers from many of the UK’s insurance groups and investment banks.

Business education was an attractive career development option, he says. “I think the Cass programme has given me the extra confidence in dealing with business clients.

“In terms of the time spent, I think it was well worth the effort.”