Does London Business School need rebranding?

London Business School needs no introduction. Along with INSEAD, it is considered one of the top two MBA programmes outside the United States. Just pick up any business school rankings and you will see it is quite rare when London Business School has not made it to the list of top 10 B-schools globally. The school offers a great programme, has a formidable alumni network and because of its location in the heart of London, has strong ties with the financial industry.

But of late, I have increasingly observed that many of my best students are either not applying to LBS or keeping it as a ‘safe’ option. The five schools that mostly make it to the list of the top Indian students are Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, INSEAD and ISB. Sometimes LBS makes it to their list; at other times, it doesn’t. I’ve also observed that 7 out of 10 times, when students have offers from both INSEAD and LBS, they end up choosing INSEAD. This probably isn’t good news for LBS and if the trend continues, it may suffer the same fate that Wharton has suffered over the past few years. Wharton’s application volumes have decreased 17% in the last 5 years and the acceptance rates have increased 22%, almost double the acceptance rates for HBS and Stanford.

I regularly speak to many students to understand why they are more interested in attending schools other than LBS and I see three primary reasons.

1. Applicants view LBS as the go-to school only for finance. If a student is keen on pursuing a career in investment banking, he feels that LBS will open a lot of opportunities for him but otherwise, he doesn’t know what other doors LBS can open for him. Post the financial crisis of 2009, students are increasingly interested in pursuing careers in technology and entrepreneurship. But LBS hasn’t done much to position itself as a school that provides a launch pad to students interested in pursuing diverse career choices. While schools such as HBS and Wharton have revamped their curricula to reflect the changing market dynamics and are consistently delivering the message that they are breeding more entrepreneurs than ever, LBS has been slow in its rebranding efforts.

2. Another reason for declining interest (among the best applicant pool) in LBS’s MBA is the rapid emergence of its close rival INSEAD over the past few years. With a new campus in Abu Dhabi besides the existing campuses in France and Singapore, INSEAD’s MBA programme is aggressively delivering a consistent message that it is a highly international school that helps its students launch a global career in whatever field they choose. Apart from being a consulting juggernaut, INSEAD has one of the best entrepreneurship programmes and is strong in luxury goods and retail, too. Since many students enter MBA programmes to explore new careers, they feel that they should rather be at INSEAD where they have access to diverse career opportunities, than at LBS where they will be primarily restricted to finance.

3. The third reason is the emergence of Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, as a strong choice for Indians who form the largest pool of MBA applicants outside the United States. A lot of Indian students are staying back to join ISB even when they get through to LBS. Since ISB is a partner school of LBS, many professors from LBS come to teach here and applicants think it doesn’t make much sense for them to go to LBS and spend around $130,000 doing an MBA there, especially when the EU and the UK visa rules have made it even more difficult for non-EU students to secure jobs in Europe.

In spite of all this, I’m still very bullish on LBS for two reasons. I believe that the programme is next to none and its problems are more related to its stereotypical image of a finance school, rather than any fundamental problem with the school itself. I also believe that the biggest parameter for a top school is how successful the school’s alumni have been. LBS boasts some formidable and highly successful alumni. Thirdly, LBS is one of the most recognised brands globally. It takes decades for business schools to build a strong global brand and the fact is that most in Asia or the rest of the world would not recognise what INSEAD or HEC Paris is, but most would know what LBS is. In short, the LBS brand is here to stay.

The question is – can it change its stereotypical image? I believe it definitely can. The school can take cue from HBS, Stanford and Wharton, which in recent years, have revamped their websites and changed their value propositions to prospective students to reflect changing market dynamics and student aspirations. LBS’s website is minimalistic right now and I believe it could do much better by highlighting its strengths in areas other than finance. For example, LBS has one of the best programmes for entrepreneurship and the faculty has absolutely stellar credentials. But the website doesn’t do much to highlight this.

I also think LBS has a strong brand and it is not going anywhere. But then, if it doesn’t evolve with the changing times, it may soon find itself losing better quality students to its rivals such as INSEAD. Having said that, I believe that LBS will soon follow the footsteps of its American counterparts to position itself as a programme where students do amazing things and a programme that is in sync with the changing aspirants of students.

Manvender is the Co-founder & Managing Director of Aristotle Prep, a test prep company that provides popular test prep products and publishes books for the GMAT & GRE across seven global locations for students in more than 60 countries.