Why this business school is bringing MBA programs online

This article is from an episode on Disrupting Japan. This is heavily revised from the original show transcript. For the full interview, go here.

Education is hard to disrupt, and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. The fact that we don’t change the rules every few years is good because education is foundational – it’s one of the building blocks of society. On the other hand, a lack of disruption leads to educational systems that don’t really meet the needs of today’s students and industries.

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.

Globis’ strategy for innovation is fascinating. Unlike similar schools in the US, it does not compete on cost. In fact, its MBA program is more expensive than its competitors in Japan.

In this interview, Hori explained his school’s direction toward technology and how he sees the future in this space.

What made you decide to start your own company?

I was sponsored by Sumitomo Corporation to get my MBA at Harvard Business School. I wanted to give back and join them after my graduation, but I also really wanted to become an entrepreneur and start my own company.

So I came up with 30 to 40 business ideas, then I narrowed them down to two. I created two business plans for Sumitomo to execute, but they were rejected. So I decided to do either of the plans myself.

I chose the Globis idea, raised about US$8,000 from friends, and started the company from scratch. This was in 1992.

How did you get your first students?

When I started, I only had 20 students who were taking up a simple course on marketing. At the time, I used my apartment as an office. I also rented a classroom for three hours for US$200. There was no internet yet, so I sent direct mails to my friends to acquire students.

I was doing these all by myself. People thought I was crazy because I went to Kyoto University, worked at Sumitomo, got an MBA from Harvard, and here I was starting a company on my own, giving out leaflets to random people. But I told my friends that I have a dream. I thought I could do it. I believed in my potential.

Why do you think education has been so hard to not only disrupt but also to change and improve?

Education requires a strong brand. You need to have a license to issue degrees as well as to own a property to hold classes, which cost so much money.

It takes time to build the brand because your education business needs to produce good alumni, and it takes 10 or 20 years to prove that your school can actually produce a strong batch of graduates. Therefore, the barrier to entry in education is high anywhere you go. It’s not easy to enter the field.

The likes of Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge are number one because their brand has been established for hundreds of years. A lot of people carry and believe in their brand. But no startup business school can immediately become number one.

You’ve announced that Globis will have fully accredited online MBA programs next year. Why do you think it’s the future of education?

I’ve been thinking what education will look like in 2030 or 2040. Until now, it hasn’t changed since Socrates’ time. You meet, discuss, and use textbooks.

But with technology, education will change. I realized this when we started offering online MBA programs using the SPOC method. SPOC stands for small private online course, while MOOC stands for massive open online course. MOOCs are just libraries of video data, while SPOCs are interactive, real-time, and discussion-based, with only about 30 or 40 students.

Do you think the advancements in technology today will force education to change?