Cubicle U.: getting a business education is turning into an inside job.

How's this for a final exam: Business schools are dusting off their case books and heading inside companies to train executives in real-time, real-life programs, where success--or failure--is immediate, and a return on the training in the form of increased sales or measurable efficiency is considered part of the package.

As the traditional MBA market softens, business schools now sell themselves as key components in corporations' development strategies, taking their executive education offerings out of the classroom and into the boardroom. In Latin America, the move toward in-house executive education programs has a trendy new name: los in-company. They can cost thousands of dollars a day, but executives get up-close instruction tailored to their goals, and they often walk away with a concrete plan for change.

"What they're seeking is accountability, results and how to measure them, to see what impact they have had," says Maria Alegre, co-director of the MBA program at Argentina's Universidad del CEMA business school.

Companies began to internalize executive education as Argentina's recovery got under way three years ago, says Alegre. "The emphasis was to set themselves apart in the market based on their level of expertise. Before, it was more common for them to deal with consulting companies," she says. "But there has been a turn toward universities because of the higher quality of instruction."

CEMA, a boutique institution with an established niche in business and finance, is in downtown Buenos Aires, a few blocks from the financial district. It admits 170 students per year to its MBA program, but the clear growth business is executive education. "We are growing on this front more than in any other ... The in-company market has exploded," says Alegre. "Three years ago we had none."

Among CEMA's first clients were ING Bank, Visa and Spanish oil company Repsol YPF. Citibank went a step further. The global financial institution worked with CEMA to establish a complete program, branded Citi University., to train its own executives as well as those of selected clients. "They offer it and we execute it for them. This is training in executive skills; programs in communication, in leadership, in negotiation," Alegre says. "They must have a broad application, beyond the particular industry in which they work."

DuPont asked CEMA to localize a program that the company had already launched in more than 70 countries, says Maria Constanza Quinones, the U.S. chemical manufacturer's manager of marketing and sales competency development for the Southern Cone.

DuPont knew it had to ramp up capabilities in marketing and sales at the global level. So the company conducted a survey and worked the results into its own program. Then each country operation adapted the program to its own needs. CEMA's contribution was to conduct an internal evaluation of DuPont's Southern Cone operation, which includes Argentina and Chile, one that determined there was a need to develop skills in the commercial area. "We developed an interesting program for them that focuses on marketing and project coaching to develop business deals: How to spot business opportunities and how to exploit them," Alegre says.

CEMA developed seven marketing modules, each lasting two or three days, including a basic module designed for the entire organization because, Quinones says, everyone in the organization needs to understand how marketing relates to sales. Other modules are in the sales program and include instruction in aspects such as selling solutions, negotiating and client services. In all, 280 DuPont employees have taken part in the training, carrying out 18 real projects as part of their instruction. "We work on practical cases, and the application varies from country to country," she says. "The global objective is to be seen by 75% of our clients as being a critical factor in their success."

The impact of the courses has been felt in DuPont's Mexico operation, where the company has 18 business units and 4,500 employees, say Leticia Quintanilla, a DuPont human resources manager for Latin America who focuses on training and development. DuPont partnered in Mexico with Universidad Iberoamericana and had each of its 18 units select a key project on which to apply the teachings. The printing technology business unit finished the program in August and their chosen project netted a contract that is expected to yield an additional $500,000 per year in sales, say Quintanilla. Sales rise. Another DuPont business unit sells Kevlar, an advanced fiber used in products like bulletproof jackets and tires. "No one had thought to market the fiber to the re-tread market. We thought it was a tiny market. So we sold only to the tire manufacturers," say Quintanilla. As a result of the marketing program, DuPont now expects to increase its sales of Kevlar by US$16 million, up 9%, say Quintanilla.

The Kevlar project had participants in two countries. The group director works out of Brazil with a business unit leader in Mexico and three salespeople. DuPont wanted not only to provide learning but for executives to feel the training was relevant and would have an impact, one that would motivate more learning. "It's truly a complete success," Quintanilla says.

In Rio de Janeiro, Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), Brazil's largest mining company and now the No. 2 miner in the world, asked MIT's Sloan School of Management for a program to train its executives to handle the expected challenges of an operation on the global stage. "A very senior executive from Vale who attended one of our open enrollment courses came back and told us: We were a regional company and now we're expanding around the world, and we need to help our leaders learn what it means to be global," say Rochelle Weichman, executive director of the Sloan School's office of executive education. "These are called customized executive education courses. We listen and understand what the company needs and we design a program exactly for them."

Two Sloan faculty members spent time at CVRD headquarters in Brazil and produced a history of the company, which gave longtime employees and recent hires a shared understanding of the company's beginnings and its philosophy. That, in turn, yielded a document called The CVRD Way of Going Abroad, says Weichman.

"They worked in small teams on a project that was of business value to the company. The teams would work on it and hand it off to the next group," Weichman says. "In 2004, the first cadre went through. The senior leadership program we did in three groups. So, 250 people in 2.5 years, and we're not done yet."

The instruction venue was split between MIT and CVRD's headquarters in Rio. Instruction was in English until it came time for group discussions, which were done in Portuguese. "One of the reasons we were so excited were the issues Vale was dealing with: How we transition from the leading regional player to a global one; what's the infrastructure we need to have in-company; what countries we go into; what are the issues we should be looking at," Weichman says. "Strategic and organizational questions are very interesting questions to us."

Spanish telecom giant Telefonica sought a similar broad approach when it asked business schools in Peru to conduct internal evaluations of its executives and to formulate a targeted approach to changing the internal culture of the phone company.

"We have been working with Telefonica on the topic of people management, evaluation of strategic and leadership capabilities. There's a lot of self-evaluation," says Enkelejda Ymeri, business manager of the business school at the Universidad de Piura, in the San Isidro district of Lima. "These types of programs are carried out on a parallel track: In the classroom, through case studies and individually, through a process of evaluation and coaching. ... Some companies want to train their entire executive ranks on general topics, information technology, etc. Not specific topics but topics of vision."

Mass market. Cesar Andrade Nicoli, Telefonica's vice president of human resources in Peru, says companies recognize the need for continuing executive education beyond traditional post-graduate degrees. "An MBA used to have value simply because you had one, but that has diminished today. MBA programs have been mass-marketed and the value of leaving a job for two years [to earn the degree] is much less profitable, and business schools have learned that," says Andrade, himself an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. "At the same time, companies have come to realize that they have a role in developing their personnel, but in a type of program that's far more focused."

As Peru's largest private employer, with 12,500 direct employees, Telefonica has launched a series of programs to train its 850 executives, Andrade says. "We have created a leadership program that's extremely ambitious. With Piura we have done programs specializing in marketing and innovation with our top 100 executives," he says.

Telefonica also has worked with Peru's Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas to develop a people-management skills program. "This is not just building skills but a cultural transformation on the group level," Andrade says. "Most of our operations in Latin America are privatizations, and we have to transform a hierarchical, almost military, culture of little personal effort, which is the complete opposite of the client-oriented culture."

Telefonica surveyed several universities, presented its needs and chose the ones that offered the most flexibility in adapting their academic teachings to the company's goals. Course topics include leadership self-evaluation workshops, team communication, delegation and empowerment and feedback. "It's a change in their concept, in their role as a school, because it's not just a matter of giving a lecture or teaching a course, it's instilling a culture of people management," Andrade says. "The core of the program is the relationship between employees and their bosses."

In Miami, Telefonica North America was not dealing with privatization issues but with a gap in perception between management and employees, says Martin Fischetti, a former vice president of human resources for the telecom, now a consultant with Neoris. "We had to develop the right behaviors from top management at Telefonica, to work and exercise Telefonica's processes and procedures," says Fischetti.

After surveying several business schools, the Spanish phone company settled on Florida International University's Chapman Graduate School of Business to develop an executive training program in three major areas--human resources and management; finance and strategic planning; and leadership and communication.

"Telecoms are divided into sales, engineers, administration, etc. Normally you tend to think you're the only one pushing and everyone else is having a party. So we wanted to put everyone together there, to show the types of problems that everyone is having," says Fischetti.

The program began 12 months ago in Puerto Rico, then continued in Miami, either at Telefonica or at FIU, Fischetti says. It wraps up this month. "Nothing like this has ever been done at Telefonica," he says. "We did a preliminary assessment in May; another planned for November. But already in May we saw we were closing the gap of perception."

DORALISA PILARTE * WASHINGTON, D.C.