On 17 April 1981, when the then British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher laid the foundation stone for SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) in Mumbai (then Bombay), no one could have imagined that 42 years later, it would open a campus in London, albeit under a different name. While SPJIMR remains one of the better-known management schools in India, SP Jain School of Global Management was established as a separate entity for its international expansion. It is now expanding beyond Australia, Dubai, and Singapore. That it is setting up a campus at Canary Wharf, a re-developed business district of London, inaugurated by Thatcher herself in 1989, could be a mere coincidence. Interestingly, SP Jain Global is breaking out of the mould of Indian management institutions looking primarily at Dubai as the promised land while going international. Roughly a third of the United Arab Emirates population is Indian. Dubai is a lucrative pitstop for any Indian university looking for well-heeled Indian students who themselves are looking for the shortest route to an international degree. So what makes SP Jain Global think beyond Dubai? Why SP Jain Global is taking a gamble in the face of restrictive visa regimes. Why would someone spend ~Rs 1 crore (~US$120,000) getting an MBA from its London campus when the UK is contemplating new laws restricting international students from staying more than six months after completing their degrees to find a job? Can it claim to be truly international when two-thirds of the students on its foreign campuses are Indian citizens?
