After completing the first seven online courses and a three-day workshop, all taught by USC faculty, students can opt to apply to USC directly to study for an MBA to be completed in one year, rather than the usual 18 months. The first cohorts to enter the Business Breakthrough programme, all 116 of them, did so in June 1999. Four of them, having completed the required eight courses, applied to study for an MBA at Marshall. Two were accepted. The Business Breakthrough programme is a result of a collaboration between USC professors, Business Breakthrough, a Japanese satellite television channel run by Kenichi Ohmae, a management consultant, and Quisic, formerly known as University Access, which provides internet back-up and produces the television programmes which are broadcast on the network.
Students can also link to the Quisic library and bookshop and testing is done online.
The partners decided to use satellite television rather than the internet to deliver the programmes because in Japan the internet is still not widely used. One of the main reasons is the high cost of dial-up charges. Because of this emphasis on television broadcasts, the project was both a typical one and an atypical one for Quisic, says, Jeff Cobb, senior vice-president of business development at Quisic. We're already moving away from broadcast but here there was clearly a corporate need. Quisic has so far completed several hundred hours of television filming with USC professors and, under the terms of the agreement, Quisic can now sell on some of this material to other corporate clients or universities.