An address by Alan Cameron AM, Chairman, Australian Securities and Investments Commission to the Victoria Graduate School of Business, Victoria University, Melbourne, 23 March 2000.
Introduction
The Economist's Survey, The World in 2000, includes an interesting article entitled 'Will Business Schools Last?' — a difficult question to deal with, when launching a new one you might think. But the author is John Quelch, Dean of the London Business School, so one would assume he will have a view on the topic. He refers to internet delivery and study groups connected by e-mail supplementing on-site coursework for part time and executive MBA programmes, concluding,
'However, there will always be a market for the full time MBA among bright twenty-somethings who want to take time out to take stock of their career path, brush up on the latest thinking, perhaps develop a business plan for a start-up and become a member of the global alumni network.'
So, the answer, you will be relieved to hear is, yes — business schools will last.
I certainly believe that it was appropriate to invite me, as chairman of ASIC, to perform this role today. After all ASIC is one of the principal regulators of business in Australia — not only as the principal regulator of the financial markets, intermediaries and products but also as the corporate regulator — the keeper of the records of Australia's 1.2 million companies, and the minder of corporate behaviour. But we are more than that — we are also charged with striving to maintain and improve the performance of Australia's companies, and all of the entities in the financial system — stock and futures markets, brokers of the stock, futures and insurance kind, advisers on almost all kinds of investments, superannuation, even the consumer aspects of banking. If as Calvin Coolidge said, 'the business of the American people is business', then the business of ASIC is business with a capital B.