Management Education is one of the most coveted educational courses with almost 5 lakh students graduating with an MBA degree across India every year. Management courses are often susceptible to changes because of their close proximity to the business environment. They are often affected by business cycles and industry trends which can affect a hiring season and employability of their graduates. Management schools often have to revamp their coursework on a constant basis to keep up with the industry. But there have been some significant changes in the horizon lately which requires the business schools to not only change their syllabus but also the way they teach and approach education itself.
1. Entrepreneurial education
Even though the knowledge of starting a business or enterprise has been present for a long time, the formal educational institutes have only caught on the idea recently and have started to encourage innovative and entrepreneurial spirit in their campuses. Even though some would argue that entrepreneurship can only be learnt through trying and cannot be taught in classrooms, IIMs, ISB and other prestigious management institutes in India certainly would like to give it a try and have started their own programs in their respective institutions. Entrepreneur-cell or ”E-cell” is another concept in India that is catching up where students and teachers across campuses form associations and groups to encourage entrepreneurial spirits and test out various ideas. The trend is probably catching up because there has been a notion that only entrepreneurship can drive growth in India and will be critical for the future of the country. And this intention is certainly true and startups, irrespective of whether it is success or failure, provides enormous value and employment to the region and people associated with it. The institutes who are associated with successful entrepreneurs also get bragging rights and provides a significant boost to their brand value. The entrepreneurship courses provided by these institutes also help the aspirants as they are given a solid foundation on how to run a business and a valuable platform to test and implement their ideas. The courses enable them to prevent any significant mistakes as well as run their businesses more efficiently.
2. Data-driven decision making
Big Data is the new buzzword in the business environment currently and it is rightly so. The amount of data available will increase by almost 10 times in 2 years. Data provides valuable insights into consumer behaviour and other key metrics which allows companies to take accurate decisions preventing losses and costly mistakes. Companies who are ignoring this trend are sure to be left behind by their competition. All the aspects of the business are increasingly becoming more data-driven and even hiring process has not been left alone. Hence the business schools who are not equipping their students with this crucial knowledge are increasingly becoming unemployable and a burden to their employers who do get hired. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), the role of data-driven business managers is certainly on the rise. Most of the prestigious BSchools are already providing business analytics courses separately to the mainstream PGDM/MBA courses, but it is not unrealistic to expect them to provide combined or hybrid courses of some capacity.
3. Incorporating Digital Marketing
Most of the people I come across generally consider digital marketing to be insignificant or nothing more than a fad. Nothing can be further from the truth than that. Digital marketing is the improved and more effective form of marketing where you can actually know and interact with your customers rather than blindly spend large amounts of money and hope that it works mostly based out of intuition. Digital marketing has a significantly higher amount of Return of Investment (ROI) when compared to traditional marketing, even when it comes to online advertising. There are even many ways to organically attract customers without spending a significant amount of money on ads. The company I work for provides SEO services in Bangalore which have drastically improved the business of our clients without the need for any significant investment. Digital marketing has another advantage in that businesses can constantly keep in touch with their customers and easily gather accurate data on their requirements if they can keep providing them with something of value, which isn’t possible with the traditional form of marketing. Unfortunately, the negative bias associated with digital marketing has prevented major Indian business schools in providing a stand-alone course for it. Most of the students who wish to pursue a career in digital marketing have to rely on online or second-rate institutions to equip them with the required knowledge. The industry too is in need of quality talent who can handle their marketing needs and the institutions which recognises the opportunity and design quality courses will stand to gain significantly from it.
4. Global Perspective
The world is increasingly becoming more connected with supply chains of manufacturing companies as well as clients of software companies are transcending many borders in order to improve efficiency and profitability. With this changing business scenario managers who are accustomed to only a single culture or region will have a significant disadvantage in running the day to day operations. Providing students with global exposure can be a difficult and expensive venture which discourages many institutes from attempting. To overcome this problem, some elite business schools, like INSEAD, have opened branches in many other countries where students can gain international exposure. Some institutes have partnered with colleges in foreign countries to provide Study Abroad Program to their students as a way to gain this crucial exposure.
5. Impact of online learning
Online learning platforms and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have turned out to be a significant boon to many students and scenario in business education is no different. MOOCs have opened the door to quality education to all willing learners irrespective of their age, location or academic achievements, which had been significant barriers before. Many institutions of repute have jumped on the bandwagon and started providing their own courses online for significantly reduced price or free. This is the major selling point because most of the courses provided on campuses are often expensive. Thus, there are many scholarships in India which help to ease some burden of the student’s financial woes, despite having many benefits, online courses do have their own drawbacks, like providing practical knowledge and motivation for studying solely falling on the student. It is also hard to prevent students from cheating during assignments or exams when studying online. Both online courses along with classroom courses coexisting and complementing together catering to different requirements are probably the most likely scenario of all.
6. Lifelong learning
In this constant scenario of changing business environment, the knowledge gained through two years of college education is often inadequate. To overcome this problem many business colleges are starting to build a strong alumni network. These colleges are providing various post-grad programs to help their alumni relearn and retrain. The institutes are also benefited from their alumni network as it has the potential to become a significant source of funding and expertise. The alumni are often known to provide generous funds and information about changing business environment and needs.
7. Sustainable Growth
Greenhouse gases and global warming has been a buzzword for almost two and a half decades now and rightly so, as they are highly likely to affect our civilisation and environment in future. Initially, there was a notion that sustainable growth was bad for business and huge sacrifices have to be made in order to accommodate them. But a lot has been changed lately, Businesses across various industries have come to realise that sustainable growth is not only good for the environment but their business as a whole in the long run. This kind of growth not only provides positive brand recognition but reduces overall costs, improve regulation compliance, reduces waste and the investment required to manage that waste. This renewed focus has tinkered down to many business institutes as well and they have started to provide courses on sustainable business growth.
