Management education leveraging digital tools: The path ahead
How can business management education leverage digital tools to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes?
Business management education must be directed towards making graduates industry-ready by equipping them with skills to take on real-world business challenges.
To achieve this goal, enhanced student engagement is imperative.
B-Schools must leverage digital tools such as virtual classrooms, gamification, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered learning assistants to make management education immersive, engaging and personalised.
Institutions may create digital profiles of students and use data analytics to track student progress, identify learning gaps, and take remedial actions.
What skills should business management students develop to thrive in a digitally driven workplace?
Skills gap is a real challenge observed in many graduates and post-graduates who enter the business world.
This challenge is aggravated by the rapid advances in technology, AI integration in workplaces, emergence of new business models, and the adoption of disruptive practices across industries.
In this dynamic and unpredictable environment, B-schools must have the foresight to prepare students for not just the jobs of today but also of tomorrow. The World Education Forum Future of Jobs 2023 report says that the fastest growing roles today are driven by technology and sustainability, while clerical and low-skill jobs are being automated.
I think that the students today need a clutch of hard skills and soft skills. They need technology skills, interpersonal skills, data skills, resilience, adaptability, leadership skills and global citizenship skills along with a sensitivity towards sustainability.
How can educators integrate real-world examples and case studies into business management curricula to prepare students for digital transformation?
Today, many companies are undergoing digital transformation to adapt to the new AI-driven paradigm.
B-Schools can integrate real-world examples and case studies of such businesses to align education with industry requirements. Case studies on AI, big data, fintech and e-commerce are very relevant.
Additionally, forging industry collaborations, partnerships with global universities, organising industry visits and conducting guest lectures and keynote addresses by industry leaders and domain experts will help to prepare students for digital transformation.
What role can simulations and gamification play in teaching business management concepts in the digital era?
Business education cannot content itself with imparting theoretical concepts and textbook knowledge. It has to make learning experiential and immersive.
Simulations have the potential to create actual business situations and challenges.
Students can learn in an engaging manner and then apply their learnings in real and risk-free environments to assess outcomes of different business decisions. Gamification makes learning interesting by including elements of competition and reward. It particularly appeals to the tech savvy generation.
I believe these practices are essential in today’s B-schools, because simulation and gamification of market conditions and challenges helps students to take leadership decisions and learn from mistakes.
