By Pallavi Upadhyaya, Associate Professor, Information Systems and Technology Area and Chairperson-IT, T A Pai Management Institute
Technology has disrupted the education sector and business schools need to embark into a digital transformation journey to reinvent themselves. Technology can not only reduce the cost of quality education to a larger group of students, but it can also provide value such as high level of personalisation, experiential learning and ability to create new programs or courses. Technology can also enhance the competitiveness of business schools, by increasing the effectiveness of its core activities such as admissions, learning and engaging students, placements, and engaging with alumni and corporations. Data driven decisions for the core activities are the need of the hour, to improve the quality of students admitted, manage student performance, and improve placements and corporate engagement.
Business schools need to build capabilities to leverage technology for quickly designing and delivering new courses in digital format, integrating multimedia. Digital courses could enable business schools to deliver quality training to two different stakeholders at less cost and help build a brand for the business school’s quality of teaching. Leading business schools such as Harvard Business School, entering a partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create a MOOC platform, EdX is an example. B-schools can collaborate with edtech firms to either deliver online courses or use existing courses in blended learning format. Developing MOOCs courses or running a new online executive program would require new digital skill sets for faculty and staff.
The world’s most valuable tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook compete with intangible assets such as platform, data and innovation capabilities. As firms in every industry are embarking into digital transformation to remain competitive, business education is no exception. The key to digital transformation is to think and function like a technology firm. This would require exploiting the capabilities of technologies such as Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, Data and Analytics, social media, and mobile innovations. For example, cloud computing could enable business schools to deploy scalable learning management systems. AI enabled virtual digital assistants (for example, Deakin University’s Genie) can enhance student experience and engage them. Rise of AI tools such as ChatGPT has given an opportunity for faculty to rethink business education and evaluation methods.
Simple data visualisations to advanced analytics, can enable business schools to gain insights on key processes and student outcomes. For example, algorithms can predict student dropouts and timely counselling and actions could enhance student retention and course completion rates. Ensuring data quality and developing data culture would be key for the success.
Today’s managers need to possess a digital mindset to drive digital transformation in their firms. Therefore, the business programs must include courses that enhance digital skills such as ability to take data driven decisions, innovation, and experimentation techniques. The curricula must integrate these skill sets in courses creatively. The business school faculty must curate content and technologies to enable students to gain digital skills.
The digital transformation in Business education involves transforming experiences of every stakeholder: Faculty, Staff, Students, Parents, Alumni and Recruiters. Technology can be a game changer in enhancing the experiences of each of these stakeholders with the business school. Stakeholder journey mapping and understanding the pain points in engagement could be the starting point.