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CHARTING A COURSE
From ageing demographics and momentous changes in technology to unregulated degree markets, AMBA & BGA CEO Andrew Main Wilson believes business schools must seize the initiative and find innovative ways to tackle these key issues head on
uring my meetings with deans and directors around the world over the past six months, three key issues have been frequently mentioned, adding to the challenges and opportunities already faced by our AMBA schools. The first of these is ageing demographics in the JUICE economies of Japan, the US, India, China and the EU, regions which account for half of the entire AMBA network. This is something that is already having – or certainly soon will have – a significant impact on the number of potential business school students. Around one third (33 per cent) of the population of Japan is now aged 65 or older. In the US, this will grow from 18 to 23 per cent by 2050 and in the EU this will increase from 20 to 31 per cent during the same timeframe. In India there will be 200 million more people aged 60 or older by 2050 than there are today – a staggering increase. In my opinion, this highlights the importance of business schools capitalising on lifelong learning modules and stackable certificates for alumni D
aged between 30 and 60. It’s a huge opportunity, which could more than offset the potential problems of these significant reductions in student‑age populations. Then there’s the concept of personalised learning. AI and Big Data are now enabling tailor‑made career development, where each student can express their personal goals and business schools can customise individual, just‑in-time online learning to fill in the skills and knowledge gaps necessary for ambitious managers to leap higher up the career ladder. LinkedIn has become a huge brand in this learning and development (L&D) segment. Last year, the company recruited its one billionth member and L&D annual revenues sky-rocketed to $2.25 billion. In fact, this is LinkedIn’s fastest growing business, increasing at 40 per cent a year. Most of its one billion members have posted detailed CVs on the site – priceless data for an organisation advertising up to 20 million jobs on the platform at any one time. You can easily see how LinkedIn, leveraging big data capabilities, can identify for each member what skills they need to succeed in being recruited
for their next role. Business schools also have the opportunity to create similar career pathways for their students and alumni – after all, schools have already created strong, trusted relationships over the course of a multi-year degree programme. Lastly, we come to unregulated degree markets. The importance of brand differentiation is even more acute in markets where, for example, there are no formal Ministry of Education standards for MBA programmes, such as in Poland and Brazil. In Poland, any MBA qualification makes a manager eligible for a seat on a Polish organisation’s supervisory board. Consequently, poor quality MBAs have been launched that severely threaten the credibility and kudos of an MBA qualification. It’s why our Polish schools value their AMBA accreditation so highly and I have reassured them that we will lobby and meet with the country’s Ministry of Education to emphasise the importance of introducing formal quality standards. In addition, we will encourage the ministry to promote AMBA & BGA accreditation, as part of a campaign to ensure ambitious students can be guaranteed a world-class business education.
38 | Ambition | JUNE 2024
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