BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
I n May this year, more than 300 Business School leaders, corporate heavyweights, and industry partners and sponsors met with us in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon to network in person once again at the AMBA & BGA Global Conference 2022. It was also a chance to collaborate as a group, take stock of the past two years, and begin to plan for the next phase. Paul Polman, author of Net Positive and the former CEO of Unilever, delivered our opening keynote address, and, for me, his words were, perhaps, some of the most profound. He said: ‘Management education needs a drastic change, and not a day too soon if we want to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. ‘Frankly, universities are not responding at the level we need... Research shows that the bulk of people at your institutions recognise the importance of climate change, but only one third of them have them integrated in their curriculum – and not embedded in the whole learning experiences.’ This thinking resonated with delegates throughout the four-day event. We’ve become all too familiar with change, but the message from Polman is that more dramatic and long-term innovation is required. It’s also a message that chimes with one of the key takeaways of a new piece of research from AMBA & BGA, in association with Salesforce.org. In the Transformation and the Emerging Business Model Shift in Business Education report, 80% of responding Business School leaders agreed that their institutions are under pressure to change their value propositions and business models. This finding is suggestive of the type and scale of innovation that lies ahead. As is the increasing attention commanded by personalised learning and microcredentials. Indeed, while the same report found that 72% of participants believe their institution already provides a personalised experience for their students, this trend is only set to advance – 88% agree that personalising the learning experience is something that will grow in importance over the next five years. Meanwhile, 50% of the leaders we surveyed told us that their Schools have already delved into the world of microcredentials. Furthermore, 25% expressed their belief that microcredentials represent the future of higher business education, with 35% viewing those provided by companies such as LinkedIn as a threat to how their Business School will operate over the next five years. Business Schools are on the precipice of change, and while many have dipped their toes in the water of this transformation and model shift, there is an awareness that things will change to an even greater extent. However, the findings also show that Business Schools do have the energy, the drive and the passion to embrace this change today, and to move forwards into the next era of uncertainty.
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Innovation and transformation
AMBA & BGA CEO, Andrew Main Wilson , reflects on May’s Global Conference – at which Business Schools were challenged to step up a gear in their innovation – and introduces findings from new AMBA & BGA research
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