OPINION
Going forward: the great debate between PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL DELIVERY
CEO’S COLUMN
Andrew Main Wilson weighs up the pros and cons of physical and virtual modes of delivery from the perspective of AMBA & BGA’s accreditation services and events, and how this feeds into the strategy behind the organisation’s new global headquarters
together with a return to face-to-face networking, was a resounding success. The next dilemma our organisation faces is gauging the practicality and productivity of staff working from home versus working from our head office. We have decided to offer staff the best of both worlds – working two or three days a week in our head office and working two or three days a week from their homes. I firmly believe that organisations that have closed offices and transitioned to 100% working from home run a serious risk over time of both corporate culture and staff bonding becoming much weaker and more fragmented. I feel so strongly about this that we are relocating to a new, more contemporary global headquarters in London this month, offering staff facilities more commonly associated with forward-thinking multinationals like Apple or Google. We look forward to hosting many of you there on your next visit to London.
looks unlikely to end in the short term and rampant inflation appears to be raging across many of the countries in which we operate. This brings us back to accreditation panel visits and conferences, and the issue of choosing between physical and virtual modes of delivery. We firmly believe, as AACSB and EFMD also do, that a physical accreditation panel visit allows for deeper discussion and understanding between Schools and assessors and so that will be our preferred method of accreditation going forward. However, we will remain flexible and open to virtual accreditation panels where necessary. We also believe that physical conferences enable richer learning and vastly superior networking opportunities for our delegates. This is why we returned to a physical Global Conference for Deans and Directors in Lisbon in May 2022, having been compelled to hold our flagship conference virtually in 2021. The feedback from those in attendance at this year’s event was superb and it is clear to us that the combination of learning and discussion,
t’s a great credit to the flexibility of our AMBA & BGA Schools that within weeks of Covid-19 appearing, you transitioned almost overnight from physical to virtual accreditation panel visits and during the following months from physical to virtual AMBA & BGA events. Likewise, our staff transitioned equally swiftly from working in our London head office full time to working from home full time. This flexibility, together with the continued strong growth of our AMBA Schools’ network and the meteoric growth of our BGA Schools – from no Schools at its launch in January 2019 to more than 200 BGA member Schools today – meant that despite Covid-19’s global impact, AMBA & BGA has enjoyed two more years of record growth and financial results. As we enter a new financial year in October, we are aiming for further ambitious growth. However, we must also face the reality of an increasingly uncertain and volatile world in 2023. Covid-19 continues to impact countries, the war in Ukraine
Andrew Main Wilson, CEO, AMBA & BGA
46 |
Ambition | BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online