STRATEGY
Business education in the age of global fragmentation For decades, Business Schools have benefited from an increasingly globalised economy. The core philosophy underpinning MBA programmes was to create a global community of well-trained, well-connected, and responsible managers who would seamlessly succeed across cultures and borders. However, the age of globalisation might be waning. As businesses navigate a fragmenting world economy, business leaders find themselves at a critical juncture. Global integration is giving way to regionalisation. Great-power politics are making a comeback, and a potentially massive long-term impact on global supply chains seems probable. Free trade is routinely undermined by active industrial policies. Major economies around the world continue to introduce varied regulations on data protection, sustainable investments, and responsible supply chains (among others), thereby changing how businesses are financed and managed fundamentally. These developments raise vital questions about the strategy and structure of MBA programmes. How should these questions be addressed in the coming age of global fragmentation? To answer the question, Nils Stieglitz, President and Managing Director of Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, took to the floor at the AMBA & BGA Global Conference. ‘These trends pose strategic questions for Business Schools, depending on the specifics of your institutions’, he said. ‘Many Schools have imposed a multi-campus strategy, but you can see the dangers of this, for those Business Schools that have aggressively expanded into – for example – the Russian market. If you consider the turmoil across the world, this is high risk. ‘On the other hand, a multi-campus strategy allows [Schools] to take a deep dive into emerging regions, to understand the culture, the regulation, and the politics. ‘Another way of handling this could be collaborations between Schools, which will be more important. The idea will not be to “develop a global mindset” but to develop a deeper understanding of these regions.’ He closed by adding: ‘The “plain vanilla” curriculum will have to change, and future leaders need to understand how regulatory frameworks are going to evolve.’ Impact through differentiation Differentiation and honing into a Business School’s strengths have become essential strategies as the competitive landscape has grown ever more global following the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, many Schools may need to go back to the drawing board to examine their unique selling points and strategic objectives to offer something of value to their stakeholders. Through differentiating aspects such as goals, programme offerings, and connections, Schools can begin to have a real impact on stakeholders. Victor Hedenberg, Business Development Manager at AMBA & BGA, was joined by Nadine Tournois, Dean of the IAE Nice Graduate School of Management, and Vice President for Continuing Education; Nilanjan Sen, Dean of the School of Business at the University at Albany, State University of New York; and Rodrigo Cintra, Chief International Officer, and member of the Executive Board at Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM), to share what steps they’ve taken to differentiate from the rest of the market. Discussing the idea of ‘standing out’, Sen explained: ‘Things are changing very rapidly. In the US, we’re facing a demography cliff, so student numbers will be declining for the coming five years, and current high-school graduates would prefer skills-based certificates to degrees. This is putting pressure on higher education, in terms of differentiation.
WENDY LORETTO Dean, University of Edinburgh Business School
MARIA JOSE AMICH Executive Director, The Lisbon MBA
PAOLO TATICCHI Deputy MBA Director, UCL School of Management
CÉLINE DAVESNE Associate Dean, NEOMA Business School
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