Reimagining MBA Curriculum

Imagine that today is 2025, and a new batch of graduates from your business school is entering the workforce. How will their careers be different from those of graduates of 2017? What skills and competencies will the employers value most? What kind of curriculum and learning experiences will these graduates need in their MBA programme to excel?

To find answers to these critical questions, it is important to reflect on three interrelated areas:

1. Changes in economy, business and industry: 
We are now at the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to experts, by 2020, the Fourth Industrial Revolution would have brought us advanced robotics and autonomous transport, AI and machine learning, advanced materials, biotechnology and genomics. These developments are expected to transform the way we live, and the way we work. Some jobs will disappear, others will grow and jobs that don’t even exist today will become commonplace.

What is certain is that the future workforce will need to align its skill-set to keep pace. This will have implications for future of work and MBA curriculum.

2) Implication on Jobs and Skills: 
Disruption in industry structures and business models is expected to have a significant impact on the employment landscape over the coming years. Automation, AI and Big Data are expected to alter both manufacturing and delivery processes and managerial jobs.

The Future of Jobs report by WEF says that by 2020, Complex Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Creativity and People Management are the Top 4 skills that employers will look for.

3) Rethinking MBA Curriculum: 
B-schools must focus on three areas for improving their curriculum:

A. Improve foundation literacy in MBA curriculum: Accept MBA as an advance professional course. While it is given to understand that students entering B-school are well versed with basic numerical and language competency, the reality, however, is different in the Indian context. Hence it will be worthwhile to allow admission to prospective students 6-12 months before the course begins. This will allow B-schools to do significant pre-course training through online/digital education.

B. Increase emphasis on competence and skills: Since MBA is a professional programme, building competence and skills, desired by employers, should be the core of the curriculum. This will lead to better employability and improve the value of MBA education. Here, it will be useful to examine the purpose, strategy and execution of recent MBA curriculum revamp by IIM Indore. Based on feedback from the corporate sector, and benchmarking against top-ranked global MBA programmes, IIM-I launched its new PGP programme and curriculum design from its 2015-17 batch. Curriculum was designed with a view to focus on greater emphasis on skills, new methods of learning like simulation, introduction of electives in the first year and better awareness of industry practices.

C. Build character qualities: A ‘good’ manager and leader is more valuable to society than being an “effective” one.

While skills can be imparted in days and weeks, reshaping character takes time. B-schools can modify their process and curriculum to produce managers with character and ethics by embracing lessons from sources of ancient Indian wisdom such as the Bhagvad Gita, Yoga, Buddhism and other practices.

By rethinking MBA curriculum, B-schools can significantly improve their relevance and appeal for the millennium generation.