Change Of Course

The pedagogy at b-schools is undergoing a change to keep up with the changing times

- Vandana

Nitasha Chawla’s day begins with a jog which is instantly updated on her Facebook page. On her way back, she tweets her views on the popular stories of the day. She mostly shops online, often during her Uber ride to work, and never forgets to post a new look on Instagram.

People like Nitasha, and their exposure to technology, has brought about a major shift in management education. New-age business managers are learning to tap customers who are constantly online. This change is not a small one. Take, for instance, consumption of news. A big chunk of the population is now reading news online. Likewise, most of these people use Ola or Uber to travel, or Amazon or Flipkart to shop.

While technology, on the one hand, is changing consumer behaviour, on the other it is generating vast amounts of data. Data that can offer crucial insights into consumer behaviour and help managers effectively run a business. The emergence of big data, and the way it has changed traditional management functions, is probably the biggest change in the past few years. “One of the core principles of management education is that it has to be dynamic. And technology cannot be ignored. For a manager of today, it is important to manage data,” said Professor Rakesh Basant, dean (alumni and external relations), IIM Ahmedabad.

In fact, it is not the same marketing, human resources or finance as it was five years ago. New knowledge areas have been added and big data analytics is being embedded in every course. For instance, apart from the fundamental principles, students of marketing study a lot about digital marketing or how to use social media to know consumer behaviour. In finance, they study about finance analytics and to decode a borrower’s creditworthiness using it. HR analytics is all about using data to decipher employee efficiency and satisfaction levels.