Reimagining business schools

...as managers' roles change in the AI age

- AJIT BALAKRISHNAN

I feel shaken each time I read a news headline about a major United States (US)-based company, usually a high-tech one, letting go of tens of thousands of staffers. And when I see names like Microsoft and Intel in these headlines, as well as a hint that many of those let go are "senior managers", I start wondering whether these are mischievous headlines from websites specialising in clickbait. But when I see reputed news sites like The New York Times carrying these headlines, I start wondering whether the world we know is being reinvented.

Just as I was recovering from the shock of all this, I came across another startling headline: A Microsoft Research paper listed 40 professions it believes are most at risk from the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Seeing roles like sales representatives, customer-service representatives, ticket agents, and travel clerks on the list did not surprise me. What left me in shock and awe was this: Management analysts and market-research analysts topped the list. Hey! I thought MBA-holders from Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other business schools typically filled those roles. All of this unpredictability, according to such reports, is driven by our modern-day villain, AI.

Ever since the internet made its mark at the start of this century, we have seen a great degree of change in society. For example, we have seen giant department stores, which were supposed to be taking work over from small shopkeepers, giving way to shopping platforms like Amazon; travel agents giving way to travel portals like MakeMyTrip; and stockbrokers conceding their domain to the likes of Zerodha, to name just a few phenomena.