Business education in an instant world

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: Keeping pace with change today is harder than ever in the world of business education. Given the extraordinarily competitive market of business schools the need to keep pace with change however continues to remain critical for those MBA schools that set their sites on being the best in the world. It’s not hard to see why. Since the end of the Second World War up until as recently as a generation ago, or less, one could focus on that narrow set of countries that had defined the world’s commercial heights, but no more. We live in a centerless world economy. The US, Europe and Japan all remain large and vital economies, but the real growth is elsewhere and will surely stay there for some time. And so, business education must change, and quickly, to remain relevant and to serve the needs of a new world economy.

Technology calls the shots

Interestingly, the rise of a centerless global economy isn’t the only challenge, or perhaps even the most important one rocking the world of MBA education. While the world economy has rapidly evolved, so too have the technologies that connect it. The revolution of the digital age, through mobile telephony, the internet and positively miraculous software, has transformed the very notions of time, place and distance. Nowadays, everything on a computer or mobile phone can be anywhere and everywhere at anytime for everyone. And, it’s practically free. Today’s students leverage their world through such technologies and are connected to our centerless world in ways unimaginable just a short time ago. Ten seconds and an i-Phone will deliver any fact one can wish for. What does is mean to educate in a world where facts are free and geography means so much less than before?