Business professors now and in the future have a massive task on their hands. In a world that is changing at a rate perhaps never seen before, and where concepts such as ‘disruption’ and ‘innovation’ rule the business domain, how can anyone seeking to teach or gain a business education know what is relevant, what will help them, and what will fastly become redundant?

It cannot be denied that we have become highly digitally-reliant, using the internet and gadgets to do a lot of our thinking and creative work for us. With that being said, no business educator can be expected to predict the future and know what programmes and software will be relevant.

Instead, they must seek to shape business education in a way that prepares students best for the demands of the job market, helping them to build deliverable skills that will put them in a great position for quality employment.

Professors and teachers will be required to have greater emotional intelligence, dealing with generations that are more attuned and sympathetic to the ongoings of the world. They must be good listeners, help to inspire self-belief, and teach their applicable knowledge in a way that can be easily digested and put to use.

What is the best business education for learners?

Let’s say that education can be split into traditional learning and non-traditional learning. For the future of business education, can we really rely on textbooks that are highly likely to go out of date? What about research papers that become obsolete before they’re even published? How can the read, study, and test method prove effected in a disrupted industry that has been totally evolved by technology?

What about non-traditional learning? This term catches a very wide range of teaching methods, but most of them are digital. Learning through apps, gadgets, slideshows, multimedia, simulated environments, roleplay and more, give students a much more rounded foundation for their business skills. Think also about games, visiting speakers, work placements and more, they all provide better opportunities to learn, apply, edit, and progress.

All of the theory in the world cannot help someone who has no idea how to apply it to real life situations. This is what the future of business education must address immediately.,/p>

What is an education business partnership?

An Education Business Partnership is a concept by which local businesses in the community form and sustain links with local educational facilities to provide young people with an insight into the workforce. This partnership not only helps inspire and inform young people about future career choices, but it also helps to grow trust between businesses and their communities.

Ideas like this one are future-proof, but they require engagement from local businesses who are not seeking to profit but instead want to work on their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Business education requires real, hands-on experience with what it’s actually like to be in the workplace, whether that’s through internships, work placements, shadowing, or other EBP formats.

Can roleplay and business education games work?

Or rather should we ask can gamifying* studies attract a tech-addicted generation?

Right now, technology is at a stage where ‘gamifying’ is the big hot trend. Open your smartphone and look at the apps on your homepage, how many of them look like a target?

Safari, Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Spotify have all redesigned their logos to make them more pressable (arrows and bullseye not included). This is just one example. Another example is using action-based business simulations to encourage competition, allowing participants to role play against each other to become the winning team. Think about when you go to the supermarket, do they have a loyalty scheme where you can earn points and get rewards? Even buying groceries has been gamified. If your local cafe does a ‘buy 5 drinks get 1 free’ scheme, they’re also in on the art of gamification.

The video game generation, like it or not, are driven by instant rewards and competition, even if it’s with themselves. Business educators can look at this trend and use it as an opportunity to shape learning, not only by gamifying their material, but by also using roleplay to give students a chance to be someone else. Young people are so used to playing the multiple roles; they may have multiple social media accounts with different personas, they may play video games and put themselves in different roles, and in real life, they have to play the role of son or daughter, friend, student, worker, and more.

Gamify – apply typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to (an activity).

How do we go about disrupting business education?

If disruption is the key to the future of business education, how can business professors make changes that people will notice? Almost every business in the world has in some way become a tech company, as they’ve tried to innovate their service and products through the use of technology. Digital transformation has proved that businesses need to be immediately ready for change, adaptable to real-time scenarios, and willing to look to future problems whilst not getting stuck in the past.

Is the future of business schools going to be online?

Online learning presents some challenges for learners, such as limited interaction with educators and a greater deal of self-study. It also requires study platforms to be high quality and provide opportunities for students to collaborate, learn experientially, and build communication skills.

Most learners now and in the future will find digital studies to be more convenient, comfortable, and suitable for their needs, but will future online education patterns offer the best practices in education management? That remains to be seen.,

Perhaps hybrid learning, where digital self-study, distance learning, and online courses can be combined with face-to-face activities, simulated environments, and real-world work opportunities give a comprehensive and dynamic learning experience is the optimal method?

To summarise

The future of business education may look totally different from the way we imagine it, but we think it’s fair to say that some of the following methods are likely to play key roles:

• Blended learning, with face-to-face, distance, mobile, and online learning all working hand-in-hand for the learner’s benefit
• Individualised and customised studies for each learner, support their wants, needs, and specialisms
• Experiential learning through internships, work placements, field-based projects, simulated environments, and more
• VR studies, incubators, and hackathons
• The gamification of learning
• Opening local courses to international online students creating a more globalised study setup
• Collaborations with businesses, research institutes, and organisations