Winds Of Change

In a world of constant change, self reflection and learning are vital elements to being resilient. Having realised this, senior executives are taking lifelong learning much more seriously than they may have done 10 years ago. This has been corroborated by a recent research we completed. The study, which looked into the concerns of CEOs worldwide, indicated that even the most senior business leaders believe they have to constantly renew and refresh themselves. Thus, though companies have been more careful with their funds, often sponsoring half the fee or giving time off instead of money, and there has been a growing trend for students of EMBA programmes taking responsibility for their own fees, the demand for an MBA from high quality candidates is still growing.
Having said this, students are being more selective and demanding about what they want from an EMBA. One of the prominent demands is the evidence of entrepreneurship in the cur riculum in EMBA programmes.With the start-up trend catching up across the globe, we see similar aspirations among EMBA students at our school.Many of our students are successful entrepreneurs, but others are very keen to understand how to think entrepreneurially in order to be more successful in their chosen career.
The ability to take risks and to innovate against the odds is something that every leader, no matter his or her industry, needs to foster. Each year, some of our students decide to start their own firms or join entrepreneurial start-ups ial start-ups and during our recent visit to Bangalore there was a great deal of interest in the StartUp Warehouse we visited. Some students were so impressed with the entrepreneurs they met at the warehouse that they returned to interact with them at the end of the week to find out more. Entrepreneurs are enthusiastic about the possibilities for scaling up new ideas and this enthusiasm and ability to gather resources to innovate is something general managers in big corporates also need. For this reason, it is important for all Executive MBAs to give their students experience of entrepreneurial initiatives.
Another noticeable trend is for more people to study parttime. The popularity of online education, too, has increased.Thus, universities can no longer be complacent about the influence of online learning.Keeping this in mind, we, at Oxford, are also experimenting with a new initiative for our students and alumni. The Global Opportunities and Threats, Oxford, is an online platform which is designed to link participants with research and teaching from across the wider University of Oxford, not just the Business School. Here, students, lecturers and even the firms which send students to study with us, can post content and learn from each other.
B-schools should do more to help us all tackle the complex, large-scale problems which the world faces and this is our way of sharing ideas and debating solutions.