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Sustainability is the buzzword amongst corporate boardrooms, policymakers & regulators, enterprises, institutions, and business advisors today. In the pursuit of aligning to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), stakeholders are continuously trying to develop multi-dimensional approaches to effectively analyse complex macro and micro dynamics of sustainability, to be able capture the emerging opportunities and responding to the likely challenges and risks. The interdependence between stakeholders in the society casts the spectrum of Sustainability very wide, and the endeavour is to systematically piece together elements that make up the Sustainability puzzle (often represented by ‘ESG’) and underline the wider socio-economic transformation that are already impacting individuals, enterprises, and nations.
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Education is fundamental to socio-economic development and there is need for systematic and ongoing sustainability assessment of the education sector. Specifically, enormous private and public resources are invested each year by various stakeholders including students, parents, governments, institutions, teachers, researchers etc. to equip managers with skills to qualify and contribute to the economic development of the country. In the post covid era, it is critical to re-evaluate and embed the sustainability perspective in Management Education. The Covid induced socio-economic problems have further increased the pace of significant alterations in the dynamics that once made management qualification one of the most preferred ways to build a corporate career.
Covid-induced flux
The unrelenting array of Covid induced socio-economic bumps and speed breakers has caused an enormous socio-economic flux on a global scale, which is translating into significant turbulence across the social, political, economic, trade, and geo-political ecosystems.
Transitions are painful and as the as Covid continues to thrive, the short-term and long-term impacts are now increasingly imminent. Covid has accelerated sustainability focussed fundamental policy-level changes that will define the life and economics of the post-covid world. It will create new opportunities, require new set of skills and competencies, and require managers to become equipped with critical soft skills and high emotional quotient, to efficiently manage teams and resources of the sustainable, digital first working that may transcend from physical to the metaverse.
The McKinsey’s 2021 report ‘The future of work after Covid-19’ forecasts a massive overhaul of working environment after analysis of 800 work categories across sectors, with a clear correlation projected between impact and the level of proximity involved in the delivery of work. Segments and sectors involving the highest physical proximity like Healthcare, BFSI, Retail, Leisure & Travel are forecasted to face the maximum disruption in their business model, as they strive to build in business sustainability by enhancing adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), process automation, and advanced data analytics. Significantly, the report concludes that the Covid impact and accelerated changes in business models included by transition to newer technologies would cause an enormous workforce transition, requiring almost 25% workers to switch jobs and/or go in for upskilling in markets like the United States.
The BFSI, Retail, Healthcare sectors are also important sectors for the Indian economy and fundamental changes therein are likely to have significant implications for bussing managers, existing employers, education instructions, policymakers to undertake comprehensive analysis from think from long term perspective, analysing if existing skills, products, courses and policies will be relevant, viable and sustainable needs, challenges, risks likely to emerge in post covid era.
Towards sustainability
The covid induced transition landed educational institutions and students a complete flux, with the initial panicky response severely impacting fresh recruitment even in growing developed countries like United States (according to GMAC survey). India meanwhile witnessed significant covid induced deceleration causing substantial job losses that added to employability challenges. Over time the transformation has very rapidly altered the impacted the priorities, skill requirements in addition to the way they allocate resources, define skills, and operate. New management graduates and management institutions specially in India, are hence facing sustainability questions that had long been avoided, as employers demanded for managers with excellent technology competencies, and sought knowledge of social and environment dynamics, data flows, policy dynamics etc; besides the enormous focus now on strong soft skills to overcome digital working challenges.
From Flux to Sustainability
Irrespective of the sector or geography, the path to sustainability has often been marked by conflict between vested commercial interests of well-entrenched players (including the rich and powerful), and that of the fundamentals that underlie the ESG matrix (in this case represented ensuring Environmental Impact/Readiness, Social Impact, and Governance). A management education system and its stakeholders guided by an effective ESG matrix equipped to create a positive social impact by focussing on effective governance by through transparency, due delivery, and systematic process led monitoring as it equips them to capture future opportunities and future ready skills, minimize wastages like redundancies, unemployability and wasteful social expenditure.
Despite sitting on billions of dollars of alumni funding, large research & consultancy-based incomes, and government support, Covid has forced even the IVY League colleges to rethink their business models to stay relevant in the face of competition from the likes of Coursera, edX, LinkedIn etc.; and has already rolled a variety of interesting and engaging formats, course structure and curriculums that they believe would best meet the needs of post covid digital-led business environment requiring fundamentally different management competencies and soft skills.
To achieve the $5 trillion economy goal, India will need a sustainable management education infrastructure that is market-driven and can see beyond the strong institutions of excellence (behind the ISB and IIMs). The sustainability assessment will help uncover the real state and future readiness of management education that otherwise essentially remains hidden, possibly on purpose to serve vested interests. The outflow of talent and resources to foreign lands highlighted the poor governance, lack of accountability, employability, and future content readiness of Tier-II management education, which should be of serious concern to all stakeholders. Clearly, the New Education Policy’s (NEP) proposals need a necessary push from policymakers to enable a meaningful flow of world-class content, institutions, and faculty into India.
Risk Management
It has become crucial for all stakeholders to carefully research and analyse all risks with a long-term perspective. It is often that the industry complains of Indian engineers and management graduates, being unemployable, even in present times. It only creates a basis for socio-economic unrest in the country, besides wastage of enormous public and private resources, which is a huge public policy risk, in addition to the economic challenge of not having adequate skilled manpower to meet growth needs.
Budding managers also have their responsibility, to their own sustainability assessment by way of all the necessary due-diligence and research, across the world to select the course (not necessarily limited to MBA), as they would be investing their most precious resource in – many years or potentially their entire professional career.
Budding managers also have their responsibility, to their own sustainability assessment by way of all the necessary due-diligence and research, across the world to select the course (not necessarily limited to MBA), as they would be investing their most precious resource in – many years or potentially their entire professional career.
Pivot or Perish
We are now in the era of winner takes it all, be it individuals, companies, education intuitions, or even nations. Whoever excels in their ability and commitment to sustainability will surely be much better equipped to capture the new wave of opportunities, or to withstand increasingly unforeseen risks and challenges.
While 2022 may mark the beginning of better times, as India enters Subhkrutta (Year of light) and China prepares for the Year of Tiger; the shrillness of the third wave highlights, it would be only wise that all stakeholders interests align and they systematically work to mitigate risks by supporting the development of India’s management education sector into a future-ready, strongly governed, internationally competitive, and market-driven management sector equipped to attract international students, research, and faculty. It could well be the movement of pivot or perish.
The author is a strategy & management professional, working at intersection of communications, sustainability, public policy and law
