Rethinking the MBA degree for the AI era? There’s an app for that

You know you’re at a business school when the architecture changes from classical to modern glass-and-brick, when the Latin mottos give way to slick corporate logos and touchy-feely mission statements, and when the student body looks bright eyed rather than hung over.

So it is at INSEAD’s French campus in Fontainebleau on an April afternoon, every inch the quintessential B-school — ranked Europe’s No 2 by Bloomberg Businessweek, after the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland  — from the engraved names of donors on the walls to the single student in a banana outfit walking by (it’s a designated “fun day,” apparently).

But there are also signs of an overhaul afoot, including a planned campus
redesign, a new curriculum and upgrades to the technology used to teach it, as the school and its peers fight to adapt to a more hostile world of deglobalisation, automation and inflation. Victory is not assured.

“It used to be: Do an MBA and you’re set for life,” says Ilian Mihov, whose 10-year tenure as dean of INSEAD (Institut Europeen d’Administration des Affaires) ends this year. “But demands on executives are changing all the time, from sustainability, to data science, to artificial intelligence...Students have to absorb more knowledge.” The answer, according to Mihov, is to review and change what the MBA itself teaches, prioritising sustainability, but also promoting lifelong learning — by jokingly imagining a world in which MBAs self-destruct within five years and force alumni to reapply for the qualification.

It’s taking shape in a soon-to-be-paid-for app featuring videos, papers and discussions — a kind of unbundling of education that would offer corporate execs access to training without having to go the MBA route. This is not a so-called Massive Open Online Course, but an avenue for the business school to win repeat business while promoting the kind of re-skilling that governments and firms want in an increasingly digital world. Currently, the app is in the developmental stage — the clips and lectures are short and some of the content is available elsewhere — but it’s an encouraging start, especially if it boosts the value of re-training (rather than firing) in the eyes of tomorrow’s corporate overlords.

If business schools have been slow to change — especially considering the more obvious reputational damage wrought by the Enron bankruptcy,
the global financial crisis or from competition from virtual e-learning — it’s because signs of softening demand are only now becoming obvious. MBAs are increasingly expensive, with top programs costing anestimated average of $189,000 including non-tuition expenses, and compete with a job market that’s been surprisingly resilient even after Covid-19. US domestic applications fell 25 percent last year, partly offset by a rise in international applications; INSEAD shrank last year’s student intake to 887 from 1,105 across its France and Singapore campuses to keep things reassuringly exclusive.

And with more than half a million layoffs announced around the world since Oct. 1, concentrated among white-collar companies, B-schools have a fight on their hands keeping the MBA glamor alive. Dependable employers like McKinsey & Co. and Bain & Co. are pushing back start dates for new hires and telling them to go on safari or write a book instead, according to the Wall Street Journal. War and restrictions on immigration have shrunk schools’ global reach. INSEAD’s Mihov is clear-eyed about the possibility this is more than just temporary. And while he reckons there will always be a need for global managers, even in the age of AI, the likes of Walt Disney Co. and Meta Platforms Inc. currently seem to have an oversupply.

The benefits of self-reform aren’t just about running profitable business schools, whose ranks have  thinned lately, but also responding to long-running criticism of the legitimacy of what they teach. One paper last year found that companies that hired managers with business qualifications cut wages by 6 percent within five years of their appointment without a visible rise in productivity, sales or investment. Adding more sustainability and problem-solving to the course, as proposed by the likes of the London Business School, comes better late than never — even if it won’t pacify critics who would rather bulldoze the model entirely (as proposed by Martin Parker’s “Shut Down The Business School”).

And INSEAD’s more specific pitch for lifelong learning deserves to be adopted more widely — the education market is large and growing, set to hit $7 trillion by 2030, but the reality of our aging workforce is that re-skilling will need investment and encouragement if it’s going to be more than just a talking point.

The snag may be actually convincing MBAs themselves to sign up for an app that’s set to cost $99 per year: I reached out to one graduate who told me that doing an MBA had been a step-up for his career and given him a network of high-achieving contacts, but that alumni relations with the school had felt more like a fundraising drive. He reckons if he wants to brush up on skills in future, he might turn to a book or a fellow MBA first.

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the European Union and France. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.

Credit: Bloomberg