Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
Education
5 management education trends to watch out for in 2021
The Common Admission Test (CAT) 2020 results are out. Many aspiring managers must have already started planning their next steps. One of their key concerns would be figuring out exactly how they’d like their management studies to shape their career. For this, it’s important to know which specialisations within the management field stand to gain traction in today’s time.
Here, we bring to you excerpts from a recent article by the India Today Web Desk, which throws light on 5 management education trends to watch out for in 2021:
1. Digital Marketing
As the world continues its tryst with social distancing and remote working, the digital marketing domain will further its expanse.
Consumer comfort towards contactless transactions is driving up online sales. Businesses in the eCommerce space are booming. Consumer management strategies riding on processes like SEO, SEM, cross-media marketing provide for a fresh understanding of Customer Relationship Management.
As businesses boom digitally, B-schools will do well to include advantages of digital communication strategies as a tool to impact revenues. .
2. Entrepreneurship
A cornered rat will bite the cat – that is exactly how one can describe the uncertainty filled 2020 laying a strong comeback for the self-employed & start-up ecosystem. The sheer amount of vacuum/opportunities left behind by businesses and industries going bust is huge. Business schools will tap into this demand.
Innovation management and design thinking processes help aspirational entrepreneurs streamline and optimise their ideas. A growing number of organisations are accepting intrapreneurship as a means to retain top-performing talents.
Little then wonder that incubation centres are bustling with activities. The recently launched Aatmanirbhar Bharat campaign is already providing much-needed confidence to the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
3. Sustainable Finance
If anything, Covid-19 has shown a mirror to the business community. Sustainability, social responsibility, and climate change have risen high on the corporate agenda today. Sustainable Finance shall act as a catalyst for the implementation of sustainability in practice.
The key is to train a fresh breed of finance professionals who combine financial expertise with an understanding of engineering challenges associated with transitioning into a low-carbon economy. Sustainable Finance is the next big thing within Finance world.
4. Data Analytics
Data is the new oil. After digital marketing, the field of data analytics has been the next biggest beneficiary of Covid-induced lockdowns. The 4th industrial revolution powered by ‘cloud’ is infusing radical changes in the way business is conducted.
As organisations look to influence their business performances, they are on the lookout for talent that can help sort and understand their datasets. Business schools are preparing their students for such profiles.
As companies look to automate their business processes, AI and Machine Learning will have a huge impact on business decisions in the coming years. Being a niche field, business schools are investing heavily in the research and development of programmes that will give their students a running start within these fields.
5. Consulting
The task of a management consultant is to provide a business outlook to help strengthen their clients’ standing. In a pandemic-recovery mode, these skillsets are even more in demand.
Business schools delivering this programme must ensure students develop a sector expertise, as this will form the base of their professional journey.
Profiles like change managers, implementation consultants, etc. will help provide for the growing demand among pivoting businesses and/or acquisitions. Management consultants are also needed in research work to gain a fresh perspective of the industry.
Career
6 skills needed for leadership in present times
Excerpts from article by Angela Priestley published in Yahoo Finance
We’ve seen the absolute extremes of leadership during the Covid-19 crisis. As leaders had to deal with the unpredictability of the situation, they also had to manage multiple challenges along with collaborating and communicating effectively with teams. Some thrived, others fell apart.
Here’s a list of 6 leadership skills that the pandemic taught us:
1. Being optimistic
Without optimism, there is no hope. And staff within any organisation will be searching for truth, as well as optimism from their leaders in order to understand the circumstances of the present and the possibilities of the future.
These leaders need to be able to communicate a vision, but also be frank and transparent in sharing the current reality.
This will help employees be patient, calm and able to keep up with daily developments without being overwhelmed by them.
2. Learning how to hire
The best organisations in the future of work will be those that have diverse teams at all levels, including among those who are directly employed, as well as contractors, and suppliers.
One key step to making diversity happen is to hire for it: by addressing the structure of roles or contracts, the language used to advertise them and the methods used to select and interview candidates.
Good leaders will not only oversee these things, they will communicate the benefits and need for diversity constantly. They will ensure their teams understand the gaps and the biases that may be creating limitations.
3. Being inclusive
It’s one thing to know the importance of diversity and hire for it, it’s another thing to actually make people feel included.
Inclusion isn’t a set and forget. It’s a skill that takes constant work and is aided by an ability to listen, to communicate effectively and be open and interested in others. The skill of inclusion requires asking questions, learning from others and continually self-reflecting.
It requires real empathy and compassion, in order to recognise the different feelings and perspectives of other people and appreciate that no two people share the same ability and capacity to cope with external stressors.
4. To keep learning
The uncertainty the Covid-19 is creating is showing the value that leaders with ‘learning agility’ can bring to an organisation. Learning agility is the ability – and the desire – to continually take on challenges you’ve never previously encountered.
It means being open and honest about your shortcomings, and willing to ask questions of others in order to get tasks done. It may mean making difficult decisions quickly and accepting that mistakes are inevitable. Those decisions may involve having to pre-empt and predict the future.
5. Managing flexibility
Few managers in future can expect to always be managing teams within the one location or overseeing staff who are all working the same hours. It’s important to learn how to design roles according to the tasks required, as opposed to the time spent doing them.
Learn to respond to requests for remote and flexible work and to accommodate the varying needs of staff members. Once again, communication is vital. Effective flexible management requires foreseeing potential problems and issues that may be impacting your individual team members that could easily go unnoticed.
6. Being resilient
Resilience is the skill that underpins everything else. Resilience matters, whether to deal with the tiny, daily challenges, or the unexpected and significantly more challenging issues that may emerge.
Resilient leaders have a clear vision, and can use it to navigate through challenging times. They see adversities – whether small or large – simply as learnings to be accumulated on the path to a greater goal.
They are also constantly developing their network of relationships, so they have advisors and mentors to tap into when necessary and teams ready and enthusiastically able to respond.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
Like this post? For more such helpful articles, click on the button below and subscribe FREE to our blog.
Download our mobile app, ICS Career GPS, a one-stop career guidance platform.
