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Businessmen are ready to allocate no more than two weeks for training, and the courses should be practical and exciting. Mikhail Dashkiev (Units) explains how the education market is adapting to new demands
Business education is a fairly broad concept, the meaning of which has changed a lot over the past few years. Initially, they only designated MBA programs, but with the development of EdTech projects, it began to include other areas: business schools, accelerators, online and offline courses, etc. At the same time, the goal of such education remained unchanged – to develop the entrepreneur’s skills he needs and help him make the company’s work more efficient.
The active development of online services, as well as the coronavirus pandemic, have had a huge impact on business education. Old learning formats are gradually being transformed. In addition, new trends and techniques are emerging that make it easier for users to absorb knowledge. Let’s take a closer look at a few of them.
Reduction of training time
Now the range of offers on the business education market is much wider than a few years ago. As is often the case, the more options available, the more selective and demanding users are. Therefore, educational platforms in the face of strong competition need to adapt to the preferences of customers.
For entrepreneurs, for example, a common problem is the lack of time for training. Ideally, businessmen would like education to be easy and time-consuming (according to EdMarket research, 60% prefer to spend no more than two weeks on it) and could be combined with hard work. This has affected almost all educational products. So, the MBA market has changed, where online formats and mini-MBAs have appeared – time-compressed and less expensive training programs.
And in online courses, microlearning is becoming a trend. With this format, classes last from 8-15 minutes to 1-2 hours. Each lesson combines “concentrated” theory and practical tasks to develop a specific skill. As a result, users absorb information 17% better, and their engagement rate increases immediately by 50%, according to a Software Advice report. According to a study by Mordor Intelligence, between 2021 and 2026, this segment will grow by an average of 14% per year. In the new format, courses are developed by such platforms as Udemy and Facebook (the organization is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), and iSpring provides a constructor for building the course according to this method.
The material was prepared for the special project “Guide to MBA”
Bet on skills that can be applied in the moment
Training is not only compressed in time, but also becomes more customized. Observations show that entrepreneurs are less and less willing to analyze theoretical examples. They are looking for an opportunity to immediately apply the acquired knowledge in practice. This has given impetus to changes in both MBA programs and online courses. In the first case, Executive MBA appeared, during which entrepreneurs do not analyze abstract cases, but just practice new skills and immediately apply them in their work.
When creating online courses, some services also focus on their practical benefits for business. For example, on our platform, entrepreneurs are accompanied by instructors during training. Together, they break down specific problems that companies face and then develop the skills needed to solve them. As a result, businessmen receive only relevant knowledge for themselves. In the future, most of the training platforms for entrepreneurs may switch to a similar model.
Each audience has its own needs. For entrepreneurs, as a rule, the most relevant topics are the correct alignment of business processes, time management, cost optimization and increasing sales. For department heads in companies, personal effectiveness and ways to influence staff productivity are more important. Ordinary employees either take the courses that the employer sends them to, or think about gaining new skills or even changing their profession. Such users usually have the most frequent request for knowledge in the field of marketing and advertising. In general, according to the Online Education Barometer, business skills remain the most popular area, with 20% of all created products focused on them.
Mixing online and offline format
In 2019, The New York Times published an article, the author of which argued that in the context of a technological boom, it is human contact that will become the new oil. This means that the privileged strata of society will receive education offline. Despite the pandemic factor, this trend remains relevant today. For example, it is known that such large business schools as Harvard or Stanford categorically refuse to go online. The situation is similar in our country. Many award-winning business education programs continue to take place offline or in a hybrid format. So, for example, they did it at Skolkovo.
It is difficult to achieve a complete rejection of the offline format: not all disciplines can be effectively taught remotely. In these cases, blended learning is a good compromise. According to a survey by the American research center Center for Digital Education, 73% of teachers believe that it helps to ensure greater user engagement and increase the effectiveness of classes. In the future, blended education is likely to become the dominant format, not only in the business segment, but also in schools and universities.
Impact of technology
EdTech also has a strong impact on business education. Online platform providers are trying to integrate new approaches, such as gamification. According to the Online Education Barometer, it is used by 43% of Russian EdTech representatives. In addition, various technologies are also popular: chatbots, AR and VR solutions. They help increase indicators such as user engagement and course success, which directly affect the quality of educational programs and how students learn content.
In some cases, online platforms are actually turning into social networks thanks to technology and game elements. For example, a few years ago, Beat The GMAT was a platform where MBA applicants could purchase courses to prepare for entrance exams. However, in the early 2010s, the platform introduced the simplest elements of gamification – honor boards, where those who got into leading business schools or left the most comments on the site were entered. This allowed for six months to double the number of page views and four times the time that users spend on average on the site. Today, Beat The GMAT is one of the largest social networks for MBA students. They have the opportunity to communicate with each other and calculate the chances of admission to a particular program.
Coursera and other leaders in the EdTech segment also have their own communities. In the future, more and more online course providers will transform their platforms into full-fledged social networks for users.
Diffusion of knowledge
Previously, education aimed at mastering a new profession or a certain business skill was mainly built on a vertical system. It always has a recognized expert and his students, who intersect only on a specific platform. Recently, however, a trend has been developing for the diffusion of knowledge – information is distributed between people much faster and more freely than before. Education is gradually moving to a horizontal system: anyone who has expertise in some area can pack their knowledge into a course.
But such construction sites can attract not only conscientious experts, but also those who do not have the knowledge at the proper level, but want to get easy money from selling courses. Therefore, the question of how to monitor the quality of such programs is extremely relevant. One possible way is to create a modern and efficient methodology, and then implement it in an online constructor. Thus, authors will create courses only within the established format. Methodologists should make sure that experts do not deviate from it.