Blockchain, Big Data Analytics & The 5 Hottest Topics On The MBA Curriculum In 2018

Business schools are constantly updating their MBA programs to meet employers' needs

What do MBA employers want? How should business schools adapt?

Every year, the brightest minds of the business school elite pick up their iPhones, throw on their suits, attend glitzy corporate events, and meet with HR and L&D directors from the world’s leading MBA employers—McKinsey, Microsoft, and Amazon included.

They want to change their MBA programs to suit employers’ needs—to provide the most fertile hunting ground for recruiters—or at least they should.

In today’s VUCA environment, the skills employers want are changing rapidly and no one’s quite sure what the future of work will entail. Knowledge of new technology beyond the buzzwords—artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, blockchain—is important, but soft skills—agility, adaptability, emotional intelligence—are essential.

Here’s the five hottest topics on the MBA curriculum in 2018:

1. Big Data

“Belief is in God; everything else is about data,” says Luis Rodrigues, CEO of the Executive Education School at Nova School of Business and Economics which, together with Catolica Lisbon School of Business and Economics and MIT Sloan, offers The Lisbon MBA International program.

“Gut feeling and experience are becoming obsolete,” he continues. “It’s all about data, and students need to know about it.”

At the core of artificial intelligence is data. Big data analytics...