It’s no secret that technology is transforming business education at a faster rate than ever. At the heart of this digital transformation are exciting advancements in AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), and biotechnology — just to name a few.
As the business landscape shifts, B-schools are jockeying for position, rolling out different learning formats to accommodate students from all corners of the world. According to its dean, Asia School of Business, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is stepping up to the challenge, blending traditional and digital learning while maintaining focus on flexibility, accessibility, and cutting-edge educational frameworks.
“It is, in my view, a matter of time before students demand an even greater degree of agility,” ASB Dean Sanjay Sarma tells Poets&Quants.
‘ASB is particularly keen on action learning projects’
ASB has offered their MBA in collaboration with MIT Sloan for the past ten years, and recently redesigned the program to a 12-month format. The program is taught with signature MIT flair, emphasizing practical, real-world experiential learning within industries and organizations across Asia and the U.S.
With roots from MIT and developed at ASB, their hybrid ACE (Agile Continuous Education) program incorporates both video learning and live sessions, that leads to either masters programs or specializations.
At the forefront of the program is Sarma, the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who is not only ASB’s dean but also its CEO and president. He and his ASB colleagues are preparing students to face global challenges during this era of dramatic digital transformation, integrating advanced technologies and AI into the curriculum in a way that other institutions of higher learning will inevitably seek to emulate.
At the core of everything they do is embracing the mutability of business education — essential at a time of great and rapid change. “There are so many things that could change — what are we teaching, who is teaching it, do we have the capacity to teach it,” Sarma says. “ASB is particularly keen on action learning projects, so we put students in the field — an MIT concept.”
Below, see highlight from Poets&Quants’ interview with Sarma, edited for length and clarity.
What are the biggest challenges you’re currently facing with digital transformation?
It’s about disintegrating and reintegrating. Let’s say you wanted to learn about AI, crypto or carbon credits. Where do you go?
What we are doing is creating these hybrid courses where you watch the videos when you can, such as on the weekends. You don’t have to leave your job – you watch the videos when you can. You’re a weekend warrior and you master the topic when you can.
How is AI being utilized at ASB and how it is transforming teaching methods?
There are a few different levels. First, much of what professors use is automated, and a lot it is customer service based.
The next is in using AI to generate codes to write classroom games and simulations.
The third is using AI as a tutor. It can ask you questions, and you as the student can ask it questions.
The other thing about AI is, it’s going to be something you have to retrain yourself in every six to nine months because every thing has changed so much. I spend about two to three hours a week reading up on the latest myself.
The faculty have lots of discussions about AI, and we are small, so we can do that. The systems naturally absorb AI. AI tools creep in even for those professors who don’t use it often. You just have to be open-minded right now.
How is ASB preparing students to tackle these unique challenges in the global business world?
We are fundamentally rethinking our curriculum around technology.
ASB students spend weeks at a time at MIT. We introduced AI as a course and we also have a data science course.
That’s another thing for professors – they have to fundamentally rethink their curriculum.
The second piece of this is what we are doing – developing agile continuous education with our hybrid courses, which are micro-credentials that are modular, stackable and transferable to our MBA or Executive MBA, or specializations in areas such as sustainability or organizational management.
Sanjay Sarma: “It is, in my view, a matter of time before students demand an even greater degree of agility”
What other impacts do you believe the integration of advanced technologies will have on traditional business school models?
Business is changing so fast, and traditional business schools teach what needs to be taught right from the front lines.
Is the MBA worth it? These tools mean that there are so many new delivery methods. Do you want to be a movie theater in the age of Netflix? That’s the question. Adjust and adapt.
There are so many things that could change — what are we teaching, who is teaching it, do we have the capacity to teach it. ASB is particularly keen on action learning projects, so we put students in the field — an MIT concept.
How do you as a professor ensure that the curriculum remains relevant?
Its not easy. It’s very difficult to do. A lot of these fields have evolved over a hundred years and there’s a playbook on how to teach it.
The fundamentals don’t change much, but pretty much everything else changes when technology changes so rapidly. Take marketing, before and after TikTok. There’s a difference in the choices you make and the way you segment customers. Everything changes.
With my own technical work, I’ve changed the way I operate within the last three months. I’ve changed the way I write documents, the way I develop curriculum, the way I interact with my colleagues, the way I do research, and the way that I interact with my staff has changed.
The way I take notes, the way I do follow ups. I travel extensively, the time it takes me to plan travel has been cut in half. I use Chat GPT, Perplexity and other tools. They all make serious mistakes. But I have achieved a level of expertise in these areas. I learn things faster now – things that would have in the past taken me weeks and months to learn.
Everything gets faster — it’s game-changing.
How important is it for MBA graduates to be proficient in emerging technologies?
100%. If you’re working at a bank as a young person, you’re going to have to take on challenges like how to use large language models in customer service. How do you address the risks of large language models, and what do you do when a large language model makes a mistake?
Same with modern payment systems, crypto, carbon credits, I could name a hundred other similar examples. It’s really important because the vast majority of graduates are going to be at the forefront of a very significant change.
Originally published by Poets&Quants.