Online MBA Programs’ Soaring Popularity Will Continue in 2019

Online MBA programs have been around for a while, offering busy professionals the choice of acquiring the degree without disrupting their work-related commitments and at the same time giving the convenience of studying at their own convenience.

The popularity of online MBA had soared in 2018 and the trend will continue in the current year, according to TopMBA Business Trends for 2019.

The QS’ Top 10 Distance Online MBA 2018 Ranking features IE Business School on the top followed by Kelly Direct Program of Indiana University, Imperial College Business School at number 3, Warwick Business School (4), University of Florida Warrington (5), Alliance Manchester Business School (6), Oxford Brookes University (7), AGSM at UNSW (8), George Washington University (9) and EuroMBA Consortium (10).

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning set to continue to dominate the business scene in 2019, it would be worthwhile for MBA aspirants to choose specialisations with a tech flavour.

Big data was the focus of hot new trends in business in 2016, followed by blockchain in 2017. Thus,  2018 saw business leaders and journalists forecasting the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

Big data was the focus of hot new trends in business in 2016, followed by blockchain in 2017. Thus,  2018 saw business leaders and journalists forecasting the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

In fact, according to predictions, AI and machine learning will continue to be game-changers in the coming decade. These technologies are being widely used in varied fields ranging from automobile manufacturing to various facets of medicine including surgery.

With the United Kingdom facing Brexit troubles and France going through unrest related to the economy, the US imposing visa curbs in the Trump regime, European B-schools are seeing a rise in the number of applicants. International applicants are also attracted by the top quality European MBA programs that could be completed in a lesser time frame, most being one-year full-time programs unlike in the US, where the program duration is two years.

The technology behind various voice recognition software including Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home continues to evolve at a steady pace. At present, Google Assistant tops among voice assistants according to a Stone Temple Consulting study in 2018 that assessed the capabilities of all major voice assistants by posing 5,000 questions.

The assessment was made on the basis of the assistant’s ability to recognise the question and the quality of the answer, with Google Assistant reigning supreme in the battle of the bots.

This does not mean that Google has a monopoly in the field. Several other voice assistants are ramping up their capabilities to help people seeking information, purchases and interacting with websites using only their voice.

Eventually, businesses will need to reassess how they present information to their audiences and may need to revamp their search software to keep ahead.

Nearly one billion voice searches were said to have been made in a month by the beginning of 2018. The figure is expected to soar in 2019. This would definitely be a technology to build plans around this year, TopMBA said.

Considerable progress was made in 2018 by business schools in using holograms for lectures and other purposes. Imperial College Business School has become the first institution to use holograms for a live lecture in the year.

Imperial’s ‘Women in Tech’ lecture had female entrepreneurs and tech geniuses ‘beaming in’ live from locations all over the world. (Image Source: Flickr.com)