Top 5 Areas Where Executives Must Upskill Themselves in 2022 for Career Success

Every company needs a sustainable, long-term business model that brings profit. The business model is a conceptual structure that supports the business's viability and explains who it serves, what it offers, how it offers, and how it achieves its goals. Direct sales, franchising, advertising-based, and brick-and-mortar stores are all examples of traditional business models.

Businesses should regularly update their business model, or they will fail to anticipate the trends and challenges they are going to face ahead. In this regard, online executive education can help executives of a company elevate their skills to lead in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.

Disruption of traditional business models by technology

The traditional buy-and-sell setup is where customers go to a physical place to get what they want. While this is the traditional form, there have always been disruptions and challenges affecting the traditional business model. However, nothing has changed the traditional business models as fast as the internet.

Disruption refers to a situation in which new entrants to a marketplace or industry use new technologies or business models to take from the traditional established players. Traditional industries that are conservative, digitally underdeveloped, and asset-heavy are the industries more prone to disruption. Every organisation is open to disruption, especially in the face of technology.

Traditional business models are centralised and are not open to accepting advanced methodology and technology. The rapid pace of technological innovation has made it hard to survive traditional business models. Companies that do not accept technological modernisation and new ways of working will be anchored in the past and can be subject to rapid displacement, disruption, and, in extreme cases, outright destruction.

To keep up with the changing times and dynamic market demands, organisations need to transform their business by introducing new products and services with the help of technology. Moreover, organisations should look to executive education programmes to empower their employees with practical knowledge, new skills, and modern business tools. This will help turn strategic ideas into actions and new digital possibilities to improve traditional business models.

Impact of the pandemic on the transformation of the workplace

The year-long pandemic pushed companies to rapidly adopt new behaviours that are likely to remain even after everything becomes normal. Perhaps the most apparent impact of the pandemic is the surprising increase in employees working remotely. Remote work and virtual meetings are likely to continue, although less intensely than at the pandemic’s peak.

Digital workplace transformation became a reality due to the pandemic outbreak. Companies had to shift to remote working abruptly and overturn their technologies to bring in the digital workplace to maintain business continuity. The digital workplace is a modern, flexible version of the traditional workplace and is characterised by the usage of IT and collaborative workplaces. It offers a consistent user experience for employees across devices and locations.

The new workplace brings collaboration with a productivity boost as well as scalable and resilient IT services with artificial intelligence and automation at their core. The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across every industry as companies invest heavily in remote working capabilities ensuring employees can work from home productively.

Some companies are already planning to shift to flexible workspaces after positive experiences with remote work during the pandemic, which will reduce the overall space they need and bring fewer workers into offices each day. To learn about such strategies, new-age executive management courses have been tailored to address the organisational issues and challenges faced in today’s changing workplace.

Top 5 areas for upskilling business executives in 2022

Employees can upskill themselves by learning a new skill or improving an existing one. As business executives, it is important to learn new skills regularly to stay updated with emerging trends. Technology keeps changing at a rapid pace and there is great demand for professionals who are aware of all the changes. Few technologies are completely changing the nature of certain professions and working styles. Consequently, many executive education programmes have been started these days to get managers up to speed on the latest technological developments.

Every professional is now aware that constant learning is the key to a secure and growing career, but what skills to choose to learn is also important. More than 70 per cent of people choose to upskill to grab new opportunities, according to a recent report. Professionals from IT, banking, education and training, healthcare, and consulting were found to be particularly keen to upskill in 2022. Data science, artificial intelligence (AI), and software development were the top domains for upskilling.

5 areas for upskilling business executives in 2022

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology that enables a machine to simulate human behaviour. Machine learning is a subset of AI which allows a machine to automatically learn from past data without programming explicitly. The World Economic Forum has estimated that 75 million jobs will be displaced by AI by 2022. But there is going to be an addition of 133 million jobs related to AI and machine learning at the same time. However, presently there is a massive shortage of AI professionals in India. Thus, many companies have trouble implementing AI due to a lack of qualified employees. An online executive program laying emphasis on AI can be a boon for managers looking to transition to AI implementation roles.

Business Analytics and Data Science

The adoption of digitalisation has made work easier but also generates a lot of data. This data needs to be analysed and studied as most business decisions are data-driven now. Business Analytics is mandatory for a business to understand the working and gain insights and data Science is a superset of business analytics. Business Analytics is the statistical study of business data to gain insights. Data science is the study of data using statistics, algorithms, and technology. No business in the present marketplace can afford to ignore the adoption of these two technologies.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services that includes servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the internet to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. It brings greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness to organisations while making the data accessible to every authorised employee from anywhere.

Cyber security

As today’s world is all about data, there is a larger requirement for keeping all information and services safe and secure. Time-sensitive, private information belonging to sectors like banking and defence require cutting-edge security systems to protect the same from getting into the wrong hands. This security is needed in other domains too. This allows professionals to upskill in cyber security.

Digital Marketing

It is the world of e-commerce and the internet of things that has promoted digital marketing exponentially. With increased online digital ad spending by almost all companies, there is great demand for digital marketing professionals. With every company needing to maintain a digital presence, digital marketing has ample growth opportunities in a wide variety of skills such as Email Marketing, Social Media Management, Content Marketing, and SEO/SEM.

To know more: https://executive.timespro.com/