What’s happening in the Business Administration Field?

You are aware of the constant, evermore rapid, changes occurring in business. Globalization. Team-based projects and on-going work. The importance of business ethics and corporate social responsibility, especially as captured by the concept of “sustainability”. The impact of social networking, as the MySpace/Facebook generation matures. Where are we going?

Long term prediction about specifics, while common in business, sure isn’t easy. Remember all the flying cars, ala the Jetsons? Those robots doing the housework? The 24-hour work week we were promised? But there are some demographics that have a solid basis. The looming worldwide retirement of baby boomers will create a shortage of skilled workers, and a huge need for training and development. The fact that firms tend to all concentrate on the most lucrative 14% of the earth’s market means that there is a huge opportunity in marketing to the 86% of the world’s population where the average annual income is less than $10,000.

The future is always uncertain. Seeming contradictions always make seeing the future difficult. There are a variety of ways that things can play out. More than ever, you will need to be prepared to think in new ways about long term trends, to create and implement different strategies to seize opportunities, to deal with a world that grows more transparent as our ability to collect, integrate, interpret and distribute information increases exponentially.

We know that your primary focus will be on completing your degree. We will not get in your way. But we will also provide you with countless opportunities to increase your ability to deal with all the uncertainty you will be facing. No doubt such skill will be needed to address, for example, the tremendous opportunities outlined in various places, such as the Paine Webber report entitled “The New Millennium American.” And no doubt it will prepare to take advantage of another trend – the trend of lifelong entrepreneurial workers.