Soumitra Dutta, Dean and Professor of Management at Oxford University's Saïd Business School, said:
Stephanie Rich contributed to this story.
When Soumitra Dutta began her career, technology was primarily seen as a back-office function, lacking strategic importance in the broader business environment.
It was then that Michael Porter and Victor Miller introduced the following concept: competitive advantage In a 1985 text. They argued that leveraging technology to acquire, process, and transmit information can have a significant impact on a company's competitiveness in the marketplace and lay the foundation for a paradigm shift in strategic thinking.
“If you talk to any company, any executive, any sector today, technology is at the heart of it,” says Soumitra Dutta, dean and professor of management at Oxford University's Saïd Business School. talk.
“If you want to be a CEO, you should know about technology trends,” he says.
Dutta holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, a master's degree in both business administration and computer science, and a doctorate in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.
During his time at Berkeley, he remembers using early versions of word processors and primitive Internet and email systems. Although computer science students at some universities had access to the Internet, its use was not yet common or routine.
He observed how the integration of technology into everyday life has accelerated significantly since the 1990s. This was a time when the PC and Internet revolutions were rapidly developing.
In addition to his current role as Peter Moores Dean of Saïd Business School, he currently maintains a fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford.
Prior to his tenure at Oxford University, Dutta was a professor of business administration at Cornell University in New York and the founding dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Previously, he was the Ann and Elmer Linseth Dean of the Johnson School of Business, also at Cornell University. He also served as Associate Dean of INSEAD.
His research focuses on leveraging the optimal combination of people and technology to drive business innovation and drive growth. As founder and co-editor of the 17th Global Innovation Index, created in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization, he spearheads a comprehensive global assessment of countries' innovation capabilities. It is working.
“Applying AI will do you well in the next five to 10 years because it will improve the productivity and reap the benefits for today's workforce,” says Dutta. “What happens after that in 10 years? That's a big question mark.””
Changing leadership roles
We know that technology is great at streamlining and increasing accessibility for everyone, which is driving the evolution of business today.
This helps you better understand your customers, facilitates direct interactions, improves customization, and provides valuable insights that directly impact not only how your organization operates, but also how you deliver your products and services. This shift fundamentally changes the fundamental understanding of what business entails.
According to Dutta, this means that leveraging technology for social and environmental concerns will become increasingly important in the next phase of business transformation.
He expects the next five to 10 years to bring even more dramatic technological advances than in the past, but it remains difficult to imagine how the next generation of technology will take shape.
Many tech giants have discovered that their predictions about the next big technology breakthrough were wrong, but one thing is certain: technology is bound to become more and more pervasive in our lives. about it.
“Some of these things are sometimes hard to imagine, but I think the Metaverse will become a reality. Attempts to connect biology to the Internet, Neuralink, and other similar systems are very difficult to imagine today. It may seem far-fetched, but it can become a reality.”
“The big question will be: how do we most effectively combine humans and technology? And what is the role of humans in that society?” Datta says this is not just an ethical question. We believe that this will lead to operational problems.
He vividly paints a vision for the future by depicting modern factories. The factory has large spaces with far more multifunctional machines than a sparse collection of people tasked with overseeing a network of complex systems.
“Now imagine a large school or large hospital service environment where the same types of surgeries are performed,” says Dutta.
While this scenario may evoke a sense of anxiety, Dutta emphasizes that its timing is inherently difficult to predict. However, he highlights the potential impact of the landscape of these technological advancements penetrating an industry with a substantial workforce working on the front lines, as we currently know it. . On the other hand, productivity is likely to increase significantly. However, it also raises deep questions about the role of leadership.
“What if we don't need that many people?” Raise Dutta.
prepare the next generation
Since the Industrial Revolution, much of our self-image and self-esteem has been inextricably tied to the nature of our employment, its associated pay, and our authority in the workplace.
However, with rapid changes in the job market, these traditional identifiers may be reshaped.
So how are the world's leading universities and business schools preparing their MBA students to respond to this changing landscape?
According to Datta, the University of Oxford's guiding direction and strength lies in its current focus on fostering a purpose-driven approach to management.
Oxford has established an AI Ethics Institute dedicated to addressing the increasingly serious and complex ethical concerns surrounding technology. Additionally, efforts are underway to incorporate this topic into business school curricula.
Build a thriving ecosystem
Oxford Science Park is a vibrant science and technology hub on the southern edge of the city. With over 100 companies ranging from start-ups to multinationals and a community of over 3,500 professionals, the park fosters an influential environment. The company is poised for significant growth, with the company aiming to add more than 600,000 square feet of new office and lab space by 2026.
The university's approach to technology transfer and startup scaling has become a critical factor in the success of startups from its ecosystem.
In addition to establishing a company, you also need to grow it through a two-step process. The first involves Oxford University Innovation, a technology transfer arm that identifies promising research and launches small and medium-sized enterprises. The second step will be facilitated by Oxford Science Enterprise, a private company in which the university owns his 5% share.
This strategic partnership will give the second company the first right to invest in the company from an early stage, effectively enabling seamless transition and robust scaling of high-potential startups. The integrated approach has proven to be extremely powerful, paving the way for successful scale-up and fostering a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit within Oxford's academic areas.
“What gives me a sense of optimism is not so much the global situation where we are leaving young people behind, but seeing their dynamism and creativity and how they are becoming more involved in technology, the internet, and everything else around them. I'm more informed about everything that's going on. I'm more passionate about trying to make the world a better place.”
