Scotland's University of Strathclyde Business School has announced that it has launched a new elective module in digital leadership.
The course is called "Digital Leadership: Strategy and Management," and is intended to help students become leaders in the digital space. The "digital transformation has become critical to how we innovate and differentiate ourselves from the competition," according to the school, and business leaders today need digital skills to get ahead. Indeed, recent reports from Forrester Research and Cap Gemini Consulting have found that many companies face skill shortages in the digital space.
To help students meet these emerging needs, the new elective will cover a range of issues involved in the management and implementation of digital transformation programs. The course will explore the development of social media and digital strategies, as well as the use of digital and social technologies to support customer and partner engagement, among other topics. It is not an IT class, in that it doesn't cover the nuts and bolts of the technologies, but rather addresses the higher-level, strategic issues.
Increasingly, business schools are offering electives that focus on helping students learn to develop digital strategies. The University of Maryland's Smith School of Business, for instance, offers an elective in "Designing and Implementing Digital Strategies for Business," while Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business has a class covering "Digital Strategy."
Other schools have more robust research centers and programs. In 2001, Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business launched its Center for Digital Strategies, which offers a range of MBA electives, such as "Strategic Principles for Internet Businesses," and "Marketing in the Networked Economy."
The new Strathclyde elective will be available to both full- and part-time students in Glasgow, as well to students who study at one of several of the school's international centers. For more information, please see the Strathclyde news release announcing the launch of the MBA elective in Digital Leadership: Strategy and Management.
