by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
“This is a momentous day because at some point in the future, we’ll think back to where we were today,” commented Dr. Joe McCann, dean of the Davis College of Business at Jacksonville, in his opening remarks Tuesday at the meeting of the Rotary Club of South Jacksonville.
He was referring to Election Day in general and in particular to the shifting economic climate America’s new chief executive will soon face.
McCann made the remark a little after noon, long before results from the polls were being tabulated, but remarked that the job will be tough, regardless of who won.
“It will be a tough job for whoever will be coming into office,” he said “Our economy has some very new features and we’re just beginning to understand it.”
The people charged with educating America’s future business owners and managers are also facing new challenges based on the changing economic environment.
During his presentation, McCann said a new way of thinking is what will be needed.
“Ninety percent of the students graduating from business schools today are prepared either for the past manufacturing economy or the current service economy ... Only 10 percent are prepared for the next economy,” he said, then described the new economy as a, “perfect storm, a convergence of circumstances.”
McCann listed the converging circumstances including globalization, new technology, environmental issues and the value of ethics education as part of a business curriculum.
“The environment is creating challenges based on competition for resources on a global scale. The price of a washing machine in America depends on the demand for steel in China,” he said. “New technology is coming so fast, even people who are considered smart may not understand it.
“The recent economic crisis has taught us even our oldest institutions can fail. We need to do a better job teaching ethical issues.”
He followed with a prediction.
“The cost of oil will rise again and that puts us on the edge of the next industrial revolution, green technologies.”
McCann also said that an aging workforce will help shape the economy of the future, aided by the stock market’s current decline.
“How many of you, six months ago, were planning to retire in the next year or two?” he asked. “Now that day has been moved further into the future.”
McCann also evaluated American business from the corporate point of view.
“In terms of the Fortune 500 companies, 25 percent of their knowledge workers are getting ready to step out the door in the next five years and 40 percent of the Fortune 500 don’t have a leadership succession plan,” he said.
Since so many organizations haven’t mapped out their future based on the impending loss of talented executives and workers, McCann said what he called “talent wars” are likely to occur because so many companies will be recruiting replacement talent.
“There will be shortages of everything from psychiatrists to air traffic controllers ... If you don’t have a plan, it’s going to cost you because you’ll be dealing on the open market and it will be expensive,” he said.
Business colleges are also turning out a new type of worker unlike any other in history and as McCann called them: “millennials.”
“They think differently,” he said. “They think e-mail is for old people and they’re going to create new challenges for organizations. Most corporations aren’t prepared to manage them.”
Business colleges are meeting the challenges of educating future executives, he noted, by “teaching leadership as opposed to accounting skills in order to lead the way into the next economy, no matter what it is.
“It’s forcing us to get outside the business school and work with the sciences and partner with the community. The world is becoming much more complex and interdependent.”
356-2466