Business in the 21st century is changing at a rapid pace and, although many heads of companies and COOs may have taken a class or two in economics while studying for their own degree, it’s becoming abundantly clear that having someone on your team (or a team of several people) who is qualified in economics is a vital step for modern businesses.
Hiring Professionals
It’s not as easy as just sending an employee on a training course anymore; businesses who are looking to thrive and not just survive are turning to fully qualified economists who have done a full qualification that covers many different areas and may even push employees into taking an online degree to help improve their career.
Programs such as Boston College’s economics online degree cover many topics within the economics scope, including complex policy issues, finance, marketing, and many more.
Here are the top three reasons that an economist is a great hire for businesses of any size in any industry.
Managing Public Money
When a company gets involved in taking public money, such as money from stocks and shares, there are a number of pitfalls they can easily fall into.
Having someone on the team that understands policy and forecasting is a great way to ensure that the public money coming in can go to the right places, such as marketing, production, and research and development.
Getting it wrong could prove very costly to businesses, especially when there could be fines and other penalties levied on them for making a mistake.
Making Plans
Planning ahead is something that all businesses need to do if they want to survive in the modern world.
An economist is well trained in understanding data and analytics to accurately forecast changes to customer habits, environmental factors, and all kinds of other disruptions that could derail a thriving business.
It’s an economist’s role to predict things like product popularity accurately and work with other experts within the team to make sure these predictions are actioned appropriately.
Economists Are Business People
It may seem like an almost obvious statement, but heads of business so often overlook this that a qualified economist is someone who has taken an interest in how business works, what makes it tick, and what the downsides can be. This is something that even business owners might not be able to understand.
While many businesses will hire experts in all kinds of fields, marketing, accountancy, HR, etc., they often miss an economist’s vital role, someone interested in how the business itself runs and operates and how to improve it.
This is a valuable person to have on the team, as business acumen is a skill that isn’t often taught in more specific degree paths for specifics roles. You wouldn’t expect your graphic designer to have much of a clue about strategic forecasting for the next quarter, but you would expect them to be able to design the whitepaper once it’s been written and edited by your copy editors.