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Why an MBA Degree?

It seems that the more civilization progresses, the wider the gap becomes between the haves and the have-nots in terms of the relevance and importance of higher education, which is getting commoditized everyday. At the time when our parents were still students (the 70s and early 80s), a bachelor’s degree in arts or sciences was considered enough for practical purposes like getting a well-paying government or a private job, marrying the girl one liked, and living happily ever after. People with a master’s degree, including those with an engineering or a medical degree, made up the intellectual elite of the country, and let’s not even discuss the MBAs and the Ph.Ds, who were few and far between.

Fast forward to the current times, and you can barely hope to get good job with a master’s degree in arts or sciences. Engineering and medical degrees have replaced the minimum qualifications required for most well- paying jobs, not in letter but in spirit. MBAs are available dime a dozen with little knowledge of business or its administration. Specialized education has become the mantra of the new age. For a high position in an organization, you need to have a master’s degree with relevant specialization, sometimes from an overseas university. Most managerial positions require the candidate to possess an MBA and it is difficult to convince the hiring manager that your experience makes you suitable for the job, even in the absence of necessary qualifications. In times like these, when talking about the relevance of an MBA degree, one needs to emphasize the quality of this education and the reputation of the institute offering the degree much more than the degree itself.

Apart from the reputation of an MBA institute, many other factors add to the rush for the top seats at major business schools. Training fresh recruits by putting them through an intensive in-house training programme that will give them the specific skills required for the position is no longer widely practised. MBAs are expected to have learnt it all at the programme and be able to deliver from day one. Soft skills such as the ability to influence people, manage teams, negotiate with clients are as much required to be learned beforehand as the technical skill sets of finance or marketing functions. Finally, people are being left to fend for themselves in the new age, which means that you need to look after your own career interests—the cozy days where corporates appointed mentors to groom their carefully chosen ‘stars’ are long gone. These days, stars need to be born at business schools and hence, it is all the more necessary that you go to a place which offers you the right kind of environment for personality development, imparts the required skill sets, and puts you in touch with the people who look out for stars.

Having said all this, it is not, of course, mandatory for everyone to have an MBA degree. Most people involved in business and trade do not study beyond a basic degree, for they learn the rules of running a business on the job and are able to do a good job of it. Then, there are entrepreneurs like Bill Gates who have that one idea which is able to break out of the clutter and which allows them to call the shots, with or without a degree.

An MBA degree is viewed by a lot of people as a springboard to success as it helps one in finding gainful employment and a good lifestyle. It offers an opportunity to work either for multinational corporations in positions of influence or even take one’s own business to heights, and allows one to be respected and be recognized in society.

What’s Your Reason?

MBA degree is a flexible degree and can be moulded to suit one’s particular requirements such as developing managerial skills or specialization in a function such as finance or marketing. There are many reasons which are most commonly used and abused to justify the need to do an MBA. Some of the common reasons to do an MBA are:

• Career change, to a different function, in a different company/country
• Advancement in current line of work in terms of position or pay or both
• Shift from being on the managed side to the managing side of the company
• Requirement of a well-paying job which needs an MBA
• Acquirement of skills to start and run one’s own business
• Building network to expand own business and to build credibility
• To get the brand name of the programme as a measure of intellectual capital

Of course, the list is far from exhaustive, but it includes the most common reasons. There are other ways to classify these reasons such as those given by some of the business schools themselves—‘developing the leaders of tomorrow’ and ‘helping one to identify the inner calling’—which present a different perspective to the degree seekers.

A Top MBA Programme: What to Expect?

Consider a top MBA programme to be a boot camp. It will keep you on your toes; load you with seemingly never-ending amount of study material (through an innocuous list of recommended readings) on top of regular assignments and projects, which in turn ensure that you operate the next two years in a constant state of sleep deprivation. You will be forced to participate in discussions and be prepared for the occasional embarrassment. You will need to learn and appreciate the importance of interpersonal skills and dynamics through study groups where you would collaborate with people from all over the world and all walks of life, who, by design, maintain a point of view usually different from yours. Finally, while doing all this and more, such as going out and attending parties, drinking copious amounts of coffee and beer and arguing about the pros and cons of still being single, you are supposed to look out for summer internships or final job opportunities, network with recruiters and alumni, attend lectures and get-togethers and, of course, attend all the classes. The overall effect is of living life in a state of suspended animation or virtual reality where everything seems to have speeded up so as to test your ability to cope with it. What comes out of the boot camp is a human product, easily recognizable by his or her specific skills and attributes and the affable charms of a survivor.

Among the specifics, a good business school programme would cover most of the key business-oriented topics like finance, accounting, statistics, economics, marketing, which cannot be mastered in any one job, except in the instance of running your own business. The programme also helps students to learn, in a short span of two years, advanced skills that can otherwise take years on the job. It allows the students to experience and understand the different functions of a business process in their entirety and as parts of a related and interdependent system. It helps the students learn the different strategies employed by companies and their response to successes and failures. The programme readies the student to make informed decisions and to lead businesses in a global economy while also providing the benefits of mentoring and career guidance through a network of alumni spanning the globe.

A good MBA programme is identified by the following attributes:

• A well-established admissions process ensuring top quality talent with superior intellect as a regular feed into the programme.
• A motivated and confident student body with a tremendous will to succeed.
• A strong emphasis on concepts developed through theoretical simulations and aided with practical experience through projects and internships, ensuring that people are able to put knowledge into practice when required.
• A focus on personality development through coaching in communication and interpersonal skills, and development of ability of people to work well in teams and collaborate with each other for larger success.
• Development of a global perspective, an understanding of how various business functions work together for the smooth functioning of an organization, and an ability to analyse the causes and effects of business decisions.
• Ability of the students to deal with time and performance pressures and to deliver the best performance in a highly competitive and driven workplace.
• High expectations of students with regard to pay packages, designation, and career growth after the completion of the degree.
• A very strong focus on advancement of one’s own career, with a strong emphasis on work ethics and code of conduct.

You gain a lot throughout your career by associating with a top-ranked MBA programme. It gives you access to multiple career resources and to the alumni network at all times, both of which provide significant help in the advancement of your career interests. The contacts you build during your time at school will provide a lifelong support, both in your career as associates as well as in life as friends. Finally, it allows you to be a part of the intellectual elite, the few who have attended a top-ranked programme, which is a proclamation of your varied abilities.

The aspects mentioned below highlight as to how, in many ways, it helps to have attended a top-ranked programme.

Brand Value Recognition

An association with Harvard or Stanford gets you immediate recognition as a capable person because of the reputation of these programmes, known to admit the best and the brightest from around the globe. These universities are known across the world and it is easy for people to make favourable impressions of their alumni based on the brand value.

Alumni Network

A top programme that attracts students of high calibre also develops a wide alumni base with people in positions of power and influence in all business sectors such as public, private and non-profit as well as government bodies and organizations. These people, more often than not, turn to the same institute when they need to hire people or scout around for top talent because they are confident of the quality of students at the institute. It always works to one’s advantage to be a part of a reputed institute with a strong alumni base.

Career Choices

A reputed MBA programme is a guarantee that the most sought-after organizations such as investment banks, consulting firms and others would be open to your application. These options are not available to everyone, for these firms look for the best and consequently hire only at top-notch colleges and universities. They usually have limited opportunities for lateral placements, since they like people to grow within the organization. Again, a top programme provides the flexibility of a career change at a later stage in one’s life with the help of contacts and alumni network along with the fact that a degree from a top institute endorses your ability to succeed in any field.

Finest Education

A top B-school not only attracts the best students but also the best faculty and researchers owing to the superlative intellectual standards. Schools like Stanford and Chicago GSB boast of Nobel laureates as faculty, which attracts bright students. Students benefit from the current research being carried out by the faculty while the faculty gains by having access to some of the best brains to test a lot of their theories through simulation exercises and class discussions.

Higher Pay

It can be seen from the placement statistics of various business school Web sites that the difference between average salary of the graduating class of a top school and a school ranked near the fifties is between 50 to 100 per cent. Add to it, geographical factors and the impact of economic cycles (which surprisingly have had almost no effect on the top five business schools in the last twenty years) and it is crystal clear that top business schools are a considerably safe investment, proven to deliver better results than their peers.

Job Prospects After MBA

As an MBA, you can be hired anywhere and everywhere, from a general manager’s position to a specialized role in analysing derivate yields. However, traditional employers at top business schools have been the Fortune 500 companies, investment banks and firms in diversified financial services and consulting firms. In recent years, there has been a significant change in the profiles of employers with the entry of technology companies, start-up firms and non-profit organizations. A significant number of graduates are also venturing out with their own business plans funded by a stream of venture capitalists. MBAs are also being hired by government bodies to manage their operations efficiently and sometimes to even manage the election process. The overall mix of employers varies from year to year, depending upon the state of the industry concerned, with the major share of hires still taken up by the financial services and consulting firms. Increasingly, people are looking at opportunities to relocate to their home countries, particularly developing nations such as India and China, where the promise of economic growth and hence, career advancement is higher than that in the developed nations such as the US. However, as various surveys on recent hiring trends in the industry have shown, it is largely the salaries and the work profile that determine the decision of an MBA to take up a certain position over others that are on offer.

Do You Really Need it?

We have discussed the most common reasons for getting an MBA as cited by prospective and current students. If you identify with one or more of those reasons, then by all means go and get one for yourself. It is an investment in yourself, which will only help you, no matter what line of work you chose as a career. It will help you make informed choices throughout your life and you will develop skills and abilities which will help you keep on top of your work and life at all times.

We suggest that you reflect in isolation, without any external influences. If you decide to join a programme because it is the ‘in’ thing to do and everyone else you know has an MBA, then you might be making a very big mistake because it reflects a clear lack of understanding about your individual strengths and weaknesses as well as goals in life. Getting the degree has got less to do with things happening and more with making them happen. If you do decide that it will help you with your career progress and add to you as a person, then please continue to explore the various types of programmes and choose the one that best fits your lifestyle and your requirements. Make sure that you make an informed decision for it’s a significant investment, mostly to be made only once in your life. It would help to gain the maximum out of the programme and the experience.