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MBA – The Outlook Today |
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- Sujata
Khanna, Career Forum Ltd.
Today's global corporations require managers with a broader
outlook. MBA, with its focus on strategic thinking and analysis,
and on worldwide markets, offers the manager skills that a first
degree simply cannot provide. Narrow professional qualifications
or functional expertise is not enough for success in a business
environment.
An MBA is helpful where there is a need to take an integrated,
and increasingly global, view of how decisions in one discipline
may affect others. MBAs talk of a change in identity that comes
in taking the degree, and about the confidence that comes from
the intellectual rigour of looking at corporate problems academically.
Today’s Economic Scenario and Job Outlook
MBAs are represented in a wide range of industry sectors. Currently,
38 per cent is in the area of general management, 25 per cent
are concentrated in the consultancy sector and the finance sectors,
and 14 per cent are employed in both corporate strategy and
planning. The rest are involved in specific management functions
in different sectors.
The hiring outlook for MBA graduates has been good so far this
year, at least in reputed B-Schools. Slowdown or no slowdown,
one thing never changes: Industry, global as well as Indian,
is always looking for new talent, with an eye on the future.
True, the type of jobs that an MBA graduate would be going for
are a bit tougher to find during a period of economic slowdown,
especially for the high paying consulting and investment banking
jobs, there are still other sector jobs available during a recession.
Other industrial jobs are usually much less dependent on the
economic cycles.
However, the latest GMAC survey reveals results that are at
odds with these overall economic prospects within the financial
sector. Companies are cutting back hiring quotas for undergraduate
students and experienced people with bigger salaries to sustain
their MBA-graduate hiring levels. According to GMAC, one possible
explanation for this may be that companies recognize a need
to bring in specific talents associated with an MBA education
during times of economic turmoil.
Today’s Challenges To Indian B-Schools
In the Indian context the environmental demands placed on business
schools will see rapid changes in the coming years. The effective
development of an Indian format of Management Education should
be one of the main goals. The major addition to the management
curriculum should be using Gaming Simulation in management courses.
It involves suitably arranged economic conditions within the
simulation and requires participants to act as though they were
grappling with an actual business. This will provide students
with critical-thinking skills, including the ability to identify
opportunities and solve problems, apply business theories to
real-world situations, and make strategic and tactical decisions.
Gaming simulation, taking into cognisance the Indian environment,
will go far in improvement of the contents and methods of the
educational process.
B-schools must have commitment to a flexible and open teaching
and learning approach. The concept of “learning organisation”
should not be only taught but also applied to themselves. They
must develop more international relationships with other institutions
as also develop more research relationships that can advance
management and business knowledge and practice. They must develop
and maintain partnerships with the business community, stay
close to real business issues and concerns.
There is a plethora of MBA providers, but for real value addition,
the reputation of the institution from which the MBA is gained
is crucial. Employers do not simply ask whether an applicant
has an MBA, they also want to know where it was studied. A prospective
student needs to consider a range of factors: the size and culture
of the B-School, programme content, quality of faculty and student
body, infrastructure and facilities, research orientation, international
relationships in the global academic sphere and interaction
with the corporate world. In addition, administrative efficiency,
success/failure rates and careers and placements services available
should also be considered.
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