Business Management (MBA)

Master of Business Administration or MBA is a popular degree that equips you with skills to conduct, research, and handle a business efficiently. To simplify, a student who has completed MBA is a master in business concepts, knows how to use various business tools and procedures to plan, organize and run a business with an eye on earning profits.

A typical MBA course is  of two  to three years divided into semesters as per college curriculum. There are executive-MBA programs for working professionals, which are for a tenure of one to two years depending on the university and college.

Pursuing MBA is useful to students from two perspectives. One, where students could start their own independent business such as export or textiles business, a recruitment firm, a manufacturing firm or any other venture that lets them sell a product or service and earn profits. In a layman’s language, this person is the administrator for his or her business, which is run with support from friends and other team members with varied skills.

The second option for a person who has completed MBA is to join an organization that requires managers who have knowledge of various business tools and strategies such as costing, budgeting, delegation of responsibilities, emotional intelligence, and team management skills, to say the least. Organizations hire managers in order to “get work done” through them. A manager, therefore, is expected to be mature, understanding and possess sufficient people skills to create teams and elicit work out of them keeping in mind the cost and time constraints.

An MBA degree could be obtained after graduation. MBA is one of the well known professional PG programs that you could pursue in order to get business and industry exposure and to be placed with top companies at extremely handsome salaries.

In this respect, you should start filling up applications during the final year of graduation and must research the list of colleges well in advance. Then, be ready with cash to buy application forms from different colleges and start preparing for the entrance exams as soon as possible. Usually, the forms cost about Rs 1, 000 to Rs 2, 000 each.

Some students prepare for the exams from their second year at college itself, which helps them score better. Many students plan to travel abroad and start preparing for their GRE or GMAT exams as well. The most popular MBA entrance examination in India is the Common Admission Test or CAT. IIMs Indian Institutes of Management and many other reputed private colleges use CAT score to select students.

This is a question every student needs to ask themselves before applying for an MBA course. If you are looking for a managerial role in companies, then you should attempt MBA entrance exams.

The MBA program equips you with strategies, concepts, and skills that help manage business in areas such as marketing, sales, human resources, insurance, finance management, to name a few. The course may not involve much of analytical or technical programming concepts in depth but would prepare you to understand the concepts of costing, budgeting, and tools to comprehensively manage a business..
 
For example, the Post graduate program in management of IIM Ahmedabad offers specialization in the following areas:
 
•  Business Policy: This includes general business concepts and management techniques covering all areas of business management.
•  Finance & Accounting: Includes concepts and methods in costing, budgeting, and accounting techniques for organizations and businesses.
•  Economics: Deals with economy related concepts and statistical tools for businesses.
•  Organisational Behaviour: This includes concepts such as change management and other organizational development practices for organizations and businesses.
•  Marketing: This area encompasses various sales and marketing models for different businesses such as small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale businesses.
•  Quantitative Methods: Primarily focuses on quantitative techniques for measuring overall organizational performance.
•  Production Management: This area includes inventory management and other operations related concepts for managing businesses.
•  Personnel and Industrial Relations: This includes Human Resources concepts such as strategies for hiring employees and maintaining cordial industrial relationships by following appropriate statutory regulations et al.
 
Similarly, other colleges have designed course content that pertains to the specific field of study. The focus is on projects that help prepare for real life situations.

The fee structure for an MBA degree varies from Rs.4 lacs to 14 lacs depending on the college. Several colleges such as IIPM provide laptops to students and take them on student trips to foreign countries. Thus, based on the course design, the fee structure is decided.

Although an MBA degree is a postgraduate program, yet it is advisable to start preparation for the same from the school days itself. In this regard, you need to polish a number of skills such as reading, analytical skills, data interpretation, logical reasoning, vocabulary, general knowledge, and so on.

Further, with a plethora of programs and specialisations on offer, prospective MBA aspirants need to have some sort of grounding on the particular field of study they are interested in pursuing.

There are several ways to fund your two to three years MBA studies. You can approach banks for educational loans or if you are a working professional, your company might fund your education as well.

State Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, State Bank of Mysore, and Bank of Baroda are some popular banks that offer loans. These loans usually include library fees, book purchases, travel expenses and often the purchase of computers you may need to complete your course work. The interest rates would vary from one bank to another. For studying in India, a loan of maximum Rs.7.5 lakhs is allowed. For studying abroad, a maximum of Rs.15 lacs is allowed.

The job prospect for an MBA holder is quite good in India and abroad. If you are from a tier-1 business school such as IIM or XLRI, the placement opportunities are plenty. Then there are other private colleges such as IIPM, IMT Ghaziabad, and MDI Gurgaon that are amongst the top business schools and place students for excellent salaries.

There are plenty of job opportunities for management graduates. For instance, if you have completed MBA in sales and marketing, you could try getting placed with banks as sales officers, managers or insurance officers. Similarly, if you have completed MBA in Human Resources you could get placed with top recruitment firms. Several IT companies recruit MBA pass outs as trainees or interns and then absorb them as permanent employees.

It is always important to keep an eye on the job market. For instance, top IT companies such as Infosys and HCL recently recruited about 10,000+ freshers and managers in various functions such as Human Resource professionals, Software Engineers and Technical Support professionals for their IT divisions as well as BPO divisions. By signing up with different jobsites, you can keep abreast with latest trends in the job market.

The pay scales for a fresh management graduate could vary anywhere from Rs.1, 20,000 to Rs.10 lakhs per annum depending on the scores and the college they are from. Several companies abroad have recruited Indian students from the IIMs, XLRI, FMS, IIPM, and other popular colleges for pay packages as high as Rs 40 lakhs per annum.

However, it is good to go slow and steady while exploring the pay packet as more the salary, more the expectations, which sometimes may lead you towards disappointment in case of little setbacks at work.

Requirement of any education course depends on the demand and supply factors operating in the market. For instance, during the global economic meltdown in the year   2009, the demand for management graduates touched an all-time low. This resulted in delayed or no placements in even the topmost colleges such as the IIMs.

On the other hand, when the economy is on the boom, colleges even increase the number of seats in order that the supply meets the demands.

However, there is usually a consistent demand for students with MBA degree as every enterprise requires managers or supervisors who can plan, implement, and delegate work effectively.

Those who complete MBA after clearing CAT or GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test) stand a fair chance of getting excellent job offers abroad for a starting salary upwards of Rs.10 lakhs per annum.. Based on their GMAT scores, they could obtain admission to colleges abroad for further studies as well.

MNCs prefer hiring Indian students from colleges such as IIMs, XLRI, FMS and IIPM, to name a few as these colleges provide education at par with global standards. Although the top 30 management colleges are always a safe bet to invest your time and money in.

+ives:

•  Organizations prefer hiring MBAs as they would have the professional exposure in management skills.
•  When starting a new business, having completed MBA helps in understanding latest business models, tools and strategies for the same. This helps in hiring efficiently, strategizing, planning and organizing work effectively.
•  Organizations offer higher pay packages to MBAs when compared with students with other post graduate degrees/diplomas
 
-ives:

•  MBA students expect higher starting salaries, which the companies may not be willing to offer at times. This may cause disappointment to the job seeker, at times.
•  There are several private colleges that have mushroomed and claim to provide MBA education at huge costs. These colleges make huge promises of getting excellent jobs to students, which sometimes they don’t. This in turn lowers the morale of the students.
•  There are limited seats available in the IIMs and top colleges such as XLRI and FMS, due to which several aspiring students may keep taking entrance exams every year but may not be able to get through them.

MBA course is often known as Post Graduate Program in Management in several colleges. such as the IIMs or Symbiosis. Pune, that specializes in distance learning. The course content of these is the same as MBA.

On the other hand, executive-MBAs that admit only experienced professionals ranging from 3 years to 6+ years in various institutes consist of selective course content and are equally beneficial.

For instance, IIM Kolkata offers executive-MBA programs for working professionals through which professionals may benefit the same way as they would from a regular course.

Based on the college you are graduating with a MBA degree, you may expect placements with various companies.

If you are from a tier-1 college such as the IIMs or XLRI, you can expect the best companies such as Infosys, Reliance, PSU and many others to hire you. Besides, top banks such as Barclay’s, Royal Bank of Scotland, American Express, Standard Chartered, and other financial institutions hire hundreds of MBA graduates from colleges in India.

As an MBA student, you will be expected to be thorough with business concepts, business analytics and management. So take note of the following tips;
 
1.  Be confident with what you speak and the way you present yourself.

2.  Assure the employer that you will do an excellent job and complement your claims with your consistent performance at college and various awards and accolades won.

3.  Be alert and prepare well in advance for the group discussions, tests and other behavioural interviews that you will have to attend before getting selected.

4.  Think through your expected pay package and be open and flexible to a certain extent with your demands.

5.  Balance learning with financial expectations so that the HR personnel are confident they can have you with the company at least for a few years after hiring you.
 
By carefully reading the above-mentioned points, you will able to start preparing for your MBA admissions.