Why MBA???

1. Advanc'edge MBA / April 2003
It is crucial on two counts:
1. If you do qualify for a course and find yourself a
complete misfit for the curriculum it would mean you
are actually not cut out for the management cadre in
the corporate world. So you are likely to saddle
yourself with a career that makes you unhappy.
2. An MBA course is an investment both in terms of time
and money hence wasting it is an offence.
Moving on, let’s look at a few caricatures wherein an MBA
degree can be handy:
4 The Anointed Heir who wants to hold the keys to
his/her kingdom. This guy is someone like an
industrialist’s son, who will have to take over the
running of an existing corporate empire.
4 The Shop Floor Enthusiast who wants to sit in the
gilded corporate office This guy is typically someone
who has devoted many years on the shop floor (it
could also be in a lab..or in sales..or in data collection),
mostly a technical person who executes rather than
strategises. This guy now wants to be a part of the
strategic team.
4 The Intrepid Entrepreneur who wants to create an
empire. This guy is someone who is all set to start his
or her own business and wants to know the tools of
how to do so.
4 The Power Seeker who wants to crack the
management ceiling he/she has hit because of a lack
of an MBA degree. This person is
typically someone who is a part of
management but sees many
promotions pass by him/ her due to a
perceived lack of managerial
perspective. Most of the top
management believe that a person with
a management degree has managerial
perspective.
4 The Money Player who would like to
increase his/her pay packet. An MBA
degree immediately increases your
market value. If a postgraduate in
WhyshouldyoudoanMBA?This is an invariable question in any MBA entrance-interview. Getting this answer
pat right is critically important because it shows how clear you are about your
expectations from the course. It is imperative that you answer this question to
yourself before you rush to fill up forms to various MBA colleges.
economics is offered say Rs. 7000 per month as a
starting salary, an MBA graduate is typically offered
at least Rs. 10000 to 12000 per month.
4 The Reluctant Graduate who believes that he/she
has learnt nothing at all that can get him/her a job.
The non-professional graduate courses available
today are not perceived to have any marketable value
by the corporate world. These therefore need to be
augmented to make the graduate ‘market worthy’.
The underlying advantage in all the six caricatures is
that an MBA degree immediately flags you off as someone
who can be trained to take up positions of authority.
Apart from the positive boost that a person’s career
gets, an MBA degree also offers three side benefits. Some
may argue that these are the main benefits ..
1. An MBA course is a hothouse where you are pushed
to deliver. You are introduced to fierce competition.
The conditions work on you in such a way that either
you breakdown and leave the course half way or you
end up becoming a tough professional.
2. An MBA programme exposes you to a very wide area
of experience in terms of subjects and people. You
get exposed to varied subjects like macroeconomics,
consumer behaviour, psychology, marketing, cultural
heritage, communication theory, operations research,
quantitative techniques, finance, HR, etc. Most
programmes cover over 30 subjects! Apart from
exposure to subjects, you meet people
from various backgrounds and places.
This really broadens your outlook!
3. And last but not the least, an MBA
course brings together impressionable
young men and women and you may just
catch your soul mate while slogging over
case studies!
- Jaya Deshmukh
Visiting Faculty, IMDR and SIMS
(Pune)
Ex Associate Brand Manager,
AT&T Corp. Asia Pacific
M BArk

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April 2004Advanc'edge MBA
MBArk: MBArk : Read on ...................................
What does MBA have to offer you?
High pay packages, lavish lifestyles, senior
positions in organisations etc are some of the common
reasons why people choose MBA as a career option.
But if we were to give it a deeper thought, we would
wonder, is this the real reason why MBA as a career
option is so popular. There is definitely no denial in
the above-mentioned factors but well, to base your
decisions with only these objectives in mind, would
seem a highly blinkered attitude, don’t you agree?
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-
actualisation comes above social needs (don’t bother
if you don’t know Maslow’s law, you shall soon learn
about it in your MBA!) So in order to make this
decision of a lifetime, you should be much more
informed about the pros and cons (if any) of selecting
MBA as a career option. This write-up, elucidating
how I made this decision of my life, is my attempt to
help you do just that…
In the third year of my engineering, I had started
thinking seriously about the kind of career I wanted
for myself. The first step I took was honestly analysing
Why MBA?
- Dhiraj Malhotra
my strengths and weaknesses and most importantly
my interests. I realised that I always appreciated a 3-
dimensional object more than scaled single or double-
dimensioned objects. I realised at that time that I was
a person inclined to research but still enjoyed
visualisation and understanding the BIG picture of
the task at hand. I would adopt a modular approach
in handling the task at hand and drill down and zoom
in on every related aspect in the context. I was not
comfortable starting with something that I came
across and complete it the way it is expected to be
without thinking on the why’s and how’s and if’s of
the subject under focus. Hence I concluded that I
needed integrating skills in my personality as well as
in the work I do. Being an engineer it was easy to
find options where I could get involved in the
technical aspect of the project without worrying much
about the other issues. But this as I just mentioned
would not satisfy me. Hence I looked at other options
available and came across the concept of MBA.
I made a well thought-out, well-reasoned decision
of doing an MBA and have since then never looked
back. I enjoy the job I do presently and have had all
As you stand at one of the most critical crossroads of your life, there would be a million
questions in your mind. During the last few years of your student life, you would have
looked at a number of career options and tried to gauge what it is that you would like to
become. Eventually, what is the kind of work that you want to do for the rest of your
life? While most of you, by now, would have an idea about your dream job, some of the
more focused among you would also have an idea about your dream companies. Some
professional qualified folks would have by now figured whether to continue in your
technical field or take off on a management career. As you are all set to become serious
about your careers, lets talk about MBA as a career option, if itis what you want to do in
life.

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April 2004Advanc'edge MBA
MBArk4
my needs fulfilled appropriately.
Let me tell you about the kind of skills I developed
during my MBA
Integrating skills
One of the most important skills that I developed
during my MBA was integrating skills. I learned how
to work on different areas and how to manage the co-
relations between different functions and verticals. I
learned to appreciate how a change in one leads to
many changes in other units, components, entities,
and developed the technique of managing this
dynamic equation. Well, some of you might be
wondering what are these units, components etc that
I am talking about. I have intentionally used these
terms to make you appreciate how crucial it is for one
to develop a knack of living with abstractness and
unknowns and still make them work for you. By units,
functions, components etc., I mean any work area or
activity or sub process that gets modified due to some
change in the other. For example, software engineers
who work on a particular module will not be able to
respond to a client’s changing needs midway during
a project. The project may not be dependant on the
fact that their client is shortly planning to implement
SAP. Their job is to complete the application, they
have set to develop. Of course, their project managers
and people interacting with the client at higher level
would be handling such issues while also supervising
the technical robustness of the project. It would be
wise to remember that those at managerial levels have
reached there by experience. I however, chose to learn
these skills on my way to becoming a manager. The
skill to integrate various functions helps one develop
a wider perspective and broadens considerably the
overall outlook towards everything.
Macro and Micro Issues of Business
Strong business acumen is another skill set that I
developed. The various real life cases handled during
my MBA made me clinically compare and analyse all
the exceptions to theory that practical life is embedded
in and how processes and people learn to live with
them and how these can be managed. For this, one
needs to be aware of events happening in the business
world around us. I studied various business models
and came to appreciate how simple thought processes
and innovation can be a firm foundation of some of
the biggest organisations of the world.
People Management
In order to work in teams and create powerful
solutions, one needs to develop interpersonal
sensitivity. Handling people and group dynamics in
today’s competitive world is considered to be one of
the most important challenges. I worked in multiple
teams with and without the people I was comfortable
with. There were instances where I came across a team
comprising of people who had zero overlap with my
perception, point of view etc. But the challenge of
living and working with them and still getting a
quality job done in time was a lesson I can never
forget.
Street Smartness
Apart from the “technical” knowledge about
management, I was also exposed to a number of
situations where my ability to think differently and
“just get the work done” was tested. This in MBA
jargon is called street smartness. So while the theories
and rules of the book are all fine, when you get going,
you should know how to make rules work for you
rather than the other way round. I am sure that people
with medical background will agree as they often say
“The disease never follows the book!”
Confidence
Having had an exposure to a competitive, holistic and
dynamic environment, one, needless to say, develops
a deep-rooted confidence in one’s abilities. The feeling
that come what may, I am ready to face the challenge
and face it boldly comes uniquely with this career
option. It might sound biased, but the fact is that
hundreds of MBA’s I have interacted with have that
“something different” in them as far as confidence is
concerned.
The author is an MBA in Finance and consulting with
one of the leading multinational consultancies in Mumbai.
IIM-A campus