The Master of Business Administration, commonly known as the MBA, is an internationally recognized postgraduate business degree. It is an academic in character i.e. awarded by universities but yet it stresses on practical aspects of management. In the broadest sense, the master of business administration degree represents a way of thinking, not just a set of financial skills and business knowledge. Given rapid technological change and increasingly global markets, there is an increasing need for MBA graduates who grasp the organizational and competitive possibilities enabled through and with information technology (IT).
The MBA degree opens up worlds of opportunity for its bearers. Many business positions require an MBA for advancement. For example, investment banking and management consulting firms hire large classes of newly minted MBAs each year at six-figure salaries into the “associate” level — those without MBAs generally don’t advance past the “analyst” level. At major consumer products companies like Procter & Gamble, Kraft and Colgate-Palmolive, MBAs are hired as “assistant brand managers” into the brand management department — those without MBAs are generally not eligible for the department. And it is from this function that these companies’ senior executives are generally drawn.
IT is now the prime driver and enabler of business strategy for many, if not most, organizations. The shear size level of investment in IT and its impact on productivity and competitiveness demonstrates the need for MBA students – whether majoring in Marketing, Finance, Management, or other disciplines – to possess skills and knowledge inherent to the field of information systems. Among many other things, this knowledge is essential to:
- Recognizing new or improved technology-enabled ways to reach customers, partners and consumers
- Managing information systems design, development and implementation
- Choosing and assessing information systems-related investments wisely
- Optimizing the benefits of technology for overall organizational gain
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.