GN Focus | Business Education
Get a head start
An MBA from a top-ranked business school will equip you with the necessary skills and contacts to build a successful career
- By Farhan Hasan | Feature Writer
- Published: 00:00 March 14, 2011
- Image Credit: Gulf News Archive/K.P. Devadasan
- Setting the stage: Business programmes can transform personalities and how students react to the world at large. American University in Dubai’s (pictured here) School of Business Administration offers both undergraduate and graduate business courses
The past few years have been a popular time to go back to school. A battered job market paved the way for many to take time to enhance their human capital. Business school became an attractive destination for the recently unemployed and fresh graduates alike. One of the benefits of business education, especially an MBA, is that it is applicable to almost every industry. Management, marketing, finance and human resources are valuable disciplines in any enterprise.
Business programmes are common at the undergraduate level in most colleges. There are however criticisms of studying this subject at such an early stage. Business is all about application, and those without the necessary exposure to real world environments would perhaps not gain as much from learning it in theory. This is why MBAs are usually offered to those who have held jobs for a few years.
Hult International Business School, based in Dubai (as well as London, Shanghai and the United States), offers undergraduate and graduate business courses. Nick Van Der Walt, Executive Director, Hult Dubai, points out the importance of work experience. "Candidates with substantial and quality work experience will be able to draw much more from the course material and participate meaningfully in classroom discussions and group projects than those who have just graduated from university," he says.
Dr Melodena Stephens Balakrishnan is the Deputy Dean and MBA Programme Director at the Faculty of Business and Management at the University of Wollongong in Dubai. She explains why experimenting with different disciplines when given the opportunity is an asset, and that an MBA can supplement any undergraduate background.
"An undergraduate degree in business helps familiarise a prospective MBA student with the business language and core concepts. It's not necessary as good universities have graduate foundations courses to help overcome this limitation. I believe you should be passionate about what you do and like it because with a career you are going to spend the rest of [your] life doing the same thing every day."
More money, better jobs
There are some obvious, tangible advantages gained from business school. It is said that one can expect a salary increase of roughly 50 per cent upon completion of an MBA. The long-term impact on a career however should not be overlooked. MBA programmes are designed to provide a holistic understanding of the business side of organisations. The tools provided invariably prepare students for leadership roles as a result.
S P Jain Center of Management is a global business school with branches in Dubai and Singapore as well as an upcoming branch in Sydney. Professor Christopher Abraham, head of the Dubai campus, outlines the edge such an education can provide. "A good MBA from a top-ranked business school is definitely a springboard for career growth and development. It transforms the overall personality and facilitates thinking and decision-making from both a macro and a micro perspective."
Van Der Walt elaborates on the comprehensive nature of the perks gained. "The impact of an MBA from an international business school can be even bigger. Plugging into a network with global reach and a strong alumni base can present opportunities around the world. The offerings of an MBA are equally important for entrepreneurs who must juggle all aspects of their enterprise and require the knowledge and leadership skills to manage resources and build profits."
Networking, as any CEO will tell you, is one of the most important aspects of business. What you learn doing an MBA is well supplemented by the exposure gained to the right people.
Do your homework
With so many options available, there is the obvious question of which programme to choose. MBA rankings are ubiquitous in available literature on business schools and most have a reliable criterion for identifying the top institutions. There are however specifics within the criteria to which attention should be paid.
Dr Balakrishnan highlights the vital factors that make a programme worth it, starting with the teachers. "Check whether the staff is full-time or part-time. A degree where most of the lecturers are ‘visiting' or ‘adjuncts' would show lack of stability in subject delivery and lack >of student-teacher interactions and involvement. Look at the research and industry qualifications of the staff teaching the programme — their expertise should be evident. You can look for press articles — what are the staff doing that is innovative and excellent? What are the research areas — are they the hot topics of today? Whom are they interacting with because that gives them regional or market knowledge."
Other considerations can be just as important since the benefits of business school are not just what you learn, but who and what you are exposed to. She continues, "In the UAE it is vital to get an understanding of the age of the programmes being offered, the older the university, the stronger is their commitment to the region, greater the alumni and stronger the stability. Alumni are important as they become your potential wild cards to the business community."
It is essential to keep sight of what you will actually gain from the MBA experience aside from simply the title it provides as Dr Balakrishnan implies. "Make sure that the paper [the degree] is worth what is written on it. Too often students focus on name [of the institution], not quality; fees, not value; and time — short term, not long term."
Once a school is decided upon, the right programme must still be picked. Part-time or Executive MBAs are designed so that they don't interfere with the work life of students. Managers and executives can take evening or weekend classes.
There are some appealing advantages to these programmes as Shirin Jarrar, MBA Programme Director at the Dubai campus of Heriot-Watt University's Edinburgh Business School, points out. "Our Executive or part-time MBA programmes are offered mainly on weekends to suit busy professionals aspiring to pursue higher education without giving up full-time employment. Teaching, discussions and case studies reflect students' real-life examples and experiences. Students can earn while they learn and put their newfound skills and expertise into practice in the workplace immediately."
Changing with the times
Along with boosting MBA enrolment numbers, recessions also tend to have an impact on the content of the programmes. This bodes well for students because MBA courses accurately reflect the requirements of the business world, and the shifting tides of risk appetites, regulations and technologies.
Prof. Abraham of SP Jain shares his views on the trends impacting the business of business schools. "Globally, MBA education is going through dramatic changes. After 9/11 and a series of corporate scandals, top business schools have shifted the concentration from mere analytical skills to a balance of corporate governance and ethics, along with managing uncertainty, ambiguity and global diversity."
There are more than 150,000 MBAs coming out of the US annually, according to the country's National Center for Education Statistics, a figure that stood at about 5,000 in 1960. Competition is fierce. The simple tag of MBA is no longer sufficient to differentiate yourself. It is therefore important to approach an MBA with the intention of extracting as much value from it as possible, be it knowledge, resources or contacts. Hence the need to pick the right programme, given enough variety. And on that front, Dubai seems to have everything going for it.
MBA salaries well above pre-recession levels
Compensation packages for management graduates are continuing to grow with the global economy on the upswing, according to research conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), owner of the GMAT exam.
The median base salary for business school alumni in the survey topped $94,500 (about Dh347,107) in 2010, well above the pre-recession level of $89,000 recorded in 2007.
In another indication of the value of graduate management education, 93 per cent of respondents to the most recent GMAC Alumni Perspectives Survey were employed, up from 90 per cent in 2009 and just below the 95 per cent mark seen in 2007.
"Employers around the world tell us they place great value on business school graduates — and these strong compensation figures provide strong evidence to support that conclusion," says Dave Wilson, President and CEO, GMAC. "The message is clear: A quality management education positions people well to thrive in today's highly competitive, knowledge-driven job market."
GMAC's latest alumni survey, conducted in September 2010, drew responses from 3,490 international business school graduates who earned their degrees between 2000 and 2010.
