To MBA, or not to MBA, that is the question…
- Mar 19, 2015
- 4 min read
This past year, Ingeneam conducted information sessions at a big-data analytics firm and while there was a subset that were convinced that an MBA was the right next step to super-charge their careers, a larger group questioned the relative value of an MBA vs. a graduate degree in Analytics. This is not an uncommon question – 46% of prospective students surveyed by GMAC either considered only a specialized business master’s program or both an MBA and a specialized master’s in business program. Additionally, as the start-up mania has reached fever pitch once again, many wannabe entrepreneurs in the audience asked about the value and timing of an MBA. Let me take each one of these questions in turn.
First, let’s briefly talk about why droves of candidates from across the world apply to MBA programs. If you are looking to switch careers, gain a broad-based business education or to accelerate your career progression, an MBA from a reputed institution has historically proven to be the quickest path to achieving these goals. Additionally, mid and senior level management positions routinely get filled via the networking route rather than job boards and being part of a powerful alumni network can do wonders deep into one’s career. All this said, an MBA is not for everyone.
Now, a couple of snippets on big data, the latest hyped-up trend expected to transform businesses and change the basis of competition. One of the earliest and oft-quoted 2011 report by McKinsey estimates that the US alone could face a shortage of almost 200,000 professionals with deep analytical skills by 2018. The same report also projects that 1.5 million managers and analysts will be ill-equipped to understand and make effective decisions based on big data. In response to the exploding data and businesses’ clamor for talent trained in big data analytics, numerous Universities have jumped on the band wagon to improve their existing degree programs or in many cases launch entirely new degree programs. Data Informed, InformationWeek and MasterInDataScience.Org all have listed their take on the most promising data analytics graduate programs across N America. Corporations are also getting in on the action. For example IBM has partnered with 28 Universities to shape curricula with a mix of business and IT skills. Whether you have experience with big data or not, a degree from one of these programs combined with the extreme shortage of this talent at the present time would easily get you started on a career in big data. But as one can expect, in a few years, we believe the number of such programs and the graduates armed with big data skills will explode, in turn depressing the premium paid for such talent. But this should not stop one from considering a big data career now.
Which of these programs you target will depend on your long-term goals – someone interested in a general management career within a data intensive industry or to start a big-data firm themselves ought to choose a broad-based business education offered by an MBA program with a specialization in analytics while someone who wants to make a career working for a pure-play big data company or leading a big data effort elsewhere could arm themselves appropriately through a program offered by Engineering, Statistics or other departments. Additionally, because of the dynamic and evolving nature of big data, one would be well served to attend a program staffed with practitioners. Unlike an Engineering program, an analytics program can’t really be taught out of a textbook alone.
Now coming to the topic of entrepreneurs or wannabe’s looking at business schools, in 3 out of 4 such candidates that we have worked with, we see a strong business case for an MBA. Why have we advised these clients to pursue an MBA?
Business schools arms you with skills essential to creating a successful venture. Unless you have done this before and learnt lessons from the school of hard knocks, the complexity and diversity of issues you will face in standing up a successful venture is far too many for someone to figure this out themselves. More often than not, what happens is one of more of these problems gets you stuck in a rut or you throw in the towel and give up on your dreams. Be it product development, raising capital, recruiting and managing talent or marketing your product or service in the most effective way, an MBA degree would have walked you through the ropes in a relatively risk-free environment.
Business schools will actually support you in starting your venture. Beyond a great idea and an intense desire to succeed, every entrepreneur needs advisors and mentors. Business school professors and alumni who have gone the entrepreneurial route are some of the best (and free of cost I might add) advisors you can get your hands on. A business school with a strong entrepreneurship program can help you short-circuit years of work in developing a network of mentors and advisors. Venture challenges where you can pressure test your ideas, find partners and access VCs have been the route many wannabe’s have taken to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship is a field where success is rare – 93% of startups accepted into Y Combinator, one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in Silicon Valley are not successful! So make use of any advantage you can get and a B-school offers plenty – read this narrative of one entrepreneur’s take on how her B-school got her off the ground. Ultimately though, entrepreneurism is about risk taking and business school teaches you how to mitigate risks or to take calculated risks. So there is an inherent tension and so decide wisely.
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