The masters of business administration has long been one of the most popular degree options out there for those who aspire to work in an administrative or managerial role within a business. It is also the degree of choice for students who are hoping to one day launch their own business.
But given how long the MBA degree has been around and how many paradigm shifts in business have occurred since it gained popularity, many aspiring entrepreneurs today wonder whether the MBA as all it’s cracked up to be. The truth is that while many people now view the MBA as a relic of a bygone age, it still offers an enormous amount of value to any graduates who complete the course. There are even MBA degrees today that are tailored for specific industries or roles.
Learn New Skills And Gain Perspective
One of the most compelling reasons for studying an MBA is that it will provide students with all the skills and knowledge that they need to excel in the world of business. In the world of business, every entrepreneur needs to be able to appropriately analyse the situations and problems before them and devise reliable solutions. The MBA degree is one of the most powerful training tools for learning how to do just this.
Over the course of studying for an MBA degree, students will gain valuable insight into the ideas and techniques that they need to survive in the world of business management. While the precise skills needed to flourish in any given workplace will vary, there are certain skills that are universally applicable and will be useful regardless of where you end up working.
In order to enrol on most MBA courses, you will already need to have some real-world experience working as a manager in a business. However, an MBA course will sharpen your existing skills and equip you with new ones that you need to excel as a business manager. Business administration is not just about filing paperwork; there is a whole set of skills and disciplines that business managers need to possess in order to excel in the role.
Increase Your Value To Future Employers
While possessing an MBA degree is not a hard and fast requirement for applying for managerial positions in most businesses, a growing number of the biggest businesses in the world are now requiring that the management level employees have an MBA degree or equivalent. It stands to reason that the more valuable you are to a prospective employer, the higher the position you will be able to apply for and the greater the salary you will be able to command.
If you aspire to work in a managerial position within an existing organisation then having an MBA degree under your belt will definitely make you a more attractive hire. Not only will you be more valuable to the business that you are directly applying to, but your implied value to their competitors will give them an incentive to remove you from the market. In other words, if you have an MBA degree to your name then there will be businesses out there who will hire you for no reason other than keeping you out of their competitors’ hands.
Even if you plan on starting your own business and never intend to work for another employer again, having an MBA degree to your name will ensure that your options are always open.
Open New Doors
With a growing number of the top global businesses demanding that their managerial staff possesses an MBA degree, the value of holding such a degree is obvious. However, even amongst those who recognize the value of an MBA degree, the number and the range of the doors that it can open is still a surprise to many.
Here is just a small selection of the jobs that you can consider once you have an MBA under your belt.
Things You Can Do With An MBA
- Healthcare administrator: Healthcare administrators take responsibility for the managing, planning, and direction of healthcare facilities. Healthcare administrators are found in a variety of different scenarios, ranging from nursing homes to major hospitals.
The responsibilities of a healthcare administrator will vary according to the exact scenario in which they work. However, regardless of where healthcare administrators are found, their ultimate purpose is the same. Healthcare administrators are needed to ensure that health care facilities are being run in an economical and realistic manner. While the ultimate purpose of any healthcare institution is to treat patients, if this cannot be done sustainably then the facility is doomed to fail.
- Information Systems Manager: Every modern business is dependent upon its computer systems in order to stay organised and operate efficiently. However, properly managing and overseeing these computer systems is a highly specialised discipline. While a background in it is obviously helpful in this role, the masters of business administration degree will also equip graduates with vital knowledge and skills that will help them to manage these systems within a business. There are even specialized MBAs in information systems available today for those who specifically want to work in an IT-focused managerial role.
- Operations research analyst: The role of an operations research analyst is to help managers to make the right decisions as for as allocating business resources and devising efficient production schedules is concerned. An operations research analyst may also be involved in other parts of the supply chain and may even take responsibility for managing the overall supply chain as a whole. This is one of the more analytical roles that an MBA will prepare students for – operations research analysts need to be able to review existing metrics and operational procedures in order to identify potential opportunities for improving efficiency and enhancing productivity.
Study Your Degree Online
It used to be that students who wanted to study for an MBA degree would need to attend a physical university and accept all of the obligations that go along with that. However, thanks to the advent of online learning, MBA students can earn their entire degree without ever having to set foot in a physical university. Online studying has become popular with students of all varieties and backgrounds owing to the added level of convenience it offers albeit at a lower price than a regular degree.
Making the MBA degree accessible through online study has massively expanded the pool of students who now consider studying for it. There was a time when an MBA degree was considered a relatively elitist thing. Not only did students have to have the requisite experience working as managers, but they also needed to be able to set aside the time and money necessary to attend university. Now that the MBA degree can be studied online, students of all backgrounds are able to consider it as an option.
Enrolling in an online course such as that from Aston Online means that the students who would have traditionally been kept locked out of mainstream education – single parents and those with other commitments to tend to – are able to consider studying for an MBA as a viable option for expanding their future projects.
Not only does this benefit individual students by expanding their horizons, but it also benefits the world of business as a whole by encouraging people to enter into managerial roles who would previously have been unable to.
Develop Your Professional Network
Any university course will give you the opportunity to meet with other like-minded individuals who have the same passions and objectives as you do. However, the MBA degree is arguably unique in just how much of an exposure to the professional market it provides you with. Students studying for an MBA degree will have innumerable opportunities to not only mix with other students who are pursuing the same career path as them but also to meet the titans of industry that ensure the world of business keeps turning.
It is hard to overstate the value of a comprehensive network of contacts for new entrepreneurs. Any entrepreneur who aspires to run their own business or to work in a managerial position in the long term will benefit enormously from having an extensive network of contacts to call upon. Studying for a masters of business administration will give students ample opportunities to make new contacts and to build out their network for future use.
Any entrepreneur who hopes to one day work in an administrative or managerial role can benefit enormously from studying an MBA degree. Whether you choose to study a general MBA or one of the newer versions that are tailored for specific industries, this is a degree that has a lot to offer. Not only will students gain an understanding of the skills, techniques, and knowledge that they need to excel as business managers, but it will also provide students with ample opportunities to expand their business network and hit the ground running when they do decide to take the plunge on their own business.
