MBA offers career opportunities which no other stream of studies can match. You can read the details on what it means by MBA in Marketing, Finance, HR & IT (Systems). The explanations are supplemented by expert's comments.

MBA (Marketing)   Sales Manager - Responsible for setting and achieving sales targets. Usually interacts with sales team, manages distribution channels, and ensures end customer sales.   Marketing Manager - Responsibilities include advertizing, management of sales mangers, long term marketing planning.   Brand Manager - Is responsible for creation of brands and ensuring that brand value grows. Usually, this is considered to be a senior position.   Product Developer - This person keeps scanning the market and comes out new products and offering suiting to the market conditions and demands. He makes sure that the organization is able to bring out new products in the market before the earlier products are phased out.   Marketing Communications Manager - Is responsible for managing all the marketing communication of a company which includes advertisements, press-release, management statements etc. This person ensures that the organization send out integrated message to the market though all its communication channels.   Exuberance and dynamism, these two words define life of a marketing professional. During early part of my career, I handled sales; which mainly means handling salespeople and keeping the customers happy. My days were filled with hectic traveling and series of meetings. During the later phases, I got myself involved more into strategic issues such as deciding the sales targets and evaluating and finalizing channel partners. If you are looking at a fast track career growth, marketing is just what you need. Remember, most of the CEOs have started their career in the marketing department. Good Luck.   Vijit Banthia NITIE (2007-09), IBM, Dow Chemicals

MBA (Finance)

Corporate Finance - They manage the finance of corporate, take decisions on how to source capital and where to utilize them.

Equity Research - When we hear experts on TV channels making suggestions on buying/selling of certain shares, the statements are based on expert who have put in lots of research work to understand the future trends of a particular share. This research is called equity research.

Portfolio Management - If your parents have put in their money in a mutual-fund, ask them who the portfolio manager is. These are people, who take decisions on where to put the funds money so as to reduce risk and increase returns.

Bank Manager - They are the ones you come across when you go to a bank, or to an insurance office. The task is more of an administration than of finance, as they implement the various policies and plans which were set out by their head offices.

Account's Manager - The account's manager keeps track of a particular account (mostly a customer in most of the cases). One important example is High Net Worth Individuals (an account). Their funds are managed and returns on them are maximized by their account manager.

 

One needs to be good at numbers and calculation, and capable of seeing trends in the figures, to be successful as finance manager. The task requires little human interaction, but a lot of dealing with data. I guess, you should decide early during your MBA if you wish to specialize in finance or not, and that shall be done on the basis of your natural aptitude. The growth prospects are very bright here, and your beginning salary can be in millions.

 

Jayendra Gokhale
IIM K ( 2000-02), UTI

 

MBA (Human Resource)

HR Manager - They are responsible for recruiting the right work force and extracting the best performance from them. As service sector booms, they are the most demanded managers these days.

Trainer - They ensure that human resource recruited by a company becomes productive. They provide variety of training in soft skills as well as in the areas of personal development.

Consultant - They work as resource persons for organization's manpower requirements. This has become a very lucrative profession of late.

 

HR management is about dealing with people, handling emotions, creating motivations and enhancing quality of life both for individual as well as for the organizations. Everyone who loves human touch in their professional career can aspire to be a successful HR manager. This profession offers growth opportunities while retaining the individual’s value systems and without compromising on quality of personal life. .

 

Rashmi Gupta
Consultant, Adecco

 

MBA (Information Technology or Systems)

Business Analyst - When IT companies provide business solutions to their clients, they Business Analyst's task is to understand the client's needs and to direct the team of programmers to meet that requirement.

Project Manager - A big IT project is usually divided into smaller modules and once these modules are ready, they are integrated to complete the project. Project manager is responsible for managing the complexity in distribution of modules and then integrating it.

Consultant - A growing area is IT consultation, where the consultant offers business solutions to the client. This can be anything from web based solution including website design and development to customer relationship management and supply chain management.

 

I chose IT because of my background in computer applications and my interest in learning and handling technological issues. MBA in IT has its uniqueness in the nature of challenges. One needs to think for next 10 years of business. The rewards are also unique. One can expect a global assignment in the first month itself.

 

Neeraj Verma
Symbiosis College of IT, IBM