Career Paths After Completing an MBA

Career Paths After Completing an MBA

An MBA program is one of those widely known degrees that is always spoken about, and carries a special value in the eye of almost every employer. Over the years, the importance of an MBA degree has magnified as millions of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in business management and other specialisations are stepping into the workforce, thus increasing the degree of competition. That said, an MBA helps applicants stand out from the rest of the job-seekers. This is mainly because an MBA degree comprises a significant level of practical projects, reports, and theoretical learnings, a combination of which can largely benefit any organisation. Importantly, an MBA degree is widely offered by almost every renowned university, and these institutes constantly strive to improve their degree content by including contemporary topics and technological features that will help the learners stay relevant in the job market. Let us take a look at some of the primary career options or paths that are available for MBA graduates.

• Business Development Manager: Completing a credible MBA degree will equip you with the ability to devise effective business strategies, plan marketing tactics, and pursue operational efficiency. In other words, you will be able to work as a business development manager because these learnings will allow you to work in almost every department, and enable you to help the business save costs, locate sales strategies, strengthen their brand image, and develop competitive advantage. Typical job titles can include: business development executive, business development manager, sales development executive, strategic programs lead.

• Finance Manager: As the famous saying goes, ‘cash flow is the lifeblood of a business.’ Put simply, every firm largely depends upon cash liquidity, budget management, cost savings, and revenue generation in order to survive and eventually grow. Nonetheless, the entire process of funds management requires a lot of structured creation of income statements, balance sheets, investments in different assets, and many more. An MBA will teach you how to deal with a company’s finances and involve both accounting and finance-related perspectives for you to secure a job as a finance manager, finance consultant, or commercial finance manager.
• Business Consultant: In order to rope in lucrative profit figures and grow its market share, and company often resorts to the services of both internal and external consultants. These consultants can be individuals or entire consultancy firms that can advise the business in terms of how they can improve their digital marketing methods, improve their R&D, innovate new products, invest in the right assets, or recruit employees who are suitable for the job. Consultants often have specialised knowledge regarding business management and operations, which are usually taught in an MBA program, and their insights can often greatly benefit the companies. Professionals can thus work as digital transformation consultants, innovation consultants, management consultants, or risk consultants.
• Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurs are the visionaries who keep innovation and progress alive in our societies. Not only do they come up with unique product and service ideas, but they also often develop successful businesses that end up creating jobs, benefitting the economies, and also transforming the consumers’ lifestyles. However, there happens to be many start-ups that do not make it to the golden days, and fail. This often happens because while the business starts have great ideas, they have inadequate management and business skills. There are so many of us who are eager to have our own start-ups, and unlike the older days when entrepreneurs would have to rely upon so many other people to establish their business departments, MBA programs have changed the entire game. With an MBA degree, entrepreneurs now gather a holistic understanding of how different functions of a firm work, such as finance, marketing, HR, thus increasing their chances to be successful. Basically, an MBA will allow you to convert your business idea into a viable business and effectively run it for future growth.
• Marketing Manager: Marketing can be defined as the process of identifying, analysing, and satisfying customer demands in order to make profits and enhance customer loyalty in the long run. Marketing managers have a very extensive role because they are involved in market research, product development, pricing, advertising, distribution, marketing analytics, social media promotion, and plenty of other duties that escalates the brand’s market presence. An MBA program particularly focusses on marketing strategies and frameworks, alongside multiple case studies and projects that can increase your eligibility to become a marketing manager, commercial sales manager, campaign managers, and many more.
• Product Manager: Just like becoming a marketing manager, an MBA can also enable you to become a product manager, wherein you will be in charge of a particular product’s development, promotion, innovation, distribution, after-sales warranties, and any other activity related to the product. A lot of this role will conform with marketing activities, but will instead be focussed on a single product or service. Generally, MBA programs comprise several assignments on specific product developments and business pitches, and these learnings will enable you further to ensure your role as a product manager, assistant product manager, or brand manager.
• Operations Manager: Business operations refer to all the activities that underlie the business. This can range from checking if the machines are working to ensuring that all the products have been packaged properly. Likewise, dealing with the suppliers and buyers is also a part of an operations manager’s role. MBA programs pay a lot of attention to business operations and include topics around creating efficient value chains and logistics, all of which will make it easier for you to acquire the role of an operations manager, production team manager, or warehouse manager. It is also worth noting that operations managers have to deal with a lot of technological elements and be updated with the current trends in digitisation of the workplace.
• Human Resources Manager: Human capital is one of the most essential resources available to any business because not only do they possess specific skills, but they also bring in a lot of experience, perspectives, and innovations to the table. However, the best can only be extracted from the employees if the right ones are recruited, are properly trained in the right areas, and are constantly motivated so that they keep doing their best. These are the fundamental roles of a human resource manager, and since an MBA program spends a lot of time explaining the different facets of HR management and people management, securing your role as a HR manager, trainer, or team manager can become a whole lot easier.
• Project/Program Manager: Every organisation often arranges program such as road show for the investors, annual general meetings, shareholder meetings, and other events that are specific to the organisation such as anniversary celebrations. Each of these programs are treated as projects, and special managers are required to lead these projects. An MBA program explores management in various forms such as project management, time management, resource management, cost management, and many more. With these insights, you will be able to manage the members of the project, set deadlines, optimally allocate resources, establish pertinent budgets, run the invites and set up, socially promote the event, and basically take care of the entire project. It is quite a holistic responsibility, and the different topics covered in an MBA will make you eligible for a role business program manager, digital program manager, or program operations manager.
• General Manager: As the name indicates, general managers are primarily responsible for overseeing the functions of all the units and departments. They have a very busy role and need to have knowledge regarding the operations of different departments. Likewise, you can also become a general manager for a particular department wherein you will be able to apply your specific knowledge and experiences. For instance, you can apply for the role of a general finance manager or general operations manager.

Whilst these aforementioned career paths are some of the major options available for MBA graduates, the list certainly does not end here. Depending upon your specialisation in terms of the degree earned or your former experience, you can also become suitable for managerial roles in several fields. One of the greatest advantages of an MBA is that it prepares you for roles and positions that are present in every institution, company, and industry. For example, an HR manager or program manager will be demanded by fashion brands, investment firms, schools, oil extracting companies, and sports institutes. That said, you become eligible for almost every industry and hence reap the opportunity to tread across different fields. Nevertheless, in order to excel in a chose industry, knowledge specific to that industry or sector will also be of prime essence.