What Value Does An MBA Course Provide?
An excellent question and if you’re asking it you may already have an idea about what it is you’re looking for. A Master of Business Administration covers a lot and as a result, its benefits can be far-reaching but also difficult to detect without a guide, so let’s take a look at some of the direct and indirect consequences of studying an MBA that may lead you into taking the course.
What do you study for an MBA?
The main things that any MBA is directed towards are developing leadership skills and administrative models, two things that are critical to any business but have a wide degree of application and scope. For example, a manager may have good leadership skills but may need the help of a productivity model (such as an Agile or Waterfall model) in order to help keep all their staff on the same page. Conversely, different leadership styles are required in large companies where departments are separated and communicate through liaisons, or small companies where every department works directly with and around each other. An MBA is designed to teach you how to work over, with and around multiple styles and setups, vastly improving your ability to work at any level of administration.
However just because leadership skills and administrative models are the main focus of an MBA that does not mean it is the only thing you will learn - far from it! Other skills that are often focused on in an MBA include core subjects like business accounting, local law and public policy, organisational behaviours, communication, the latest in digital marketing theory and techniques, skills for researching the competition and even developing both long and short-term business strategies. Some MBAs also offer additional subjects analysing global trends, data management and analysis, and offer a smattering of education in matters of health and the practices of human resources. Suffice it to say, an MBA covers a lot of information, skills and techniques, and even in the modern era of books, youtube and skill-sharing, you’d be hard-pressed to learn many of these entirely on your own.
What are the Direct and Indirect Benefits of an MBA
The direct benefits are many and are pretty easy to assess for yourself. If you think you need to develop skills in leadership, administrative models, accounting, research, or any of the other items we listed previously then an MBA is already the right choice for you. But there are a large number of indirect benefits that you might want to be aware of as well.
To start with, salary. Even if you already have a secure job, adding an MBA can increase your base salary, or make you more eligible for new opportunities that arise. Recent data suggests that those who have an MBA from Australia have an average Australian MBA salary above $100k a year, and this applies just as much to men as to women - in fact in recent years the rising of women to higher paid administrative roles has been a key component in reducing the overall wage gap between men and women in the workplace. However, there are other benefits as well. Learning to be a leader and adopting productivity models rely heavily on developing and improving social skills both toward those below you, above you and among your direct peers - anyone in business can tell you are often three very different skill sets to maintain.
However one of the more interesting perks of studying an MBA is an improved skill to understand what everyone around you is doing. Every job is a skillset unto itself, but having a firm grasp of how to research other businesses, read accounting documents and relate with both internal staff and external clients can teach you as an administrator a lot about what every other part of your business is doing. Nothing helps a business more than a boss who understands the ins and outs of the business itself, and it helps even more if they have the tools to communicate or teach those skills to others. These are just some of the more indirect benefits that an MBA can provide.
What else? Is it just an increased salary, better bargaining position, a plethora of skills and an overall increase in quality? Not at all. Many of the skills needed for business are skills you can use in everyday life, but exactly which skills will help you the most could depend greatly on how you want to specialise. Fortunately, most MBAs offer specialised electives to help better direct your studies to cover exactly what you’re interested in.
