Taking an MBA is easier than ever nowadays. While the business course is comprehensive and detailed, it’s also changing with the times to include non-core topics like digital marketing and health informatics, to name just a couple.
For potential students, the evolution of the MBA includes several online MBA programs now. Some are particularly more intense, some are more diverse, offering several MBA concentrations to specialize along with the option to accelerate the learning path to complete the master’s degree in as little as 20 months or less.
Here are three of the things that you’ll learn when taking an MBA.
Strategic Development
Understanding the strategy behind business decisions is key to plotting out a reliable path for a business’ future. Being able to look at the competitive landscape and appreciate the strategy being deployed by peers is also useful. It highlights competitive blunders and bad strategy while informing you about how to plan strategically well into the future.
In a competitive marketplace, every company has to find a small handful of things that set them apart from their peers. When understanding strategy better, it’s easier to accomplish this.
Operational Excellence
Operational management focuses on the use of business systems and reliable processes that drive the business forward. When things go wrong in a business, looking at the systems is often the right place to start. Sometimes they’re lacking with a need for the implementation of improved systems to resolve the difficulties within the operation.
Getting the individual processes right is also a topic that comes under operational excellence. Processes are always in need of careful review and improvement to remove any new bottlenecks that have developed. It’s the job of the CEO to fully appreciate the systems and processes that the business has adopted and resolved problems with them. An MBA provides the knowledge to know what you’re looking for and how to make noticeable improvements.
Finance from a Leadership Perspective
While someone with an MBA is not usually an accountant, they will be involved in looking at better forms of finance for the business. Businesses often fail because the leadership had a poor grasp of the capital required to launch and operate the business successfully, along with a lack of understanding of all sources of investment capital and lending.
Students that learn about finance from a leader’s perspective get a bird’s eye view of all forms of finance available to companies. This knowledge allows them to make an informed decision at every point in the lifecycle of the business to steer it out of danger or access funding for expansion, respectively.
Taking an MBA course is a major commitment. It will require considerable energy and mental focus to study the materials, understand the context of operational lessons studied and to develop a better business mindset. For future career development in a leadership role or that of a founder, there are few master’s degree courses that provide the depth, breadth or relevance of a solid MBA. It’s a considerable feather in the cap, that’s for sure.
David Mitroff Ph.D. is a Marketing Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension International Program. David has been an instructor at General Assembly, Diablo Valley College, and Contra Costa College, as well as conducting 100’s of workshops for the Small Business Development Centers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Contact David https://live.vcita.com/site/piedmontave
