 By Graham Trickey, Editor, Prospects. In most careers being ambitious means aiming for promotion in management. The obvious problem is that lots of other people want to get their hands on the power and big salaries too. One way to gain the edge could be to become an MBA (Master of Business Administration). Despite talk of £30,000 fees and demanding assignments, it is possible to gain this valuable qualification without experiencing extreme poverty and years of unbroken toil. MBA courses set out to equip managers to rise to senior positions in the private or public sectors, with the development of strategic thinking being of central importance. There is one important proviso: the would-be student must already be a manager of some sort. If breaking into management is the aim, a course such as an MBA is needed. A second requirement covers age. Since three years’ work experience is demanded, a would-be MBA will probably have to be at least 25, and some schools say 27. Other requirements are a first degree and, for full-time courses, passing an admission test, usually the Graduate Management Admission Test which covers reasoning and writing including some maths. Apart from full-time courses there are also part-time, distance and online courses that make the qualification accessible to people who cannot afford to or want to give up an existing job for a year. In the same spirit, anyone who has £36,000 but would rather spend it on upgrading their lifestyle than on full-time MBA study at the London Business School can choose a part-time course elsewhere costing as little as £5,000. In many cases employers are prepared to cover the fees. For the money, students get a three-stage programme. A core deals with a range of essentials such as accounting, marketing and finance as well as business strategy. Then the student can choose an ‘elective’ or minor study. Finally there is a project or dissertation. The most popular course in the UK comes from the Open University which boasts 20% of the country’s MBAs. The cost for distance-learning study is £10,000 and on average students take four years to complete it. Some of the distance in the learning is overcome by having an associate lecturer locally responsible for 15 students in a neighbourhood. The Open University MBA, like all the leading courses, has accreditation - in the OU’s case both by the Association of MBAs and EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System). Courses that lack this should be avoided because MBAs are not all of equal standard. The courses of accredited schools entail 1,800 hours of study which, the leading schools argue, makes them superior to other courses that involve only 1,200 hours. League tables, for instance from the Financial Times, are also available to help would-be MBAs choose but these should not be followed too slavishly. Managers who have progressed without an MBA may tend to dismiss the qualification as expensive snake oil offering little of substance. Richard Wheatcroft, the Open University’s MBA programme director, counters: ‘A good programme will genuinely give the person the tools and skills to be a better manager, and thus to climb the “greasy pole” better. Of course if everyone had one then it wouldn’t be an advantage but we are a very long way from this.’ Convincing evidence is offered by the Association of MBAs which reports that the average salary of its members is £64,000 and three in five are either board directors or senior managers. Of course, there are no guarantees of success, but the MBA undoubtedly opens doors for its holders and most manage to make use of the opportunities. Related topics
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