The current recruitment trends in the Middle East also show that most employers favor recruiting candidates with MBA qualifications than people with mere undergraduate degrees. “Another interesting aspect is employers are willing to ungrudgingly pay a lot more to candidates with MBA degrees,” said Mohammed Al-Madi, a Saudi banker who works for Saudi Investment Bank here. Al-Madi said that an MBA degree is labeled as the most preferred qualification by many huge business organizations in the Gulf region also.
He said that a number of top-ranking MBA schools across the world place more emphasis on marketing communication, consumer behavior, supply chain management and even international marketing strategy. “These courses are designed to impart essential competencies in a marketing professional to analyze situations and take decisions in a globally competitive environment,” said the Saudi banker. In fact, studying at a prestigious management school “provides access to an unmatched diversity of thought,” said Sir Andrew Likierman, dean of the London Business School.
Likierman pointed out that the London’s Business School’s MBA program had been ranked number one the third year running in the annual “Financial Times” MBA ranking published early this year. The school has been in the top 10 since the ranking was launched in 1999 and shares the top spot this year with the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton. The ranking highlights the global nature of the school, with specific reference to the high proportion of international students (92 percent) and faculty (85 percent).
Referring to the high standards of London’s Business School, Hamad M. Al-Rugaid, a current Saudi student who worked for seven years in the oil and gas industry, said: “I feel very privileged to be part of a community which offers unlimited opportunities for learning and building a life lasting international network. I aspire to employ the learning in the MBA to improve lives and create opportunities for the people in my region.”
The London Business School, which has faculty members drawn from 30 countries, awards over 1,000 degrees every year. London Business School has also opened its chapter in Dubai, keeping in view the growing number of interested applicants seeking admission to MBA programs from the Middle East. To this end, it is important to note that the Dubai-London Executive MBA Program, created in response to the growing demand for business education in the region, reflects the school’s strong commitment to the Middle East.
The program is designed for managers and executives, who already have substantial professional experience behind them and the intake represents a range of exceptional, experienced people who can both contribute to and benefit from the program. Interestingly, more and more businesswomen are enrolling on the Dubai MBA program of late.
The school has reported that one in five students is female, 6 percent higher than the last two intakes. “The increase in the number of Arab women enrolled in the program reflects the growing influence women are having, and will continue to have, on business in this region,” said Ruth Martel, program director of London Business School, who has contributed a lot to make this school as top ranking management institution of the world.
In fact, finding the best college for obtaining an MBA degree is really tough work. Choosing the best colleges for MBA is time consuming and confusing. But an MBA degree may open up some rare opportunities that were not quite available before. Further, when one obtains an MBA and joins any organization of his choice, his employer will appreciate that he is serious about advancing his career and will not hesitate to offer him higher positions of responsibility.
However, to ensure an MBA fetches the right rewards, students should make sure to obtain the qualification from an institute of repute that is well recognized in industrial circles. And the testimonial given by such a management school will carry more weight. In fact, a management degree endows the student with a fund of knowledge and superior skills to read and analyze reports, study market scenario and rework marketing strategies, make sales forecasts, organize cash flows, schedule production, handle human resources and generally macro-manage the affairs of the organization.
The MBA qualification especially prepares students to lead, organize, motivate and coordinate the work of all employees to enhance overall efficiency and improve productivity. It is this type of exposure that will eventually catapult one to positions of authority within the organization. “Merely obtaining an MBA degree will not straightaway fetch an employee a management position,” said Naeem Jameel, a management degree holder working as manager in a local company in Riyadh.
Employees must also develop the necessary skills and gather relevant experience to gradually excel in their career path, explained Jameel, adding that when many people compete for a higher position, an individual’s chances will be much brighter if he has an MBA degree. There is no denying that MBA qualification is a powerful tool to help employees to promote their career, he added.
An MBA degree can do immense good if employees also make a definite plan about their career path and use the degree to achieve those goals, said Jameel, while referring to the need of right counseling for the students. On the other hand, if employees have a definite career plan, it will be that much easier for them to choose the right MBA course as quite often MBA programs can vary from one another, he added.
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