MBA Streams - Which One To Choose?

Planning to pursue MBA after your undergraduate program is not an easy task. You have to face new challenges. It is better to know everything possible beforehand and make a well-informed decision. It is your career path after all.

Choosing MBA for your higher education is one thing and choosing the stream in MBA is yet another. You cannot go wrong while choosing your stream and hence I will try to share some details about MBA streams to help you make your decision.

At present the world is highly educative. If you need to enter into a competitive business world you can undertake Masters of Business Administration (MBA). You can choose according to your wish considering the scope, admission process and placement records.

Now let me tell you about the list of streams that can be opted while pursuing two years of MBA.

1. Marketing
2. Finance
3. Human Resources
4. Information Systems
5. Consulting
6. Entrepreneurship
7. Operations Management

A)  Marketing:

MBA Marketing is the most common among the students. To tell about the skills needed, you must possess excellent communications skills and management skills.

If you are a person of with good interaction skills or if you think you are good at influencing people, then you can confidently choose marketing stream.

Maintaining positive customer relationship is one of the advantageous skills needed in marketing field. By satisfying customer’s needs, a marketer can enhance society’s quality of life.

Right product at right time can be provided so that to change social behavior. Top universities provide marketing syllabus like

• Service marketing
• Consumer behavior
• Sales and distribution management
• Integrated marketing communication
• Retail management
• International management
• Rural marketing.

At present many organizations involved in social marketing concept for both short term and long term interests in customers.

Marketing has the role to accomplish to building brand too. Several top B-schools provide marketing course so that their career pathway is saved.  

After the completion of MBA, you can work as public relations director, brand manager, market research analyst, product manager, brand manager etc.

B)   Finance:

MBA in finance associates with finance management. This involves planning and controlling an organization’s financial resources.

There are several benefits for students pursuing the finance stream in MBA. Students of this stream get to know the knack and techniques about the business and financial skills to work in number of enterprises.

Students of finance stream get opportunities while still in schools while doing internships. Upon graduation they get highly paid.

Syllabus includes subjects like statistics, leadership, economics, strategy and marketing. Topics commonly taught are:

• Stock market analysis
• Foundations in Finance
• Global Economy
• Financial Instruments
• Futures and options
• Market trading and Volatility
• Risk Management
• Bankruptcy
• Corporate Finance

Some of the companies like Johnson & Johnson, AT & T, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft offer internship opportunities especially for students who are pursuing MBA.

Students who pursue finance are trained in areas like accounting, banking, corporate finance, fund management etc.

Finance management is pretty important that more skilled finance managers are always welcomed.

C)  Human Resources

HR Mangers usually make the choice between using independent contractors or within the company.

Human Resources Management focuses on the concepts like recruiting, managing and directing the people. Hiring, compensation, safety, managing employers’ welfare are dealt by human resource managers.

Human Resources Management can strengthen the environment in the organization. Now let us see the roles of HR manager.

The roles include employing and engaging employees, provide suggestions for training which help in evolving as professionals.

Even the HR professionals can advise the senior managers regarding the current growth of employers and make them achieve their goals.

The HR mangers initially find the talents of employers and place them in different tasks of organization.

Hiring a lot of employers and giving promotion is another added task to HR managers’ job.

Syllabus included in HR Management:

• Personnel Management Concepts
• Methodology of Training and Development
• Human Resource Development and Planning
• Industrial Relations Management
• Compensation Management
• Performance Management : Systems and Strategies
• Organizational Development and Change
• Business Environment and Ethics
• Strategic Management

Human Resources graduates can work in positions like Human Resources Manager, Affirmative Action Officer and also Pay Roll Director.

If you have got the right skills, you are going to get huge hikes. Effective Communication Skills, Supervision Quality are the skills expected from HR.

Interaction is the major skill needed for an HR. Other significant skills include remembering of faces, understanding people, gaining their confidence and have a amiable personality.

D)  Information Systems

Students of MBA information systems move towards professional discipline bridging the business and computer science field.

Good communication, team work, managerial skills, sound knowledge about information systems security can be an added skills wanted for an professional of Information Systems stream.

Students in this stream should possess advanced skills with software and hardware, network administration and database systems.

In the course duration the B-schools provide better base for research studies. Syllabus during the duration includes:

·       

• Software project management
• Database management systems
• E-commerce
• Enterprise resource planning
• Data mining and warehousing
• Business Environment and ethics
• Knowledge Management and information systems

You can apply for job titles like Systems Consultant, Corporate Manager and IT Strategist. The stream helps you to know thoroughly about e-commerce fields and technical knowledge about IT.

The employees look out for problem solving and technical skills too in MBA Information Systems.

E)   Consulting

B-schools train students of Consulting stream with all the skills essential for the job. This is an added advantage. Is it not?

Business consultant’s analysts help in improving the weaknesses of the company thereby strengthening it. Duties of business consultants include understanding the clients’ wishes to improve or fix.

Further duties comprise of reviewing financial statements, evaluating competitors and analyzing business practices.

When the research is completed, new business model are prepared and the consultant explain to the clients. Syllabus includes:

• Facilitation kills
• Presenting & interviewing skills
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Emotional Intelligence Development
• Ethics and respect for the client
• Vision and framing of issues
• Leadership skills

Business Oriented, Proficiency in running a business and Leadership skills are expected for Consulting jobs.

There can be lot of distraction like man power and budgeting that can go far from reaching your goals. With proper training you can achieve lot more than your limits.

F)    Entrepreneurship

In entrepreneurship skills students gain a lot in the analytical skills needed for business. Future professionals who wanted to start their own business can opt for this course.

Students who select MBA in Entrepreneurship opt because they are well before get trained themselves as employers, investors, inventors. This is what keeps the stream spinning.

Rather than classroom teaching, experimental teaching adds a credit for students. Entrepreneurs learn from the mistakes. So you can go ahead in business with bunch of creativities.

Syllabus included in the MBA is listed as follows:

• Family business management
• Gender difference in entrepreneurship
• Law and entrepreneurship
• Laws of electronic businesses
• Finance

The stream helps you to undertake a business. So that one day you can be a creator of successful stories.

Automobile, Advertising, Agriculture, Banking, System, Fashion, Cinema, what not? The list goes on for working in sectors of MBA Entrepreneurship.

G)  Operations Management

Operations Management in MBA is multidisciplinary in nature. It is used to create highest level of efficiency within an organization. Stream concerns with planning, organizing, supervising in the production contexts.

To increase the profit of an organization, material or goods are converted and made into labor. The organization turns inputs and outputs in an efficient manner.

Supply Chain Manager, Logistics Manager, Consultant, Inventory Control Manager are known options of sectors you can work for.

Syllabus in Operations Management includes:

• Operations Strategy: process view Vs functional view
• Facility configuration
• Demands planning and forecasting
• Capacity planning
• Aggregate planning
• Quality management

Communication skills, work ethics, confidence, business management and problem solving ability are some of the skills needed for professionals in Operations Management.

Since you know now about various streams of MBA and if you have made your decision then you can check out some of the Best MBA Colleges in Bangalore here.