The prevalent economic scenario and globalisation are inciting strong drives for change in the business sphere. With the world obsessed with growth and success, MBA has become the buzzword. It is clear that the business set up looks forward to management skills and leadership as a key as qualified and efficient management professionals are becoming the need of the hour.
Moreover, there is a huge scope and market for management education in the coming times owing to the economic and demographic changes in India. As a result, this profession has started to gain much vigour for the progressive career prospects.
The industrial sector needs potential candidates having more cross competences to combine expertise with agility, responsibility, influence, and ingenuity. In substance, today’s business and economic growth demand potential managerial qualities along with academic industry-oriented knowledge to propel the system ahead successfully.
This is why management education is gaining significant importance in the current times. Indeed, the essence of good management education lies in enabling the aspiring students to develop the right set of skills and core competencies, making them gain an edge over the competitive market, and helping them rise as potential prospects for the best of jobs in the market.
The comprehensive and expansive global market is presenting a wide scope of opportunities for students in different fields of management. The diverse field of study, extensive career prospects, and lucrative pay scale makes management education a viable choice to pursue. On the other hand, globalisation and technological advancements are making management education tougher to sail through.
The emerging new technologies every now and then, are posing a challenge for the managers to survive in the field productively. So, before you embark on a higher education in management studies, it is important to have a clear idea of the challenges and opportunities it holds.
The biggest challenge that has emerged for the B-schools as such is to produce efficient managers, who are potential enough to survive the industry advancements and changes. Management education has to hence focus more on teaching and training students for high managerial positions in corporate organisations and industries so that they can effectively manage and lead.
In India, there is a huge gap or imbalance between theory and practical management education. Also, the lack of research focused and career-focused institutions are making things harder for the students to survive and sustain their ability at the global level.
Understanding the same, institutes should make renewed focus on our curriculum and have made it more industry-centric and based on practical and hands-on teaching methodology to bridge the existing gap. Also, should put more emphasis on research related activities on the global level so as to get over the challenges and enhance the quality of management education imparted to students.
The opportunities are multifold. Nowadays, management studies have a wide array of specialisations and students can choose from anything ranging from marketing, hr, finance, retail, hospitality, tourism, etc. There are also part-time diploma/ certificate courses to help enhance the skill sets of working professionals and improve the chances of success in their career.
Skill development is an essential part of education. Every aspects of management like planning, organising, and decision making requires appropriate skills and aptitude.
Attaining management education from a reputed institute provides opportunity to enhance their skills and be a better fit for the competitive market. Providing students with a holistic learning environment that serves to enhance their capacity and capability and pave way for their skills development.
One should be given opportunities to learn managerial skills through different case studies, skills development programmes and extra-curricular activities.
This is an evergreen field having a broad scope of prospects. There are various avenues in which a management professional can find his/her career options.
With a plethora of opportunities ahead for a management graduate, it is important that students are better off making a well-informed decision as to what career path they should take.
Since management education is a highly necessary element for gaining a foothold in the business arena, high-quality education and upgraded knowledge pertaining to the industry is much important to become aware of the real corporate environment. Institutes have to understand the relevant opportunities and should develop courses with specialisations significant to the industry.
With all the challenges and opportunities taken into consideration, management education today needs to be revitalised across the country to meet the expectations of the industry and its key stakeholders.
The writer is a senior director, Institute of Management Studies, Noida
