The manager with an MBA understands the economic pressures on the company and has a firm grip on the financial condition of the firm. The MBA manager also understands to what extent the current financial situation is aligned with the strategy for profitability.

The next logical step is for the MBA manager to know how to discover, predict and fulfil customers’ needs, so the company can show true profits. It is all about knowing how to compete. And it is about that winning relationship with customers and other stakeholders and, through marketing research skills, finding out what the customer wants - a true value-add to the company.

In the quest for productivity, top managers need to consistently determine whether the company is capable of surpassing problems in the process of successfully delivering products or services to the customer, and is the customer prepared to pay for these. If not, management needs to know when to introduce drastic actions. Productivity is clearly dependent on the decision-making ability of the leaders of the firm. Leaders with a purely financial or marketing background are not sufficiently knowledgeable regarding the decisions required for a productivity and competitive analysis.

Now, with the company riding the waves of the economy, forecasting its financial needs, controlling its funds and adding to its bottom line by getting the right product at the right price to the right place for the right person, while promoting all this in the most effective manner, the MBA manager can also do a bit of healthy introspection.

“With the organisation designed to run like clockwork, and where the delicate balance has been reached between giving to employees and gaining from their skills and endeavours, the MBA manager can evaluate the degree to which operation management is contributing to the competitiveness and profitability of the company. It is accepted that the MBA qualification will have given the individual the ability to have a strategic outlook on how operations can adhere to world-class standards and how they can operate in synergy with the other business functions.”

Dr Lew said that of course, the manager must then also be able to turn technological advancement to the benefit of the company, rather than seeing it as a threat. An understanding of information systems and knowledge technology then underpins the success of the MBA manager in this regard. This produces information that is useful to the company.

Clearly each element of value that the MBA adds builds on the others, but these values reach a different level when the skills of international business strategy are included.

Consider just a few of the skills that the MBA manager has in this regard:

· He/she can manage the strategic options for the company, implement an effective team process,

· formulate strategies for the various business functions,

· gauge product-market demand and competitive interdependencies, including the scope of proposed businesses strategies,

· show flexibility and creativity in response to changing markets,

· identify and balance any competing forces for localisation or globalisation for the business and its functions such as marketing and production.

These are only few of the very convincing arguments of the value that the MBA holds for the employer.


The conclusion: The MBA qualification that manifests in applied skills is of immense worth to the employer.