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MBA for IT professionals – what’s it worth?

MBA News Barbara Barkhausen / 02-21-2011

Some professions almost demand an MBA degree to excel in a big company. IT professionals, however, still focus a lot on their technology knowledge only. Now “Computerworld” argued in a recent article that IT specialists should consider an MBA to fast forward their career.

Gaining business knowledge
As "Computerworld" argues the MBA is one way for computer professionals to gain critical business knowledge. And it is the short way. The alternative would be different job assignments across business units. It could take years to obtain knowledge of sales and marketing, logistics, manufacturing or supply chain operations.

Understanding finance
These days CIOs are not only technology chiefs anymore. They are business executives and have to run processes across the world and support their employer's growth strategy actively. An MBA helps them to look at business models and ask the key questions to then decide which projects are relevant and when to do them. The degree also helps to understand business and foremost finance decisions in the company. The main gain is accounting knowledge as this allows an understanding how costs are managed and how projects are financed.

Developing negotiation skills and international networks
"Computerworld" also pointed out the negotiation skills that one IT manager in particular had gained from his MBA course which helped him save considerable amounts of money later on. An MBA also opens up global economy and links to networks all over the world, writes "Computerworld".

The first business schools seem to have noticed the growing MBA demand for IT professionals. Carnegie Mellon for example already offers an online programme, specifically developed for future IT leaders.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/352225/Should_you_get_an_MBA_?taxonomyId=56&pageNumber=1