Shiksha Opinion: MBA to see an upward trend in 2014
The number of candidates registering for CAT exam dropped from 2.14 lakh in 2012 to 1.94 in 2013. If economic indicators of 2013 are anything to go by, the numbers could further go down in 2014.
Globally, the situation is even gloomier. “Some 238,356 GMAT exams were taken in the year ended June 30, down 16.8% from the record 286,529 a year earlier, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the exam,” reported Poets & Quants.
Is the MBA craze finally fading out? What will be the trend in 2014?
According to Soumendu Ganguly, IIM Ahmedabad passout and head of marketing at Shiksha.com, “Indian students have always looked at management education from an ROI (return of Investment) point of view, balancing job outcome with the cost of education. Over the last two years, the economy wasn’t doing great and that impacted job creation across domains. As a result, the not-so-good MBA colleges weren’t able to place their batches and ended up shutting down. But now with the economy showing signs of revival and the weaker league MBA colleges weeded out of the market, MBA looks to boom in coming times. Having said that, the winners in this category would still be institutes who can prove their ROI (Return of Investment) to the Indian students.”
Post 2014 elections, there’s a positive wave in the country. The sensex has been on an upward trajectory and markets show all signs of recovery. The stabilising rupee and improving GDP is all set to induce more jobs in the market. According to Forbes India, formal hiring will be at least 25 per cent higher than in 2013. Top e-commerce firms like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Jabong are already on a massive hiring spree in 2014 (view source). E-commerce alone will generate over 4,000 jobs this year (View source). Also, with the entry of big retail giants such as Walmart and Macy’s (if FDI in e-retail comes through), the job scenario is expected to look up. Bangalore-based Flipkart is also set to recruit management graduates from Ivy League colleges like Harvard, Wharton and Stanford (View Opinion here).
With the Indian economy on a revival mode and increased hiring activities, the demand for qualified managers will go up. As a result, MBA as a field of study is bound to pick up. As rightly pointed out by Soumendu, weeding out of the weaker management colleges combined with healing economy could rush in a boom in management studies. We need to look at it more as a market correction than anything else.
So instead of feeling the blues, this is the right time to plan your further studies and attempt a national-level entrance exam.
