IT in Management Education

This topic discusses the place and scope of Information Technology (I.T) in the present day Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A) education. It examines the relevance, the depth and breadth of IT subjects in the M.B.A curriculum, to e-enable the new generation of managers.

1. Place and scope:

The scope of IT in Management Education encompasses selection of subjects, depth of coverage, and how to impart such education to the MBA students. It also covers the IT infrastructure needed in B-Schools. IT enabled ambience conducive to producing global managers for the networked global enterprises as planners, managers and entrepreneurs also forms part of the scope of this endeavor.

Let us first look at the different specializations like Marketing, Human Resources (HR), Manufacturing Management, Finance and systems in the present day MBA curriculum. They emerged, as a consequence of the changes in the scale of business and economics of volumes. The need for a class of executives who have to motivate, acquire suitable skills and have a sound knowledge of the working of an industrial enterprise was the main driver. Thus manufacturing oriented knowledge and soft skills of business management became integrated into MBA education.

The models of Business Education based on Industrial Era are now being modified , to support the business needs of this 21^st century taking advantage of new technologies. Thus we see today, the following paradigm shift taking place in various facets of MBA education.

PARADIGM SHIFT IN MBA EDUCATION

Earlier (Pre 2000)	Now (Post 2000)
Production and Operations Management	ERP, CRM, SCM and IT enabled manufacturing.
Marketing Management	E-business, E-com, planning web enabled marketing, global / international business, B2B and B2C market places and Cyber exchanges etc;
Human Resources Management	E-HRM, outsourced web based HR management, Distributed HRM etc;
Finance Management	Globalized economy, E-enabled financial data bases, IT in markets management etc;
Systems Management	ICE or IT Technology components, Networking, Sun and Microsoft and other Technologies, IT management, Knowledge management, Business Intelligence etc.

What is the objective of introducing IT subjects in Management Education? ???Is it to enable liberal arts graduates to become knowledgeable and apply IT in business problem solving Or is it to encourage technical & science graduates to imbibe and apply IT to managerial problem solving. I think that it is both.

Acquisition of certain level of IT skills is a prerequisite to the understanding of applying IT to management problems. If you look at successful top executives of IT empowered businesses, this fact becomes very clear.

2.Coverage of IT in MBA curriculum:

The present day MBAs, when they enter their careers, can be assumed to start at one of the categories listed below . Some may have to play a role that combines different categories. Their exposure to IT and related skills while doing MBA needs to be tailored to suit the typical demands of these roles. It is an attempt to classify before attempting the identification of subjects for various courses.

Typical roles of MBAs and IT strengths required

Category	IT strengths required
Line executives	Use of IT tools, PCs/laptops, application software and packages. Planning/sale of IT products.
Staff executives	In depth understanding and application of IT tools & technologies. Analysis using software tools.
Business Analysts	Use and application of IT to customer’s problems. Configuration and customization of software. Planning and managing IT solutions and projects. Planning Guiding and Development of software solutions.
IT marketing, E-HR, Systems Planning, infrastructure service providers and Entrepreneurs.	Tools and Technologies. Planning and managing IT projects. Development of solutions.

Being an MBA is good...Being a Technical engineer is also good...Being a Techno_MBA is The Best.What a Techno_MBA should possess???

THE M.B.A STUDENT
Domain Knowledge, I.T, E.R.P, Business Applications , E-commerce
Application Engg	Knowledge Base
Internet & Web Technologies Object Oriented Systems Analysis and Design Relational Data Base Management Systems J2EE, Dot Net Networking Advanced Topics in I.T.	S/W Engineering. & S/W Project Management Data Mining Business Intelligence Human Computer Interaction EnterpriseApplication Integration Industry Verticals IT Enterprise Management Artificial Intelligence

4. The end product:

With IT integrated MBA education as envisaged above; the management graduates who enter the work arena in the 21^st century will be empowered to play meaningful and successful role in the new globalized economy.

Whether MBAs should learn coding, develop and modify programs and applications ???

My answer has always been an unambiguous ‘Yes’. In a way this is a specific example of the philosophical discussion of the point. ‘Whether a manager should know what he has to manage or not’. Management graduates should be able to hold the IT bull by the horns and lead organizations to ride the bull-runs. This strength of leadership to lead IT enabled and networked organizations and their IT resources can be achieved, among others, by true understanding of the present day complex business software applications. To that extent mere mouthing of IT jargon (of which there is no dearth) will not lead one any where. Businesses are increasingly becoming knowledge based and technology enabled. To succeed in such exacting environs, understanding using and managing of IT becomes highly important. It is the sacred duty of educationists, academicians and teachers, to integrate IT in management education meaningfully.