IT students confirm that MBA programmes pave the way to senior management for technical specialists in the region
7X October 2011 (Dubai, UAE): Manchester Business School (MBS) – one of the world’s leading business schools – is launching a special MBA offer for visitors to GITEX 2011, with reduced MBA tuition fees for those applying for a part time Global MBA programme at the show. The offer will run till October 17th 2011 to allow time for prospective students at GITEX to apply for a Global MBA programme.
MBS will present its range of part-time Global MBA programmes at GITEX, for the first time, in response to the strong demand for MBAs from professionals working in the regional industry. The school already has a high proportion of MBA students from the ICT sector - around 30 per cent of more than 1,000 MBA students in the region are employed in ICT, including senior managers from some of the world’s best known IT and technology companies.
The MBA programme is proving to be especially popular for IT technical specialists looking to move into more general management.
Manchester Business School MBA student, Anil Kumar is a senior support engineer for a software company, based in Dubai and a career technologist. He studied communications engineering in London and moved straight into a technical role. He works at a very technical level with customers and is only now, as he reaches the end of his MBA programme, looking to make progression into general management.
Anil Kumar explains: “I have worked in IT for 15 years and always at a technical level, first as an IT administrator and then as IT manager, until I became fed up with hardware and moved into software, then decided that I had had enough of the tech stuff and wanted to move up, from the technical to the managerial level.”
Finding the right school and MBA programme was a challenge: “I wanted a reputable school and a flexible programme because working in IT means that no two days are the same,” he says. “One day you can be working very late and the next you could be working at a customer site for weeks or even months, so I could not stick to a regular study pattern. I also wanted a programme that would change my mindset and way of thinking but I didn’t want to specialise in any specific area and rather wanted to gain a good overall understanding of an organisation.”
Anil has completed his MBA coursework and is now embarking on the final stage of his MBA programme – the project phase – in which he will focus on his own company.
“The MBA has definitely helped raise my profile and made me more marketable within my company. I am now transitioning into a new role and partly because the MBA has given me the tools to move into senior management. I cannot imagine making this transition without an MBA and would rather be well prepared to deal with the challenges that you face in senior management.”
The MBS Middle East Centre in Dubai opened in 2006 and passed the 1,000 MBA student milestone in the July 2011 intake. Located at Dubai Knowledge Village, UAE, the centre is the largest and fastest growing in the school’s international network. With the MBS Global MBA programme, working professionals can choose between four learning pathways – Finance, Engineering, Project Management, and Global (General Business) programme – which include a minimum of 250 hours of face to face workshops with Manchester faculty and peers, conveniently hosted in Dubai.
“We are continuing to see strong demand for our part time Global MBA programmes in the Middle East and especially the ICT sector, which accounts for around 30 per cent of our MBA students,” says Ms Randa Bessiso, Director Middle East, Manchester Business School. “The sector has an abundance of well educated professionals building international careers and our MBA programmes are helping to facilitate the transition into broader general management roles for technical specialists in the industry.”
www.mbs.ac.uk/dubai
Notes for editors:
Manchester Business School is the UK's largest campus-based business and management school. It provides a comprehensive range of undergraduate, postgraduate and custom-made executive programmes, for organisations from both the private and public sectors. Manchester Business School holds triple MBA accreditation – AMBA, EQUIS, AACSB. All successful MBA students are awarded a degree by the University of Manchester and no distinction is made between the different learning formats – all have reached the same high standard expected of a Manchester MBA.
Issued on behalf of MBS Middle East by WPR.
Media contacts:
Jonathan Walsh
WPR
Tel: + 971 50 4588610
Email: jon@wprme.com
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