MBA's in the IT industry
The placement seasons has already started and fight for the top job has already begun. IT companies are the biggest recruiters in terms of number of people they hire in many of the top business schools. But students are always apprehensive about joining these companies since many of them have prior experience in IT and they don’t want to go back to same sector which they came from. They are of the opinion “Why should I go back to the same sector when I have spent two crucial years of my life to get away from it”. Most of them are of this opinion but not all. This article is about role of a MBA graduate in an IT company and clears some of the myths which many of you have.
For starters, do not expect finance role or marketing, branding role to be offered. There are these kind of role in the IT company but very few and far in between. Primarily, MBAs are absorbed in three kinds of roles:
• ERP Consulting
• Domain Consulting
• Presales
ERP consulting: ERP, which is an abbreviation for Enterprise Resource Planning, is principally an integration of business management practices and modern technology. Information Technology (IT) integrates with the core business processes to streamline and accomplish specific business objectives. ERP is a blend of three most important components; Business Management Practices, Information Technology and Specific Business Objectives. There are many software packages available in the market ex. Oracle, SAP etc which automate these business processes. These packages are designed considering the best practices followed in a particular industry. As a ERP consultant your role will be suggest your customer the best fit software package for its line of business. You should have expertise in the package in terms of its offerings. You should be able understand customer’s business and implement those business processes in the package. Most of the times, there will not be 100% fit between package offerings and customer’s business. As an ERP consultant you will identify the gaps between the actual business process and what package has to offer. Depending on cost benefit analysis either business process has to change or you will have to customize the package. It’s ERP consultant’s responsibility to justify whether to go for customizations or change the process itself to fit the package offerings. The day to day activities of ERP consultant will include conduct meetings with the client to understand their processes, document these processes, prepare solution design in case of customizations, explain these processes to the technical consultants who will eventually build the customizations, prepare test cases to cover various business scenarios. These are some of the areas of responsibility of ERP consultant. To be a successful ERP consultant you should have sound domain knowledge and strong hold on the ERP package. ERP implementation includes following organizational processes together with a central database repository: Financials (Accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, general ledger, cash management, and billing), Human Resources Planning (Recruitment, benefits, compensations, training, payroll, time and attendance, labor rules, people management), Supply Chain Management (Inventory management, supply chain planning, supplier scheduling, claim processing, sales order administration, procurement planning, transportation and distribution), Customer Relationship Management (Sales and marketing, service, commissions, customer contact and after sales support).
Domain Consulting: The difference here is that there is no software package included here. You will work in one of the verticals example manufacturing, banking and help customers leverage IT to improve their efficiency. You will be domain expert suggesting client best practices to be included in their IT solution.
Presales: This includes working on proposals to be presented to the customer in response to the Request for proposal (RFP). Proposal is basically a document providing details how the entire solution will be built. It will be include details like software architecture to be followed, manpower requirement, pricing, value added by your company etc. It’s an important document which will help your company win deals. Your responsibility includes understanding the customer business, providing best solution and coming out with the document that explains all of these. Initially, this role may not interest you much since you will have not expertise in the relevant area but over due course of time you will gain expertise as you handle multiple proposals.
Do not opt for placement in IT company thinking it’s finance job or marketing job even if you are promised finance domain or CRM because ultimately it’s IT with some relation to finance or marketing.
