How the rise of executive MBA in India opens up more avenues

Even a decade back, the idea of management studies for working professionals hadn’t taken off. Now the scenario has changed.

In 2001, ISB Hyderabad introduced its one year executive MBA program for mid to senior level professionals. Since then a world of opportunities has opened up, providing a chance for career progression.

With an increasing number of professionals having better clarity of how they want to enhance their career options, full-time MBA programs are becoming the norm. To cater to their needs, numerous top B-Schools in India are now offering one-year executive MBA courses.

So, what are the factors behind the increase in such programs in India?

Rise in the number of students taking GMAT & GRE

As more and more professionals are preparing to get into the some of the top B-Schools of their choice, the number of students taking the GMAT and GRE is showing a steady rise. Studies have shown that there are around 85,000 students appearing for the GRE and 30,000 taking the GMAT. This number is only going to go up. This is where test prep services come into the picture.

Admission to the top B-Schools are getting tougher

The application process that students have to go through to get a seat in the B-School of their choice is quite rigorous and challenging. Despite being professionals with several years of experience, filling out the extensive application forms, appearing for interviews and then writing pages and pages of essays can get quite taxing. And it’s not just for one college. They’re applying to several B-Schools at once. Here, steps in the need for admission guidance and counselling. Test prep solutions and admission services can be offered as a package with options for personal tutoring, classroom preparation or self-learning. CrackVerbal’s admission services have garnered the reputation of helping students get admission to some of the top global B-Schools including Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg and London Business School, not to mention the best Indian colleges such as ISB and IIM.

More and more students aspiring for a global degree

Students who are working professionals now have the confidence to pursue a global degree or even work outside India. An executive MBA program comes in as the perfect opportunity to make a career switch. It provides the necessary tools and framework to bridge the gap between current and desired skills.With the rise in confidence, we can also a growth in the market size for such services. The market for executive MBA preparation services is estimated at more than Rs 1,000 crores.

Finance is not so much an issue

An executive MBA program in India is not a huge financial hurdle for mid-career professionals – it has been found that the average executive MBA graduate recovers his cost in less than three years. It has also been observed that many professionals opt for self-funding and pursue the program with or without a scholarship. For all these reasons, executive MBA programs have become just as, and perhaps even more desirable than regular MBA programs!

Now, when these professionals are ready to spend for the best educational program in India, why would they be thrifty when it comes to preparing for it? Considering the fact that they would be drawing a 50-74 per cent higher salary at a better company after completing their degree, students don’t mind paying money for their preparation.

Online learning is taking off

Since the students who are applying to executive MBA programs are professionals with full-time jobs or business owners looking to expand their managerial knowledge, attending regular classes can become a hassle. CrackVerbal has tapped into this need for a flexible learning format and provides online tutoring for such professionals. This online learning platform is a huge success with those looking to pursue a one-year MBA program.

With such flexibility, professionals who were earlier finding it difficult to prepare are now increasingly signing up for such online tutoring.

About the author:

Arun Jagannathan is the CEO and heads the academics and the marketing team at CrackVerbal. Having taught and mentored over 5000 students, Arun is considered among one of the leading GMAT tutors in the world. He has created the CrackVerbal GMAT and GRE curriculum from ground-up and oversees the quality of service delivery across products.