Some help on Job profiles for MBA - IT from Pagalguy

[Rohan Kamat]

1. Business Analyst: You act as an Interface between the customer and the delivery team. You are expected understand the business processes and the exact customer requirements and document them properly in a format that the delivery team (developers) understands. For being an effective BA, you should have knowledge of things like UML, RUP, Rational Rose etc. in addition to having a good domain knowledge. Experienced BAs become good IT Consultants. 2. Pre-Sales: Here you do things like responding to RFIs, RFPs and preparing client-specific presentations. Similar profile is that of a Business Development Manager. 3. Sales: Do I need to explain this one?   4. ERP Consultant: You are responsible for understanding the business processes of your customers and implementing packaged ERP software (like SAP) after making the necessary customizations. 5. Project Manager: Project Managers are involved in a project right from the stage of requirements gathering. They are required to do Planning, Estimation, Resource (People, Hardware, Software etc.) and time management. Tools like MS Project are heavily used by PMs. 6. HR Manager: Not much work  Kidding  Responsible for Recruitment, Appraisal, Employee retention, Career planning, Trainings etc. 7. Quality/Testing Manager: Suitable for people with testing/QA kind of background. Hope that helps. Good luck for your MBA. Cheers!  NOTE: The above info. is based on my personal experience and perception. Standard Disclaimers apply ;-)

Now, I'm currently working in a BA profile (for the moment) in one of the major Indian IT companies (I don't think the company name is of any relevance here because all of them are pretty much the same). You can read the Job description of BAs in the post that I quoted, my role is similar to that (but not limited to that only). My technical background (Bachelors + MBA Systems) helps me in speaking a technical language when I'm interacting with the Delivery Team (of my company) and my MBA degree helps me in understanding the customer needs. I can't go much deeper and disclose details because of the Project I'm involved in...I hope you understand  

Coming back to how MBA in Systems helps you in the Industry? The biggest advantage is that being an MBA, you get a preferential treatment everywhere (I don't know why )...somehow the top management trusts MBAs too much (even if they are freshers), gives them a lot of responsibilities (and hence learning opportunities)...sometimes the workload can become excessive because you need to be involved in every phase of SDLC and are expected to make valuable contributions, but all that is a lot of fun if you are passionate about technology  

I didn't know much about the life of an MBA Systems guy, but I specialised in Systems because of my passion for technology...you may do it because of some other reason. Doing my MBA in Systems helped me a lot because prior to that I had only some sort of bookish technical language and my way of thinking was not "Business oriented". I learnt more because of my teachers....my "Software Project Management" prof. is the CEO of an IT company with over 20 years of Project Management experience in Xerox, the person responsible for implementing SAP in Hero Honda taught me "Enterprise Resource Planning" and so on. I seem to be digressing from the topic now and this is becoming more of a Blog post, I'll stop here for now. I'm not sure whether this helped you or not but because you (Mr. thread starter) PM'ed me, I had an obligation to reply. In case you are not satisfied/want more information, you are most welcome to reply on this thread and I'll post back as and when time permits.

Cheers!