Demand for Data Managers Grows

The start of the new year means Round 2 MBA application deadlines are upon us! Congrats to all the applicants who received Round 1 decisions and are currently assessing which school to attend this fall. For those working on Round 3 applications, a reminder to follow our blog for essay guidance and development and contact us for expert guidance as you prepare and finalize your applications.

This week we’re featuring an article from Newsweek Media Exchange on the increasing market demand for MBA graduates. Opportunities are ripe across business sectors for recent MBA graduates, students seeking a summer internship, and MBA holders seeking a new role. Newsweek cites a study conducted by Fortune magazine in which 69% of MBA holders in the US, the UK, and Australia said they were approached in the last year by recruiters to switch companies; 50% of those offered a new position did change jobs.

Newsweek argues the MBA is in such high demand because businesses have growing mountains of data and need employees who can find insights, trends, and new innovative directions in that data. MBA programs are excellent training grounds for blending the art of data analysis with insight-driven decision making. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts an 8% annual growth in business management executive jobs through 2031, which equates to nearly 900,000 new management jobs created over the next decade in the U.S.

Notable findings on the growing importance include:

• PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC): an organization possessing a data-driven mindset is three times more likely to benefit significantly from data-driven improvements in decision making.
• McKinsey Global Institute: companies that are data-driven are more likely to attract new customers than companies that don’t.
• University of Texas: An estimated 1,000 companies could increase their revenue base by $2bn simply by increasing their data usage by 10%.

The fastest-growing career path for new MBA graduates is consulting. McKinsey claims to have more than 3,000 MBA graduates on its staff with Deloitte Consulting a very close second. At Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the practice areas most needing MBA talent are supply chain/logistics and life sciences/pharmaceuticals. In addition, M&A and turnaround situations also seek MBAs.