Monday, February 2, 2009

Even an MBA can do IT



The above title is a little game of words taken from the famous FedEx ad shown at the beginning of this post. Since I have recently finished my MBA studies, and I'm working in the IT field for more than 5 years, I would like through this blog to overcome the gap between these two interconnected fields: Business and Information Technology.

The ad is basically reinforcing the common prejudice among technical people that managers (especially those with MBA title) are just a bunch of mediocre guys in fancy suits who are only competent in talking and making life tougher for the people who do the real work. On the other hand, the reality is that MBA is now on the height of its popularity, and more and more people with technical and engineering background are graduating from MBA studies and filling the ranks of managers and consultants.

The world is never black-and-white, and there are few businesspeople that are incompetent and arrogant as the guy in the above ad, as there are really few IT persons that are experts only in IT and dysfunctional in any other aspect of life - which is other misconception commonly held among businesspersons (and technical people too!) In modern world spheres of business and IT are so interconnected that good understanding between these two "worlds" is crucial for the progress of the many aspects of society. So, in the next few posts I will try to explain a difference in perception between these two groups of people that is causing a lot of misunderstanding in the work.