MBA In South Africa

As the economic powerhouse of the African continent, South Africa serves as an inspiration to the entire world. Little over a decade ago, the country put aside years of racial divisiveness in favour of reconciliation - a process which was seen as nothing short of miraculous.

Since then, South Africa has re-occupied its place on the global stage and is experiencing an unprecedented rate of growth, with the demand for broad-based management skills reaching record highs. The MBA has become a sought after qualification and is equipping a new generation of South Africans with the tools necessary to compete with their international counterparts.

A growing market Today, South Africa is a pioneering force in the field of business education with established institutions offering 19 accredited MBA programmes of the highest calibre.

More than 4000 MBA students enroll at local business schools every year and as the country moves into a new era of opportunity, the demand for MBA graduates is set to grow.

"The overall demand for MBA graduates is driven by the huge need for business leadership in South Africa. As the country has globalised, the pressures on business have increased - and so has the need for really competent people," says Professor Nick Binedell, Director of the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Business schools of distinction
Few people are aware that South Africa was home to the first MBA outside of the USA. The Graduate School of Management at the University of Pretoria (GSM) was founded in 1949 and two years later, 25 graduates received their MBA degrees – the first to be awarded by a non-American university. The GSM joins other local business schools with a rich MBA history.

World-class institutions, at the cutting-edge of research, stretch across the country from scenic Cape Town (recently voted as one of the top 5 cities in the world by United States based magazine Travel and Leisure) to vibrant Johannesburg where the pace is relentless.

A multitude of MBA options
A wide variety of MBA options are available, which are tailour-made to suit individuals with specific needs or circumstances.

Full-time MBA programmes are commonplace and have proven to be particularly popular with international students, while those who prefer to continue working while they study have a number of part-time programmes to choose from. Other options include modular, supported distance learning as well as Internet-based MBAs.

The University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business offers an Executive MBA, which is designed to meet the needs of current and emerging business leaders. Dr. Ailsa Stewart-Smith, EMBA Director, says the programme “places emphasis on the value and application of experience and how academic content can develop the decision-making ability of people with significant work challenges and responsibilities.”

Depending on the option selected, the duration of programmes can vary from 1 to 5 years.

A balance between practice and theory
Having developed a global reputation for innovation and a “hands-on” approach to MBA education, South African institutions offer real-world learning, which is firmly rooted in the business sector.

MBA programmes are geared toward the fundamental aspects of business while allowing a level of specialisation through a range of electives. Globalisation, Project Management, Information Technology and Ethics are subjects that have received a great deal of attention and form part of curricula that have been benchmarked against international standards.

A cornerstone of many South African MBA programmes is the ability to provide an “overall” learning experience and students graduate with a solid grounding in both practice and theory.

“The structure of the MBA programme means it is more than just a qualification - it is a life-changing experience. Graduates are equipped to deal with the complexities and pressures of the modern world and can hold their own regardless of where they come from or where they operate,” says Elspeth Donovan, former MBA Director at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.

A high standard of teaching
A combination of local and international faculty contributes to the wealth of expertise available at South African business schools. Many lecturers hold PhDs or Masters degrees and are leaders within their respective fields, thus ensuring a high standard of instruction.

A testament to the quality of teaching in South Africa lies in the fact that many faculty go on to occupy leading positions at international business schools. Success stories include Professor Mike Page (Dean of Rotterdam School of Management), Professor Meyer Feldberg (Dean of Columbia Business School) and Professor Brenda Gourley (Vice-Chancellor of the Open University).

Strategic alliances with international academic institutions are utilised by business schools to maintain a constant influx of progressive knowledge. This collaboration with worldwide networks provides students with the latest in management thinking.

The student body
In addition to rigorous admissions criteria, appropriate work experience is a key requirement for successful acceptance into South African MBA programmes, with the average age of students being 34.

Business schools look for candidates who are experienced, disciplined and focused on their intended career paths in order to ensure that the learning environment is both challenging and intellectually stimulating.

A major effort has been made to address gender diversity and women now account for a growing percentage of the student body. As the continent’s Super Power, South Africa also attracts a large number of students from other African countries, which further contributes to the overall student mix.

Facilities and resources
Many South African business schools are blessed with state-of-the-art facilities. Purpose-built campuses, auditoriums, libraries, boardrooms, and top-of-the-range computer as well as Internet facilities, all form part of an infrastructure that compares with the best in the world.

Technology has impacted heavily on the South African MBA market. Online e-learning resources, sophisticated IT systems and wireless hotspots, enable students to remain in constant touch with lecturers as well as each other.

Current trends Business schools are recognising the need to adapt to the rapidly evolving business environment of the 21st Century and issues such as globalisation have become prominent features of local programmes.

MBA programmes are also beginning to reflect the needs of a changing South Africa. Racial and gender imbalances of the past are being rectified and structures have been implemented to ensure effective representation of the country’s demographics.

A trend toward entrepreneurial studies is gaining momentum and is influencing both the delivery and structure of traditional MBA models.

Evaluating the costs
Due to the favourable exchange rate, South African MBAs cost far less than overseas offerings.

Unity in diversity Diverse cultures, languages and beliefs are a hallmark of the South African landscape. This fusion of Western and African ideology forms the ideal platform to prepare for today’s global workplace and serves as a major draw card for the increasing number of international students.

“South Africa’s reality is that our environment is far more diverse than many others and for this reason our business training needs to be relevant to that diversity,” notes Professor Adrian Saville of the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute of Business Science.

As the birthplace of world icons such as Nelson Mandela, Gary Player, Desmond Tutu, Johan Rupert, Mark Shuttleworth and many others, South Africa is at the epicentre of a continental renaissance and is well set to provide students with the true MBA experience.

Book Review: Business Exposed

During my MBA, students were forever keen to sign up for finance MBA electives believing these would make them stronger managers. However, the older, more experienced executive MBAs would instead sign up for the organizational behaviour classes. Being not too keen on finance myself, I joined them.

They had realized something that the younger MBA students hadn’t yet figured out; that business is not just about numbers, it is ultimately about people and the more you understand how to motivate and manage people, the better.

Freek Vermeulen’s book explores just that. An associate professor of Strategic and International Management at London Business School, Vermeulen points out at the beginning of the book, “This isn’t a business book…it is a book about business.”

Rather than being a how-to book, setting out what to do if you want to make it big in business, Business Exposed takes the reader on a whirlwind tour, exposing the surprising and sometimes appalling realities of how business decisions are actually made.

“Because the world of business isn’t always what it pretends to be, things aren’t as rational, well-organized and well-oiled as we’re told they are.”

Vermeulen explores this and many other topics relating to business, questioning popular management decisions from adopting management tools that claim to increase efficiency, to downsizing as a way of saving money. Each story is short, easy to follow, with strong messages that are backed up with research and insights developed through his experiences.

Much of what he brings out in these stories is about how managers and CEOs make decisions on a day to day basis that often have nothing to do with facts or proven methods, such as the tools learnt in finance class. Rather, successful managers and CEOs make these decisions based on gut feeling, fear of being excluded and other very human traits. The result, according to Vermeulen, is that a lot of businesses simply imitate each other and don’t question the status quo for fear of taking risks.

Monkey management 

To illustrate his point, Vermeulen starts his book off with a story about monkeys. Five monkeys are placed in a locked cage with a banana hanging from the ceiling and a ladder placed right underneath it.

Understandably, one monkey runs straight for the ladder and is, along with the other four monkeys in the cage, instantly sprayed with ice cold water. This happens every time a monkey tries to climb the ladder so they stop trying.

Slowly over time, one by one the monkeys are replaced with new monkeys. Each time a new monkey enters the cage they go straight to the ladder. However before they can get to the ladder they are prevented by the other monkeys who know that they will be sprayed with ice-cold water. Soon none of the original monkeys are left in the cage, but still none of them will touch the ladder. None of them know why, or even try anymore.

This behaviour is not reserved just to monkeys in a cage.

In 1712, British newspapers came to be taxed on the number of pages published. To save money, editors decided to make the large pages that we find in broadsheet newspapers today (and which can be very tricky to read, especially in tight spots like trains or buses).

This tax was eliminated in 1855, but despite being considerably more expensive to print the large pages, the format persisted. Why? No one else changed for fear that that wasn’t what the customer wanted, until a few years ago when the free newspaper entered the industry using a smaller page format. Following this the other London newspapers soon followed, seeing sales figures surge.

 21st century management

With the use of case studies, the author tells us how whenever given the chance to quiz executives about their management practices and why they chose to pursue them, the answer was often along the lines of “everybody in our business does it this way, and everybody has always been doing it like this; if this wasn’t the best way to do things, I am sure it would have disappeared by now.”

Although sometimes a little US-centric, the book contains a wealth of short, easy to read stories such as these. Presented in a light-hearted way, it succeeds in bringing up some really important flaws in the way business works. The book is packed with interesting information and shows that a lot of what we assume to be fact in business is actually myth, and a lot of myth is actually fact.

For that reason it is an interesting read for business school students or anyone interested in going into business. It does something that perhaps business education in schools doesn’t do enough of; encourage future managers to question age old methods that are no longer significant to the 21st century.

-          Giselle Weybrecht, author of The Sustainable MBA