The buzz around e-commerce has been continuously increasing in India over the last decade. Leave aside regular online shopping; the adaptation of various other online purchases including movie tickets, travel tickets, hotel bookings and insurance policies is attracting many start-up entrepreneurial ventures.
The success of Flipkart, Ebay, Amazon, Makemytrip and matrimonial sites has played a big role is changing the market scenario. According to eMarketer – a research source for worldwide business to consumer (B2C) marketing, e-commerce sales will soon increase by 20.1 per cent and may reach up to $ 1,500 trillion. Popular social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn have also contributed towards uplifting social commerce and digital marketing.
Emergence of so many social platforms and e-commerce companies is sure to come up with various job opportunities. The shifting sands from brick and mortar to virtual clouds are demanding management resources with specialised skills and domain knowledge for a plethora of job positions.
Career progressionStudents look for ambitious jobs and careers, whereas companies look for skilled resources. The demand and supply gap is primarily due to mismatch between skilled and non-skilled workforce coming out of institutes. Students who can map this slight difference are not only certain to have well-paying jobs but they can also attract angel investors for their own venture funding.
In general, a fresher’s journey starts as a trainee, and gradually moves towards responsible positions. The positions then grow from executive levels, to senior executives, team leads, managers, unit heads, associate vice presidents, vice presidents, and can scale up to CEO levels. The responsibilities grow in tandem with job positions and pay checks.
Job responsibilityAfter graduating a management course, when you enter a corporate organisation, the learning begins horizontally and you grow vertically irrespective of various operational functions or departments that you may be in. The tip of the iceberg in an e-commerce venture is an online IT portal allowing people to buy or sell products or services. However, the larger arena invisible to the outside world is huge in terms of managing assets, stock units, warehousing, supply chain, distribution networks, vendors, marketing, finance, HR and so on. Generally, job responsibilities include managing these operational functions well. For those who aspire to excel rapidly, they will need to identify process and efficiency improvement opportunities and bring in innovations to stay a step ahead of competition.
Skills requiredApplying knowledge is important than knowledge itself. Identifying continuous process improvement opportunities, or Kaizen as Japanese call it, are very crucial. Documents, spreadsheets, or presentations are taken for granted; you need to have observations and analytical skills too. The way you handle crisis and perform in a stressful situation will be scrutinised. Communication skills, both written and oral, need to be at par. Handling a reporting structure or communicating with a colleague is also important.
EligibilityFor taking admission in MBA regular mode, student needs to be at least a graduate from any stream of commerce, art or science, from a recognised college or university. Students having good percentile in national level management aptitude tests such as MAT, CAT, CMAT, XMAT, GMAT are considered by regular MBA colleges. After considering the percentile, the intake procedure is followed by group discussions and personal interviews. Start your MBA preparation with focus on English – grammar, comprehension, reading and writing and also mathematics.
Selecting colleges Selection criteria should consider a vital set of aspects such as authorisations, affiliations, fees structure, placements, specializations offered, reputation of college, additional certifications, foreign exposure facilities, industry link up, exchange programmes, faculty experience and infrastructure. New methodologies like interactive classrooms, case methodology, class participation, student exchange programmes, guest lectures by industry specialist, and live projects during the course are some of the new upcoming trends.
(The author is director of GNIOT MBA Institute, Greater Noida.)
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