Which is better for You – MBA Finance vs MBA Marketing

Are you an MBA aspirant caught in a dilemma about MBA in Marketing vs. MBA in Finance?

If you are looking to pursue MBA, then its good news, there is the whole list of MBA specializations in most of the MBA Colleges in India and the options will only keep improving every year as we are becoming a global education destination.

Consider a typical organisation or corporate, you will find 2 primary departments without which it is impossible to function – These departments are Finance & Marketing.

Naturally, the marketing department takes the responsibility of Sales / Marketing etc. which are revenue generating avenues while it is the finance team’s responsibility to manage that money that the company makes and arrange for operations and growth.

There are a number of things you have to consider while choosing the right MBA course in India. There are a lot of influencing factors which you need to consider before taking a final decision about MBA admission, like your skill set, areas of interest, the subjects you have always liked, your personality traits etc. There are several other things which you may also want to consider like earning potential, the scope of the profile, work-life balance etc.

In this article, we will compare top MBA course specializations in India which are MBA Finance and MBA Marketing which will definitely help you to take your decision.

1. Finance Vs. Marketing: Skill Set/Essential Traits:

MBA in Finance:

Personal Skills for Finance: Good analytical skills, Problem Solving, Great Memory, Quantitative skills, Inquisitive mind, Cautious while risk-taking.

Technical Skill Set for Finance: A commerce graduate, Excel skills, Macros, Capital Budgeting, Risk Management, Tally, Knowledge of Financial Instrument, Bank Statements etc.

MBA in Marketing:

Personal Skills for Marketing: Supremely creative, Result Oriented, Great Communication skills, Knowledge-seeker, Habit of achieving the target.

Technical Skill Set for Marketing: Good understanding of marketing strategies, know the target market and Customer, Hard approach towards sell and communication with the customer, SWOT analysis.

2. Finance vs. Marketing Education Required:

MBA in Finance: Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor in Finance & Accounts, Bachelor in Economics, Bachelor in Mathematics etc.

MBA in Marketing: Any graduation degree is acceptable for this course. It’s all about understanding of how to promote your products and services to customers.

3. Finance vs. Marketing – Nature of Job:

MBA in Finance: In this field you must have good analytical skills where you will always be playing with numbers. Your main responsibility will be how to get funds for business. After receiving the funds, how you are going to invest those funds to get the maximum ROI from the investment. You need to manage a company’s profit where it will be beneficial for the company in the long run.

MBA in Marketing: As a marketing professional, your constant efforts will lead to keeping your brand image intact in the customer’s mind. As a primary job, you need to perform various market research activities to understand your customer at a deep level. You need to fill the gap between your product and services to various activities like social media marketing, Google ads, sales promotion, email marketing etc. You must analyze your activities, customer feedback and improve further in your marketing activities.

4. Finance Vs Marketing – Career Options

MBA in Finance:

List of Career Options after MBA in finance:

Accounting Manager

Chief Financial Officers

Investment Banking Associate

Credit Managers & Specialists

Financial Analyst

Finance Officers & Treasurers

Insurance & Risk Managers

Investing Sales Traders & Associates

Estate Planner

MBA in Marketing:

List of Career Options after MBA in Marketing:

Accounting Manager

brand manager,

marketing manager

product manager

media planner

market research analyst

Internet marketing manager

5) Finance Vs Marketing – Work – Life Balance:

MBA in Finance:

As finance professional, work-life balance changes from one position to other. E.g. investment banking professional, corporate finance employees may have to work for long hours to meet the requirement of clients than other finance professionals like Financial Analyst or equity research teams.

MBA in Marketing:

In the case of marketing professionals, employees who are connected with sales may have to work for long working hours. But people who work as a market research analyst, social media executive may not need to stay for a long time in office.

As an employee, you must look for companies who encourage work/life balance to their employees. There is a list on glassdoor.com, in which you can check “Top 25 Companies for Work/Life Balance,” based on employee feedback.

6) Finance Vs Marketing – Pros and Cons

Pros of Finance Career:

• There are number career choices in finance domain than any other domain.
• Your chances of getting the right job increases in the finance domain.
• If you have excellent technical skills like financial reporting, valuation, financial modeling etc. then chances of getting success is much higher.

Cons of Finance Career:

• Work pressure is always their finance domain. It will be a bit less for the ones who work in core finance domain.
• Employees work in general finance get less paid than employees work in core finance domain.

 

Pros of Marketing Career:

• You will have a great work-life balance as a marketing professional.
• You may hardly work beyond your scheduled work hours.
• As a marketing professional, you get paid well as you are helping your company to generate revenue.

Cons of Marketing Career:

• As a marketing professional, you experiment with various strategies, take out of the box actions and you may have failures from which you have to learn and start again.
• You always have to present yourself well to make a mark and succeed as a marketing professional.

7) Finance Vs Marketing Top Professionals:

Famous Finance Professionals:

Warren Buffett CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

Raghuram Rajan

Vikram Pandit

Famous Marketing Professionals:

Seth Godin

Neil Patel

David Ogilvy

We have listed all the points above which will help you to choose between MBA in Finance and MBA in Marketing. The most important factor here is you must know what are your real strengths, which of the skill sets matches with you closely.  Mostly MBA in finance is more preferred by most students globally. However, MBA in marketing has its own merits.

If you love number crunching, having that introvert personality, if you are a critical thinker and has a good analytical mindset then MBA in finance is well suited for you. On the other hand, if you are an extrovert, Out of the box thinker and a result oriented person then MBA in marketing you can consider.

We also advise you to consider the career growth in each stream, your return on your education investment as well.

We hope this article has helped you to clear your confusion about MBA in Finance vs. MBA in Marketing. Thanks for reading and we wish you all the best for your future endeavors!