What can EMBA graduates bring to the tech startup culture?
Traditionally EMBA graduates have not always been associated with the tech startup culture but this trend has changed dramatically in recent years. Modern tech companies now see that there is real added value in hiring quality professionals and the chances for graduates to take on high level executive roles in startups is greater than ever before.
Marketing plays a crucial role in all companies, irrespective of the nature of their business. Most startups have a core team of technical experts and engineers who are masters at creating high quality products and innovative solutions. However, in many cases marketing is not one of their strong points.
Marketing is not just about promoting your product or business. It is a scientific field in its own right that requires careful market analysis, need identification/generation, segmentation, targeting, pricing and many other factors that demand specific expertise.
This is where EMBA graduates with marketing expertise can have a major impact as they know how to market products and businesses in a way that benefits their companies. HEC Executive Education also focuses on these skills for it’s MBA Students.
Growth and expansion specialists
Most startups begin with 1 to 5 people. In the startup phase, the key product conceivers and engineers invest their energies in creating a remarkable product that is financially viable and solves problems. In such small teams, communication is often informal, there are no clearly defined processes and most of the operations are based on the mutual understanding of the founders.
However, every startup needs to grow into a fully functional organization. This cannot be done without documenting best practices, building processes, developing communication channels and laying the foundation of a scalable organizational structure.
You can manage a 5-10 person company based on mutual understanding, but you can’t run a company with 100 or 200 employees without having proper procedures and well defined policies.
This is where EMBA graduates come in. They are experienced professionals who understand organizational hierarchies and realize that no business, no matter how creative, can grow without well-defined policies and procedures.
They can work closely with startup founders in developing procedures that are scalable and financially viable, and at the same time do not compromise the culture of innovation and creativity at the company.
Financial know-how
No matter how innovative and creative a business is, it needs to make profits by increasing sales and decreasing costs. Startup founders are usually short on cash so they need to make optimum use of their finances. However, as startups grow into bigger businesses, they can easily fall in the trap of spending unnecessarily on things that do not contribute directly to their growth.
EMBA graduates can use their financial expertise to make sure that startups remain profitable, especially when the company begins to grow and expand. They can indicate the cost centers and profit centers to startup owners and help them maximize profits and minimize costs by focusing on the right areas.
