MBA (Master of Business Administration - Master of Business Administration) is a business education program that trains specialists of higher and middle management levels. This type of education is necessary for productive work not only in business, but also in state and municipal government.

Graduates of MBA programs have training in marketing, finance, human resource and project management, general and strategic management, etc. Upon completion of the course, a diploma of advanced training is issued. Such a diploma is a material confirmation of qualification and professional competence graduate. Today, the MBA is a prestigious degree for a manager.

A little history of MBA in Russia

In 1994, an analogue of the Western MBA appeared in Russia, which began to be offered by many universities. This format is also used now when they want to get a business education. But MBA graduates of this format often remain unsatisfied. But the benefits should not be underestimated. Russian programs MBA. They are built on Russian material, training is in progress in Russian, students and teachers-practitioners mainly represent Russian business. However, the difference lies in the fact that the business school around the world is educational institution, which, unlike the university, focuses on teaching practical business skills.

In order for business training to bear fruit, not enough theoretical knowledge . Business disciplines should be taught by a person with extensive practical experience behind him. In the university, the teachers are mainly theorists, who in parallel give lectures on textbooks in the main courses. In addition, business disciplines are almost impossible to build into state program magistracy, in which theoretical disciplines prevail. As a rule, the format of such training has little in common with the original source (western MBA).

The system of education in a business school is a fundamentally different format. When choosing a business school, it is important to pay attention to who its graduates are. This is the environment in which the participant will be for several months, these are his future business contacts. Such contacts are no less a goal when studying in the MBA format than gaining knowledge and skills. This also applies to teachers, who may also have useful connections for the participant. Of particular value is the interactive format, when during the training there is a continuous exchange of experience and knowledge between students and the teacher. Case methods used in such a learning format help to comprehend various business situations and model ways to solve problems that are searched for in a group of like-minded people. This often leads to the birth of new ideas. A business school is a specific educational environment, a kind of knowledge accumulator, where real examples from the practice of the participants.

Mini MBA is a fundamentally new format

In 2003, the Russian School of Management introduced a fundamentally new format to the Russian market - the Mini MBA. It was based on a similar format that appeared in China in the 90s. When the market there began to develop rapidly and there was an acute shortage of managers in various areas. However, business could not afford to train specialists in the classical format, they did not have three years. So there was a concentrated course - Mini MBA. This model was adapted to Russian specifics.

There is no single format for Mini MBA in Russia, but the most optimal is training lasting 6 months. It fully maintains the idea of ​​the Western MBA, containing a certain set of specific courses, broken down by key functions business: leadership, management, marketing, finance, sales and personnel. But in the case of the Mini MBA, these disciplines are presented in a more concentrated form, with the emphasis on the most necessary and basic. The peculiarity of this format lies in the fact that the manager receives not only training in each of the areas, but also a general understanding of how the business is built in the complex. This is very important for a manager who is not an expert in all areas within one business. It is very difficult to be a professional at the same time in such areas as marketing, finance and personnel, but you need to understand how each of these processes works, you need to speak the same language with specialists, properly manage and communicate between departments.

To participate in the formation of the company's policy, it is important for the manager to know, see and be able to influence the control points by which he can determine the state of affairs and the company's position in each direction. This is the idea of ​​comprehensive training in the concentrated Mini MBA course. At the same time, it is the face-to-face format of education that is important, since live communication in a group and with an expert teacher plays an important role.

Who should study under the Mini MBA program?

Usually, it is the manager who first starts training for the Mini MBA, when the company is successfully developing, there are certain results, but the next step is required (and there may be several such steps). At such a moment, the manager is dominated by operational thinking and thinks only about solving current problems. He needs to learn to think strategically about how the company will develop in the future. He must “get out” of operational thinking and “jump” into strategic thinking.

However, not only the head and owner of the business should understand business processes. For example, in the practice of the Russian School of Management, more and more often there is a tendency to study on the Mini MBA course not only management team companies. The owner of the company comes to study, then sends the CEO to the Mini MBA course. He, in turn, sends the leaders of the directions to be trained. After that, each of the leaders trains the leading employees of their direction (functional management) at the Mini MBA, although they are not managers. This approach to training contributes to a more productive development of relations between departments, the search for new business solutions within the company, increasing employee loyalty and team cohesion. As a result, after training according to this scheme, the company can make a serious breakthrough in its development.

If you choose a school to study in regional cities, and not in the capitals, pay attention to the program and Teaching Staff. It is extremely important that the program is presented by the same teaching team, and that the training is carried out in a single standard, using the same technologies, tools and models, regardless of the place of training.

The Mini MBA is clearly a professional retraining program that retains its merits and benefits modern education in the field of management, but at the same time, strictly focused on practical solutions.

Nikolay Kozlov,

Head of Mini MBA at the Russian School of Management,

In addition to traditional MBA programs, the mini-MBA direction exists and is actively developing on the market. Let's say right away that mini-MBA is not truncated MBA, but an independent training program, which is based on approaches, materials, cases and practical tasks from MBA.

The mini-MBA training is a short-term program based on the classical MBA training and its benefits, approaches and formats. In a sense, a mini-MBA can be called short course MBA.

What does the mini-MBA program include?

Often courses are divided into basic (mini-MBA General) and industry-specific (mini-MBA Professional). In the "market average" mini-MBA program includes several main modules:

• Management and strategy.
• Marketing.
• Finance.
• HR (personnel management).
• Management and leadership.
• And some other modules (their availability depends on the business school).

Industry-specific mini-MBA Professional programs, as a rule, supplement the basic program with some block dedicated to the chosen field. This can be retail, construction, project management, manufacturing (sometimes there are deeper specializations such as the oil and gas sector), insurance, and much more.

Advantages and disadvantages of a mini-MBA

First about the pros:

• Mini-MBA is short term training, which lasts from 3 to 12 months. Most often, six months. This allows you to improve your qualifications and gain the necessary skills in a short time.
• Mini-MBA training significantly cheaper its namesake MBA. For comparison: a full-time MBA program can cost 300-600 thousand rubles, and a good mini-MBA training costs about 40 thousand rubles.
• Mini-MBA courses are based on practical approach to learning(the so-called Harvard case method) and the MBA curriculum. The skills and knowledge that students receive after training can be easily used in business.
• Simple admission conditions. Typically, an average or higher education and knowledge of the Russian language (or other national language - Ukrainian, Kazakh, etc.).
• Often, mini-MBA training is distance learning, which is very convenient in some cases. Can study from anywhere in the world, as well as adjusting your studies to your work and vacation schedule.
• After graduation, you may still have access to all lessons in the business school's internal online system. You can always go back and review the desired block.

There are also cons:

• Alas, the mini-MBA No common standard on the market. Every The educational center under this name means something of its own. For example, you can find learning programs duration of 40 and 500 academic hours.
• If the mini-MBA courses are remote, there will be little communication and exchange of experience with colleagues and teachers in the process (study takes place almost individually).
• Mini-MBA not listed abroad(they have only recently begun to have such programs) and issues diplomas for advanced training or retraining. If you are planning to go to work abroad, you are better off choosing an MBA program from a business school accredited by the AMBA association. It will be really expensive, but it will open up great career opportunities in Europe, the US or other parts of the world.

On the Russian market business education, for more than five years a special educational product has been operating under the name mini-MBA. The first such programs appeared before the crisis of the late 2000s, but it was during the recession that they flourished. Mini-MBAs attracted the fact that, as business schools promise, « in such programs, you can get an MBA degree for much less money and spending much less time.

Features of mini-MBA programs

After analyzing the Russian mini-MBA market, we can say with confidence that only the name comes from the MBA in these programs. No matter how high-quality the training here is, to master the curriculum of this MBA programs in three months or half a year (that's how long mini-MBA courses usually last) is impossible. Therefore, Russian mini-MBA programs are advanced training or professional retraining programs designed for managers and usually have a specific industry or functional focus (specialization).

Business schools, in principle, do not hide this fact, directly indicating what diplomas and certificates the participants of these programs will receive upon completion (shorter programs are about professional retraining, longer programs are about advanced training).

Many schools offer classes on an individual schedule, and some even offer remote programs, such as Moscow business school, "Synergy" and the Moscow School of New Economics). True, the magic word MBA still does its job, and the cost of such programs is still higher than the cost of traditional retraining or advanced training.

In Moscow, such programs are offered by a number of universities, including the mini-MBA of Moscow State University. RUDN mini-MBA programs have been very popular for a long time, but now RUDN University does not offer mini-MBA programs.

Mini-MBA MSU is offered in a double degree format in conjunction with American Business Studies.

The cost of mini-MBA programs

The cost of mini-MBA programs differs quite widely. Mini-MBA in Moscow costs from 40,000 to 200,000 rubles. The most inexpensive programs at the Moscow School of New Economics - mini-MBA Professional can be mastered here for 35 thousand rubles. At Moscow Business School, programs cost 50,000 rubles. All of these are remote programs. The cost of full-time mini-MBA is significantly higher. In Synergy, for three months of training (72 hours), you will have to pay from 105 thousand to 180 thousand rubles, in MIRBIS the cost of a 7-8-month program is 116 thousand rubles. In the same price category of the PRUE program. G.V. Plekhanov.

Find out more about which programs mini-MBAs are offered by Russian business schools how much they cost and how to adjust training to fit your schedule, you can always

Mini-MBA is a Russian marketing invention for the name of independent management training programs. After completing the mini-MBA course, students receive either a certificate of professional development or a diploma of professional retraining.

What does mini-MBA mean?

The courses positioned as mini-MBA are not a shortened cycle of training masters of business administration (masters of business administration), but a separate type of training that can be called just a “namesake” of real MBA programs.

There are no general standards for the mini-MBA format, so each educational institution under this brand can offer anything: short courses, weekly seminars, two-day trainings, 200-hour advanced training and six months of professional retraining. Accordingly, mini-MBA graduates become holders of any documents, but not an MBA diploma and do not receive an MBA degree.

Russian mini-MBAs abroad are not recognized and are not considered training related to the MBA.

Did you know that the Mini-MBA program of 512 academic hours can be completed remotely not in half a year, but in just 2.5 months external?

For example, choosing to study at IPO under MBA programs with an internship in Prague, you get 3 days full of interesting lectures and meetings, and competent assessment of your dissertation leading professors of Bohemia. At the same time, you receive Russian diploma MBA+ 2 European diplomas MBA.

In Western business schools, specialized short courses are called seminars or management development programs, but not mini-MBAs.

Features of training and cost

Most experts believe that mini-MBA in the Russian Federation is not much superior to ordinary retraining programs and advanced training courses in the field of production management, personnel, and finance. Nevertheless, representatives of Russian business schools emphasize that mini-MBA programs use advanced foreign practices and teaching methods, which is the reason for the high cost of courses.

The fact that a manager has a mini-MBA certificate in Russia is an indicator, first of all, of prestige, but not a guarantee of the quality of education. The price of feigned significance ranges from 50 to 160 thousand rubles.

Mini-MBA programs, unlike classical ones, do not contain such disciplines as business etiquette, Information Technology in business, foreign language, statistics, etc. Representatives of individual business schools assure that their mini-MBA is a kind of symbiosis of standard master's programs and training sessions that retain all the basic elements of a regular MBA in an abbreviated format, but add more interactive sessions, and reduce the time allotted for the presentation of theoretical knowledge to the minimum possible.

Of course, the knowledge gained in the mini-MBA cannot be called absolutely useless. Often business schools offer corporate training for the personnel of a particular enterprise. The content of the program can be adjusted according to the needs of the customer organization. In the classroom, employees will diagnose and analyze the state of the company. Quite often, student graduation projects become full-fledged consulting products, the application of which in practice significantly improves the functioning of the company.

Business schools with mini-MBA

Programs that can be attributed to the mini-MBA format are offered by many business schools in the Russian Federation, including authoritative participants in international tops and leaders in Russian ratings. But most of them honestly warn that they issue retraining diplomas that do not contain the word MBA anywhere (for example, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, although the term mini-MBA is used in the name of the programs) or IBDA RANEPA:

1. IBDA RANEPA ("Point of Growth". Professional retraining program mini-MBA).
2. REU them. G. V. Plekhanova (“Internet marketing and e-commerce”, Entrepreneurship for business owners”, “Analytical marketing”).
3. Graduate School of Management, National Research University Higher School of Economics (“Company Sales and Marketing Management (Mini-MBA))”.
4. Moscow Business School (MINI-MBA Professional, 7 modules - management: sales, logistics, projects, marketing, finance, personnel; General Management).
5. MIRBIS (13 specializations from IT management to anti-crisis management).
6. RSHU (“Business Development in 6 Months”).
7. MAB ("Effective Management" and 4 programs for personnel management, marketing, operations, finance).
8. MBA School, Moscow (MBA School). In the mini-MBA section, it offers fifteen 80-hour continuing education courses.

Studied:

• leadership and effective work of the head;
• operational, strategic management;
• marketing and sales administration;
• project and personnel management;
• financial management.

Graduates become owners of not only Russian documents on professional retraining, but also EDLEA diplomas with an application. An international diploma from a European association for the accreditation of distance learning courses looks very respectable, but there is no hint of a connection with MBA programs in it:

The CBS diploma of its own design mentions the MBA standard, but the prefix mini nullifies the statement about belonging to the Masters of Business Administration brand family:

The course organizers claim that their mini-MBA program is recognized not only in the Russian Federation, but also in the EU. But so far, not a single case has been recorded when a graduate of a Russian MBA of a reduced format without receiving a quality education in the United Kingdom, Europe or the USA would be hired by a large foreign company.

Good afternoon friends. All my life I have been constantly learning something new, attending various courses and trainings on my topics - sales, marketing, advertising. In July 2015 became individual entrepreneur and thought about getting a business education.

Many people may not agree with me, but I believe that short-term refresher courses often bring more benefits than higher education. Of course, I do not mean, for example, doctors. They need to know a lot, so they study for a long time. I'm talking about courses for accountants, managers, salespeople.

(European Distance Learning and Education Association) with a European application:

How do you like the prospects? I think it's tempting. To this it must be added that you can study completely remotely, without interrupting your main job, at any time convenient for you, from anywhere in the world where you have access to the Internet.

It remains to answer the most important question:

How much does the MINI-MBA study cost?

Today you can study the MINI-MBA Professional program at City Business School. This is a unique opportunity worth taking advantage of, especially if you have long dreamed of getting a business education through the MINI-MBA program.

Details on City Business School official website. Fill out the form and freeze your tuition discount. After the end of the promotion, the cost of training will increase again. Hurry up to apply for training!

Have you already completed MINI-MBA refresher courses? Please share your experience and impressions with the readers of the School of Effective Sales blog in the comments.