Today’s globalised world is characterised by greater business and trade facilitations between nation states & a strong impetus towards entrepreneurial ventures. As students complete their 12^th standard examinations, both students and their parents grapple with which course or program to choose from amongst the diverse range of options that are presented to today’s young generation. Once they zero down to the discipline of ‘Management Courses’ at the undergraduate level, the next dilemma that they seem to face is a choice amongst the provided program alternatives; namely a BMS (Bachelor of Management Studies) and a BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration).

While at the outset, a BMS program may look like a twin of a BBA program, that is not really the case. The similarities end the moment we start looking at the duration, course content, and the pedagogy involving these two programs.

Starting with the eligibility criteria, a BMS program tends to attract students primarily from a Commerce background as against a BBA program which would invite diversity into the class by inducting Class 12^th students from all streams ranging from Science, Arts and Commerce.

A BMS program introduces the students to the domain of management by exploring various management theories, postulates of various management thinkers, and the evolution of management as a domain. In essence, a BMS program continues with the theory and concept-based approach. By contrast, the BBA program is more focused around making the students ‘jobs ready’. Hence, the course content of a BBA program will involve a dash of theory but will involve more of contemporary and practical topics such as Communications, Economics, Marketing and Sustainability which would make the curriculum broader and in-trend with what is occurring in the corporate world.

Let us walk through an example around how a BBA program helps mould a student’s career. A BBA program would equip the student with soft skills such as Business Communication (email drafting, presentation skills, debating skills, teamwork skills) to World Cultures (cross-cultural understanding of business dealings across countries & geographies) to Principles of Management (business dilemmas, ethical scenarios, leadership skills, start-up skills).

In addition to qualitative skillsets, a BBA student would get to explore the quantitative side of things by exploring MS Excel and research techniques.

Soft skills would then be complemented by practical skills which would involve working on internship opportunities with an actual organisation for a period of 1 to 3 months between the semesters. In a traditional BMS program, students may get to work around some industry-oriented projects but are more integrated into the program.

A BBA program will offer vistas into specific functional domains such as Marketing, Finance and Entrepreneurship as against a BMS program that could give exposure to more of generic management roles. BBA programs are generally offered by a host of private universities such as SP Jain School of Global Management as against a BMS program which would be offered by select institutions such as University of Mumbai or University of Delhi to name a few.

Both BMS & BBA programs would offer further growth pathways into post-graduate MBAs (Master of Business Administration) or MSc (Master of Science) in Sustainability, Strategy or Entrepreneurship.

In summary, BBA is broader and more versatile, while BMS offers greater depth in management and decision-making. The choice depends on the student's interests, career goals, and preferred learning style.

At SP Jain School of Global Management, students in the BBA program (which is a 4-year program) get to study BBA across multiple global cities ranging from Dubai, Singapore, London & Sydney, which brings in an additional factor of international exposure especially during the internship programs.

About the Author

Professor Shrinivas Shikaripurkar is an adjunct faculty at SP Jain Global. He mentors students in the areas of Digital Marketing, Applied Business Research and Principles of Management to name a few. He is also a Strategic Marketing Advisor to a Swedish Hospitality major in partnership with Stanford Seed Initiative.