The Hidden Illness of Enterprises - Personal Statement Example

1. Describe your career progress to and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect an MBA from Wharton to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? How has your candidacy improved since the last time you applied? To analyze, identify and rectify the hidden illness of enterprises had been my area of interest and expertise. These skills of problem identification and rectification helped me to bring in innovative reforms in all enterprises which came along the progress of my career. I started my career with the battery division of Sony as a sales officer. The times saw the battery division limping far behind the other departments of Sony in terms of sales and revenue. I analyzed the issue and addressed the problem by preaching the “Sony Team Spirit’ within the team which initiated cross-division collaboration. This resulted in the packaged sale of the battery along with other Sony products like T.V, Camera and Music Systems which within itself contributed 30 percent rise in the revenue of my division. My analytic skills brought me the opportunity to work as Asian market analyst at DSM. The market data model as well as the marketing and sales strategy-decision platform which existed was found be too much outdated to compete with the rising demands of the corporate world. I renovated the platform and established a team which monitored all aspects of business including market trends and hidden problems. The idea proved to be efficient as this strategic platform was widely applied in thirteen countries and contributed greatly to DSM’s global growth. Eventually DSM global headquarters included this system in its Corporate Vision 2010. In 2006, I took the position of Business Development manager at DSM. The price war was eating up the sustainable growth of the organization and its products. My strategy for this problem was to differentiate DSM as a customer oriented solution provider rather than a mere product supplier. My market analysis strategically led us to three emerging markets, giving us the advantage of an early-driver. I developed a business ecosystem in symbiosis with other organizations producing relative products. A united fleet of service providers was established resulting in more than twenty collaborative projects a year which generated sales revenue more than 1 million USD. As I grew in experience, I could envisage my prospect in helping the domestic Chinese companies to attain a global level. This thought eventually evolved my long term-goal to become Chief Strategy Officer of a Chinese plastics company. Being in the market for so long, I could diagnose the setbacks of the Chinese companies in competition with its global competitors. Foreign companies had taken over the Chinese market as the domestic companies lacked effective market strategies. I could clearly define my role in leading the Chinese companies to a global level, as I was well backed by the experience accumulated from the corporate giants. My plan was to turn these companies into market oriented service providing entities. The services rendered could be better sold by initializing a strong network of partners from both upstream and down stream of the concerned product sourcing line. By creating a symbiotic relationship, all the partners would automatically promote sales for each other. A global technology platform also could be established allowing free download of technology segments which would attract potential clients. I dreamed of captioning the steady increase of productivity and eventually the competence of Chinese plastic and other related industries. A search into the possibility of finding a job serving my long term objective brought me many job offers and information on the onuses of such designations. On reviewing my capabilities against the ones which the industry demanded, I could find a few gaps in between. As to bridge the gulf, working with a global consulting company’s Chinese branch for some years and to do an MBA was set as my short term career goal. This decision was based on the belief that working with a multinational like McKinsey could give me a global perspective. This would be a perfect preparation to understand global business ecosystem before entering into the hot seat of corporate strategy president of a domestic company. Moreover the wide variety of projects offered by the company could let me understand the diverse demonstrations of the same problem under different circumstances. The job would also offer exposure and close cooperation with industry giants enabling me to prepare better for my future responsibilities .Top management level issues and the decision making process too would be exposed to me. The events, right from the project formulation till the project conclusion, would test the leader in me and my problem solving capacity would be trained to perfection. On the other hand the company also would be benefited by my innovative work methodology. While I would be trained towards my long term career aims, the company would be benefited by my innovative spirit and diverse experience. However, my managerial skills would require more streamlining which could only be achieved though professional training. The prestigious Wharton MBA would be the best solution for the professional training I require towards achieving my career ambition. Along with laying a solid general management foundation, Wharton MBA’s core curriculum on Business Fundamentals and teamwork with various divisions like finance, accounting and HR, could help to expand my perceptions on marketing and sales. Wharton’s Entrepreneurship would enhance my innovative spirit and would teach to handle challenges in managerial processes. Moreover, Formulation and Implementation of Entrepreneurial Ventures would teach me how to compose business plans and compare my ecosystem initiative comprehensively in light of the plan. Furthermore, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management would offer me the risk investment perspective to discover and avoid problems in the innovating process. The special strength of the program is its various practice opportunities. The programs like Wharton Business Plan Competition (WBPC), Wharton’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Entrepreneurship Club would provide chances for extensive brainstorming, insight into entrepreneurial successes and review of the student’s business plans. This could test my ideas, detect and correct the unnoticed problems, improve my sophisticated thinking and problem solving skills ultimately leading me successfully towards my professional vision. Wharton could also enhance my competence in shaping global strategy. Interactive sessions with leaders in the industry would give me an insight on global management requirements aiding my long term career objective. Global Career Treks would help to locate summer internship and then a full-time job as strategy consultant. The Communication Program, the Leadership Development Workshop Series, and the Wharton Leadership Ventures would help to enhance my leadership skills. Through the years, my career aim has evolved from a vague picture to a clear plan which is urging for implementation and thus the apt time to join Wharton MBA would be no later than now. I understand the needs of doing MBA better, and have even a stronger passion. Moreover as the Chinese plastic industry is on the verge of transformation from low-end factories to high-end solution providers and as it urgently requires managerial intervention, it won’t be wise to wait before getting trained. My experience with the consulting company puts me in a better position as a candidate for the MBA Program for the reason that it added much towards my career target. While I worked for the consulting company, I developed an invaluable network and insight into the industry. My leadership skills, execution capabilities, planning capacity have all been streamlined through the experience I had. 2. Describe an experience you have had innovating or initiating, your lessons learned, the results and impact of your efforts. Creating a sustainable business ecosystem for DSM was one of the most innovative efforts I had initiated. However this effort also counts to be the toughest one I have ever had. The ecosystem development aimed at identifying and networking feasible entities which were a part of the downstream and upstream of the industry’s sourcing flow. The primary task was to choose the partners in the echo system. I initiated an extension work with the molders who made the largest presence in the chain. I provided them technology solutions and information on high-end customers to help them enter the elite market .The idea behind the trial was that once they had entered the market successfully, they would use our material automatically and would resultantly promote our sales. As I could succeed in convincing one molder, I enthusiastically advocated this strategy to other domestic markets that I was in charge of. I encouraged my team members to spend more time with the molders, training and helping them to fulfill the transformation. As this was a break through for the molders as well, they too extended cooperation. The effort proved to be unsuccessful as many of the parts to be made were out of the molder’s expertise. Some of the molders quit due to capital shortage and internal conflicts. This led to a worse scenario as the team questioned the integrity of my innovation. The experience was an eye opener and had many lessons within it. The first lesson was that it takes bountiful effort to commercialize a business innovation. I reckoned that the effort lacked team work and on this realization, I summoned a team meeting in which I convinced them on the scope of the innovation. This time I ensured not to repeat the previous error of not considering and evaluating the idea within the team and had a participatory reviewing on the idea. The review suggested the non consideration of the environment for the business initiative, including the industry and the competitor led to the failure. Enough analysis was not done to have check points over the methodology that could not be substituted which resulted in molders’ compromising on the quality of materials after they understood the key technology. I inspired the team to come out with a solution and after assessment of the risk involved a safer model was designed. Another lesson which came out of the review was that a cross check over the economic stability of the molder had to be ensured to avoid a situation wherein the molders quitted because of financial shortage. Effective management of the customer chain was also to be ensured as we severely miscalculated the internal dynamics of our partners. Further training and capacity building of the staff of molders was found to be the solution. In the earlier trial the communication was limited to the managerial level. The team was inspired to communicate more with clients’ key persons, while filtering unqualified molders who had no passion to transform, no long-term foresight and no guaranteed capital flows. With these corrections done, the sales increased rapidly. More than twenty molders effectively implemented the value addition and proportionally our sales also increased substantially. The success of the innovation was averred not only when the sales figures were analyzed but also when similar efforts were replicated by my coworkers. Moreover by persuading end-users to shift from low-end products to high-end solutions, we had enhanced industry productivity considerably. The confidence and the experience acquired took me closer towards my long term career goal of promoting rapid development of Chinese domestic companies by establishing a business ecosystem. Read More