My Pathway Choice to Global Business Management - Personal Statement Example

Personal Development Module: My Pathway Choice to Global Business Management My Pathway Choice to Global Business Management Ever since I was a young man, I have always had a keen interest on the intricacies of management. From an early age, my father would often take me down to his office where he owned a chain of restaurants. It was always interesting to watch him engage in his everyday business activities, he would constantly strive to provide good leadership while making decisions that would positively affect the business enterprise. When I became of age, he started allocating me some minor managerial tasks and would be left in charge of managing the restaurant’s operations for short periods of time as he went out to attend to other more pressing matters. Although quite rare, these opportunities allowed my love for the job to increase exponentially as helping people to improve their job performance while guaranteeing the satisfaction of our customers afforded me a deep sense of fulfillment. One day, my father took me along to visit a family friend who operated a chain of supermarkets and observing the man at work caused me to realize that although business management was essentially similar, there were however some marked differences in leadership and managerial styles. A closer observation of the supermarket’s operations revealed to me that managing its operations would evidently require my acquiring of additional skill sets were I to be appointed to manage it and be able to manage it in an effective manner. During the conversation, my father and his friend remarked that globalization was quickly affecting their business enterprises and that with their being relatively old hands at managing their businesses, they were finding it increasingly difficult to always keep abreast of the fast changing business landscape and technologies. Their casual talk on the increasing rate of globalization across the world caused me to understand that management as a field is rapidly evolving and to be able to remain relevant, it was important for business managers to always keep in mind the notion of globalization as this notion is having a radical effect on the manner in which business is being conducted today. Globalization is a leading concept that has in recent times has grown to become a pivotal factor in business. The phenomenon of globalization critically affect business life, the economy, environment and society in a number of diverse ways and every business enterprise has been affected by the changes caused by globalization. Most of the changes brought about by globalization are seen to relate to rapid technology changes, increased competition and rapid information transfer. The concerns raised by my father and his friend over the changing business landscape as a result of globalization caused me to desire to acquire skills that would help in developing me to becoming a global business manager who would be able to effectively manage business enterprises that are now taking to expanding across the globe so as to remain relevant and competitive in this age of globalization. For my intended future prospects, a career in global business management was the most appropriate choice. Global business management is essentially a multidisciplinary stream that is designed to allow students to take on courses in the practice of management in what is primarily a global context. This in turn aids the students in acquiring a global mindset. The fact that the prime concentration focus of the program is channeled towards management in light of a global context and the management of global firms helped to further steer me into taking up the program. The elements that a business enterprise’s requires today so as for it to be success in today international climate can be perceived as being a far cry from those of only about a decade ago. Today’s international business climate demands that organizations have closely linked yet highly specialized groups of global business managers, regional or country managers as well as managers who are able to effectively function in a worldwide context. Modern day global companies essentially have a transnational nature that has seen them successfully integrate resources, diverse people and assets into a number of operating units spread out across the world. Employability My employability prospects upon my graduating will see me enjoy the choice of a wide range of management related career fields. Global business management will equip me with an impressively wide breadth of content that will make my particular skills to be considered as being quite relevant to a number of employment fields. These prospective employment opportunities will include the possibility of my entering the market in the international trade area as an export/import manager or supply chain analyst; I could also opt to choose professions in finance and will be eligible for employment as a corporate finance assistant or business analyst; should I opt to choose the marketing field; my particular skill set will see me being found eligible for employment as an event manager, a brand assistant or even a key account representative; in the advertising field, I will be eligible for a career as a media analyst or as an account executive; in retail, I will be eligible for a position as a marketing coordinator, a purchaser or even as a merchandise manager; in operations, I will be considered for a number of positions such as project manager, logistics manager or as an operations planner. I could also opt to use the knowledge and entrepreneurial skills I gain from my studies to either act as a business consultant or to even open up my very own business enterprise. Benefits of Global Business Management to My Career Path The skill sets cultivated by undertaking a career path in global business management will aid me in the management of business enterprises on a global scale. These newly emergent global business enterprises are seen to be faced with a number of unique challenges, these challenges and the manner in which global business management skills will help me in effectively tackling them include: Expanded Markets and Increased Competition: One of the main effects of globalization is the aspect of expanded markets. Expanded markets have seen most businesses that previously used to only sell goods domestically start to sell their products to other countries. By studying global business management, I will be able to help business organizations to fully exploit the opportunities that have been afforded by the expanded markets so as to help them maximize on profits. Cheaper Resources: The creation and expansion of bilateral trade agreements has now afforded business organizations the opportunity to easily access cheaper resources. These resources can either be in the form of cheap manpower or raw materials. By studying global business management, I will be able to aid companies and organizations to take advantage of the cheap raw material and labor by outsourcing. Cheap labor will help these business organizations in reducing the cost of production which will in turn contribute to increasing the profit margins. Cheaper raw materials and cost of productions will sometimes also help in producing cheaper services and goods that will be seen to be highly competitive in the cutthroat marketplace. Global Development: A career in global business management will enable me to effectively channel the organizational corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts towards global development. I will be able to help companies in successfully reducing inequality and poverty among the various communities around the world that help provide the organization with raw materials and labor. In addition, by effectively planning the organizational CSR efforts, I will also be able to help improve the access to of these communities to education and healthcare. 2. Academic Skills that I have Learnt during my Studies There are a number of academic skills that I have managed to acquire in the course of my studies that will serve to help me in my chosen career path in global business management. Some of these include: Inter-cultural communication awareness and basic cross cultural management knowledge: During my studies, I have developed and cultivated the ability to understand different cultures and the intricacies of communicating between these different cultures. I believe that this will serve me greatly in my chosen career path as a global business manager. Communication across different cultures is a very challenging prospect as different cultures have set a number of different communication rules that are followed by its members. Global organizations have had to overcome these intercultural communication challenges so as to be able to operate in foreign markets. Intercultural communication is an important issue in the global business environment not only as a result of the rapidly increased globalization, but also because the domestic workforces of global organizations are progressively becoming more diverse in both cultural and ethical contexts. My academic studies have equipped me with knowledge on the best practices that can be used in the management of diverse workforces having different cultural backgrounds. This skill will adequately complement those that I acquire in my global business management studies. Business Decision Making and Problem Solving: In the course of my academic studies, I have also learnt some basics on business decision making and problem solving. Lussier and Kimball (2014) argue that it is critical for managers to have decision making and problem solving skills if the business enterprise is to be successful. Effective managers can be identified as those managers who are able to consistently choose the best option for the business enterprise form among the multiple alternatives that are available. The decisions that these managers make are found to be well reasoned out, defensible and very imaginative. By applying the critical thinking techniques that I have acquired in my academic studies, I will be able to effectively dismantle the often very complex problems that are associated with global business management as well as be able to understand the potential implications and inputs of my thought processes. Human Resource Management: My academic studies have seen me acquire some knowledge in the field of human resource management. Human resource management is often considered as being universal in terms of its processes, strategies and policies. Human resource management provides a coherent and strategic approach that can be used in the management of an organization’s human asset. The academic skills that I have acquired in human resource management will be further cultivated by my studies in global business management such that I will be able to help the organization in attracting the most suitable employees, and subsequently effectively maintaining and managing these employees so as to help in steering my organization toward the attainment of its strategic goals. 3. Vocational example: My Experience in Working as a Commercial Director in the Restaurants Chain Family Business: Situation In my recent employment where I was working in the capacity of commercial director in the restaurant chain that is the family business, I was tasked with the management of all the restaurant chain’s marketing activities. This necessitated that I constantly remain abreast of all the various advances that were being made in the field of advertising and marketing. Before my appointment, the increased competition in the restaurant business had become further compounded by globalization which had resulted in the restaurant chain lagging behind and losing some of its market share to its competitors who were able to attract foreign clients by advertising on a global scale. When I was appointed, I quickly became aware of the situation and in an effort to tackle this challenge and reverse the negative trend, I was forced to develop an online marketing strategy that would help in restoring our market share. Task In undertaking this task, I felt that the restaurant chain had been going about advertising the wrong way as the chain had insisted on maintaining the use of the old, tried and tested advertising methods in its marketing. I felt that it was important for the chain to realize that restaurant marketing wasn’t what it had always been, the mere use of the yellow pages and newspaper advertising was not enough to help the restaurant in remaining competitive. Action In adapting the restaurant chain’s marketing and advertising to suit the modern globalized market environment, I had to first cause the chin to embrace the concept of internet marketing and thereafter cultivate an online presence. This is because people have moved away from using avenues such as newspapers and yellow pages and now opt to use the internet so as to find what they are looking for. For the most effective advertising, I placed the restaurant chain’s reviews on some of the global consumer review sites and food blogs by inviting some of the food bloggers to review the restaurant chain, as payment for these reviews; I offered these bloggers free meals, this was in addition to creating a website for the restaurant chain. I then undertook to constantly monitor these review sites, blogs and the restaurant website so as to gauge what other people were saying about the restaurant chain. I was able to thank the restaurant’s visitors for their positive reviews while respectfully resolving the issues posed by those customers who had posted negative reviews. I made it easier for individuals to make booking at the restaurants by developing an online restaurant reservations tool which is generally more convenient for our customers as compared to their making reservations by phone. The importance of social media as an advertising medium in today’s business environment cannot be underrated. To this end, I further strengthened the restaurant chain’s word of mouth advertising by creating an interactive and interesting social media presence for the restaurant chain. This created the ability for the restaurant chain to easily interact with its customers across the globe. The happy customers were afforded the opportunity to share their stories. Results The online expansion of the restaurant chain’s marketing and advertising helped it in successfully halting the progressive loss in market share. By constantly providing various incentives to the restaurant chain’s customers using social media and on the website, the chain was able to start regaining its lost market share at a fast rate. According to Jones and Silverstein (2009), the online world is constantly changing and it is in-light of this that after turning round the negative trend in market share that the restaurant chain had been experiencing, I constantly monitored the online avenues for any new online marketing strategies that had the potential to further increase the restaurant’s market presence and profits. 4. What I hope to get out of this reflection on my Career Pathway By writing this reflective paper on my pathway choice to global development, is that I hope to learn from some of the practical experiences that I might have overlooked. The reflection will help me in making the relevant links between my previous experiences in my quest to study global business management and the theory that I will be learning. Other connections that I will be able to make by taking writing this reflection include connections what I have been taught, what I am thinking and what I am currently doing. In addition to this, the reflection will also aid me in thinking more deeply on my chosen career path and further propel me towards wanting to attain my set future goals in global business management. Bibliography Jones, S. and Silverstein, B. 2009. Business-to-business Internet marketing : seven proven strategies for increasing profits through Internet direct marketing. Gulf Breeze, FL : Maximum Press. Lussier, R. and Kimball, D. 2014. Applied sport management skills. Champaign, IL : Human Kinetics. Read More