Studying Marketing, Boosting Up Confidence Level, and Polished Communication Skills - Essay Example

? Reflective Paper on International Marketing The of International Marketing brought a deeper understanding and analytical capabilities in every student of the class. The lectures and the seminars opened new learning opportunities for us including formation of new concepts and removal of old obsolete ones. The main objective of the following paper is to reflect my personal experiences in the group tasks and the learning outcomes from the course of International marketing. I have learnt a lot about the core concepts of International Marketing including the strategies and other related knowledge about the topic with a broader view. My knowledge on the topic of international marketing has improved tremendously as a result of the classes and lecture sessions. I have learnt that the strategies of marketing for internal businesses have become a crucial and cumbersome task in today’s competitive world. Globalisation is one of the most important contributing factors to international marketing strategies. My information was updated to a much greater extent in the areas of international marketing and its impact on global factors to an organization’s managerial decision making, the approaches of entering new markets, designing and developing new products for international markets, the attributes of marketing research internationally, the marketing mix for international business and a lot more. Our group comprised of three members including me. We had diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds two of us are Chinese and one belonged to Saudi Arabia. Due to the difference in cultural and religious backgrounds I learnt how to communicate and manage a diverse team. We as a team found out that the business rules of International Marketing are not the same as they used to be few years ago. The reasons behind these change of rules and strategies is globalisation and its associated threats and opportunities. I got the information that due to various factors like increased globalisation, technological advancements and increased role of internet, the competition has increased greatly these days in every industry. Due to this reason, businesses have to adopt newer methods and strategies in order to survive in the competitive world and have a sustainable business. I also got familiar with the difference of conventional marketing and international marketing and due to this I realised that the modern marketers have changed their mind sets for global development. In today’s world the traditional ways of marketing are not sufficient for this reason the marketers and the executives need to be more innovative thinkers, create newer and better ideas to market internationally and possess quick decision making capabilities. The concept of innovation in marketing techniques was also highlighted in one of the lectures and I think this is one of the basic requirements for international marketing methods of today’s world. Examples of innovative marketing techniques are video clips posted on social networking websites and viral marketing. The conventional tools for assessing the decision making abilities of an organization which includes the SWOT analysis and the PESTL analysis are found to be quite different from a global business perspective. Important to note, that I studied and analysed that now more number of factors are needed to be analysed and examined in SWOT and PESTL analysis for a global organization. I would also like to accept and appreciate the skills of my teacher who encouraged and motivated us to learn the concepts of International marketing from a broader view point and effectively implement it in the practical world when possible. The lectures, seminars and the reading materials were adequate enough to bring deeper insight in the students and held up to date information. We also studied and learnt to determine the opportunities present in the global marketing with the help of real-life case studies. Moreover, it was studied that the conventional Marketing Mix elements are no more as they used to be, they have more complexities added with the global market perspective. The marketing activities in the home country are a lot simpler than those of international businesses. In an international business every target market requires different elements of marketing mix in order to operate effectively. It was also learnt during the lectures that Internet plays a very important and diversified role in the field of marketing. Popular modes of marketing via internet are social networking websites, blogs and online product review journals. This lecture enabled me to realize that international marketing trends are dynamic and the the marketers need a proactive approach. The discussion sessions in the class that were conducted regularly were found to be quite beneficial for my learning and academic growth. I was not comfortable to participate actively in those sessions at first but later on, I was able to develop my confidence and take part in the group discussions enthusiastically. In the beginning, I was not comfortable studying and analysing real-life case studies from international marketing perspective. However, with the help of my teachers and fellow students I realized that analysing and reading case studies are probably one of the easiest and most efficient ways of gathering more information in less time. Since the case studies involved real life businesses of today’s world, it made it easier for me to understand not only the theoretical concepts but also the implementation of these concepts in the practical world. It was also learnt that product development for a new market is much more challenging with the increase in competition in the international business world. There are different factors involved in product development according to different markets. The overall lifecycle of product development is shorter in international businesses as compared to local ones. The most important thing that I learnt in this course which I was not aware of, was the management cultural differences in international marketing strategies. In order to start a business in a new market internationally, cultural awareness is really necessary to understand the need and demands of potential customers from the product or service. Hence, a detailed cultural analysis is necessary before entering a new market. I think the deeper insight and knowledge that was transferred from the teachers and the fellow class mates in the International marketing class will contribute to the level of my future employability. I have been able to create a global mind set towards international business and particularly international marketing strategies and concepts. During the lectures and seminar sessions I have gained knowledge to be able to manage and understand global marketing strategies in an effective manner as a professional. The class discussions and group meetings have enabled me to boost my confidence level and improve my communication skills as it is one of the most important attribute of business managers particularly those in international marketing. I learnt to work in a team with separate responsibilities assigned to each of the group members. I have learnt how to convince others in a discussion and how to accept others’ ideas and thoughts. I have had a brilliant experience working in a team which will definitely enable me to learn the tactics of working in teams in my professional career. In the beginning we faced some issues like punctuality and communication issues which were overcome soon with the help of each group member. One of the members was assigned the task of planning and scheduling group meetings and discussions which she did with great responsibility. She made use of Google docs and email to schedule meetings. I learnt from her how to manage and schedule meetings and how to take care of availability issues. We had set our goals and objectives as a group and towards the end of the semester, we tried to analyse those goals and assess how much we were successful in achieving them as a team. It was a new experience for our team to work like this hence we all learnt from each other. Some of the team members were too slow and completed their tasks just at the last minute however others were efficient enough to complete before hand and review their work in the meetings. The learning curve was quite fruitful in this regard and there were no formations of sub-groups within our group. My personal innovation and creativity was polished by analysis of different real life case studies of different organizations. The most important part of case study analysis was to choose the case studies with renowned companies bringing clearer understanding of not only the basic concepts but also the advanced level discussions and strategies which are already in practice at various organizations. In this way I was able to learn about the tactics that have been adopted by businesses all around the globe in today’s competitive world. Different case studies were selected from different industry segments and different regions of the world in order to understand the social and cultural differences that exist. Moreover the reason for choosing different industry segments was to understand the differences as they occur with respect to the kind of product or service that is being offered by the company. Every member of the group was encouraged to share his ideas freely in the meetings and with analysis and consensus these ideas were put into implementation. The planning and execution activities of the group were influenced by all the members however if I analyse it now I believe it could have built an environment of internal competition within the group but fortunately we were all cooperative and considerate to listen to each others’ ideas and accept with an open mind. However, this could have been a disadvantage for a group in future. The research skills that we adopted in our group discussions and while analyzing case studies enabled each one of us to gain insight and understanding of researches and the approaches and methodologies adopted to carry out the research process. This improved my analytical problem solving skills which would be really beneficial for me and my fellows in professional career in difficult decision making processes and managing the business conflicts. I also learnt resolving research questions making use of primary and secondary data. I got to know the methods to collect different forms of data from various different sources and analyze the collected data from different aspects. I also learnt to limit our studies according to the scope of a study which will assist me in my future employability enhancements. Meeting the deadlines was very important for each one of us and everybody played her role in the group. We decided that once a deadline is skipped from a member there would be a penalty imposed on him so that the same mistake is not repeated. I tried my level best not to miss any deadline however; one of the team members missed a deadline in her task once. I learnt that she accepted it openly and did not blame anything or anyone for missing her deadline which is a really important and positive behaviour when working in a team in a professional environment. It is not possible to have a team with no conflicts at all however it is suggested by experts that there should be minimal conflicts and they should be resolved with consideration. Same was with our group, there were very few conflicts that we faced like punctuality issue by some members and communication gap however, and we all discussed these issues and resolved them together effectively. I can conclude that this course has helped me a lot in boosting up my confidence level, polished my communication skills, made me an innovative thinker and helped me to learn working in a team. My marketing research skills that have been made better in this course will assist me in my professional career in decision making and strategic planning activities. Collection of data from different sources, managing the limited resources and analyzing the collected data from various perspectives brought a sense of clear direction and deeper understanding. With the abilities to communicate well and manage teams effectively, I think I am now capable enough to be an active part of an organization and with a little more training; I will be able to be on a managerial position soon. Read More