Consulting in Business Analysis - Personal Statement Example

My career objective is to start my own consulting in business analysis and business intelligence. I decided about it around two years ago when one ofmy cousins introduced me to, what he does with one of such consulting firms from India i.e. Wipro. I was told that to do so I needed to have thorough understanding of how businesses work, as to work as a business analyst and to start and run my own consulting in business analytics solution. My cousin takes care of technical aspects like statistics and modeling and I plan to start my business with him as partnership firm. To fulfill this objective I need to understand how businesses work around the globe and how environmental changes have their ever increasing impact on them. Recent financial turmoil introduced me to concepts like coupling of economies, of which I could only make out that it’s the way performance of one economy is linked with performance of other economies, and how did this overall series of events in America actually influence job scenario for people working in India or china was beyond my perspective. But that did intrigue me to explore further on how this would have influenced my business and my life, so in future when I will plan for my business I should be able to understand that what all such events would portend for me. But apart from quenching this curiosity the overarching objective was to set up my own business after 5-6 years of corporate experience with in my preferred industry. So the obvious choice where all these issues seemed to converge was an MBA degree from a reputed university but as most of such universities look for some experience so job eligibility before MBA became the midterm objective and for that I would have needed a graduate degree in business management. The foundation course figured as a short run objective for that. If I were to spell out my exact expectations from the course then I must admit that I did not have much idea about it. I knew only one thing that it would act as a bridge to my future studies and as a student my objective from this course was more or less passing with good grades. But the objective did not remain just what it was before joining the course, as exposure to seminars, book reading, assignments, portfolio all changed my thoughts. My preoccupation with just marks waned and other important aspects of attending the course started surfacing. The overall curriculum forced me to think as if I am already started with my business objective, and I am in the planning process of setting my business in place. The philosophies of Charles Handy, Adam Smith, Karl Marx made my mind think on issues which never seemed important to me in particular. So rather than focusing on the grading part of the assignment my focus changed to the learning and more importantly on the applicability part of the learning. The course improved certain skills in me which I will elaborate in a later section. The way the course is going to help me achieving my future goals The most important part of my learning, if it is to be put in words, can be captured along 3 dimensions i.e. Knowledge, Skills and Attitude Knowledge During the course I have gained knowledge ranging from specific to generalized spectrum. The knowledge about how compensation packages or appraisal schemes are planned may be something very specific to particular domain of a business i.e. HR ( handy How organizations work) but knowledge that it’s the economics that determines politics and not vice versa has more pervasive ramifications ( Heilbroner Economics). 1) Subject knowledge I gained thorough knowledge of two subjects i.e. Organization and Management and Economics through two books that we read in Term 1 ( C Handy’s) and Term 2 ( Heilbroner). The detailed learning about the subjects from the two books will be mentioned in a later section. 2) Self Awareness – Peter F Drucker( 1999) argued in favor of “feedback analysis” an important way to identify one’s strength and weaknesses. Drucker (1999) said “To do those things well, you’ll need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself— not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.” Thus the importance of being self aware cannot be overestimated and this is where I believe this course helped me the most. In the Employment/employability section of seminar - 7 on “Organization People Development”, I constructed my skills inventory built upon my erstwhile skill base. The assignment also required us to write about the actions I was undertaking to broaden the skill-set and also about the skills that I would need considering my future employment plans. Along with this exercise I utilized feedback analysis to see my stronger and weaker areas. Then looking at the future requirement I became sensitized towards what all skills I needed to inculcate. But it didn’t stop at just skills, I took it further to see my working style in general i.e. what role did I always play in group settings and how my working style was different than that of others. 3) General Business Awareness My awareness about the business in general and specific to my preferred industry improved a lot during this course. As the assignments required us to research and write about varied industries like milk, energy etc and also about the linkage between different economies like India, Russia, china with the UK, my knowledge about the industries and factors determining success and failure of the industry improved. The overall business environment started making sense to me and I learned how to analyze the business environment with respect to a particular industry, product etc which I will find very useful when I will be planning to set up my business. I came to know how business environment gets impacted by various factors like politics i.e. how Obama’s winning is going to impact industries in China and India. Skills As XYZ (OB Stephen P Robbins ) has proposed there are three skills that managers at different level need like technical skills, interpersonal skills and conceptual skills. He has also said the interpersonal skills are equally important for managers across the levels. So I consider interpersonal skills as the most important of skills that I learned here however as a manager we need many more skills against which we can judge the effectiveness of this course. But before acquiring any skill, even the more important aspect is being aware of what all skills one needs to acquire and how acquiring these skills would help the person in advancing towards his goals. The last one year has been very crucial as because of the exposure to a new learning environment and people from diverse back grounds I was able to appreciate what all skills are there to acquire and how I fare vis-à-vis my colleagues to find out my strong and weak areas. The skills which are expected to be groomed in management student are: 1) Communication skills - According to Mintzberg’s ten roles that managers play some roles are informational thus communication skills become very important 2) Negotiation skills - The manager has to act as an interface between the external and internal environment which requires negotiation skills on part of a successful manager. For eg. Personnel manager has to negotiate with labor unions, management etc. 3) Conceptual skills – As a manager rises the corporate hierarchy the importance of these skills also rises because the problems are unstructured and planning time frame is full of uncertainties but I believe the changing environment is increasing the importance of these skills across the levels as uncertainty in the environment is rising day by day the rate of innovation and obsolescence is much higher than it used to be 30-40 years ago. 4) Decision Making / Problem Solving skills – Edward de bono stated “Decision making in management is an important skill - and making the right decisions is essential.” Thus as a business management students I think this skill type assumes greater importance. 5) Research skills – May be considered a subset of problem solving skills but is very important thus warrants a separate mention. To answer novel and unprecedented problems managers have to look for relevant information both inside and outside the organization. Thus being skillful in this domain helps managers a lot. 6) Cross Cultural Appreciation skills – In globalized world a manager has to work with people with diverse backgrounds and cultures thus cross culture tolerance would not suffice in fact a manger has to go beyond and appreciate cross cultural learning and exposure. Attitude The most valuable of skills, knowledge and attitude is attitude because of its ability to predict and influence. As I have earlier mentioned the one of the greatest things that I learned is, change in my attitude from being preoccupied with marks to being attentive towards learning. Apart from this I have seen that my perception has also changed towards a lot of things and the credit for this has to go to the diverse back ground of the students here in the university. The first learning for me was to see how faulty our perceptions can be due to limited exposure, preconceived notions and even our resistance to change, but university environment and staying at a new place away from home, forced me to overcome the resistance, challenge my presumptions and thus change my perception. This learning will go a long way in determining how I fare as an individual in my life. The changing of perception has actually been practiced so much by me, due to ever changing thought in economics that we studied from the optimistic thoughts of Adam smith, to pessimistic thoughts of Malthus and Ricardo to again optimistic view by other economists and again depressing thought of Karl Marx. This all made me always watchful of what I perceive, as the next piece of information or next idea may change my perception all together. Learning from the lectures / Seminars and the books C Handy and Heilbroaner The book “Understanding organizations” by Charles handy was a both interesting and enlightening read. The book was interesting because of the philosophical style with which the author had written it and enlightening because the concepts given by the author are very powerful. The learning from the book is very practical and quite applicable even today. As I had a clear idea of what I wanted to be and do in my life finding the applicability of whatever I learned was never a difficult thing. The concept of what a manager is, how he plays diverse roles in an organization as suggested by Henry Mintzberg (1983) led me to think that in my own business I will have to play these different roles. The idea gave me clarity as to what skills should I strive to build upon considering the different skills suggested by Katz R. (1974). I realized that to be a successful manager and then a business leader motivation, leadership, communication, empathy, negotiation, analytical, organizing all are the necessary skills that a manager should posses and I found out that though I had already possessed some the skills from them, but some of them I would have to work upon. This set a clear path for my future learning. The realization of the fact that manager’s role is too diversified both challenged and excited me. Motivation The learning about motivation was very interesting phase as it helped me in gaining self awareness. I realized that there were so many things about me which I might have known subconsciously but on a conscious level I was almost ignorant of them. It was the topic of self concept which made me think hard about my own self and define who I am. Thus this particular learning is very hard to be defined in a narrow definition. Learning about motivation did also improve my leadership quality as Freeman et al (1992) stated “Leadership and motivational qualities are excellent to have not only among management in a business, but among employees as well.” I learned that in order to be able to make others do something, both more and better, you need to step in to their shoes and think through their mind. As a prospective manager and leader the learning of motivation will really be very helpful. Learning self motivation will be one of the greatest learning as after understanding how to define one’s own self concept self motivation becomes a natural process. Power and Influence Then the concept of power and influence was introduced to us that made me realize why we are able to influence certain people and not others, it’s the role and relationship between you and the people you want to influence that determine which methods you would be able to use to influence them. There are different powers that one may have at her disposal but one has to be discreet while choosing a type of power to influence someone in some situation. I will utilize this learning in all aspects of my life whether personal or professional to influence people like my employees, partners, customers, friends etc. Roles and interaction Like motivation this also involved as much learning about me as about organizations. It dawned on me how and why I had always been appreciated by others for my ability to work as a group member. Looking in hindsight I could realize it was my insistence on clearly defining what to expect from which member of the group. Reading the article from HBR “Managing oneself” by Peter F Drucker (1999) complemented well in terms of knowing what role do I always play. I always play the role of a decision maker rather of an adviser, so any one working in group would have clear expectations from me and vice versa. This concept of role clarity struck me in the first instance. I will always ensure that there is least role stress in the environment and to do that I will see to it that role ambiguity and conflict are nipped in the bud. Group Dynamics The learning of group dynamics taught me the potential pros and cons of conflict and competition. I took this learning that conflicts are not be avoided but to be encouraged but in a manageable manner. Conflicts become dysfunctional when the task objectives take back seat and people start using organization as a place for ego fight. Similarly competition has to be of open nature and not that of closed nature which may mar an organization’s progress. Though I had always been a good team worker but formal concepts like factors that determine group effectiveness like size, member characteristics, individual objectives and stages of development will definitely improve my group leadership, team working skills even further. Change and Politics I had always heard it from people that “inability to change is the sign of inability to grow” and understood the meaning of it as well. But it was during reading about this topic when I, for the first time, could see the interplay between change and politics. The learning will be utilized when I go for designing the structure of my organization as I will have to see the organizational design is both flexible, thus amenable to change and allows politics to play but not become dysfunctional. People Development and Organizational Design My major interest is in business analytics and consumer behavior analytics thus subjects like marketing etc would make more sense to me and organizational design structuring etc though of not high interest to me but will become an issue to think about when I will start my business. But area of people development is one that I still find very fascinating may be because of my preoccupation with development and growth. The concept of career planning was of direct interest to me, so that will be the take away from this. From organizational design seminar I learned that working with does not only involve finding complementary skills sets but also accommodating egos. The exercise of skills inventory helped me a lot in doing my self - analysis. Learning from Heilbroner The learning from this book was more holistic than in different sections wise. As economics can be both philosophical and practical but the book which we read ( Heilbroner) was clearly a philosophical read. The journey from the early most to most recent thoughts has taught me more about human life and human perception than business discipline but a second thought did enlighten me to the fact that businesses operate under society only and people’s perception is what determines business success more than anything else. So on a more thoughtful note this learning has been very crucial from business point of view. But I may take some more time to be able to read the fine prints. Conclusion Overall the learning from the course has been good because as a foundation course it cannot be expected to have more than this. I like the combination of books as it clearly strikes a balance between specific and general interest. The two books have given me enough food for thought, and the discipline and rigor to which I have been put have given the teeth to chew on this further. But my next excitement is for learning about marketing and how it impacts business, because that is where my heart lies. References Drucker, F. (2005) ‘Managing Oneself’, Harvard Business Review, January, pp. 3-14. The Nature of Managerial Work (Harper and Row, 1973, reissued by Prentice-Hall, l983), by H. mintzberg R. L. Katz (1974), ‘skills of an effective Administrator’, Harvard Business Review , September , pp. 90-102 Freeman, R. Edward, & Stoner, James A. (1992). Management 5th Edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. SOME QUOTES AND STATEMENTS THAT U CAN FIND USEFUL ( THOUGH SOME OF THEM HAVE BEEN TAKEN IN THE TEXT) Quotes and statements Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual. R. L. Katz (1974), ‘skills of an effective Administrator’, Harvard Business Review , September , pp. 90-102. “Running an organization effectively requires administration,management, and leadership.”( Mills, D,2005) Mills, D. Quinn. Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live. Waltham, Mass.: MindEdge Press, 2005. “Leadership and motivational qualities are excellent to have not only among management in a business, but among employees as well.” (Freeman,1992) Freeman, R. Edward, & Stoner, James A. (1992). Management 5th Edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. “Our lives are the most effective and efficient when we are moving at the speed that allows us to appropriately assimilate the changes we face.” (Daryl R, 1993) Random House; 1 edition (January 19, 1993) Managing At the Speed of Change, Daryl R. Conner page no 13. Individuals must have a clear understanding of their own roles and responsibilities and those of the teammates, as well as an understanding of what everyone, regardless of his or her position, must do to be successful. (Allen at el, 1989) “The Role of the Manager: Whats Really Important in Different Management Jobs” Allen I. Kraut, Patricia R. Pedigo, D. Douglas McKenna and Marvin D. Dunnette The Academy of Management Executive (1987), Vol. 3, No. 4 (Nov., 1989), pp. 286-293 “Decision making in management is an important skill - and making the right decisions is essential.” #Decision making for managers, http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/business-management/decision-making.php, Edward de bono & Robert Hellers “The skill of creative thinking can be developed like any other skill. It is a matter of learning the skill, followed by practice and confidence. Creativity is no longer a mystery and should not be treated as such.” #http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/creativity-in-management “Creativity in management: developing creative thinking skills”, Edward de bono Read More