The niche market of a Management programme with International Industrial and Cultural Exposure

Looking at the daily trends and changes in the market of the current world, it is obvious that an individual, a group or an organization needs to look at daily business needs with a global mindset and approach. Today's world is where the global economy and businesses are interconnected. This creates a larger demand in all of the young management graduates that they need to own the knowledge of international market, standards and quality. The significance of this demand for graduates with knowledge and exposure on international practices and cross-cultures also makes it the basic requirement of the near future.

In today's world, with various economically well-developed countries with several opportunities being available in various domains, education acts as the backbone for student and also economic upliftment. With several institute and university exchange programmes, management students during their MBA or PGDM get the opportunity to study one-semester in a country of choice, one-year abroad or three-semesters in three different countries abroad. With such intense and immersive learning and exposure, students get the opportunity to extend their skills and expand their potentials.

Companies today prefer graduates with international exposure than a graduate with no international exposure. Let us see how this adds several advantages on the organization's front and how international exposure builds such credibility to the graduates. 

Communication:

International exposure enables graduates to expand their horizon and to look at every task in their work-life with a broadened mindset and thought process. This prepares the graduates to become better decision makers. When a student gets international exposure, not only do their interaction with a foreign national brings them to a state of adaptiveness, but also develops their communication in terms of language, ability and effectiveness. From a recruiter's perspective, effective communicators bring a lot of work efficiency to the table.

 Personality:

International exposure gets the management graduates to come out of their mental box and become a stronger individual. Through constant interaction with individuals from different cultures gets them to be more confident individuals. Also, specializations such as International Business, Supply chain and logistics, tourism and hospitality gets these graduates to be more frequent in communication with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. With more frequent interactions, the methods and practices that these graduates get exposed to is far beyond the standards of a graduate from regular exposure and experiences. This gets them more capable and efficient in handling business requirements.

Rational thinkers:

Exposure to various cultures and backgrounds get a management graduate with international exposure to be more adapting, accepting and sensitive to diversity. With good amount of exposure, the graduates get more tolerant and adjusting to the way that the individuals from different cultures think and act every day. With a good management education backing all of these daily lifestyle changes, the graduate becomes more of a refined and rational thinker, one who considers all the probabilities and reasons while making a decision.

Effective Doers:

In a world where changes are constant on a daily basis, exposure to various practices and methods are as important as getting to know only the theoretical aspects of several concepts and domains. With learning that include many domains, tools, techniques, case studies, derivations and strategies, these individuals with global exposure get the ability to carefully understand a problem, thoroughly analyze and bring in applications to find the appropriate solution for the problem.

Approaches and methods:

A management graduate with exposure to international standards gets acquainted to the various business aspects, trends, patterns and behaviours across different economies, territories and markets. With experience to such wide nature of economies, it clearly gets them to adapt to high-level business environments which readily equips them to take positions in the mid or top level management and not at the low level. This also means that they get recruited for a much higher package than an individual with regular management degree. Recruitment here does not necessarily mean that they are receruitable only in the native country, but also in the foreign country. With more technical skills and effectiveness in handling daily operations, the opportunity to get recruited in the foreign soil is quite large.

Technology adaptation:

Globalization as an avenue has got largely benefited due to the increase in the global internet which has brought the whole planet smaller. Brands have become bigger through ecommerce and expansion strategies made much simpler to that of the methods that were followed earlier, yet approachable by the global community from any corner of the world. Understanding an economy, a territory, a market, the competition and the growth potential can be done by the click of a button today. A higher level training and exposure from an advanced economy gets the management graduates to understand business cases of different countries and markets easily when compared to that of a regular graduate.

Entrepreneurial ability:

Graduates with international exposure readily become individuals with entrepreneurial ability since their learning, understanding and practices become well-rounded. The desire to become better every day, the conviction to show growth in the daily trend and the consistent belief and effort to build success prevails in them. For example, procrastination is more commonly seen in many organizations which affect the organization severely. Time management and timely action-taking is a skill that is considered essential in several foreign countries. This is practiced on a regular basis by these graduates with international exposure which gets them capable of becoming efficient and therefore, to eventually become individuals with entrepreneurial ability.

With more such abilities such as freshness in thoughts and approaches, effective planning and scheduling, flexibility in methodologies and adaptability in approaches gets these MBA or PGDM graduates with global exposure to become stronger individuals and manage businesses more efficiently than a conventional management programme in the native country.

About the author

The article has been written by Prof. Kirron Bindu - Director, International Relations &  Professor of Finance, ISBR Business School.