Why Management students should focus on Skill building
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By Manish Jain
A very prominent personality development activity is Skill Building Courses / Exercises. Take stress management as an example. Stress is commonly seen in the corporate sector because of performance oriented work philosophy. It leads to development of high work pressure in many cases, with people trying to impress bosses and sustain their place. People either succumb to this or start cribbing and change jobs. But the situation doesn’t change. Researches have indicated that stress is the major cause for many a health problem. Even though it can’t be eliminated, one can learn the art of managing it. It needs to be addressed with coping strategies in which a person will be able to channelise his/her stress in a positive way. In other words, develop skills that allow you to adopt certain mechanisms for managing stress impulses and inculcate stress tolerance. There is no need to specify the wonders it has worked for successful people.It helps groom individuals and enables them to make a mark of their own. It helps them project a style of their own which others will find worth following and set an example for people around. Personality development makes a person look good and presentable as well as helps them face the world with a smile. Over time it makes an individual disciplined, punctual and an asset for his/her organisation. Something that the corporate world craves for in an individual’s profile.
It is important that aspiring future managers build upon various skills which are necessary for adequate functioning that will help them steer their career towards more positive behaviour and well-being. Even more, skill building nowadays has helped empower individuals to flourish and prosper in this competitive world and adapt to milieus in which we live, not only in aspects such as behavioural, cognitive, social and intrapersonal but also technical, intellect, aptitude, etc. It assists both individuals and small teams in a workplace by addressing issues affecting their work performance.
What kind of attitude and skills are expected of candidates who aim to secure an enviable place for themselves in today’s fast paced corporate world? Let's find out.
A fairly new area that companies have started evaluating in prospective employees, is Emotional Intelligence. It is an established fact that emotions impact the effectiveness of people’s minds and thus impact the businesses they run or work for. Obviously then, companies have started preferring to hire people who demonstrate awareness of their emotions and reactions, as well as people around them and have the capability of controlling them and situations arising out of them. An emotionally intelligent person in today’s times is not only successful professionally, but also physically, mentally and socially.
Knowledge of Microsoft Excel is another handsome weapon in the armoury of future managers that companies look out for. It provides enormous capacity to do quantitative analysis, letting you do anything from statistical analyses of databases with hundreds of thousands of records to complex estimation tools with user-friendly front ends. Unlike traditional statistical programs, it provides an intuitive interface that lets you see what happens to the data as you manipulate them. With technological advancement and expansion of businesses excel become backbone of enterprises across functions. Sadly though, many institutes emphasise on its importance for employability but don’t take enough efforts to equip students with it. Only a proactive attitude can benefit students in this regard.
Another unique course in itself is the Capstone Business Simulation, USA course, which helps students in linking the core business learning and helps them consolidate knowledge about the diverse aspects of running a company. It helps them build on strategic thinking and understand how the functional pieces of a business fir together along with valuable practice in crafting profitable growth strategies. On the whole it sharpens their business judgment and builds confidence in analysing revenue-cost-profit economics of a business. It in fact happens to be a required, credit course in more than 550 institutions worldwide. Business schools like Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Stanford (International), IIMs, ISB Hyderabad, IBA Bangalore & Greater Noida, SP Jain Mumbai, XLRI (Indian) extensively use this course to enhance business skills of their students.
With more and more organisations moving for business software solutions to achieve better work and data management; it has become imperative for today’s management graduates to have a ground level knowledge of some ERP software like SAP, ORACLE etc. These days many institutes offer SAP course to make them industry ready. Students of all disciplines benefit immensely from this course as it gives exhaustive understanding of Business Processes common across Industry Verticals. It helps them provide robust employment avenues and enhances their employability in the eyes of recruiting companies.
About the Author:
Manish Jain
Manish Jain is Founder & CEO, IBA Bengaluru. His academic qualifications include B.E.(Mechanical), PGDBM (Finance), and MBA (Marketing).
Manish has managerial experience at MICO & Tata-IBM, MUHEPL and is also presently the Director-Business Development MUHEPL. He was a nominee for ‘Jewel of India 2002 Award’ and a recipient of “Rastriya Shiksha Saman Puraskar” by Indian Economic Development & Research Association (IEDRA) for his contributions to quality higher education. He received ‘Distinguished Service Award’ at IIM Ahmedabad for his contribution of developing Management Education in India. He is the driving force behind IBA, ably guided by an illustrious Academic Advisory Council and distinguished faculty members.
