Reflection of MBA
The experience during MBA was quite interesting as I learned many useful things that are related to business. The learning outcomes of the whole MBA were attractive as many important queries regarding business administration had been solved. The aim of joining MBA was to analyze substantial the areas of business and learn how to manage different functions of the business. The tactics and techniques to analyze the situation and provide rationale decision over the analysis were learned from different outcomes of the program. The learning outcomes of the program were helpful in analyzing the situations and find out effective solutions for the different situation. The outcomes were also helpful in recognizing how the business can run in a smooth way and which types of strategies are used to run the business successfully. The learning outcomes of the MBA program are.
The program provided comprehensive knowledge about the functional areas of the business. It also acknowledges how these areas are relatively more important for the functions of the business. The main five functional areas that are crucial for every type of business are.
Accounting
Accounting is referred to as the language of business that measures the outcomes of the economic activities of an organization. Accounting is the process that conveys information to the various users. The users of the accounting process are creditors, management, regulators, owner, investors and others. It also includes financial reporting of various economic activities that is useful for presenting clear view to the users.
Finance
Finance is the separate field that refers to the allocation of assets and liabilities over a given period. It also considers the allocation under the conditions of certainty and certainty. Finance is also known as the value of money at a given time, that determine the purchasing power of one unit of currency vary over time. It is the science of money management. The assets are valued according to the risk level and expected rate of return. There are three types of finance named personal finance, public finance, and corporate finance.
Personal finance refers to paying for a loan or education, or financing durable assets. Personal finance is use to make calculations for health, investment, personal savings, insurance and others. Corporate Finance refers to the scope of business valuation, investment management, and stock investing activities. It is useful to the companies that offer financial services such as banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions. Public finance is related to the sovereign states and provinces or agencies. It is mainly concerned with the evaluation of demanded expenditures, budgeting process, debt insurance and public work projects.
Management
Management refers to the function that organizes the efforts of individual to fulfill the common goals and objectives by the effective and efficient utilization of available resources. It includes organizing, staffing, leading and planning. The management is the combination of various individuals those works on the assigned task by representing their teamwork.
Economics
Economics is a science that deals with main functions including production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Economics also include business, healthcare, finance and government. The main goal of the subject is to improve the living standards of the individuals taking part in economic activities.
Marketing
Marketing refers to the communication of the value of product, brand or service to the customers with the intention to promote or sell the product. There are many techniques that are useful for the marketers. The techniques include target markets, market segmentation, and understanding consumer behavior for advertising the product value to the customer.
Problem Framing and Solving Capabilities
The learning outcome is crucial in MBA as it explains the tactics for framing a problem and develops capabilities to solve it. It is a process that has importance in the management of the organization. The management is responsible for managing and controlling the situations that could harm the operations of the organization. The teamwork is preferable for analyzing the problem and design framework to solve it. Design thinking and analytical thinking are two types of ways to deal with the problem and build capabilities to solve the problem in an effective manner.
Design Thinking
Design thinking refers to the identifying the problem or problems of the organization. The identification of the problem will indicate the areas where there is a need of improvement. The design thinking process will highlight the elements that need to be changed or improved for the better management of the organization. The problem will be discussed in separate parts, and the process of thinking towards the solution will begin. The solution will be tackled out for each part of the problem. The design thinking of the problem will further indicate the solutions that are discussed in the program. If there were a problem related to the profitability, the targeted areas would be sales, marketing, and finance. The thinking process and combined efforts of the team management will emerge out an effective solution, and the problem would be solved in less time.
Analytical Thinking
Analytical thinking is another method for analyzing the problem and make effective strategies to solve the problem. The analytical thinking is useful for short term and long term planning. The senior managers and leaders of the organization apply this approach to improve operational and managerial activities of the organization. It is used for long-term planning. It is useful for marketing and management department of the company. If the company wants to introduce a new product in the market in next two to five years, the analytical thinking will provide an effective solution. It is also useful for the improvement of operational areas of the business that needs analysis of the problem clearly. The solution will be emerged out through the analysis in which all the factors will be considered in detail.
Global Perspective
A global perspective is also significant learning outcome in MBA program. It is essential to acknowledge global perspective as in the globalization all the entities are working globally. Organizations target global opportunities to expand their businesses and make global strategies to survive in the global market. The organization operates in more than one country need professionals those understand the global environment. The employees of the organization have to analyze both domestic and global environment of the business. The global perspective will provide benefits that are.
Understanding Global Business Environment
The global environment is totally different from the domestic environment. It includes different factors within an environment such as suppliers, technology, government, economic trends, owners and competition, clients, social trends, etc. The organization has to analyze all the factors before operating in the particular country. It has to focus on the language and culture of the country where it wants to do business. The organization could not sell its variety of products in the particular country. The residents of India because of their religion and culture do not like beef. The organizations that provide food products in India have to analyze the fact that they could not sell beef made products in the country.
Global Marketing
Global marketing is also the invention of the 21st Century. It refers to the marketing of the product or service worldwide and takes commercial advantage of global operations opportunities. It is helpful in achieving global objectives. The organization has to adopt global techniques for marketing. The organization needs to practice those marketing strategies that are useful for marketing in all the countries where it is operating its business. The techniques that will be used to market the product are a brand image, available for all, quick service or delivery, etc. The marketing team or department of the organization needs to focus broader than the country in which they are resident. They have to prepare a plan to hit the global market through separate marketing tools or a single marketing technique to attract global customers, suppliers or investors.
Communication Competency
The learning outcome is relatively useful for the graduate students those aim to work in large or global companies. The communication is the process through which sender can convey the message to the receiver via a communication channel. The practice is common in a large organization where there are multiple operational departments. The communication skills and abilities are essential to learning to work in al huge organization. The learning outcome is useful in developing the skills of communication within and outside the organization. The main elements that I have learned in the communication competency-learning outcome are.
Communication Channels
Communication involves three steps including encoding messages, decoding messages, and feedback. To make communication effective, it is necessary to follow the steps.
The encoding message refers to prepare a message and select a channel for transferring it. The audience is the main factor for selecting the channel for encoding the message. The implied rule of the effective communication elaborates that the selection of channel should be made according to the audience to whom the message is conveyed. The report is used to communicate with the upper management. The complex data is communicated through graphs and charts. In addition, where there is a requirement of verbal communication the selection of a channel is also important. If there are a large number of audiences, then the communication is done via television or other media.
The receiver of the message does decode and to decode message successfully is also an imperative skill. The decoding refers to understand the message through experience and context of the message. The other factors those target decoding are a psychological state, time and place where the message is received. The successful communicator decodes the message through eliminating the factor of misunderstanding.
Feedback is necessary to ensure that the message conveyed has fulfilled the intention of the sender. Feedback is necessary for both verbal and non-verbal communication. Feedback will eliminate the probability of confusion or make changes if any need.
Effectiveness of Communication within an Organization
The use of effective communication is mandatory within an organization. The organization always hires effective communicators for the post that requires leadership capabilities. A leader has to plan for the communication. His planning must include understanding the objective, understanding the audience, and way of conveying the message.
The communicator must plan for the objective of the message that is to be conveyed to the receiver(s). The objective of the message must be fully prepared by the sender and how must know why he want to convey the message. He must also know what the reason behind the message is. Otherwise, the message will not be expressed in a better way.
The communicator must be fully aware of the audience to whom the message is to be conveyed. Who are the audience and what do they need to know? He must ensure that how the message is relatively important for the receivers.
The communicator must choose the way he communicates the message to the receivers. He must choose the content in case of written communication to express clear what he wants to communicate to the receiver. In oral communication, he must select effective words that express the intention of a message to be conveyed.
Ability to Manage Information
The outcome had developed the skills and abilities to manage the information in an effective manner. Information technology had provided a lot of knowledge regarding the changing technologies and innovative strategies applied by the companies in a global environment. The innovations and strategies provide help in understanding the particular situation of the business and means to solve the issues in less time. The main thing is to manage the information in a way that the benefits could be derived from it. The outcome is relatively important for decision makers to identify the areas of change and conclude a viable decision. The skills that were developed in the outcome were.
The information is collected from primary or secondary source. The primary source refers to provide questionnaire or interview the candidates directly and are known as first-hand accounts. The secondary source refers to the document that is prepared for the event and provides second-handed accounts of that event. A secondary source provides analysis, various perspectives and conclusion of those accounts.
It is necessary to adopt the new technology for bringing efficiency in the performance. The adoption of new technologies and inventions requires knowledge that what new technology is prevailing in the market. A well-informed individual could fulfill the objective of the organization in a better way. The individual has to analyze the market trends and other strategies that are used by the similar organization.
The decision-making process must be acceptable for the success implementation of the strategies or task. The decision-making process required a complete analysis of the gathered information and manages it, according to the requirement of the situation. The effective decision-making is only reliable on the understanding of the information collected and build rationale over it.
Social Responsibility
The learning outcome had impressed me as I believed that business studies only consider profitability and expansion. An employee of the organization is also responsible for the ethical framework that is suggested by the entity. The organization as a whole is also responsible to act in a way that it benefits the society. There should code of conduct that is followed by the organization at a high level.
Products and Services
The organization should manufacture products and services, according to the preference of the consumers. They should not manufacture or sell the product that hits the ethical standards of the customer. The organization and its members are responsible for providing beneficial products and services to their customers. They have to introduce the product and services that are liked by the people living in the society.
Make Relationships
The relationship refers to a business relationship. The organization has to build relationships with its customers, suppliers, and employees to ensure its social responsibility. The employees within the organization have to polite with each other and customers to prove that they are also the part of the society. They do not have to adopt unethical behavior and work in an effective environment.
Respect Other Cultures
It is the implied duty of the individual and the organization to respect cultures other than that of the organization. The organization needs to perform its various operational activities. The food and beverages company could not sell the meat of pig in Islamic countries as it is against their religion. The organization has to follow ethics principles in selling and marketing the products in different countries.
Behavioral Skills
It was also a good experience to learn how to react in the organizational internal environment. The learning outcomes enhance the skills of human behavior that is to be practices within the organization. It helps in building leadership skills effectiveness, interacting in group situations, helping others to develop their skills.
Leadership Skills Effectiveness
The leadership skills effectiveness can bring capabilities of handling the situation in an effective manner. The organization always appreciates those who are capable of developing leadership skills in their behavior. The outcome had provided effective leadership styles and skills to develop and apply them in the organization.
Interacting in Group Situations
The outcome also facilitates to provide a study that how the person has to react within the group. If he is acting a leader, he should be steadfast and dynamic by providing efficient results in less time.
Helping Others to Develop Their Skills
Helping others to develop their skills is the responsibility of the senior. A person must provide needful help to the juniors by sharing experiences, providing a reasonable platform for them to ask questions and help them in completing the given task efficiently.
Conclusion
The overall program had provided me a lot of information regarding the functional areas of business. I got an experience of how to deal with different types of situations. The program was fully enjoyed by me as it was fully addressed to business language and environment. There were plenty of examples those cleared the important areas of the program. The learning outcomes were fully understood by me. It was interesting to make projects on the topics that I had learnt. The most interesting thing was the incorporation of behavioral study that had developed my skills how to react in an organization. The environment of the classes was effective as we were allowed to ask the question and queries. The Program proved to be beneficial for me in the future. I had learnt a lot of things related to the business and develop my skills to perform in a global business environment and achieve the aim of career.
