(PROFESSOR NAME)
Introduction
My first memories of my father’s office have been those of sitting in his leather swivel chair and holding the phone to my ear. As a toddler, I used to spend hours engrossed with the things in my father’s office – pen-stand, papers, paper weights, and the endless people that kept coming and going to meet him. He used to always be busy meeting people, planning something or talking on the phone. He used to dress in a shirt and tie always – the very image of the busy entrepreneur.
As the son of a businessman, I was exposed from a very early age to the fact that father was different – he worked harder than the fathers of my friends, but he had more respect and people sought his knowledge and advice in many matters. As I grew up and began to understand about the family business, and how my father had grown it from the tiny venture started by my grandfather into the size that it was, my respect for him grew, and I wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps and earn the kind of respect and admiration he enjoyed. People in the company accorded me a lot of respect, and this was due to my father, but I wanted to earn that respect for myself and make my father proud.
As the third generation of a business family, one whose business has grown over the last few decades, it is but natural that I should take over the family business from my father one day. The interesting part lies not in the fact that I would take over the business, but in the challenge of taking it to a point beyond where it lies today. While my grandfather was known as a businessman and trader in the locality where he grew, my father grew the business to span several cities and regions within Turkey, our home country. He did this by sheer hard work, traveling back and forth across the country to promote the business, get new customers and to ensure that he delivered the best possible level of customer service to them.
Taking the Business Forward: the opportunity to expand internationally
While I am capable of maintaining the business at the current level, I see a much larger future for the business in the coming years. In the past, Turkey was an important trading post and the end point of the renowned pan-Asian Silk Route, the ancient trail that connected Europe to the Far East, through the Middle East, India, Mongolia and China. It was the route that took fabled Italian explorer Marco Polo on his visits to and from China, brought the wonders of spices, tea and silk to Europe. Today, Turkey spans an important future in the global trading arena, as it applies to become part of the European Union. While Turkey is among the seven countries considered as active candidates along with countries like Iceland and the East European states that were part of the former Yugoslav republic (BBC World, 2014), it is already growing as a major sourcing destination for textiles, garments, automobiles (Economy Watch, 2010), and commodities like coffee, yarn and spices (OEC, 2014), traditional items of trade which have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. This gives Turkey the opportunity to be a regional economic powerhouse thanks to its connections with its oil-producing, economically robust neighbors in the region besides the European and American economies which have long-standing ties with Turkey.
As a business house in Turkey, an entry into the European Union would allow my family’s business the opportunity to expand significantly overseas. While this is likely to take some time, I believe the time to prepare for this opportunity lies in the present. As a business, we have never looked beyond Turkey for our business interests. With the inclusion of Turkey into the European Union, the opportunities to engage in business across a much larger geography without the need for expensive investments in setting up subsidiaries, joint ventures or new business entities across the European continent are definitely an attraction.
My reasons for seeking admission to an international management course in the United States
However, this is not the only reason for my interest in international management. With the growth of communications and the internet in the last couple of decades, the opportunity for any business to sell to an international clientele has increased significantly. Using the internet and e-commerce portals, customers across the world can today order what they need from almost anywhere across the world. This offers an immense opportunity for me to take our family business into the e-commerce age. I find this highly exciting, and to some extent a little frightening as well. To make the best use of the opportunities coming up, I have felt the need for exposure to international business culture, best practices and the ability to think “glocally” (Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith, 2012), combining the best of global and local management techniques.
The best place to learn and understand how global businesses operate, in fact, how small local businesses can expand and evolve to succeed on a global platform is in the United States, the mecca of global businesses. It is for this reason that I have sought to complete my studies in international business management in the best universities in the United States, ranked as being the best across the world. Using the international experience and knowledge garnered from my education stint in the united States, I plan to go back and help my father first expand the business across the Middle East, Europe and hopefully online as well.
How this will Help My Career
During my stint, I hope to spend time interning with start-ups and growing companies in the US as well, to get a first-hand experience of what companies do to build a global presence. This will give me first-hand experience of managing functions in a business, without the protective cover of being the son of the owner, which would not happen in my family business. This will complete my learning experience and I can then go back to Turkey and take over responsibilities in the family business with confidence.
The United States has an environment that encourages entrepreneurship. Numerous companies are set up every year and though many of them fail to achieve success, there is a significant amount that one can learn from working with such upcoming firms. This exposure and experience will add to my knowledge and help me explore opportunities to expand new business opportunities within my company in a diverse number of areas which will ultimately help expand the overall size of the business beyond our traditional areas.
Conclusion
While I have worked in my family’s business during my years in graduation, my experiences have been limited and protected due to the fact that my father owns and runs the business. I see a significant opportunity for expanding the business beyond its present size and into Europe and across the Middle East in the coming years. To make this happen, I need to understand how a business can expand from a local or national level to international markets (Entrepreneur, 2014).
At the same time, I need the experience of managing a function and responsibilities independently which my internships will give me the opportunity to experience. Working with small companies and entrepreneurial ventures will give me confidence and experience in dealing with a rapidly changing business environment. Therefore, an international degree in business management is what I am looking for, so that I can take the family business to the next level and bring it on par with the best of international companies. A combination of my degree and the work experience will go a long way towards building my skills and abilities as well as confidence in running my family business.
References
BBC World. “EU Enlargement: The Next Seven”, BBC World, Web (2014), 1 October 2014
Economy Watch. “Turkey Trade, Exports and Imports”, Economy Watch (2010), Web 2 October 2014.
Entrepreneur. “How to Take Your Company Global”, Entrepreneur (2014) Web 2 October 2014.
Observatory of Economic Complexity. “Learn About Trade In Turkey”, OEC (2012) Web, 1 October 2014.
Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith. “Going 'Glocal': How Smart Brands Adapt To Foreign Markets”, Forbes (2012), Web 2 October 2014.
