Varun Verma, Assistant Vice-President – O&S;, Genpact, sheds light on the important role global exposure and real-world skills play in preparing graduates for the real world of international business. Varun is an S P Jain GMBA graduate and was recently selected to take part in Genpact’s coveted Leadership Excellence Acceleration Program (LEAP).
Today, business comes to life in golf courses, at dinner tables, and client offices. What skills do business managers need to make a real impact?
One skill that is crucial for a global business manager is his/her ability to persuade. Whether it is selling your BIG idea, negotiating with a vendor/client, dealing with your team…you are in a constant state of influencing people to conform to your thinking. This is the biggest skill that an effective manager needs to inculcate. The curriculum at S P Jain emphasizes this – you go through a plethora of business case studies wherein you are stretched to think critically and debate with your peers. Engaging in such discussions is the best way to develop this skillset.
The curriculum at S P Jain focuses on global exposure. From your experience, does global exposure among business managers really count?
Absolutely! Organizations across the board give immense value to diversity – if you have worked across countries or studied in an international environment, you develop behaviours that brings added value to an organization. What I like about S P Jain is the fact that you get exposure to highly diverse regions and get a deep understanding of the various cultural nuances.
If yes, what kind of global exposure does a graduate need to get prepared for the global business world?
In a highly integrated world, one needs to be able to connect with people from all backgrounds. You may be India but your team may be based out of US and your manager may be based out of Australia. This is how global interconnected work relationships have become. So, it is important for one to develop the ability to deal with people from different cultures and geographies. Studying at S P Jain gave me the opportunity to interact with faculty from different countries, work on projects in local markets, interact with different folks who are part of that ecosystem – all this exposure played an important role in grooming me as a leader.
Real-world skills like decision-making, persuasion, selling, etc., are emphasized by the S P Jain curriculum. Is it important for students to learn these skills in the classroom so they are more prepared for the working world?
YES! It is easy to ideate. Ideas are dime and dozen. However, the mark of a true leader is to EXECUTE. Most organizations and people fail because they are unable to successfully execute and follow through. Good execution is a function of effective planning, follow through and course correction. It is during the execution phase you call upon a set of core skills – like, decision making, persuasion, problem resolution, etc. Our country produces lot of smart computer scientists and engineers. These people are great in terms of their linear thinking and core technical skills. However, to become an effective leader, one also needs to develop the softer skills. At a very fundamental level, every business (from selling soaps to selling multi-million dollar defence equipment) and every role (from HR to Sales) is about dealing with people…therefore, it is vital for global managers to spend enough time in honing these core set of soft skills – decision-making, executive presence, persuasion, selling, etc – in order to become more effective.
How has the business learning experience at S P Jain shaped and groomed you for the challenges of working in a global company?
S P Jain curriculum stretches you to the limit. This is a good thing! In the real world, you don’t have the privilege of asking your boss for a “project submission extension”! At S P Jain, I used to juggle projects, multiple teams and multiple deadlines. This experience helped me tremendously in terms of honing my ability to prioritise projects and manage my time effectively. Furthermore, the course pedagogy followed at S P Jain truly helped me build my project management skills and people management skills.
Note: This is a sponsored article and has NOT been written by the PaGaLGuY Editorial Team. It is intended from an informational perspective only and it is upto the readers to research and verify the claims and judgements in the article before reaching a conclusion.