Dreams Unlimited!

First a bit about my experience; I am charged with business development, customer relationship management and program management for my client’s ecommerce line of business. I was responsible for building our revenues from insignificance to substantial, and was managing a program with a team spread across geographies. This experience at a top 50 Fortune 500 retail organization exposed me to work on multiple novel solutions. For instance, I was helping my client come up with a Personal Shopper for its ecommerce websites, in which it will act as a concierge for its customer to get the best products at best deals. We were in parallel developing tools to run analytics on various ecommerce sites, so that our client could offer the same products to our customers without keeping any inventory within our warehouse. Another instance of an interesting challenge was of leading an execution of a solution that provides an intersection of internet, retail and social commerce for managing online web-content. Such innovative solutions inspire me and I now wish to invest in the growth of such innovations.

So I am looking for a career transition; from a career of technology consulting, I now want to invest in technology. Honestly, I am looking for direction on how I get there in my b-school education. Immediately after MBA, I want to get into business development in a technology company. I will leverage this experience for my long term goal as I evaluate potential deals and use this opportunity to network with venture capitalist and investors in startups. I intend to gain sufficient exposure to understand the financial and operational nuances and then transition to become a venture capitalist.

Also, I believe that this economic condition will throw open doors for many opportunities. I need the right tool-set from the business school to convert such opportunities into viable businesses. As such the current global economic turmoil is poised to challenge the way we conduct business. There is a lot to learn from this economic debacle on “why” and “how” the economy crashed and analyze how to do things differently in the emerging world order. I believe that the emerging market and technology changes are going to be too fast-paced and dynamic for big corporations to exploit economies of scale. Consequently, businesses that execute on the cutting-edge of innovation will thrive in this emerging landscape. I envision that future businesses will grow by creating niche communities and operating within them. And of course I strongly believe that the next wave of such innovations will come from developing countries, notably India, China, and Brazil because of purchasing power parity, emerging middle class and highly skilled technical manpower. Look at China, how it has leapfroged from an industrial age into "mobile" age. There are approximately ten million mobile phone subscribers added every month and the various business solutions built to support this massive data flow. Or for that matter, the sheer rise in the number of patents in ICT sector in India is indicative of where we are headed. This critical awareness offers myriad opportunities for a new entrant like me. I need to study business now, as this is the perfect time to not only equip myself with the appropriate business tools, but also the precise moment to gain an in-depth understanding from the current debacle.

Finally to sum it up, I am looking at business education not just for pursuing my dreams but also for personal development. I see an MBA as an expansive experience that will help me become a better person!