I recently traveled overseas to India's capital - New Delhi, as part of our Global/International project requirement this semester. I was visiting Delhi after a gap of several years and this brought a fresh perspective to my whole experience. A wide angle view was enhanced thanks to the some members on my team who noticed typical characteristics of Delhi that perhaps an erstwhile Indian like me, wouldn't have instantly perceived to be anything out of ordinary. A few minor examples include... seeing cows on the streets 'chilling out', ascertaining a rationale for the words 'horn please' plastered on every possible truck in the already noise polluted Delhi, were among the many amusing observations :)
The trip involved spending nearly a week attending pre-planned project related business meetings. There is tremendous value in actually visiting a foreign market, even though nowadays you tend to have abundant access to market research information available online. Visiting a country of choice, for the prescribed academic reasons, helps students obtain a 'hands-on' understanding of key business drivers and additionally provides critical insight into the market's cultural landscape. This market visit helps students unlock the realistic impact of a competitive value proposition for a business plan or feasibility study, as derived for the product or service of choice.
On such trips you definitely spend a lot more time with team mates, which is otherwise not possible during class weekends. This provides expanded opportunities to form simplified yet solid impressions of your team mates. It can be a discovery process where you effectively learn how important it is to adapt, accept and/or address differences when working as a team. For some this can be a wonderful experience, or not, as a team's goals are often affected more by gaps between various friendships on the team. So inspite of our sleep deprived and jet lag driven schedule, we decided to squeeze in time for social activities, visited a few touristic sites and still have fun during our trip.
Overall, the visit was educational, memorable and far from boring. Now that we are back at base, its crunch time to prepare for our final Global project presentation and associated paper due next week. Not forgetting the upcoming assignments that our due for the IT strategy course as well. Yup.. its gonna be a geeky Thanksgiving weekend for sure!
The trip involved spending nearly a week attending pre-planned project related business meetings. There is tremendous value in actually visiting a foreign market, even though nowadays you tend to have abundant access to market research information available online. Visiting a country of choice, for the prescribed academic reasons, helps students obtain a 'hands-on' understanding of key business drivers and additionally provides critical insight into the market's cultural landscape. This market visit helps students unlock the realistic impact of a competitive value proposition for a business plan or feasibility study, as derived for the product or service of choice.
On such trips you definitely spend a lot more time with team mates, which is otherwise not possible during class weekends. This provides expanded opportunities to form simplified yet solid impressions of your team mates. It can be a discovery process where you effectively learn how important it is to adapt, accept and/or address differences when working as a team. For some this can be a wonderful experience, or not, as a team's goals are often affected more by gaps between various friendships on the team. So inspite of our sleep deprived and jet lag driven schedule, we decided to squeeze in time for social activities, visited a few touristic sites and still have fun during our trip.
Overall, the visit was educational, memorable and far from boring. Now that we are back at base, its crunch time to prepare for our final Global project presentation and associated paper due next week. Not forgetting the upcoming assignments that our due for the IT strategy course as well. Yup.. its gonna be a geeky Thanksgiving weekend for sure!
