Going global is no longer an abstract concept. Economies and cultures have become highly interlinked, artificial barriers have been brought down and the flow of goods, services, capital, knowledge and people across borders has immensely increased. Moreover, businesses nowadays have started to adopt an international approach to make their products and services available across global markets and thus maximise their revenues.
Doing business across borders is a complex matter involving considerably more than merely selling goods and services. One needs to understand the causes, the effects and the operating system in which business transactions are made. This is why business schools today are taking education outside the classroom, allowing their students to gain hands-on experience of a global market economy.
In order to meet the challenges of a global business mindset, many business schools have opted for a cross-cultural partnership, offering their students a variety of exchange programmes throughout their study. Others have set up intensive two-week courses where students go to other regions and attend lectures, talk to company officers and government officials and get language training. International networking is reinforced through a global team of lecturers: b-schools strive to attract academic staff with a variety of cultural backgrounds who not only have academic, but also managerial experience. For example, all lecturers at Hult have both an academic and a business background and work closely with businesses to pick up the latest trends.
In a constantly changing and expanding global market, identifying trends is best done on the spot and for some years now top business schools, such as Hult, have been doing exactly this. They have taken cross-cultural experiences a step further and have set up their own campuses in Asia, the US and Europe, where the economies are both challenging and promising. The campus rotation strategy has proven to be a huge success with students, as it allows them to experience real cultural differences and to understand the operating system of a given market without relying on information from global or local news, which can often be misleading and even untrue.
Finally, going global with an MBA has one unbeatable advantage. It turns you into a professional global citizen and makes you recession-proof. MBA graduates are not geographically bound, as they can obtain their degree in Europe and still go to work for a prospering company in Asia. China for example is one of the countries that needs tens of thousands of trained managers to fuel its economic growth and there are not enough qualified professionals. Those who have spent time in China, are familiar with the country and have an MBA from a top b-school can virtually write their own ticket. In other words, if a region is not doing particularly well, they can always pack their things and go to another locale with better job prospects. This is a great asset at a time when the economy has become hugely unpredictable.
