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I’ll Stand Out From The Crowd, Says Nanyang MBA

Marketing professional cites Chinese connections from international student body

Thu Feb 24 2011

BusinessBecause
This week BusinessBecause speaks to Edwin Tan, MBA student at Nanyang Business School and marketing professional. He explains why an MBA from Nanyang is helping take his career forward.

After spending his twenties in engineering roles in the Singaporean semiconductor manufacturing industry, Edwin took the chance to move over to marketing.

"I realized that I liked marketing as it allowed me to exercise creativity in analyzing customers’ requirements, competitors positions and market requirements for future developments.

"The technology business is always changing very fast and new products are always being developed. So the marketing input is very important as wrong inputs could mean a new product does not meet customers’ requirements and precious time is lost in development.

“Competitors could be way ahead by then.”

But despite all this, Edwin saw that his industry was being held back by vastly outdated marketing tools. He realised his career would take a huge boost if he could find time to study modern marketing and strategy methods.

But for several years he was too overworked even for part-time study, and so he trudged along with the same techniques like everyone else.

" Finally, in 2008, the company I worked at laid off most of the staff (me included) due to the financial crisis and I decided to take the down time to get that MBA."

"I would say that my previous jobs have actually prepared me very well for the MBA course. Working under time pressure and stringent requirements are common in the semiconductor industry."

And hopefully Edwin’s new skills will give him the edge on his rivals in outdated marketing departments within the industry when he finishes his course later this year.

As a Singaporean, Edwin is relatively rare at his college; Nanyang Business School’s reputation within the region means 96% of applicants are foreign. But should international students be giving schools in China more thought?

"My opinion is ‘yes’ – if you foresee yourself working with Chinese companies or in China. It would give you a head start in understanding how the Chinese do business.

“In the Nanyang MBA we have many Chinese students coming to Singapore to study, so I can say that by interacting with them, I’m also able to gain some understanding of Chinese business culture and forming networks after the course."

Nanyang are hosting an open evening on their campus on Wednesday 9 March at 7pm for all prospective MBA applicants. To register, click here

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