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Grooming Indonesians to be future global leaders
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Prasetiya Mulya, Cilandak Campus (-/-)
A
s asserted by author Thomas L. Friedman in his 2005 book The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, a perceptual shift is now required for countries, companies and individuals to remain competitive in a global market in which historical and geographic divisions are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Indonesia should also be a player in globalized business, especially with the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015. A lot of foreign companies and businesses have also expanded into Indonesia, opening up lots of jobs and selling products for Indonesians.
Indonesians, unfortunately, have yet to play an active role in expanding their businesses overseas.
“Due to our demographic bonus and the growing middle-class population, Indonesia has increasingly become a market for foreign products and services. Ideally, however, Indonesia should become more than just a passive observer of globalization; Indonesians should be encouraged to expand their businesses overseas as well,” Prasetiya Mulya School of Business and Economy Dean, Agus W. Soehadi, said.
If you are not planning to expand your businesses worldwide, international assignments are also an important career milestone for you, particularly if you work in multinational companies (MNCs) as it is a requirement for employees to assume top-level positions in these companies, according to Prasetiya Mulya School of Business and Economy Graduate Program Director Indria Handoko.
In order to expand their businesses overseas, Indonesians must prepare themselves by acquiring some hard and soft-skills to become global business players. The capability of interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds, who have different values and behaviors, while being strongly rooted in the knowledge of Indonesia’s own way of doing business, is one of them. Comprehensive knowledge of specific ways in which business is conducted in different countries is another vital requirement.
According to Indria, Indonesians actually seem to have a natural talent for adapting and adjusting quickly to international assignments. Indonesian executives have not taken significant participation on international assignments or expanded their businesses overseas due to a lack of self-confidence.
Therefore, in order to help Indonesians eager to expand their businesses and careers overseas, the Prasetiya Mulya University’s graduate school is launching its new Global Executive Master in Management (GEMM) Program.
Simply put, the program is specifically designed for Indonesian business practitioners who wish to expand their businesses overseas and foreign business practitioners who want to expand their businesses to Indonesia by providing a specific curriculum and practical experiences focusing on the global business paradigm. All lessons are delivered in English.
In the future, the program also seeks to attract more international students to create a real multicultural setting for its students.
“When foreigners want to expand their businesses, the best way to learn about Indonesia is by studying in Indonesia,” Agus said.
To support the GEMM program’s teaching and foreign field practice activities, the university is forming a partnership with the prestigious Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), The Netherlands.
“People often have the misguided perception that an ‘international program’ is just programs delivered in English but still taught by Indonesians, with most of teaching activities done in Indonesia. We are more than just a program taught in English; we truly want to help our students experience multiculturalism. For example, six members of our teaching staff are from RSM,” Agus told The Jakarta Post recently.
“The ways of doing business are so different in different countries. To understand global business, it’s not enough for you to just look it up on Google; you have to immerse yourself in it. Therefore, our approach uses problem-based learning, in which students will be sent to big corporations in the RSM network to study issues within the corporations and come up with solutions for them in their final project,” Agus added.
Cooperating with RSM is an advantage for Prasetiya Mulya, since the Dutch university is one of Europe’s leading business schools.
“We want to capitalize on RSM’s network, which spreads from South America to Germany and China, to provide places for our students to conduct their final projects,” Agus said. The benefit is mutual, as RSM can also capitalize on the university’s network of more than 5,000 Indonesian businesspeople.
According to Indria, the GEMM program’s curriculum contains core subjects in business, including finance and marketing as well as organizational and strategic management. Through the practical final project, students are required to integrate these subjects to develop business plans or improve existing businesses.
In developing the business plan, students are required not only to generate profit, but also influence their social, and environment in a sustainable and positive way, in alignment with the ‘three bottom line’ principle – covering aspects of profit, people and planet – which is emphasized in Prasetiya Mulya’s teaching process.
“Prasetiya Mulya is best known for its emphasis on the development of effective business plans,” Indria said.
Indria added that the GEMM program was also distinguished by its leadership development program, which provided students with personal coaching programs to boost their self-confidence in international bussines and to develop their capacities as global leaders.
