WHU Otto MBA Sample Essays

I have more than 5 years of work experince at Siemens. During my first two years at Siemens India, I worked as an on-site Engineer in Extra High Voltage substations. I was responsible for the Erection, Testing and Commissioning and Timely execution of the substations related projects. This was my first experience of meeting clients, managing manpower and Planning Projects. During this role, I loved meeting with the clients and really enjoyed the expereinces and learnings that I got while managing clients. As a result, I took a transfer to a new role within Siemens as a Technical sales Associate. 

From last Three and Half Years, I am working as a sales associate for the Turnkey Tenders. In this role, I am responsible for the acquisition of the tenders from clients by preparing the best optimized offer which is both profitable and competitive. I regularly meet the clients and handle the negotiation meetings, collaborate with the stakeholders, analyze the Competitive landscape. So far, I have been able to acquire projects worth 30 Million Euros for Siemens India. 

However, with the recent increase in my Position Level, I have much more responsibility to handle bigger clients and tenders than before. Now, I feel that I lack some networking and client handling skills for which I need to get business knowledge which will prepare me for even bigger roles. On the personal side, having worked with Indian Clients till date, I do not have an international exposure. I want to get a global exposure as the markets are getting increasingly globalized. A global MBA can help me improve my networking skills and make me ready for the Global stage. 

After my MBA, I want to be a business development manager in an engineering and technology company. I believe, my professional expereinces at Siemens has exposed me to client negotiation, client management and handling, and stakeholder collaboration which are necessary skills for a business development profession and these are the three skills which I want to further develop and polish at WHU.

After MBA in the short term, I aspire to become a Business Development Manager, preferably with one of the Engineering and Technology companies like Siemens. In my present role as Technical sales professional at Siemens India, I have got an opportunity to work in a lot of tenders and have got an opportunity to face clients. This exposure has formed a basis for this short term goal of mine.

After gaining more than 5 years of professional work experience, I have been able to develop the skills to lead, handle the clients and Analyze Market Price to an extent but far from what I need to become a skillful Manager. With an undergraduate degree in engineering, my career progression is limited. I want to bridge that gap and get an MBA degree that will equip me with the right skills to work in the Business Development role.

I believe the WHU MBA, with its course offerings such as Marketing, Strategy Execution, Finance and Price Management will help me expand my knowledge. The Final MBA project as a part of the course in which I can apply for the internship at one of the organizations where I want to work will give me an opportunity to get a flavor of the post MBA jobs. In addition, the Management Practice workshops will keep me abreast with the current industry practices as I enter into the corporate world.

My long term goal is to become a Global Strategy Manager in an Engineering and Technology company. After working as a Business Development Manager for some years post MBA, I feel I will be better prepared to lead the Global Strategy Roles at achieve my long trm aspirations.

After extensive research and talking to current MBA students, I believe WHU’s MBA is in perfect sync with my targeted goals and desired learning from an MBA program. Three ways through which I see that WHU MBA will help me bridge the skill gaps and achieve my Post MBA goals:

1. Gain the global edge – The markets are being increasingly globalized, so my first and foremost desire was to pursue my MBA from a global B-schools. I realise havign international experience can take me leaps and bounds ahead in my career. I want to improve my networking skills and get ready for the Global stage. I want to acquire learnings and international exposure, which will help me to broaden my horizon and be an impactful leader. As I have worked with Indian clients only, I do not have any international experience and the integrated international module fills this gap. The ideally small, yet highly international, diverse and experienced cohort is another reason I want to study at WHU.

2. Final MBA Project and Personal Leadership Module: I strongly believe in learning by doing and I have always personally learned the most by pratically applying the theoritical knowledge. I believe the Final MBA project as a part of WHU curriculum can provide me the safe space to  test my real life application of management concepts which I have learnt in the classroom. It will help me taste the waters of the actual role which I aspire to do post MBA. The Personal Leadership module will help me develop my interpersonal, cross cultural competency, collaborative decision making and team management skills  which I believe will help me to be an effective leader.

3. Being amongst the best – Lastly after workin in a german company fr 5 years, I have great admiration for German work ethics and culture. I feel i already know the culture to a lot fo etent and I have already learned a little bit of german. So germany was my first choice when i started researching about an MBA and WHU has been consistently recognized as one of the best business schools in Germany. It has really accomplished teachers of management. I would love to study under the the guidance of Professor Dr. Jane Le and Ayse Karaevli to hone my management skills which can help me be a better Strategy Manager.

Overall I think WHU MBA is a perfect fit with my desired learnings from an MBA program and can help me achieve my desired goals. 

I believe that the three things that set me apart include the client Negotiation experience while working as a technical sales expert, an Experience of Turnkey Projects and an interest to cooking delicious Indian food.

Firstly, in my present role, I have handled extensive client negotiations. In the substations market, there are a lot of Chinese and Korean competitors such as Hyosung, Chint, TaiKai, TBEA etc which are setting up manufacturing plants in India leading to a price war. For ex: In one of our tender negotiations at Delhi Transmission Limited, we managed to convince the client to get the Qualification Requirement of the tender changed to curb the Chinese  competitors from participating in the tender due to significant quality concern. I also had to negotiate with the vendors to reach the winning target price and while doing so, I have to keep in my mind about profitability and competitiveness to match the clients target. I can bring to the classroom discussions the experiences and market practices of the B2B industry as well as the customer practices and ways through which clients try to optimize their projects by fostering competition.

Secondly, Having around Five and half years of experience in Turnkey Projects business, I feel my work experience is quite different from the aspirants of Common IT pool. Turnkey Projects business is risky in nature and each turnkey project is in itself unique. For example, one unique lesson learnt in one of the projects at an altitude of 2700 Mtrs. above the sea level in the state of Himachal pradesh (a state with hilly terrain) of India was that the power transformers weighing  around 25MT each could not be transported to the site at 2700 mtrs. Altitude and bridge strengthening had to be done by siemens leading to profit deterioration as the route survey was not properly done during he tendering stage. This extra work of bridge strengthening led to delay in the project completion as well. So, there are a lot of Lessons Learnt shared with the team for each of the executed project with a purpose that these same mistakes are not repeated again in the coming tenders. I can bring to the classroom the lessons learnt from various projects which I feel will be quite insightful for the class.

Thirdly, I am fond of cooking. Cooking started off for me as a necessary thing to learn when I went out to live independently for my undergrad and job. Now, I can cook Indian cuisine quite well. Good delicious food has this unique ability to bring together all communites together and forter a great learning and sharing experience. At WHU, I want to be an active member to organize the Potlucks and spread the taste of Indian Cuisine in WHU. Participating actively in the Potlucks will help me understand the cultures and behavior of various parts of the world.