Advantages Of Experiential Learning

What Is Experiential Learning?

Experiential learning, simply explained, is a process of learning through first-hand experience. It is a method of acquiring expertise and skill through practical application of concepts, theories and problem solving techniques instead of just reading or hearing about them.

Why Experiential Learning?

The purpose of experiential learning is to have you world-ready by the time you complete the education program. For professionals who are already working, experiential learning will help them in enhancing skills and managing their roles effectively.  It makes use of tools like internships, service-training, field work and practical activities to impart learning. Its approach is more about what you need to know and less about what can be taught.

Advantages of Experiential Learning

Experiential learning encourages application of knowledge and concepts to real- world situations with learning support from the trainer. Some key advantages of this method of learning are:

1. Accelerates Learning

‘Learning by doing’ is far more effective and long lasting than theoretical learning. Further, experiential learning also promotes development of multiple skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and effective decision-making at the same time.

2. A Learning Environment With A Safety Net

Since experiential learning involves working on real-world situation simulations, it offers the students freedom to think and operate differently without crushing their confidence if anything goes wrong.

3. Merging Of Theory And Practice

What has been learnt from books can now be applied in field to understand its effect and behaviour. It also helps in remembering concepts and ideas.

4. Increases Team Work

experiential learning engages participants in various team-based activities thus training them on team building and leadership. This benefits the participants because they learn from each other and also because they will have to work in a team in a professional environment.

5. Assessing Learning Is Easier and Accurate

Simulation of a real-world situation with optimal outcomes, shows whether participants are able to understand the concepts as expected or not.

6. Motivation to Learn and Impactful Activities

These are the indirect yet important advantages of experiential learning. The method encourages active participation and kindles a desire to learn.

Watch this video of a workshop on Experiential Learning by Welingkar’s Hybrid PGDM program, and learn about how participants get involved in interactive learning.

You can fast track your learning process and experience the multiple benefits of experiential learning through interactive workshops.

Explore more such workshops by Welingkar’s. Visit here.

 

4 keys to Effective Crisis Management

“The secret of crisis management is not good vs. bad, it’s preventing bad from getting worse.”

A crisis can occur anytime. There are no tools to completely safeguard an institution or a business from a crisis. However, one can develop effective crisis management practices to bring situations under control at workplace before they become catastrophic.

Check out these 4 key ways to manage crisis effectively and restore balance at workplace:

1) Timeliness

“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

The first step to crisis management is having a crisis management plan ready beforehand for exigencies. You won’t have the time to formulate one when trouble starts.

Do not delay responding to the crisis. Don’t assume it will blow over because it won’t.  Respond quickly and factually.

2) Handling Information

“In absence of information, we jump to the worst conclusion.”

Information is the key to managing any situation. Without ample information, the team involved will be handicapped or worse, misguided, when it comes to doing damage control. Hence, pass all necessary information about the situation and its background to core team promptly and properly.

At the same time, snub out any inaccurate information that might be circulating, by responding to it.

All stakeholders, media, and public should receive information on a regular basis too. Keep it simple with no room for speculation.

3) Communication

“Problems can be solved just by communicating.”

Assign a spokesperson representing the organization till things settle down, All communication beyond your core team should go through this single channel.

Don’t be afraid to communicate empathy and concern towards those adversely affected by the crisis.

Don’t dodge questions, if you don’t have an appropriate response or information, say that you will get back on that.  Avoid the ‘no comment’ approach – it’s murky.

It is better to reveal the bad news yourself, instead of trying to hide it and letting an external source discover it.

4) Ownership

“Keep calm and take Ownership.”

Probably the best thing you can do to salvage a situation and your reputation, is taking ownership. If you have made mistakes be courageous to acknowledge it than evade the same.

The dynamics involved in effective crisis management can be learnt from experiences and also management training that uses interactive workshops. Adopt such innovative learning methods and excel in your crisis management skills.

5 Essential Tips for Effective Time Management

Time management is a much talked about, yet, one of the most overlooked managerial attributes.

As a manager, a professional’s key responsibility is to manage his/her time while helping the team to manage their own. Not only is effective and efficient time management beneficial, but it is also critical to an individual’s and organization’s success.

Here are 5 essential tips you would want to follow for effective time management:

PRIORITIZE:

There will always be multiple things to be done together. But by understanding what is most critical and of the highest importance, that you, as a manager will be able to allocate time to tasks. With proper prioritization and careful management of deprioritized tasks, you can bring order to chaos, reduce stress, and manage time smartly.

ONE-THING-AT-A-TIME:

Remember when our teachers in school used to reprimand us for trying to do too many things at a time? We need to recall that and implement it in our professional lives too. As a manager, you are expected to do multiple things like answering emails, making proposals, reports, attending calls etc. – all at the same time. Hence it is highly essential that you handle one type of tasks at a time and move on to the next, only when you finish the previous one.

SET SPECIFIC GOALS:

Effective and efficient time management calls for setting ‘smart’ goals. It motivates you to work in a time-bound manner. However, ‘goal-setting’ does not merely end with setting goals. You need to chart out a plan of action to realize these goals. And most importantly, you should stick to the action plan that you have created. That is when you would know if you are able to accomplish it in a timeline you have set.

COMMUNICATE:

At times, when you are trying to accomplish multiple tasks, you might not be able to communicate in an ideal manner. But effective communication is indispensable for managing time efficiently, especially for high priority tasks where you must set aside time to communicate with the people involved. Consequently, you would realize that just by communicating at the right time, with the right people, you are able to manage your time.

TAKE-A-BREAK:

Sometimes, when we try to handle a lot of responsibilities, fatigue gets to us. Hence, it is necessary to take a break and refresh your mind so that you come back recharged with more productivity. Experts believe that more you space out your thoughts, the better you are able to think and with clarity. This not only helps you achieve your goals but also instills positivity within your team.

As a part of management studies, aspiring managers, executives and professionals are taught about time management. Online Hybrid PGDM programs impart training to enhance time management skills through various interactive workshops, simulation exercises, experiential learning and so on.

So learn to value your time just as you would value your money. After all, “time is money”, essentially, isn’t it?

FOUR REASONS TO CHOOSE HYBRID OVER REGULAR ONLINE COURSES

A resourceful person always stays ahead of the game. Unlike formal education, online courses offer flexibility and the convenience to choose the schedule, time and pace at which you intend to build up your skills. However, online courses can suffer from lack of engagement and motivation. This has led to educators create a blend in the form of ‘hybrid’ learning courses.

Four reasons to go hybrid

1. Multiple ways to learn: Everyone gets tired of reading pages after pages of text. Hybrid courses were developed for the same reason that children’s books are filled with illustrations. The added inputs can come in the form of videos, audio, industry visits, and visually enhanced resentations, in addition to course material. It ensures that the conveyed information is easily understood, thus giving an edge over both offline and online teaching methods.Here is an industry visit in action:

2. Diversified approach: Your learning preferences may not be the same as that of your neighbor. Standardized online courses might therefore fail to meet the demands of every student. Diversified teaching methods allow tackling various issues and queries that arise during a course. Besides taking care of time constraints, hybrid courses, for instance an MBA in advertising and media or healthcare management courses, enable face-to-face interaction with the educators.

3. Greater scope for instructors: Hybrid courses allow instructors to update and tweak their methods of teaching to suit the needs of individual students. Interactions help them in making suggestions, both for improving course materials and students’ performance. This is a lot better than auto-generated feedbacks.

4. They are fun: Hybrid courses add the vital ‘fun’ element to learning, something that goes amiss in regular teaching methods and online courses. This allows you to hone up on soft skills.

Watch an ‘experiential’ workshop in progress here:

Hybrid learning methods, like the ones used at Welingkar’s Hybrid PGDM Program, ensure that students and professionals undertaking online courses emerge not merely with a qualification, but armed with a ready set of essential knowledge and skills needed to succeed.

TO WIN, STAY IN THE GAME

Here is a well known but oft neglected truth: it’s not dreaming to win, but staying in the game that makes winners. If you are ambitious to step up the management ladder, or just plain curious to learn and grow, expanding your knowledge quotient is a big ally.

It’s never late to opt for a different career path. Not when you can train yourself for something better, something that you find interesting.

And that’s the case with distance learning.  It is your customized platform of learning, your ally in need.

Technology has turned access to virtual classrooms easier. That, in turn, can accelerate your speed of learning, even when you’re hung up with your everyday job or responsibilities. International degrees can now be delivered at your doorstep without you having to go through the pains of acquiring a visa and other stringent regulations.

It all started when people started seeking alternatives to night schools and education for those having mobility issues. So education is no longer out of reach, with e-learning coming to your rescue.

If you think online learning is also stuck with school courses for elementary training, here is a surprise. It has evolved to offer you competitive degrees which can give that additional push in your career. Whether it is in the form of retail management courses or PG Diploma in Finance, distance education can bring a formal degree to add more value to your resume.

Besides increasing your field of expertise, distance education also provides an upper hand amidst the cut-throat competition in professional scenarios where ‘survival of the fittest’ is essential. Pursued through well set-up institutes, the courses can develop not just your know-how, but also focus on strengthening your analytical and creative problem solving skills. Supported with industrial visits, brainstorming sessions and allied activities, these online courses can help you win races.

The courses help equip professionals with knowledge of ongoing market trends, and can also meet the transforming needs of entrepreneurs. Virtual classrooms can thus be your window to growth. The best part – they allow you to sharpen your skills at your convenience.

With time, the demand for distance learning courses in India has increased. As professionals seek to acquire that winning edge over their colleagues, the field has also grown so much that you will be spoilt for choices.

Equip yourself with a qualification through distance learning, and see yourself counted among the winners, because you stayed in the game.

Rise of E-commerce

E-commerce has grown over the years and made some ground-breaking progress in the world of business. It has brought about a remarkable transformation in the way Indians shopped and traded. Not just that, it has taken over the imagination of emerging entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of business. Technological advancements and easy access to the internet has given it a boost. It has exploded further in the last couple of years and the entire segment has turned into a million dollar sector and this is just the beginning! There is speculation that e-commerce will grow will reach a value of around USD $ 30 billion by 2016.

Every small or big business has established themselves in the e-commerce space. This has liberated consumers from the limitations of time and place. Now, you can buy anything, anytime from anywhere with just a couple of clicks. There are ups and downs while establishing yourself on e-commerce, but it is a real achievement when you manage to survive the harsh and the competitive environment of the e-commerce scenario.

E-commerce is a tough playground for businesses and like every other field, believes in the notion of survival of the strongest. The smartest ones have survived and build their brands on the e-commerce platform, but with a strong educational background there is a good chance to not only survive, but lead a successful venture. Therefore, here are some handy pointers that will help you build your e-business.

Optimization of SEO

In the virtual world, visibility plays a humongous role in achieving success and here is where SEO steps in. Search Engine Optimization, if used strategically, can contribute to overall success. After all, SEO gives you a platform to make yourself visible on the internet world. Here, your attention should be on adding value to the content you are putting out. Quality content will give the users a positive experience. One of the best ways to provide content is through a blog. You can put forth a blog that is rich in content and helps you fulfill the purpose of SEO effectively.

Smartphones can be smarter

The mobile revolution has opened the doors of opportunities that can prove beneficial for an e-commerce business. We are almost never without our smartphones. In fact, we depend on this little device for our social, professional and entertainment needs. We chat, shop, and browse the internet through our smartphones.  This gives the e-commerce sector more space to expand so do take advantage of this. Create apps through which you can be easily accessible to the consumers.

Data is your friend

Using data smartly for an e-commerce venture is very critical. Are you taking full advantage of the possibilities that your data has to offer? The ability to collect more data and, more importantly, data of greater relevance is an ever going challenge. In that case, hire someone who has the expertise in handling data and mining it for insights. With time, you will be able to watch your e-commerce venture soaring.

Other things that you can work on are to offer your consumer transparency and security along with better services. E-commerce has reached heights and keeps expanding with each passing day and these are just the early days. Therefore, grab your chance be a part of this ever-growing space today!

Four Critical Aspects of International business

India is being increasingly viewed worldwide as a market with great prospects across all business sectors. In fact, with every passing day the potential for international business becomes increasingly lucrative. Growing at a rate of more than 7% annually, the international business sector is booming. With budding possibilities along with ample manpower and technology available, India is a fitting arena to explore new international business possibilities.

Before moving on to the laws to be followed while establishing an International Business, let’s first understand the basic definition of International Business. The exchange of goods, services and other commercial transactions that take place between two businesses and individuals belonging to different countries and political boundaries is classified as International Business. Establishing an International Business in a foreign land is not easy. India is a diverse country and there are several factors to be considered, some of which are mentioned below.

Foreign Investment Policy: One of the most important factors to be considered while establishing a foreign business in India is its Foreign Investment Policy. Foreign investment was previously restricted in India, but the economic reforms initiated in 1991 lead to FDI i.e. Foreign Direct Investment into India. The new policy provided approvals for projects with foreign equity participation of up to 51% in high priority areas.

Regulatory Environment: An important aspect to be taken into consideration is the Regulatory Environment. This is further subdivided to cover important factors. Exchange control, Companies Law, Stock Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and Competition Commission of India (CCI) cover the various aspects that protect all the parties involved.

Business Presence in India: This deals with different forms of business entities present in India. Foreign Companies are segregated into two main divisions. The first one is operating as a foreign company and the other is establishing an Indian company. These two options encompass several sub-types.

Tax Environment: Knowing the Tax Environment is probably the most important aspect of conducting International Business successfully. Tax is an extensive subject and covers a lot of factors. Constitutional Provisions and Tax legislation are some of the things to consider. Direct and indirect taxes along with Corporate Tax Rates are also important pointers to keep in mind. India has a federal level Income Tax structure governed by the provisions of Income Tax Act, 1961. Tax rules are subjected to change and an International Business entering the local scene should be thoroughly aware of the current tax rules.

Besides the above four aspects, being aware of international arrangements is also necessary. Keep yourself updated regarding recent tax and regulatory changes, for this is extremely important to know. Keeping all these factors in mind, grow your business in foreign lands and know that the world is yours if you know how to grow your International Business the right way.

Welingkar Distance Learning Program is one such institute that accommodates to fit your needs. But don’t go by what we see, check it out for yourself!

How to Choose a Right Executive MBA Programs

Today there are millions of educational options in every field and even more options of institutes and university to choose from.  Picking the right option is critical; education ultimately becomes the foundation on which an individual established their future. The world of business is on a path of continuously growth and nowadays businesses and organizations demand high level programs, to be exact, they look for professionals with an MBA program to their name. But with this fast paced world, where everyone is busy running the ultimate race, to know that you are on the track is very important. In short, how to choose a right Executive MBA program is necessary. MBA is one of the most sought-after and prestigious degrees not only in India, but all over the world.

In a country like India, where everyone has a free advice to offer and every third lane has a school or institute offering MBA course, finding the right one can be daunting. Before venturing out to enroll yourself, you should be clear about your own goals for joining MBA. Once you have narrowed down your aims, there are some things that you should keep in mind and task will be easier.

The first and the most important step, is to check the schools/institutes accreditation. Go the extra mile, check their websites or if possible go check the institute out. You need to be carefully, if the school is not recognized then all your efforts results.

• Before registering for the admission have a look at the admission standards of the institute. The standard of the admission speaks volumes of the institutes and how seriously they take the whole process and the students.
• Another thing that a person pursuing MBA should look out for is the career assistance they can provide, or in simpler words the placement the institute can offer.
• Faculty is a major factor to be considered. You need to know the capacity of the faculty school for providing a good quality of teaching. There are various institute that provide with online classes facilities, that make teaching more approachable.
• More importantly you need to be sure that the institute you are picking should have what you are looking for. If you are looking for a full-time or part-time course or the field you ultimately want to major in. You need to have answer to these question and find an institute that will accommodate your needs.
• The culture and atmosphere of the school also plays a part in choosing the right program for you. Is this a place where you can see yourself comfortable to purse your studies.

Welingkar Distance Learning Program is one such institute that accommodates to fit your needs. But don’t go by what we see, check it out for yourself!

Making a Career in Retail Management

In India, Making a career in retail industry has seen a great upsurge in the past decade. Thanks to the entry of corporate, changing consumer behavior & lifestyle, increasing influence of western culture and rising income, the Indian retail industry has seen a phenomenal growth in the overall retail sector.

The Retail industry works on the paradigm, “Customer is King”. From adopting new marketing strategies to diversifying into businesses, companies have tried all gimmicks to impress the customer. Supermarkets and Big Bazaars thrive on various discounts offered. The systems are dynamic and computerized. It is the sale season for no proper reason! Retail management, therefore, requires a full awareness of brands, marketing strategies and retail philosophies behind winning the customer.

The role of a Retail Manager

A Retail Manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations or management of a retail store. Retail Managers ensure that promotions are accurate and merchandised to the company’s standards, staff is well informed on the target for the day and excellent customer care standards are met. The aim of a Retail Manager is to maximize profit while minimizing costs.

Knowledge Requisites

A student pursuing a course in retail management needs to have knowledge in:

• Retail Management and Concepts
• Retailing trends
• Retail Market Segmentation
• Retail Pricing and merchandising
• Relationship Marketing in Retailing
• Role of Information Technology in Retailing

Career Prospects

Retail management is an unconventional subject and a highly rewarding career. A college graduate may start working as a Sales Executive or be directly employed as an Assistant Retail Manager or a Sales/ Marketing Manager. One can also set-up a retail business by becoming a franchisee of another big player in the retail business! The profession offers wide scope to explore new companies in the market that offer various products. For students who have completed an MBA in Retail Management, the demand is huge on the side of business research, market research, pricing and strategizing.

Click here to Know more about Hybrid Post Graduate Diploma in Management in Retail Management offered by Welingkar’s,The Next – Level in Distance Education

Effective Presentation Skills for Managers and Executives

Making an effective presentation to an audience regularly tops the list in surveys of people’s fears –much more than heights, flying or dying. Remember: You are not alone if the thought of speaking in public terrifies you. This fear is the bane of every qualified Frontline Manager, Mid-level Manager or Junior Executive.

Effective Presentations skills and public speaking skills are important in business, sales and selling, training, teaching, lecturing and generally entertaining an audience. Developing the confidence and capability to make good presentations and to stand in front of an audience and speak well, are extremely helpful competencies for self-development, too. good presentation skills are not limited to a privileged few – anyone can make a good presentation or deliver a speech to a professional and impressive standard. Like most things, it simply takes a little preparation and practice.

To be an effective presenter – one must commit to be an ongoing learner. Communications is a set of skills that can be learned, honed and taught. To be a proficient public speaker, you will grow as long as you seek to grow. At such times, apply Eleanor Roosevelt’s maxim: “No one can intimidate me without my permission.”

The format for a presentation can be very different: oral (spoken), multimedia (using various media – visuals, audio, etc), PowerPoint presentations, short impromptu presentations, long planned presentations, business presentations, educational or training sessions, lectures and simply giving a talk on a voluntary basis. Even speeches at weddings and eulogies at funerals are forms of presentations. Every effective presentation uses:  techniques, confidence, experience and meticulous preparation. Good presentation is about entertaining as well as conveying information. People retain more if they are made to feel relaxed. Try to build credibility in the introduction itself and create a comfortable environment for the audience, which will come spontaneously if you are comfortable with yourself.

Welingkar’s workshop on Presentation Skills encourages the learner to get acclimatized to speaking confidently in the competitive environment through use of audio-visual aids. It involves usage of appropriate body language and helps create a rapport and credibility with the audience.

Click here to apply for the Management Workshops conducted by Welingkar’s Distance Learning