After seven years as a software engineer, Ujwal, who will complete his MBA later this year, wanted a fresh perspective on his industry and to pack in as much marketing knowledge as possible through project work with his professors.
The Indian national graduated with a BEng in Computer Science from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India, in 2004 and has worked as a software Engineer in India, China and other countries in South East Asia for Samsung, and Nokia Siemens.
Prior to joining the Grenoble MBA, Ujwal was Senior Software Engineer for Nokia Siemens Networks and worked with their global team to design and implement software systems.
Ujwal felt he had gained a solid grounding in software engineering and experieinced the work culture in South East Asia. He wanted to experience a European market and add to his business skills by focusing on marketing.
He selected the Grenoble full-time MBA after considering rankings, affordability, recommendations from friends who were Grenoble grads, and researching Grenoble’s faculty. “I used LinkedIn to look at Grenoble’s professors and I was impressed at how diverse and experienced they were. Many of them have done their own MBAs at places like Harvard and Stanford, and are also running their own firms or are heavily involved in the industries they teach”, he said.
Ujwal also wanted the experience of working closely with Grenoble's Professor John Sadowsky, who is a Distinguished Professor in Leadership at the school and has extensive experience in advising companies on leadership communication through storytelling, and social marketing.
Ujwal wants to forge a career in a social media firm, so he is taking in as much marketing knowledge as he can. He has already worked on a number of marketing projects and assignments and is set to embark on a new one with John Sadowsky as his tutor. This time, he will be working on implementing a system through which companies can measure the Return On Investment on each customer targeted in social media campaigns.
Ujwal thinks that many companies have jumped on allocating big funds to social media campaigns based on few facts. He says, "Companies are not aware of exactly the kind of investments they need because they have not attached the amount spent to hard data on the amount of growth they can expect in return. This means that they are spending arbitrary amounts."
"This is a new area for research and I believe people would want to know the value of 'social currency'."
Ujwal's dream employers are Google and Facebook and he hopes he can rely on his project to open a few doors for him. "These innovation-driven companies want people with vast experience and new ideas. I know they will be tough to get into but it's worth trying since I'm passionate about seeing the world at a different and a more interactive level", he says.
Read more about the reasons people head to business school in the Why MBA section
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