Graduate / University Application - 1 to 1.5 page general SOP - Master of Business Analytics [2]

Prompt: I got to submit a 1 page to 1.5 page general SOP for the degree Master of Business Analytics. The degree is marketing and business analytics focused in nature. I have used <client name redacted> wherever I have to redact the sensitive information. Sorry about that.

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SOP - marketing and business analytics focused in nature

I am fortunate to have grown up for 17 years in culturally and racially heterogeneous Qatar, where my interactions with people from four corners of the world taught me to appreciate the diversity of thought, approach and opinion that people bring to a team. I developed a global mindset that, along with my international upbringing, enables me to easily build relationships across cultures and regions. This unique aspect of my background allowed me to build new relations with external and internal clients and other stakeholders based in 18 countries across different time zones as a senior engineer with 4.5 years of customer facing experience. I developed a fascination for roles wherever I can improve customer experience in any form.

As an engineer working on projects for HP, I have helped my company maintain high customer retention rate by my proactive resolution of high impact faults, in the software products and services. Additionally, I have identified areas of improvement in the business and customer handling processes by extracting data from UNIX servers and SQL databases and using Excel for data analysis. One such business process improvement was lauded by the CIO of the client company, <client name redacted>. This further enabled me to proactively identify and open new projects to resolve many faults in the technology systems even before the clients knew such issues have ever existed, resulting in overall improvement in user experience.

During my MBA, when I worked on a business project for <client name redacted>, I learned that <client name redacted> has an already capable data analytics and marketing capabilities that is been used to help the bank identify the pain points is customers' use of their products and services. So, it was expected that the end result of the project must be a data driven solution that can incorporate business analytics as much as possible. I conducted multiple rounds of customer interviews and surveys to determine customer journey with regards to how the National Payments platform would impact their payment habits. I was able to determine the right insights from both the qualitative and quantitative research and incorporate it into a marketing strategy plan for the client. Nonetheless, despite the detailed qualitative research done, I wasn't satisfied with the level of thoroughness that was put into the quantitative research. I knew that I had deficiency in knowledge of how to determine the right sample set, to collect social media intelligence and to conduct data analysis on tools such as SAS or SPSS. This, in my opinion, has prevented me from providing the best possible solution to our client. This convinced me that to achieve my long-term goal of becoming a SVP of Customer Experience in a fintech company in India, I need to build strong domain knowledge in different forms of business analytics that can be applied to improve marketing and operations efforts. This meant that for the purpose of my career trajectory, I need to specialize my domain knowledge by studying business analytics.

India is still a laggard when it comes to the prevalence of digital solutions and it has been predicted to have an explosive growth in that regard for the next two to three decades. After getting a Master of Business Analytics degree, I aspire to work as a business or data analyst for a top marketing or operations advisory firm such as Accenture back in India as there is going to be a significant demand for experienced and knowledgeable business/ data analysts in such an environment. I hope to leverage the professional experience I have with the knowledge gained through the program to work with hi-tech and IT industry clients, providing quantitative focused insights into business problems, such as brand audit on social media, customer usage across journey and building customer persona. This career as a business analyst helping improve customer experience across all functions of marketing and operations in a company, would be instrumental in helping me transition into the role of SVP smoothly in the long run. Therefore, to attain my short-term goal I need to learn various aspects of data sourcing and extraction methodologies, and data manipulation and visualisation techniques using BI or Analytical tools and that is why I chose the Master of Business Analytics program at < redacted>.

<redacted> university being in the <redacted> region, which is considered the Business Capital of Australia, within close proximity of both <redacted> CBDs is advantageous for my learning experience. I can avail the plethora of opportunities to do an internship or attend seminars in <redacted> to help reinforce the knowledge I would gain in classroom, helping me develop an understanding of business analytics in real-life. The program also have the right mix of units to help someone like me get the knowledge that is missing in their profile. The "Data Science' and 'Applied Marketing Solutions' units would enable me understand how to look for and extract the right data and how to analyse the datasets that were collected to develop the needed insights. Additionally, as the technology focused companies move from reactive form to proactive form of marketing and delivering customer experience, the role of predictive analytics in such firms is becoming more relevant, thereby making the 'Predictive Analytics' unit an important topic for me to learn. Finally, the 'Masters project' would help me gain the hands-on experience I require by helping me adapt the theories I have had learned in the units to different scenarios I will encounter as an analyst.

Besides learning from the best at the university, I would also like to contribute to the community. During my MBA, I had actively contributed to the betterment of the full-time and part-time cohorts as a member of the student society and as the communications manager. I plan on doing the same for my cohort in the <redacted>University, officially or unofficially. My expertise in as customer experience focused software engineer and my domain knowledge of different business functions through my MBA degree will allow me to provide valuable and unique insights in the classroom. Additionally, I can also share with the class my network that consists of subject matter experts, executives and startup founders, who could help my classmates in any matter that is feasibly possible.

In conclusion, I'm interested in learning and developing business analytical skills by utilizing the holistic approach to education at <redacted> University. I have built experience and knowledge of business, as shown in my resume, that would allow me to successfully specialise in business analytics. My willingness to contribute to and learn from the community, will allow me to become a well-rounded business graduate and achieve my career goals, as stated above.

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