I am fascinated by a number of things (not many) so I thought I would jot a few lines about one of those things related to my work which is CRM. Customer Relationship Management is really an interesting field and powerful at the same time. This field developed so fast over the past few years to the extent that the business gurus had to come up with new names and theories for it. Earlier we used to hear about customer service and customer support as a supplementary unnecessarily costly service offered by a few businesses. Today however, customer care is a crucial part of every business or organization regardless of the industry. Companies invest heavily in upgrading customer service in order to not only meet their clients’ expectations but also to exceed them and be ahead of others. CRM is rapidly developing and becoming independent of other disciplines (mostly linked to marketing at present). CRM enable you to put a smile on people which I really love.
I really appreciate and enjoy customer relationship management and as part of my job I get to deal with ‘clients’ in every step of my job and what makes it interesting is that I work in the education sector (university) and when you are offering a service it is quite different than offering a tangible product. Dealing with people of different nationalities, cultures, languages, religions, races etc is really amazing. You get to learn a lot in the process and at the same time you get to appreciate others and most importantly appreciate your own culture and background as you start asking questions of why do we look so much alike yet we behave differently.
It is interesting when counseling students of different backgrounds about their career options how they all think and approach their career differently. I get to deal with Arabs from GCC and other countries, Indians, Africans, Russians, Europeans, etc. They all think differently and got contrasting interests in study programs. Moreover, even gender differences within the same race have an impact on this issue. Some will approach me and say we would like to enroll for a master’s program so what do you have on offer or what is good for the market (I hate this cohort of people because I see them as shallow minded). My automatic response to this is “it’s not about which program is in demand by employers but more about what interests you and what is your career plan (if you have one that is)”. This is a whole different issue that I should probably write about separately.
Another discipline that interests me is Quality Management and this is my next endeavor starting next month Inshallah. In Addition, IT really fascinates me and I was lucky to work in this field for a few years. Imagine if you combine CRM, QM and IT wow that would be really fascinating.
So what fascinates you in terms of professions? Tell us what you like about your work.