“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

( 1 ) "How to present my idea to my boss?" h
( 2 ) "What is a Web MBA?" d
( 3 ) "As a financial analyst, what salary should I expect?" c
( 4 ) "What is a Corporate Code of Ethics?" h

All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to advisor@skill-link.com - would be addressed in this section every week.

Q1: How to present my idea to my boss?

I work in an industrial company, I want to suggest to the General Manager to establish a new department for customers' training on our products, the activity includes handling products such as industrial gases , my question consists of two parts :

1- How to properly prepare this suggestion in a professional way , i.e. link it to the organization's needs & objectives...etc., I mean what should the suggestion file include ?, What mainly to say to convince them of the idea (like Bavaria Co. who provides fire fighting courses for example)."

2- If they are convinced, I guess the second step should be to convince them to let me manage this dept., I must be professionally qualified then, so, is there in Cairo , any professional certificate to be a training manager ?

Your prompt reply will be highly appreciated.

N. S. W. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. W.

Your question reflects a smart and entrepreneurial person. Obviously you must properly package your proposal, to ensure it is a credible one.

Regardless of how the proposal gets presented, the following questions must be objectively answered:
1. Is there real demand for the service being proposed ? in other words, do your clients (or maybe others) require training on your products ? and would enough of them think it valuable enough to pay for it ?
2. Would these clients see the training service as a separate one for which they have to pay ? or would most of them consider it is part of the price of the product (hence, they would not be inclined to pay anything extra for it ?
3. Assuming there is enough demand, willing to pay for training, what is the conservative estimate for that demand in the first year ?
4. Are there any substitutes for this training ? (for example would another entity offer it ? or do you have a monopoly).
5. Who will provide such training ? and what would it cost (per session, or man/day) ?
6. What is the suggested pricing scheme for such a training service ?
7. What are the logistics required to provide such a training service (premises, preparing a formal curriculum, trainee hand outs, tests, service brochure etc..).

Once you come up with answers for the above, the rest is relatively easy. Most likely you present your proposal in a document with the following sections:

• Brief (half a page summarizing your idea and what the document contains)
• The Rational (discussing what the opportunity is, the outline of the training - what it will include, and why you think it is a profitable one); here it would be useful to mention other companies offering services among the same lines you are suggesting
• Business Assumptions (presenting the estimated demand, proposed pricing, cost estimates and revenue estimates).
• Operational Requirements (identifying what logistics would be required, how training will be conducted etc…).
• Appendix (ces), in case there are more details you want to present.

With regards to your second question, we cannot judge if you are qualified or not, since you did not present us with your detailed resume and we are not familiar with your character. In all cases remember, there are many aspects to manage such an activity, the manager could be in charge of one or more of them. These activities are:

• Overall administration and coordination of the unit (ensuring training is properly booked, instructors are scheduled, training is delivered, clients are invoiced etc…).
• Selling the service to clients.
• Overseeing the curriculum development and technical delivery, including selection of instructors.

Again, since we are not acquainted with your background and qualifications, we would tend to believe, that may be the first of these 3 aspects maybe more suitable for you.

Regardless, we believe no training certification is required for you. It is not like you are going to become the training manager of a consulting firm, or a very large corporation where you will work on training need identification, curriculum development or selection of training providers. We think, the training needs are well defined, the curriculum is rather technical, to be delivered by your company's engineers and technical staff, hence, a professional certification is really not required in your cases.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q2: What is a Web MBA?

I am thinking seriously to go through the MBA but I need to know is there any difference between the MBA and the WebMBA ?

Do you know of any MBA centers that is guaranteed in its Reputation so that I can join its program

R. B. (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Mr. B.

To the best of our knowledge, we are not aware of the term "Web MBA", unless you are referring to online distance learning MBAs, through the net. If this is the case, then you should be aware that the key difference is that there are no classroom attendance, unlike a traditional MBA or any other masters degree. While you miss the classroom interaction with the instructors and colleagues, you gain time flexibility, convenience of studying from home, and all other things being equal, lower tuition fees.

Obviously there aren't that many reputable online MBAs; you should also not that not everyone can study for such a degree from home, some people have the self discipline to do it, others get distracted and loose interest quickly.

As for credible MBA degrees offered in Egypt, some of the most popular ones are offered by the institutions presented below:

(1) The American University in Cairo

(2) The OUDA (the Operational unit for Development Assistance - established in 1992 jointly by UNDP and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affair) administers an MBA program in cooperation with a French business school ESLSCA (Ecole Superieure Libre Des Sciences Commerciales Appliquees). OUDA could be reached at:

World Trade Center 5th floor
1191 Cornish El Nile, Cairo - EGYPT
Tel : (202)5747797 - 5786705 - 5782736
Fax : (202)5786456
e-mail : ouda@ouda.org.eg

(3) RITI (Regional IT Institute)
In addition to the MBA they offer with Maastricht University, they offer a Masters degree in Human Resources Education, in cooperation with the US University of Louisville.
RITI could be reached at:
11 A Hassan Sabry st. Zamalek - Cairo Egypt 11211
Tel : 737-5206/07

(4) The French Rennes International School of Business, in partnership with the Arab Academy for Sciences and Technologies' Graduate School of Business has recently launched the Executive MBA in Cairo. You can reach them at:

6 El Woroud Street, Mohandeseen, Giza, EGYPT
Tel: 02 74 90 309 - 02 33 87 412
Fax: 00 202 74 94 421
E-mail: EMBA@AMI.Edu.Eg

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q3: As a financial analyst, what salary should I expect?

I graduated from the Faculty of Commerce, English Section, Alexandria University in 1999. I am currently a corporate credit officer at a leading joint-venture bank in Alexandria, with three years' experience in corporate credit. Before that I spent a year as a junior auditor at KPMG Hazem Hassan.

Now I'll be having an interview at a prominent multinational cement company in Cairo, I would like to know what salary to expect/ask for if I were accepted ?

The position I am being considered for is Financial Analyst.

A. L. (Alexandria)

Replying:

Dear Mr. L.

While you gave a good description of your background and experience, you did not provide us with adequate information on the position you are being considered for. A "Financial Analyst" could be performing a wide range of activities, varying in complexity and focus. For instance, a financial analyst could be focused on revenue / profitability analysis and scenarios, another could be assisting the Chief Financial Officer in studying and assessing new projects, a third one, could be focusing on credit facilities and bank relations etc…

Having said the above, we would nevertheless provide you with some guidelines, bearing in mind that salaries are only part of a total compensation, one should also consider: incentive/bonus, benefits (medical, transportation, mobile allowance etc…) …

In a large industrial company like the one you described, the gross annual salary should be in the range of LE 60,000 to LE 78,000. The wide salary bracket is a reflection on the wide scope of responsibilities the financial analyst may be performing, which you did not detail in your message.

We are assuming of course, that you are a smart professional, fluent in English, with good PC and financial modeling skills … in addition to having a good business sense and an analytical mind.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q4: What is a Corporate Code of Ethics?

I graduated from Alexandria University's Faculty of Engineering in 1994. I am currently working for a multinational FMCG (fast moving consumer goods company). Our international head quarters is mandating that each country operation develop and enforce what they call a "Corporate Code of Ethics" within guidelines from the head office. Since this is still new and I am not directly involved in this initiative, could you tell me more about what a Corporate Code of Ethics is ?

S. N. (Alexandria)

Replying:

Dear Mr. N.

As corporate conduct has come under increased scrutiny from shareholders and other stakeholders (eg. public, regulatory authorities, consumer groups, environment associations etc…), the pressure to create exemplary codes of conduct has been growing. These codes seek to promote good conduct by setting a common standard for acceptable behavior. A Corporate Code of Ethics will define a company's core set of values and guiding principles.

A code may be a short description of a company's overall mission and values, or it may be more detailed and describe, at length, the manner in which employees are expected to behave. Through the creation, promotion, and constant modification of a Corporate Code of Ethics, managers can actively manage a company's values in a similar fashion to how they manage other aspects of their business. Most importantly, by publicly displaying a firm's commitment to high standards of moral excellence, a Code of Ethics signals that the firm has a concrete and substantial commitment to ethical behavior.

Companies use Corporate Codes of Ethics to:

• Establish and promote a framework for ethical behavior;
• Shape employee decision making and deter employees from acting unethically;
• Build customer and investor confidence;
• Provide better overall service and results for customers; Serve as a public relations tool

Bottom line and from a pragmatic point of view, things will not really change. Basically, it is a document to state what the company and its staff should do… the right things of course… what else do you expect them to say J

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Note from the editor: 
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality

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