How important it is to have excellent general awareness to become a Finance Manager?

Today MBA candidates are being rejected by companies due to many reasons. Some of those reasons are like lack of fundamental knowledge about the subject concerned, no soft skills, wrong attitude, no inter persona skills, worng information, etc. But one of the most important reasons many MBA candidates or for that matter post graduates and graduates are rejected in job interviews is their lack of business awareness, general awareness. Business awareness is the backbone of a good manager today. It is not just about having the high technical knowledge or inter personal skills or soft skills, but additionally the Manager should have the right business and general awareness which is very important in the scenario where there is daily changes happening in the business dynamics, poiltical status of the nation, international politics & business environment, etc. All these affect every single business decision today and if a manager misses on these aspects just due to poor reading skills, then the team, work and the whole organisation is at major risk. And this risk can translate into financial loss, image loss, brand loss and people loss also

. A Finance Manager needs to definitely have the general business awareness since due tot he changes happening there, his finance calculations, finance strategies, financial forecasts, financial budgeting, financial risk mitigation, financial hedging also gets affected in big terms. Irrespective of the type of department of business, a manager of any department should be very well equipped to change his her business decisions based on the changing dynamics of the business, country and economy. If not done, then that is a poor manager. Managers especially of Finance, Marketing, Retail, Banking, Insurance, Info Tech, Manufacturing should very much spend time in gaining business and general awareness as much as possible and that too on daily basis. It is highly recommended for managers to read business newspapers everyday without fail which will help them to take a broad outlook towards business functions and roles. Today MBA candidates need to be taught to be aware about the business happenings and related world happenings. It is also very much necessary on the part of companies to impart relevant executive training to their employees and help them become in sync with the times.