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Describes the integrated logistics IT programme recently introduced in the Fleet Air Arm. This is part of a wider strategy to introduce improved management techniques. Explains the historical factors which led to the recognition of the need for the programme. Discusses some of the difficulties encountered and the challenges faced, and identifies the benefits.

Recruiting students to study abroad is a difficult challenge for American colleges and universities. Study abroad advisors and directors of international programs are searching for better ways of marketing the overseas academic experience. Approximately 3% of U.S. students who pursue a bachelor’s degree study abroad at some point in their college career. In any given year, less than 1% (0.8%) of U.S. students take part in study abroad (Hayward, 2000, p. 9). American higher education falls far short of the Presidential Commission’s target of 10% by 2000 set in 1979 (Strength Through Wisdom, 1979). The typical college student who participates in study abroad is an undergraduate liberal arts major who spends one semester in a country in Western Europe. In 1999–2000, 63% of American students studying abroad were in Europe (Snapshot of Report on Study Abroad Programs, 2000, p. 1). Almost one fourth go to one country – Great Britain. Fifteen percent of study abroad students travel to Latin America, 6% to Asia and 3% to Africa (Hayward, 2000, p. 10). The small number of U.S. students (129,770) who experienced foreign study in 1998–1999 compares unfavorably with the much larger number of foreign students (490,933) who enrolled in U.S. institutions (Hesel & Green, 2000, p. 5). Even more disheartening is the fact that nearly 50% of students entering 4-year colleges say that they want to study abroad and that three out of four adults agree that students should study abroad (Hesel & Green, 2000, p. 1). When asked to choose which activity in college is most important to them, entering freshmen rank study abroad second only to internships (Hesel & Green, 2000, p. 3). There are obviously a number of barriers to student participation in foreign study.

The U.S. faces unprecedented challenges to its economic, political, and military pre-eminence as it proceeds into the initial years of the 21st century. During the Cold War era, the superpowers viewed countries as either enemies or friends. The era of globalization, however, has transformed friends and enemies alike into competitors (Friedman, 2000). The U.S., the chess master of the Cold War era, has encountered great difficulty in adapting to the new geo-political and socio-economic realities brought about by the era of globalization. As this new era celebrated its coming out party in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. has witnessed its own economic decline. In 1945, the U.S. accounted for over 70% of the World’s GDP. Today, that figure has shrunk to 19% (cited in Kedia, 2001).

Consequently, a key success factor in the globalization of business is the development of international experience and related to this, intercultural skills. Thus, a question of crucial importance in a globalized world is: How can people be prepared for globalization? How can international experience and intercultural skills be developed?

Over the past fifteen years, U.S. study abroad enrollments have increased by 160%, with nearly 130,000 students earning credit abroad during the 1998–1999 academic year. The growth has been especially striking during the past five reporting years, as the number of participants has swelled by an astonishing 70% (Davis, 2000, p. 16). During the past fifteen years or so, our discussions about study abroad have come more and more to be dominated by this sort of self-congratulatory number-crunching: we’ve come to regard each successive annual increase in participation as a worthy achievement in itself, and much of what we do, and much about what we report to each other, focuses on our challenges and successes in pursuing this goal at our individual institutions, and on the national level. Thus, we identify the obstacles that stand in the way of greater student participation; we report about our institutional successes in administratively overcoming those obstacles; we commit ourselves to increasing the participation of African-American, Hispanic, disabled, natural science, business, math, engineering, and other “non-traditional” students; and we relish the gains we make in encouraging more of our students to study in “non-traditional” destinations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.