MD4044 Entrepreneurship Theory And Practice

This assessment is to represent the personal reflection on the performance that I possess during the project. The Gibbs model of reflection will be used to depict my performance and experience (See Appendix, Image 1). I will also share my concern on how the business idea of opening an Indian Snack company in United Kingdom. I will also write about my ability to engage in to the process of creation, appraising my team members and present my ideas on the entrepreneurial skills and ability. The management theories that I have learned during this period for preparing this project will also be explained.

I along with my team members have been asked to prepare a business plan for the project. I have no prior knowledge off preparing one such project and have many things that have helped me to complete the project finally. The journey has been fruitful and my team members also helped me and I learned many things from them. I have taken the initiative to develop a good communication among ourselves and being a responsible team member I have to make sure that everyone should have to be compatible with each other. The prime reason is that it is not possible for all our project members to stay together and share concern directly. Thus, I can say that my action as a team player has been cooperative throughout the journey. However, developing this project require many need much knowledge in assessing marketing opportunities, threats along with the precise calculation of budget that is required for obtaining desire resources. The evaluation of the opportunities and threats has helped me and my team to set the strengths and assess the weakness of the snack centre that we have planned to establish. I have learned about all the required marketing theory for evaluating the external and internal environment for our company.  I have followed all the sources that are given to us in the class and several internet sources to gather knowledge of these theories. This way, I have excelled my knowledge base to prepare the project. One of my team members is extra-ordinary at budget planning and financial calculation. I have learned how to set a financial budget for start ups. Thus, I can say that I have a transformational skill where I can jell well with others to learn new things and develop an effective interpersonal relationship with each other. I can also say that I also emphasized on the concept of knowledge sharing in this project journey and this has helped me to overcome my knowledge gap.

This is the second step of Gibbs Reflective Cycle and a person has to share about the thoughts and feeling during the entire duration. I have given many psychometric assessments and found that my strongest parts are Industriousness, taking control and creativity. Though I also have a good achievement striving but I have to work for developing my passion towards my work. The assessments that I have given shown me that a fair achievement striving. Yan (2014) stated that the term achievement striving refers to the internal motivation to work hard towards goals. I put the work at most priority level but also desire to obtain a work-life balance. I also like to take challenges in doing a task and I think I can perform well under stressful situation by analyzing the condition and then select the most appropriate solution for the situation. I have observed this aspect while researching about essential facts about the project. All our team members put extraordinary effort to research secondarily about the market demand of United Kingdom.

During the team work I also play as a leading role in managing all the team members and confident in taking control of situations. There were times, when conflict arises like in selecting menus for the snack centre and the decision to set the location for the centre but I have suggested ideas through which this conflict can be overcome. I have overcome the problem by suggesting a way to present the thoughts to everyone along with the reason for the selected ideas. I analyzed the situation and then collaboratively the most optimized yet effective idea for our project, in this way, I have managed the conflict raised among us.  During this discussion, we have found that the location of Uclan university. The supported argument present was that- in Uclan university, 70% students are from other countries and among them 40% are from South Asian counties like Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We all agree to this argument and finalize the location. This nature shows that I always value factual ideas rather than selecting what other feel is right. The Psychometric assessments also help me to find that I am good in creativity and emphasized more on abstract and lateral thinking compared to traditional and conventional ideas when taking any decisions. Moreover, the thing that I lack is extreme passion about the work that I opt. I know that this nature often act as a barrier in making effective decisions making. I value more on emotional factors and emotions of other people prior taking any decision. This results in more time in decision making procedure and delay in taking actions.

Thus, my key competencies are creative ideas for the business so that people can attracted towards our initiatives, working in stressful situation and taking control in obtaining the ser goals and objectives. The things that I have to rectify are to give more time to business or any project if urgency comes and enhance my passion level which lack sticking to one decision. I usually get confused as I mixed up intuition, emotional intelligence and logic.

We have collaboratively worked for carry out a secondary detailed market analysis. I now that I order to get the accurate details e have to find the data about the market that can provide us opportunities. I discussed with my team members regarding the suitable research method for the projects- whether or not to research primarily or secondarily. According to the project that we are doing, I thought that secondary research would be the appropriate and learned about the advantage and disadvantage of the secondary research. We have spent most of the day time in evaluating the secondary research and keep in touch with effective communication modes. We have formulated a Whatsapp Group for this project so that we can create an uninterrupted communication. In this way, we shared everything that we have found during the research. The bad experience is also related with communication media due to poor connection. In such times we prepare a written report to note down the findings and then tally with very report. Sometimes, I found some redundant detail but since we did regular meetings, there were no confusion created. The problem I have faced in meeting is lack of effective nonverbal communication strategies. I have learned that in a meeting or a group discussion, along with verbal communication, non-verbal aspects like body language, eye contact, vocal tone and finger movements also plays a crucial role. Due to not a friendly gesture, mu presentation seems to be discourteous. I have overcome this negative side by developing more eye-contact while discussion important things with my team members. I also have kept a gentle smile on my face as facial expressions convey emotions. This allows me to create a comfortable environment so that all the members can share their smallest concern without any hesitation.

We have proceeded with a routine and spend enough time for each aspect of preparing the market plan. During this time, I have learned about time management to complete out project and also attend other assignment of other classes. The first step that I have learned t manage time is to list the main goals on which I have to focus. I have found that for some days, the list has become dynamic and during the time I was unable to give much time to my team project. However, I have overcome the problem by sharing my knowledge real-time through the communication tool we were using that time. I have also learned that, to manage time, it is necessary to focus on prioritizing the work. This technique helped me to assess which activities to focus on first and what the things that my team needs most from me. I have also learned that I should also focus on my biggest competencies that I can contribute at that time and also set goals for the next day.  

There were times when a team member comes up with new idea regarding the projct or the strategies through which we can search for most suitable information. I have realized that individual thoughts when combined together, results in an effective business plan. We also appraised the member by congratulating and giving the responsibility for that section. In this way, I have developed the sense of ownership and leadership in every individual of our team. Initially, I face the problem in allocating the desired roles and responsibility to the members due to the fact that it may cause conflict. However, I have conducted a meeting and take feedback about the more interesting part of the project and finally allocating the roles based on their interest. I have learned that allocating work of interest enhance the working ability. The more important thing that I was needed is to start the work with full enthusiasm that this approach helps me to obtain. Initially, we have not addressed any concept about motivating the employees. I have learned that in order to get more effective work from the employee, motivational factors helps to a great extent. Thus, appraisals and giving leadership role of some section of the project help me to motivate the members. This process also developed an effective interpersonal relationship among the members. We not only congratulate the member to suggest the ideas but also ask them to develop strategies with enough evidences and a detailed plan for implementing those programs.

Not everything occurred during the time was smooth and easy. There was some time when I had the fear that my members are not giving their full effort due to communication gaps and conflicts of interest. However, I have opted for developing the communication tools to reduce the gap. There are many communication tools like social media, personal e-mails and telephone contact. I have also opted for traditional communication media like preparing report of the progress and ideas. I know that this takes more time but ensure the effectiveness of carting the crucial details. Another team member also suggests ideas like planning a budget for budget for communication related expenditures; however, all of us agreed to the most suitable solution that is to remain connected trough internet. In order to overcome the regular conflicts, we have selected the sequence of communication that we followed every day. According to this plan all of us follow the sequence to convey our findings and future ideas and then the second person does the same. In this way, I noticed the critical evaluation of the content and got ensure that the final content will be effective enough to create the business plan.

The major challenges that I have noticed in me is the lack of effectiveness in non-verbal communication and developing effective communication modes. I have planned for joining communication classes after my class and daily schedules for identifying what others are thinking. My mentor has also suggested me the same and ask me join the course for emotional intelligence. I have learnt that this concept will also help me to be a good leader in future as I can well understand the emotions, thoughts and analyze their behavior precisely. At present, I need much time in conducting the meetings for judging their thoughts but after this course I will be able to identify these aspects in lesser time. The other challenge that I face is to represent my thoughts and convince other regarding the effectiveness of my selected ideas. Thus, my future plan is to learn about writing an effective report by highlighting the advantages of my selected ideas and the disadvantage of these ideas are not implemented. However, I should also learn to confess my mistakes so that I can enhance my knowledge base. Lastly, the communication can be made more effective if we share more common times through formal or informal gatherings. We should also suggest ideas at any time of the day for showing the interest to work together and give constructive feedbacks so that all of us can improve our personal skills.

I can conclude that the journey for developing a business plan is full of excitement. There are lots of good things happen like we have learned together about many managerial theories like motivational theory, marketing principles, know about each other’s competencies and factors that can help our organization to grow in future. We also have identified some obstacles that can prevent our organization to enhance but at the end we collaboratively develop strategies to overcome those adversities. I have also developed some managerial skills that will allow me to take some responsibility if provided with one such role in future. Our team work and support for each other helped us individually to complete this project.

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