Business Performance Aspects - Assignment Example

work E1: Explain the objectives of the business - What was your aim To raise money for charity, if so how much Was it to provide a service/entertainment Must have 5 - 6 detailed explained objectives!!! The aim of the business was to raise money for Harry's Fund - a charity - through a fundraising raffle. Each participant would have to pay 1.00 for each raffle ticket in order to win an X-Box360, a V3 pink razor or VIP tickets. The principal objective was to sell 1.000 raffle tickets in order to collect 700. 300 would be therefore spent on purchasing raffle tickets, printing posters and eventually an X-Box360. In order to achieve our main objective of raising 700 we had several other objectives: - Negotiate with Barclays bank to set up a scheme in order to double up the money we raised. Barclays provides such a service for charities and fundraisers. The goal was therefore to convince Barclays of the publicity and prestige it would gain from helping us. - Find sponsors for the X-Box360, the V3 pink razor and the VIP tickets. Our targets were large electrical companies such as Comet, Currys and Dixons. We will have to bargain and negotiate with them as successfully as possible because obtaining the prizes for free would allow us to save the funds that we have raised. - Marketing the raffle as efficiently as possible in order to raise interest for our cause and seduce the potential participant with the prizes. However, we will need to be careful not to spend an important amount on marketing and not target a too important group. - Distributing the tickets to the target market i.e. the 1.500 students who compose the school. We will need to make the students aware of the cause we are defending to make the cost of a raffle ticket worth spending. - Conduct the draw to select the winner but to assure complete security, each ticket will be assigned a security code and the purchaser's name. We believe that by providing an entertainment, we will be able to achieve our goals and reach a total amount of 700 raised for Harry's Fund. E3: Demonstrate an understanding of the role individuals played in the team. Describe the role and responsibilities of each member in the group. Suggest recommendations for improvements. The team was composed of 8 members: Ali, Sukhdeep, Umer, Tauseef, Nikaten, Roohdip, Navdeep and myself. Ali was the team leader elected by the members. Unfortunately, he did not show leadership as he did not establish any contingency plan, budget or strategy. He also failed to allocate tasks to other members. As a member he had to research and print advertising flyers. All the team members were asked to pay 20.00 for a total payment of 120.00 for 5000 flyers when the target market was composed of 1500 students. Ali has to work on his communication skills to reach a better understanding within the group and should really consider planning his actions as it resulted that he produced 3 times the flyers needed. Sukhdeep was charged to go negotiate the scheme with Barclays. He only went once to the bank and claimed that it was a success even if there was not written proof of the agreement. He often proposed marvellous ideas which could never be put into practice, he frequently arrived late at our meetings and was very aggressive when selling the tickets. I believe Sukhdeep should be more committed and professional in his work by showing that he can complete the tasks given to him. Also, he should really work on his sales skills. Umer was responsible of the administration work: making memo's to be sent out to all teachers with form classes as reminders, buy raffle ticket books, to set out the proposal that was to be presented to the bank manger and head teacher, which proved to be very important. (sorry but you did not comment on Umer so please could you complete this part as I don't have any information) Tauseef was tasked to create and produce the flyers and posters. Though very optimistic, Tauseef's ideas were not very creative and he was not able to complete his task within a reasonable budget. He was very enthusiastic and convinced that sales would reach at least 500. However, he was too introverted when selling the ticket. I recommend that Tauseef explores his range of creative skills to produce more impacting ideas, tries to improve his sales and strategy abilities. Nikaten had the key role in the group: find sponsors in order to have prizes for the raffle to take place. Unfortunately, he was very negative, lazy and showed no commitment to his work. He failed to find any prize and therefore decided to leave the group. He did not participate to the marketing costs claiming he was not informed. Nikaten truly needs to work on his behavior within a group and to his commitment as a member of a team who trusted him and assigned him a very important task. Roohdip, the only girl of the group, was in charge of selling the raffle tickets. She managed to complete her task successfully as she ended being the best sales person with 35 tickets sold. She was very enthusiastic first but as days goes by she lacked motivation. Her ideas within the group were often good but she did not express them very often Roohdip should develop her skills as she proved to be only a good sales person. Also she has to impose herself more as a member of a group and not only a worker following orders. Navdeep had no appointed role. He was so quiet, the leader forgot him and so, he decided to join Nikaten to find sponsors. He did not prove to be successful either in finding sponsors or in sales. He seemed only interested in achieving his grade and gets his 20 back. Navdeep should try to work on his social and communication skills and focus on his role within a group. I was in charge of sending emails to electronic companies in order to find sponsors. I failed in m tasks but I believe I tried to communicate my enthusiasm regarding charity work. I communicated well within the group by suggesting ideas and proposals towards our raffle. Although I showed no real problem solving skills within the activity and I was very bad at selling tickets. I believe I have to work on my sales skills, my abilities to solve problem within a group and my goal achievements. E4: Describe the factors, which influenced the motivation of team members. Think about the factors that affected the group's motivation - what made you work harder, what made you not want to work Describe these factors and explain how it affected the team. When we look back to this experience, we can observe that we all seemed very enthusiastic about raising fund for a charity. However, it is important to note that a good cause is not sufficient to keep this energy and motivation constant. I believe that we lost a lot of these aspects when we realized that we were absolutely not working as a team. It seemed like each member was assigned a task and kept thinking that he only had this to do. Unfortunately, as a group, we all have to participate in all the tasks. This does not mean that we should not be organized and accomplish our tasks but because we are a group, we need to create a dynamic because each member has different skills and these skills can be used in other tasks, not only the one assigned to this particular member. We felt that the enthusiasm was leaving us when we realized that we were not properly organized and that our goal can not be reached. Instead of fighting for it, we started to think that it was impossible. Therefore, we kept working only because we did not want to leave what we started and also mainly because we all wanted to get back the money that we had invested in this event. Our lack of efficient communication was also an aspect of our resignation. As every team member nearly did what he wanted we were not able to maintain our objectives and nearly everyone failed to complete his task. We saw, because of the lack of communication and in consequence, organization, that the team was divided in two groups. On one side those who did not want to commit any longer and on the other side those who, by setting unrealistic goals, tried to do a little bit of everything and failed in every task. Unfortunately, I also believe that a main cause that affected our motivation is the fact that it was an organized event inside the educational frame. Because, we had to complete this work to receive a grade, we felt as if we were forced and we did not enjoy the opportunity given to us. E5: Describe the leadership style adopted within the team - What style of management did the leader adopt Describe it. For example, did they always use the same style or did it change in different circumstances Before describing the leader Ali, I would have to precise that he was not imposed to us but he was elected by all the members. Therefore, even if I will criticize his leadership - or even more, his lack of leadership - I have to admit that we have chosen him and that his responsibilities in the failure of our project is also ours as we needed to make a better choice. The main issue with Ali was that he did not plan or organize the way we were going to prepare the event. We all had specific tasks but Ali was very reluctant in assigning them and if proved to have a serious lack of communication as sometimes, team members were not aware of their tasks. He was too consultative and easily led which resulted in taking no key decisions. Furthermore, there was no coherence inside the group and Ali made terrible strategic decisions and was not realistic in his objectives. He decided to have 5000 flyers produced when the target market was only composed of 1500 students. This would not have been such a mistake if we did not have to fund the marketing with the money we raised. I believe it was difficult for Ali, as he proved not to take any key decisions, and when he occasionally did, he was not successful. After realizing that because of the too high marketing budget and the inappropriate allocation of that budget, the goal could not be reached, Ali only focused on breaking even so that nobody lost the initial investment on the event. By doing this, he discouraged the members and did not create a positive environment to achieve the objectives. Maybe, we should have followed Roohdip who left the group because of Ali's election. However, observing his lack of leadership, we had to stand against the disorganisation and create a strong structure. C4: Explain the effects on the team of the leadership styles adopted. How did you and the other team members feel about the leaders management style, did it make you want to work Did the leader motivate you How Did the management style help you achieve the objectives I think we were all motivated in the beginning because it sounded like a beautiful project for a noble cause but I can not really thank the leadership on that matter. As we elected Ali, we all thought that he was going to be a great leader and that we will achieve our objective. However, when he decided to spend 120 on marketing, the team separated in two parts. On one side those who believed that it was a good strategy, to focus on the marketing as it is an entertaining event aimed to raise funds. On the other side, those like mi, who felt that spending so much on flyers and posters was a mistake as this money was going to be taken from the result of our event. Naturally, it is easier to dispute a decision once we know the outcome. If the raffle had been successful, we would all felicitate Ali for his clever and useful decision. But this is not really the point here. Ali failed to present us his decision as a key to our success. And as he continued to insist on the necessity of having this amount of flyers and posters, the group continued to be divided and the gap between the two sides was widening. It was too late to change what Ali had done, so for those of us who believed that we were not going to reach our objective, we lowered our goal to only get back the money we had invested. On the other part, the enthusiastic group was insisting on surrealistic aims and achievements. Therefore some of us stopped working or failed to complete their tasks and some others were going in the wrong direction and I strongly believe it occurred because we did not communicate within the group and that Ali, our leader, failed to put up a strong working dynamic. C3: Explain how work targets, output and quality might me affected by communication within the group. How well did the group communicate Evidence Example How did god/poor communication affect how targets were met, the quality of the product/service and how many goods you produced and sold The most striking example of the lack of communication within our group is certainly the case of Navdeep. He was so quiet and in retreat, that Ali did not assign him a task. He decided alone what he should do for the event - find sponsors - and failed to complete his self appointed task. Obviously the group did not communicate and it affected our work targets, output and quality. We were all assigned specific tasks but we also all had to sell raffle tickets. All of the tasks resulted in complete failures but it could all have been repaired if we were all aware of these failures and if everybody could have asked to be helped for his task.. On the contrary, when someone could not complete his task, he was not telling it to the rest of the group. In result, we did not have any sponsors i.e. no prize to offer, we did not put up the scheme for doubling the money with Barclays, and most of all we sold very few tickets. None of our work targets were respected. The quality was very poor because we wanted to organize a fundraising raffle, but we did not have any prizes to give once the tickets were sold. It became more of a fundraising, going to talk with students in order to get 1 in exchange of a raffle ticket which had no value because there was nothing associated to it. It consequently affected the output. We only sold 90 tickets, which meant that we did not even get back what we had invested for the marketing. It also meant that our event was a complete failure because we did not raise any money for Harry's Fund. I strongly believe that all our issues are linked to the lack of (good) communication within the team. If we had communicated our fears, doubts or failures we would have been able to correct the trajectory and achieve one - if not all - of our goals. A2: Evaluate the impact of the teamwork approach to the activity. How did your group work together What worked and what did not What was positive about working in a team and what was negative Suggest recommendations for improvements. The main problem with our teamwork is that it was not related one to another. It may sound a bit difficult to understand but what I mean is that as a team we were working to achieve the same goal. But we were not working together to achieve it. Each member had an assigned task, but each task was associated to the other only because it was part of the same project. There was no interaction between the tasks which led to an incoherence of the work as a team. The negative part was that we were not consulted as members when crucial decisions were taken. When Ali decided to invest 120 in the flyers and posters and when he produced 5000, we were not part of this process. As I stated before, as there was no interaction between the tasks, we were not able to express our opinions in regards of key elements of our fund raising event. We saw therefore that the lack of teamwork within the project caused bad decisions and proved to be a severe disadvantage in regards of the activity. It seemed lack everybody was doing what they wanted and did not consult anyone, neither for some help nor for a piece of advice. As if we were all around the same circle but we never touched. Furthermore, teamwork was not encouraged at all as we all had our own tasks and we were confined in our research of how to achieve our own task. A3: Analyse the advantages and disadvantages for adopting a teamwork strategy versus an individualistic approach to the business activity. Write up the advantages and disadvantages of completing your activity on your own compare this to your advantages and disadvantages from A3 of working in groups for your activity. Which one would have worked better and why Working as a team can have a certain advantage. We can delegate the tasks, we are not overflowed with work and we can enjoy working in a pleasant atmosphere where everyone aims for the same goal. However it can result in being a true failure if everyone is only interested in working on his own, not sharing his achievements and even more if there is a art of the team who shows a total lack of interest in the activity. On the other hand, an individualistic approach can result in a perfect way of organizing a group if we stimulate the proper skills of each of the members. Nevertheless, it can also result in a complete waste of time if the members do not complete their tasks and are not willing to deliver an important amount of work. If I had to complete all these tasks on my own I believe I would have been more efficient in the process of decision taking as it would have only involved me. I could have taken care of all the documentation, sponsors and organization. However, as an individual I have certain difficulties in some fields. For example: sales. I would not have sold the tickets as Roohdip did. Working as a team would have helped me overcome my disadvantage in sales and would have provided with a wider range of skills. But, the main disadvantage in working in groups is that we always have to try to keep motivation alive as we can easily get discouraged or do not fell the will or force to work. Also working in groups allows us to divide the entire process into tasks and be able to complete them all. Read More