How My Learning was Enhanced while Doing this Project - Essay Example

 How My Learning was Enhanced while Doing this Project The project has finally been completed and dust is gradually settling down on the entire endeavour. The hurly burly that usually accompanies any time-bound activity that requires cooperation and coordination at various stages with both internal and external stakeholders is bound to raise some amount tension as time elapses. Such tension and, at times, even friction with fellow researchers might cause a few rapid heartbeats or even a night of lost sleep, especially when the submission time knocks at the door, but on hindsight, the entire experience was indeed a learning curve – steep at times, but enjoyable from a broader perspective. Writing this reflective essay is also in a sense a part of that unique learning process that began as I became a part of the team that initially consisted of four persons drawn from India, China, Thailand and South Korea and was later expanded to include two more team members from China. Initially it was a fairly balanced team as all of us came from diverse cultures and mindsets and were more than eager to accommodate each other’s idiosyncrasies that get ingrained as one grows up in varying cultural and social environments. The later day entrants in our team also came from China and, to be very honest, there was some apprehension, even if faint, in my mind that the carefully nurtured balance of the team might get disturbed as half of the team members will now belong to a single country with expectedly similar cultural background and social environment. Though I kept arguing with myself that China is a vast country and it may be that all of them might not be from same cultural or social backgrounds. Being an Indian I knew that cultural differences usually existed between different parts of a country that is huge in size. However, proving that all my apprehensions were grossly misplaced, all six of us worked, debated (may a time hotly) and discussed each and every point threadbare and came to amicable conclusions that were acceptable to each one of us. Such debates were absolutely necessary as brain's goal is to turn data into meaning by creating patterns within the neocortex, and scientists have found that emotions are critical to this patterning. Positive emotions boost the brain's ability to make better neural maps. This ability allows people to better sort experiences and to recall with greater clarity.[ CITATION Rea99 \l 1033 ] I do not know about others, but such positive and intense interactions helped to clarify a lot of cobwebs that existed in mind regarding minute details of strategic marketing theories that were taught to us in classrooms. Each and every team member participated wholeheartedly at every single step and this project is the outcome of what is essentially a combined group effort of six persons that had only one thing in common – a burning desire to make this project a unique success. As I was entrusted with the responsibility to be the team spokesperson and coordinator since there was a general consensus among team members that I had the best communicative ability, I can say with a fair degree of authority that all members worked with full dedication and to the best of their abilities. I know that they indeed did so because I interacted with each one of them on numerous occasions both individually and as a group. This project work helped us in a very vital way to understand the importance of the spirit of enquiry that is absolutely necessary for continuous intellectual, moral and, might be to be certain extent, spiritual growth of an individual. After all, each of one already possessed the basic skills of reading writing and arithmetic that are necessary to survive. We already possessed a basic knowledge of science even though we did not intend to become scientists and all of us had a basic understanding of how the government works in our respective countries and we had come together for “higher education”. But what exactly does it mean. It perhaps means the ability to understand the real meaning of any human endeavour but such a meaning is elusive, context-bound and is constantly changing. If we stop asking questions about the significance of what we are doing the inner meaning of our efforts will silently fade away and we would end up merely going through the motions.[ CITATION McG06 \l 1033 ] This we did never do even once throughout the entire project as we kept asking the management for more details and more economically viable reasons that have prompted them to embark on the new venture of data management and data security. Though we admitted that the current economic downturn would have marginal effect on their business and also accepted their highly logical assertion that physical distances would not matter much as the company operated online over the internet, we still felt that £500 to £1000 monthly outlay would not be sufficient especially as the market is highly competitive and one needed to be really innovative in order to secure new customers and retain old ones. The meagreness of the budget might become a constraint as the company is planning to expand to so-called M4 corners particularly in the database development sector. One needs to physically interact with clients; we still require some sort of physical interface before we start relying on a vendor, at least that is what we felt, and we were pretty forthright in forwarding our opinion in numerous discussions that we had with various levels of company management. It was indeed a positive step by the company to tie up with F-Secure Anti-Virus in the zone of data security but the relative anonymity of the brand obviously needed an extensive advertisement campaign that we were nearly certain would not be possible unless the marketing budget is marked up. This reservation of ours was not categorically included in the report since the company made known to us of their revised plans only when we had ten or so days left to submit the final version of the project. Though we did mention most of elements of the new plan while writing the ‘objectives’ portion of the report we did not make an issue of it and neither were we overtly critical of these new concepts as we thought any such confrontationist attitude will only jeopardise smooth completion of our project. We are absolutely sure this was not a complete reflection of truth but when you are in real world you need to make adjustments and cut corners where necessary.[ CITATION Ree02 \l 1033 ] This perhaps explains the rather tepid statement on page 2 of our report where we say that we ‘believe’ the return on investment will be high. One surely accepts that mere belief, however firm and emotional it may be, is not enough to earn handsome return on investment. Each one of us became enriched by the experience of putting theories we learnt through class room teaching, study modules and case studies in practice and tested them in the real world of cutthroat competition of modern day business and commerce. And this was no mouthing of some theory memorised the night before, it was a testing of what we learned against the backdrop of a do-or-die scenario where a business survived if it expanded and vanished without a trace if it failed to do so. The vital importance of strategy in Strategic Marketing was brought home to us in a manner that no amount of class room activity would have ever been able to do so. All of us once again realised the importance of exposure to practical situations; such exposures, though rather unsettling initially; since one can hardly ever find the neat orderliness of classrooms in the real life battle of winning over new consumers and satisfactorily serving all of them while incurring the lowest possible expense, as the only means of survival; was indeed an enormous learning experience. Derry was indeed right when he insisted learning can never be complete unless the student has put the learning strategies to work in practical situations.[ CITATION Der90 \l 1033 ] Putting down our ideas on paper also was a huge learning process. Till our ideas were put on paper we could hardly locate the gaps in the logical development of the project. Once again each member of the group realised the profundity of what Griffin and Watson had said more than thirty years ago: "A written, personal commitment from the student encourages better course work". [ CITATION Gri78 \l 1033 ] This was especially apparent when we were writing the social aspect of PEST analysis. The finished product that one can see is the outcome of several rounds of editing and careful drafting. Thus a reader will immediately be able to understand that the researchers are acutely aware of the shifting trends in internet based industries. Therefore, all those companies that depend on e-commerce and e-marketing as their main platforms of reaching out to customers must be flexible enough to change according to times so as to always remain relevant in the context of markets. The example of how Orkut faded into insignificance as social networking website with the advent of Facebook and how the latest trends such as Twitter and MySpace are getting popular with each passing day have put the entire issue in sharper perspective. The main contention that sales and marketing must be completely amenable to the demands of time has been put forward in a very convincing manner. But we could achieve this only after we had put our initial thought on paper and gradually worked on it with each member pitching in with their valuable observations and inputs. It was mainly as a result of such continuous attempts to improve that we came up with the idea that SMS has also become a very effective medium of reaching out to customers as now you would hardly be able to locate an individual without a mobile phone. The same attention to logical rectitude is evident in the depiction of SWOT analysis of the company under consideration as any discerning reader will quickly realise that the project has carefully balanced out the Strengths with the Weaknesses and the company is not in a particularly strong or a severely weak position vis-à-vis other players in the market. Its success or failure will essentially depend on how effective the marketing strategy would be which, as already mentioned in this reflective essay, cannot be entirely dependent on impersonal means of communication and reaching out through websites, no matter how attractive and interactive they may be. I have no hesitation in admitting that it is because of the rigorous method of continuous writing and rewriting the project that I could achieve such a carefully calibrated and balanced approach to such a contentious issue of squaring off the Strengths with Weaknesses. All those who have done their projects seriously would surely be in agreement with what I say. Gabriele B. Sweidel has provided a very useful set of questions that might be answered through ‘very much’, ‘somewhat’, or, ‘not at all’ to make an assessment of how far a project has been useful in altering the manner in which we study. The questions are: Did you enjoy the project? Was the project helpful? Did you make any changes in your studying? Have you applied anything that you have learned while keeping the study portfolio in your other classes? Was it difficult to complete the project? Do you think you are now a better "study-er" because of this project? Would you recommend that I use the project again? [ CITATION Swe96 \l 1033 ] As far as the present project is concerned, from what I have written so far in this reflective essay it should be quite obvious that I really did enjoy the project and it has been immensely helpful to alter my thinking process which was earlier rather erratic but has now become much more systematic and logical. And, of course I did apply quite a lot of what I had been taught in class about strategic management as would be apparent in the cogent manner in which the PEST and SWOT analyses have been carried out. It was not that difficult to complete the project but had the management of Silicon Edge told us of their revised plans a little earlier we might have been able to do better justice to their ideas. But the fact that we did a good job is apparent from the letter of appreciation sent by Paul Dunscombe, Director of Silicon Edge. And, yes, I have surely become a better “study-er” because of the newly developed logical strain of mind and would seriously request further use of this project on a fresh batch of students. Bibliography CITATION Rea99 \l 1033 : , (Reardon 1998-99), CITATION McG06 \l 1033 : , (McGinty 2006), CITATION Ree02 \l 1033 : , (Reeves 2002), CITATION Der90 \l 1033 : , (Derry 1990), CITATION Gri78 \l 1033 : , (Griffin and Watson 1978), CITATION Swe96 \l 1033 : , (Sweidel 1996), Read More