Perspectives and Concepts for the Career - Assignment Example

Learning Journal Name: Institution: Course Title: Tutor: Date: Introduction The greatest desire of anyone who enrols for graduate study is to be able to scale higher positions in ones career, improve on personal development and be a holistic thinker who can see and offer solution to societal and organizational problems. Under each course, there are numerous units taught so as to build ones thinking. This paper exposes my knowledge and what I learnt in strategic business planning unit. To indulge in this, I will review and appraise my own participation and contribution in the class and to my group. Moreover, I will state what I learnt and their significance, how I can apply the theoretical concepts, how my assumptions and perspectives have changed and how I can apply the concepts learned to my life and future career. My Contribution to Class and Group Activities One thing that I have to note is that in most of our class sessions, I was not an active participant. This is based on my personality of being a person who likes to listen rather than speak especially in a crowd. According to my self-reflection, I am a pragmatic person yet I do not like to socialize much and maintain a safe distance from others. I do better if the theory and the practice are clearly defined of any task at hand. Too much waffle often throws me to the switch off mode and I feel less efficient due to this. However, as result of not having that oratory power, I compensate it with practical and written materials. Thus, my most contribution would be in written format and when practical solutions were required. While the learning at class was learner centred, interactive and problem based, the feel within me of senior and junior in terms of instructor and the students made me shy off at a time. To me, in my group activities I feel I did exceptionally well. This is because in the group we were average in number and thus, I was able to develop close working rapport. Based on my learning style of hands on person, I was able to fit in to my group well. In addition, I achieve the anticipated results even though I found it difficult in the start. Moreover, at the group level, my interpersonal skills and leadership style worked for me. I find it easy to give concrete examples to my team in order to resolve a situation. This works for me all the time and make me gain greater influence and everyone sees how effective my ideas can be. To me, practically tackling the problem makes the tasks less difficult and the environment more appealing and conducive to getting good results. Further, what made me feel at home and contribute much to the group activities is the feel of equality. This is opposed to the whole class that I felt there was unidirectional source of information. Insights Gained and their Significance The first important knowledge that I gained is on what it takes to be a successful manager at any level. A manager or a consultant ideally faces two forms of environment, the first is the internal and the second is the external one. According to organizational theories of the population ecology and the institutional theory, an organization has to adapt or be selective. It is in this organizational theory that a manager has to base his/her decisions and skills so as to direct the organization towards its goals and objectives. During the programme, I learnt the various categories of approaches, tools and skills required by a manager so as to be competent. As a student with the vision of being one of the leading marketers in Saudi Arabia who can be able to initiate million of sales of products and allow a firm to gain considerable market share and ascend to market leadership. This course offered some deep insight and knowledge of being a marketer. The first learning insight was how business organizations craft and execute their business strategies. I realised that strategies must be crafted in a distinct manner in order to provide them with a competitive advantage against rivals in the market. Moreover, I learnt that the linchpin of any successful business organization is the ability of its top management to craft and boldly execute strategies. Further, I learnt that before crafting a strategy to execute it is of significant importance for business organizations to carry out an analysis of an organizations resources and competitive position. These considerations are crucial as they aide in crafting executable strategies aimed at giving an organization a competitive advantage against business rivals. The process of crafting strategy involves thinking in a strategic way about the future of a business organization. It also involves thinking strategically about an organizations current market performance or rather position, as well as future prospects. Strategy is a visionary roadmap that business organizations usually follow in developing and strengthening their business prospects. The process of crafting strategy takes into consideration a business organization’s destination and the rational for reaching that destination. Moreover, another theoretical aspect that I learnt is how organisation can drive change through strategic plan and how marketing allows firms to gauge this change. A company develops a principal strategy after an examination of the competition. The basis of the strategy is the position held by the company in market. The core strategy that a firm adopts depends on its position and is aimed at giving a firm a competitive advantage over rivals in the market. Moreover, in this course I realised the importance of every function/ department in creating value for the end customer. In a nutshell, what I learnt is that any business functions and operations including marketing have to be formulated in line with the organisation’s strategic plan. How I can Apply these Theoretical Knowledge to my Situation One situation that I have faced as an employee is low sales volume and inability to meet annual sales volume. Most of the woes were associated with failure by that organisation to be responsive to changes in the market trends and being customer oriented. Proper marketing is about creating value for the customer through various avenues/ marketing mix while ensuring increased profits and sales for the company. In earlier years the company was a dominant player in its field of operation and thus, rose significantly to claim market leadership. After some years and paradigm shift from product oriented approach to business service, the company started experiencing decline and thus, stared at eminent fall. The source of that company’s woes is tied to its laxity to be market responsive in product development. The problem was not that they were not innovative; it was innovation which is not realigned to market trends. This showed lack of marketing research and formulation of business strategic plan that addresses or anticipate change. As noted earlier strategic planning should be able to make business stay afloat and be responsive to change by creating value and realigning internal operations to the external macro and industry environment. Thus my situation I have come to understand importance of strategic business plan in engineering change and market responsiveness. How the Experience has changed my Perception In the initial years I held belief that managers and employees required more technical skills such as managing costs, risks and business initiative to soft skills, the notion of late as changed. I now acknowledge the importance of soft skills such as negotiation, communication, conflict management and persuasion as integral part for success. Soft skills and technical skills are a prerequisite for manager or employee ability to perform above par. The one thing that this report identifies, technical skills mostly relates to management. Management implies dealing with the present challenge of the organization, facts and how to exploit opportunities by properly utilizing resources. On the other hand, soft skills imply leadership. Leadership deals with the future, ideas, people and personalities and this is what strategic planning is all about. Probable Application Areas of What I Learnt In My Future Career My career goal is to gather relevant professional skills and knowledge so as to perform duties exceptionally. In addition, I want to utilize my acquired skill in conjunction with my colleagues for the continuous growth and development of the organisation I work in. The first area of application will be on systems view to management and management by objective. Adopting system view gives a leeway for seeing an organisation as an organism. In this approach I am able to advice the need for production of goods in the context of the larger strategic plan and this can only be achieved if the managers view organisation as being made of interpedently functional units. The second point is in driving internal change. Strategic business plan can be used to introduce change into the business. Businesses that survive are not the strongest but those who are able to adapt to change. I will apply this to inform the manufacturing department about production of good that create value to the end customer and the ones that are needed by them and not those deemed fit to be produced by the organisation. The next is improving brand value in the market through total quality management and corporate social responsibility. The third application is based on the view that strategic business planning being based on both technical and soft skills. This should be applied by one during environmental scanning before formulating any strategy. One of the integral parts of soft skills that help organisation gain market leadership is leadership. Leadership based management is a critical tool for understanding organisational behaviour, managing people and initiating team work. Thus, for success of an organisation, management has to provide the vision, enabling environment and resources. Conclusion At the beginning when I started my programme I had mixed feeling as well as to obtain more knowledge in marketing. The subject had beneficial topics, such as Strategy and Operation Management, Managing Financial Information, Performance Excellence in Business, Supply Chain Management and Managing Projects for Innovation and Enterprise. After studying all these subjects I gained so much strength towards knowledge and experience in the field of marketing. In a nutshell, I learnt how to connect marketing with strategic business plan since these plans take into consideration internal, immediate and external environment. Moreover it is these parameters that marketers interact with while conducting market research so as to meet sales target. Lastly, I realised marketing is not all about sales but a wide spectrum. Read More