Feedbacks

In our last session we had to pair up and write a reflective journal based on the feedbacks given by the other partner. I had the opportunity to share my educational journey with Bill who gave me very useful tips.

He had positive comments as well as some criticism for my blogs.He pointed out that i summarized my reflection on time management and business research very well.However, he suggested me to make use of some secondary resources like add some quotes or definition by authors wherever necessary. After his feedbacks i realized that i had no secondary resources in any of my previous blogs and Victoria also had the same criticism.Secondly he thought i have made good attempts to critically analyze myself and the experience, however some were a little too descriptive which was no surprise.

I have always been poor at critical analysis and some how i end up describing it too much.Having said this the  Kolbs Learning Cycle was a very effective tool as it gave me a clear structure on how to write a good reflective journal. ” It is generally believed that the thinking process involves two aspects: reflective thinking and critical thinking.They are not separate processes; rather they are closely connected"(Brookfield 1987) Several articles on critical writing guided me well.I summaries the event in brief then i talked about what did i find out or learn from the event and what could i have done better to improve any mistakes in future.

Bills feedback was very useful because i was clear about where i was lacking.I took his suggestion and implemented changes in my blogs.This session was very valuable because i got the all the relevant advices to improve academically.On my last year in university i will definitely use my knowledge i gained through out this academic year on reflective writing.I plan on following the key steps of Kolbs Learning Cycle which will help me to achieve better grades in future.

Reflection on My Business Research Project

For the second assignment of our business research module we were asked to conduct a research on a topic of our choice in Marketing, Human Resource or general business management. Victoria focused that the primary research is the most essential part in our whole report therefore it was very important to choose a relevant topic.

Choosing a topic might sound easy, as there are plenty of issues one can pick. I realized that choosing a good topic that is not only interesting but also accessible to conduct a research is very important. As I had to choose an organization to link with my topic I instantly thought about Primark because I had already done a lot of research about the company previously on my other assignments. Also since I had to conduct a primary research I had a good connection to get an interview with the manager. Once I choose my company I though about the topic accordingly, my topic was about ethical issues at Primark. However, after getting reviewed by Victoria I realized that my topic was very restrictive to the given word limitation. Limited resources on primary and secondary data and it proved difficult to make any judgments on little evidence on such a wide topic. Therefore I eventually ended up changing my whole topic to customer experience management at Primark. This topic gave me a lot of flexibility to conduct my primary and secondary research.After getting it reviewed from Victoria the second time, she told me to remove few points from my research objectives and just focus on one area of the topic.Her feedback proved very useful for me as it made my research less complex.For example one of my objective was linked with the sales (how does customer experience management impact its sales).On the completion of my report i was actually very glad that i had removed this objective from my proposal as it would prove very hard to get the correct statistics and would have limited information as evidence.Therefore i just focused and examined on the key elements of Customer experience management at Primark.

I found a lot of information on customer experience management in journals, books and articles but on the course of my primary research I encountered some challenges along the way. Firstly the major challenge for me was to fix the date with the manager. Although he had agreed to conduct interview with me, he was very busy and had to often cancel or shift the interview, which affected my schedule that I had planned. Second challenge was to try and conduct a survey with Primark customers because they would simply refuse or ignore. The interview was eventually fixed and conducted but having to complete the questionnaire was a nightmare, it took us nearly a week to complete with the help of my friends of course.

I was nerve wrecked having to conduct interview for the first time. Surprisingly the manager was very jolly and showed a lot of enthusiasm when answering questions . Since the questions were only directed on CEM and did not require to give any confidential informations the manager gave me a lot of insights to Primarks work environment, products and their customers.It really helped me to write on my research findings.To be honest the staff did not prove to be as helpful as i thought because they did not seem to take me seriously and there response were limited like one sentence answers.Although some of them gave me pretty useful insights about there customers.

As i went about writing this report i found it very interesting because i had eventually understood the theories better and i had a clear idea to structure my report and how to link the theories to my findings.I believe that i covered most of the essential aspects of CEM in my interview questions and questionnaire which are directly linked with my findings.The only limitation on my research was to get hold of Primarks other store manager because i had no connections and they would simple refuse it or not respond to any of the emails.

Like i mentioned earlier in my blogs, the only thing i need to improve more is to work on my time management skills although i have improved immensely from the past. Next time i will make sure that first i will check all my assignment due dates, note them down and divide time for each module so that i will have plenty of time to do each assignment.Like i mentioned earlier allocating my time wisely, being well organised and planning will help me in my university and career in future.

Time Management

Time management is one of the most important competences. Organizing and planning the time well will help us reach our target and goal effectively and efficiently. Fortunately this year has been very good for me when it came to managing my time well. Until last year i lacked the time management skills which affected greatly on my personal and school life. I realized that i did not have a proper routine or timetable to follow.This was a bit challenging for me in terms of setting a schedule for myself as i could not recall how i spent my days.Therefore to help me with this i bought a dairy to guide me in planning and organizing my days. Then, i made a proper timetable according to my daily activities for example, i allocated time for college, work, self study etc. This allowed me to follow the routine and prioritize important task and balance between my work and studies.However at first i found it very exhausting to follow my own timetable and procrastinated at occasions.But eventually i found this the most important tool to help me reach my targets and got my work done on time.One of the example i can give is during my exams for employee relationship I had to prepare myself efficiently in order to do well. This included my time management skill, answering exam papers, organising my notes effectively to insure I revised fully and managing to fit in my revision during my daily routine. I started out by filling in detailed timetable each week which included time I woke up, my lunch break, my study hour, and my break time. Then I made list of all the topics of each subject and allocated each topics to each day I would revise them. I also made list of different types of learning method I could use to make my revision more active and fun e.g. recording myself reciting a certain topic and listening to it over and over again so I could remember it. Practicing exam papers which Alexander provided us were very important as I compared my answers to the mark schemes which helped me to answer questions concisely and I also timed myself every time I answered a question to improve my time management. Creating a plan and managing useful strategies helped me to prepare for my exam which I will definitely need it for my future use.

Having done this before it helped me a great deal to make a schedule in my business research project. We had almost 5 months to finish our project.It would not have been possible to complete it without having a proper plan. As guided by Victoria, we were give a clear structure and format to write our report which also helped a great deal in allocating the time wisely for each task in my research work.This is the schedule i had prepared for my research.

Project schedule

24-02-14# Submit Proposal

2-03-14 / 8-03-14#Literature review on customer experience management

10-03-14# Contact the manager  at Primark to fix a date for interview.

10-03-14/16-03-14#Design interview

20-03-14# Conduct interview

24-03-14#Collate interview findings

7-04-14#Draft final report and review

11-05-14#Submit report

One thing i found particularly challenging was to balance my time between work and studies as i mentioned earlier. Another thing was to work on different assignments at one time,which again means it is only possible if i allocate my time wisely for each task.However, i am glad that i overcame these challenges firstly by working less hours, then i divided and allocated my time for each unit like i did earlier for my exams.The only problem i faced was the time limitation which i created it myself, i made my personal timetable after a month was left for submission.Therefore it was very hectic even if i had a proper schedule because i had too much work to do in one month.

From this experience i learnt that it is also very important to start my work ahead of time, specially when i have more than one assignments due on the same period. In future i will use this experience to do much better in my university and will sharpen my time management skills.
"A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there."H.Stanley Judd

Professional Competences

This session we had to do a self evaluation of our professional competences. We had to measure our competences in various areas like personal management, communication,managing information,research and analysis,project task, organizational skills, teamwork,commitment to quality, professional behavior,social responsibility and continuous learning. This task was very important to us as a student because this would help us to get a clear picture of where we stand in regards of these competences and how we could improve them.

I found this evaluation particularly helpful in regards to knowing our skills and experiences we have and how it could be related and useful in the career pathway. It was similar to SWAN analysis but in more depth to  view myself professionally. It helped me to judge myself like where my strength lies, what are my weaknesses and what needs to be done in order to work on them.Knowing them while we are student and improving will help us get ready to face future challenges in our career for instance interviews. What i found challenging while doing this evaluation was to rate myself and justify my ratings for particular competences. However, after completing the task sheet i found that there are a lot of areas i need to work on to build my skills. 

I will do this by trying to learn new skills by showing interest in various activities from where i can gain valuable knowledge, apply for an internship program, working on things i am lacking on like time management and organizational skills.This i will do by first of all making a timetable, where i will divide my times for school, break, lunch work and leisure. Also ill set a target for each day to complete all my work on time.Lastly, i think it is important to do this evaluation time to time as to compare myself how far i have developed.

In the lesson we had a task that was very similar to last year in MPD. We did a SWAIN analysis of ourself which stands for Strength, Weakness, Aspirations, Interest, Needs. This is a very important tool in order to see myself where i stand , identify what areas i am good at and where i need to make improvements to reach a certain goal or target.

  

In order to get a more appropriate result we were asked to pair up in two and discuss our SWAIN that is most likely related to our career pathways. Unfortunately, i did not get the opportunity to discuss my viewpoints and ideas with another partner as i missed the lecture. Anyhow since i had done something similar in my previous lesson in MPD it helped me a great deal to do my SWAIN analysis. 

I found that it was quite easy to mention about my strength, aspiration, interest and needs whereas i could not think off many weaknesses. I also realized being completely honest about my weakness can seriously hamper towards my career targets. Having said that i realized that if you know how to tackle the weakness it might prove to be a strength in that matter. For example one of the weakness i mentioned was (perfectionist) this can either be a strength or a weakness but for me i mentioned it under my weakness but in the process of doing this analysis i realized how to improve on my weakness that will help me in my career pathways. 

After completely upon this analysis, i discovered that i have a long way to achieve my goals which could only be done if i make  certain targets and work on them. This is what my SWAIN analysis looks like where i have also mentioned how i am going to achieve my goals and work on them. 

   Reflective writing is a major part in our foundation degree program. It not only allows students to      think critically but helps to understand better. However, to write a good reflective statement Victoria gave us an insight to Kolb's learning Cycle and few other useful guidelines.

 I learnt that the ability to reflect on our experience and knowledge helps us to make improvements. The  Kolbs learning cycle helps a great deal if we follow the four  essential elements. For me the most important thing i learnt from the lesson was how to structure my writing. I also went through my own little research and found out great informations on reflective writing. Upon reading these guidelines, i realized the mistake i had been making on my reflective journals previously. One of the major error was my reflective journals were very descriptive rather than interpreting what i learnt from the event and what could i have done better.

Having said that, this knowledge is very essential for me as a learner as it will help me improve my skills on reflective writing. I will do this by making effective key notes during lectures so that i can recollect my memories of what i learnt. I also tend to do my own research on the topics that are covered in class for more informations, this will help me to critically analyze and reflect upon the topic in more depth. 

In future it will definitely help me in universities and also in work place where it has become increasingly important to reflect on topics or any event. This will help me identify my mistakes and make improvements. Below i have attached a useful link that i looked upon for my reference.

http://mycourse.solent.ac.uk/mod/book/tool/print/index.php?id=2732