REFLECTIVE
ESSAY
SUBJECT
CODE: MBA600
SUBJECT
NAME: CAPSTONE: STRATEGY
STUDENT
ID:
Table of
Contents
Introduction. 4
A brief discussion on the value of
reflective practice for managers and leaders. 4
A personal reflection on learning from the
capstone subject and the consultancy research process. 6
A personal reflection on skills developed over
the MBA.. 8
A personal reflection on how these will
assist in future career endeavours. 10
Conclusion. 12
Reference List 13
The
subject of study deals with managerial skills and role of the leaders and
managers towards a firm and its development. Here the identification of
strategy problems involves how to focus on the changing performance of the
firm. With the help of existing literature, the aspects of reflective practices
for managers as well as leaders are going to be illustrated in this study. The
personal reflection on learning is going to be presented so that its importance
of skill development as well as future career prospects can be analyzed based
on the capstone materials.
Reflective
management involves a procedure where the managers of a firm use their mindful
and conscious behaviour as on the sources of learning. According to (Zhao et
al. 2019), this practice enables the managers to use their leadership
quality to emphasize the ability of the managers and the leaders to understand
the use of emotions and manage it in a positive way so as to relieve stress.
This
process of reflective management enables the managers or leaders to use the
learning concept in their managerial skill, thereby improving their own
capacity while being more adaptive to the current demand situation (Subramony et
al. 2018). The basic steps involved in this procedure are innovation,
learning and performance. This procedure provides a wide scope of learning to
the manager and leaders, and to this extent, the managers must have a good
appetite for learning. Unless the managers are becoming curious to learn the
process of reflective management will not have much effect on the development
of the firm (Ruben & Gigliotti, 2017). Another step is the performance,
which involves the best use of the knowledge for enhancing their performance
towards achieving goals of the organization. The reflective behaviour of the
manager is very important in this case. As a managerial role, the managers have
many responsibilities towards the team and through the effectiveness of the
responsibility by the managers; it may coordinate a proper teamwork. Reflective
management involves reflection of the managerial responsibilities through their
respective performances.
The
importance of reflective management lies in making the managers realize the
wrongs in them, and making them reflect their performance in the right way to
enhance the performance of the organization. Often the managers are under the
misconception that the values, choices, beliefs are similar and universal
throughout the employees of the organization but this does not seem to be true.
This practice of relative management enables the leaders to counter the
differences of opinion, beliefs and the proper use of loopholes, so as to
promote a broader prospect of development and to provide the solution of a
situation in a broader sense (Yoganandan & Vignesh, 2017). This practice of
reflective management enables the firm in increasing and facilitating the
strength of the firm and improving over its drawbacks. Without this practice,
these effects would not have materialized. Through the learning process
involved in reflective management when the managers and leaders are getting
coached they become more precise in using their values and managerial skills
and it yields more positive results and the organization becomes wider with the
gradual expansion of time. The skills can be developed within the process of
reflective management makes the managers rectify the skills within themselves.
It positively affects all the teammates in rectifying the loopholes, adopting
proper strategies, which enables them to meet the demands strategically
(DAlessio, Avolio & Charles, 2019 ). The most important effect of the
reflective management is that it reduces the difference in opinion among
teammates and facilitates proper coordination. It moves towards a solution-based
system. It is very much influencing for a leader to inculcate a proper
leadership quality in them. I think it makes the managers rectify the
conflicting situations and makes it a suitable environment for the employees to
enhance the performance as a whole. Modifying the self-skills within a manager
is the main step towards the managerial skills, which is the main aspect of the
reflective management.
Based
on my learning in the first week, I have found that the strategic
concepts are the main prospects for expansion of a firm. I have learned that
when more than two firms operate in the same market yielding a higher rate of
profit, then that firm has a competitive advantage over the other and it
results in a higher rate of profit. Based on the viewpoint of Ahmad & Pesch
(2017) land, labour, capital is the main factors of production. I have learned
the steps to the strategic procedures. The planning of the strategic procedures
involves finding out the strategic problems firstly and then to that extent
examining the strategic impact in terms of the financial strength of the firm. Further,
it involves recognizing the initiation of the performance with the present
financial situation
In
the second week, I have gained an in-depth insight about the
strategy planning procedure and the sources of competitive advantage. The
sources are the same product at different prices and availability of
distinctive products at high prices. I have also learned the strategies for the
cost advantage, strategies to be adopted to obtain the benefit for price
differentiation along with how the competitive advantage is viewed from
resource availability.
In the
third week, I have gained knowledge about the strategies for a
competitive market. This strategy involves a firm and an industry. I have also
learned about five forces of competition strategy: suppliers, buyers, rivalry
among existing firms, industry competitors and potential entrants.
In the
fourth week, I learned how to measure the effectiveness of the
performance based on the financial strength of the company, diagnosing the
performance of the company by analyzing the satisfactory and unsatisfactory
sources. I have also learned how cash is circulated from the working capital of
a firm.
In the
fifth week, I have learned to adopt strategies to transform into
a competitive market with the available resources and analyzing the
potentiality of the firm. The business model describes how it delivers the
goods and value to the customers (Kuechler & Stedha, 2018). I have also
learned how to align the resource availability with the potentiality of the
firm to produce with the available resources. Dynamic capability refers to that
a firm in order to create a value towards the customer can manipulate its
adaptivity to the resources.
In the
seventh week, it deals with the importance of metrics in a
business strategy. In this context, I gained an insight about how the
executives can work on some strategies and made it adaptive to the business
procedures and the managerial skills. The managers positively initiate some new
measures and to that extent, the leaders examine whether the innovation is
relevant to the old one.
The
understanding of eighth week has helped me to evaluate the
importance of secondary research as the effective way of mitigating the complex
business issues. This research procedure can be seen as one of the most
effective ways of mitigating the research strategy issues. On the other hand,
in the ninth week, I have learned about the aspects of primary
research. Newman et al. (2018) have illustrated the fact that the
strategy problems often vary with several statistical techniques. I have
understood the relation of content analysis with qualitative technique and
descriptive analysis with quantitative techniques. My knowledge about transitional
as well as transformation changes has been enhanced in the tenth week.
In
tenth week, I have gained a deep insight about the Kubler-Ross
Change Curve as a part of effective organizational change. I have
gained knowledge about the existing differences between the transitional change
and transformational change. In the eleventh week, I have
understood how competitive strategies can be understood with the help of
business model canvas. Apart from that, I who has eventually helped me to
comprehend an existing strategy problem understand the aspects of research
design proposal contents. In the twelfth week, I
have gained insight about competitive rivalry, resource based view, distinctive
capabilities and Financial Performance Analysis in the context of business
scenarios. My knowledge of human resource management has been enhanced with
understanding the capabilities of a firm.
Understanding the capstone helps me develop
managerial skills based on corporate social responsibilities and leadership
skills. The lessons of leadership skills help me take initiatives, critical
thinking, implementing ideas for the growth of the organization, and motivating
employees to adopt the plans with effective listening and constant learning.
The best way to develop managerial skills is to take more responsibilities and
solve more issues, which, in return, helps me adapt more, enhancing innovation
skills in the area of leadership. I have learnt to step out of the comfort zone
by continuously learning new skills and adapt the new ideas from the executives
working in the team.
The sooner I realize that no one is the best
in everything. The sooner I will learn to be a good leader, the better to
delegate the new task and empower the other team members. I have learnt from
the Isolation Mechanism that there should be causal ambiguity in the thinking
process with tacit knowledge, resources and social complexity. That helps to
transfer high transaction costs and the inability to replicate the skills of
the rival firm. According to Oluwaseun (2018), the main sequential stages of
building structural strategy are the acquisition of employees, raw materials,
distribution channels and marketing, building functional structure to increase
efficiency, adopting the growth and the diversification of the strategies. From
the viewpoint of Altrichter & Gamsjger (2017), it is found that the
analysis of the five main stages of the product life cycle stages like
development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages helps the
managers to adopt overall marketing, pricing, distribution and promotion
strategies. The manager's most important role is to achieve positive customer
experience and review by building quality besides providing good services with
proper evaluation.
On the other hand, being a manager, I need to
focus on the overall supply chain, consisting of all suppliers and distributors
of the specific product. According to the Rodriguez & Walters (2017), the
way to implement faster growth in the industry and the foremost strategy are
about developing the thinking and the data analysis planning. It is verified
with the statistical techniques to keep a close eye on the resources and
capability and to the diagnosis of the performance. Defining the
transformational and transitional complexity of the change theory helps me
understand the industry's incremental efficiency and capabilities. The
transitional changes help the industry to corporate restructuring, acquisitions
and creating new products and services by adopting new technology. The
transformational change implements the major and strategic change in the
culture and economy in response to the rival competitors (Mulyadi et
al. 2020). I gained idea from the Kubler-Ross model's change curve
that there are six main changes take part in the leadership management. Denial,
frustration, depression, experiment, and integration are the key factors
created due to the compelling reasons due to changes in the organization,
inspiring the motivation, developing the capabilities, and sharing
organizational knowledge.
Analyzing the differentiation competitiveness,
distinctive capabilities, strategic performance, researching the industry and
resource endowment empowers my knowledge about the leader's key roles to
increase the performance of the employees and develop the handling strategy as
a leader (Kiersch & Peters 2017). I have gained insight regarding business
model canvas and its application and this has enhanced my ability to understand
the competitive strategy of a firm.
The understanding of the change management
model has helped me to understand how I can create a sense of readiness of the
employees of an organization. The learning of Kotter's 8-step change management
can be seen to be effective in my career if I am in the managerial position.
Antony (2018) has stated that the leadership approach plays an important role
in determining effective change management in the sphere of the organization.
The understanding of the volatility of the banking sector will be helpful for
me to evaluate the impact of global and visible misconduct in the financial
services.
The learning from structural strategic theory
helps me in enhancing my knowledge of corporate and competitive strategies to
build the relationship between industry competitors and the rivalry firms. The
analysis of the product life cycle is a useful tool that makes me analyze the
future of the industry and their brand values quickly. The strategy in
balancing the customers and the supplier side helps me to create a clear view
of financial and operational metrics. The feasibility of the researchable
products are required to be taken into consideration depending on the time and
availability constraints which will help me in future to develop the
theoretical framework to set the goal on behalf of the industry. Developing the
research contents or hypothesis and identifying the limitations including the
set of the stakeholders expectation will help in designing the future
research proposals of an organization (Moldoveanu & Narayandas 2019). In return, it
will also help in the contribution of superior profit abilities of that
organization.
Leading transformational changes will develop
my learning that in urgency of the organization in any unacceptable
circumstances is taken to be considered and finding out the proper resolution
(Arnsdorff et al. 2017). Besides, I need to find the proper
person or methodology that can influence the coordination with enthusiasm.
Implementing proper plannings and providing them a clear picture about the
fact by appealing to stakeholders like employees, owners and others that's why
they feel more easier to solve. On the other hand by making good communication
within the team, spreading the knowledge with everyone, and making scopes for
everyone to share their knowledge and views. Celebrating the success or quick
win inside the team to encourage them to make them more productive and motivate
them to incorporate new ideas, which will help me to make my employees to be
more focused. The learning of the VRIO framework in the third week can enhance
my knowledge about the aspects of recognizing the internal capabilities of an
organization.
As I have learnt that cost advantage and
differentiation advantage are important for a company to grow in the market, I
can make effective marketing plans so that the services that my company would
produce can maintain a longer growth stage of the product life cycle. My
overall learning of mechanisms of enhancing organizational culture and
mechanisms can help me to understand the aspect, which can create causal
ambiguity. In such scenarios when there more competitors are included in the
same market, firms are willing to possess the advantages of market
competitiveness, firms are required to take strategies to potential earnings
and persistently higher rate of profit. The managers are required to take the
initiative to avail the factors of productions like land, capital labour,
knowledge and automation easily to empower the production. Assessment of the
customer's preference, the business models are to be invented in such a way
that the organization can secure the capital and resources.
Based on the capstone study, the strategy to
the key factors of the organization like the analysis of competitive advantages
minimizes the cost to the organization. I have gained some managerial skills
throughout learning the capstone and this has definitely enhanced my capacity
to relate or develop my skill. Initially, the skills, which have been developed
by me such as understanding the internal capabilities of an organization, the
aspects of change management and models of bringing change, can help me in
future. I have gained an insight about the leading transformational
changes.
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