Reference no: EM133181319

Professional Practice

Understanding the Business Environment and the Economy

Suggested structure

1. Introduction
2. Discussion
3. Background of the chosen business organisation and its industry

• The industry and chosen British Plc
• The market structure of the chosen industry
• The nature of chosen Plc and this type of market structure

Analysis of external business environment (ST*EPLE)

• Social
• Technological
• Environmental
• Political
• Legal
• Ethical

4. Economic factor analysis

• Determinants of demand of the chosen firm's goods / services
• Determinants of supply of the firm
• Competitiveness of the UK market and impact on the firm
• Examples of ‘Random Shocks' and impact on government's fiscal policy and on the chosen firm
• Problems and challenges faced by the firm

5. Conclusion

Part 1: CVs and Cover Letters

Outcome 1: be able to describe what should and should not be included in a CV
Outcome 2: reflect on the requirements of specific job descriptions and tailor your CV to match

Outcome 3: know how to stand out from the crowd due to your ability to create CVs and cover letters which are based on your skills and experiences.

Review quiz 1

Question 1. Which of the following shows Goleman's components of Emotional Intelligence

a. Self-management, self-confidence, Apathy, Enthusiasm,
Interpersonal skills
b. Self-esteem, self-awareness, Sympathy, Motion, Interactive skills
c. Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Empathy, Motivation, Social skills

Question 2. Goleman's theory divides skills into two types of competencies:
personal and...

a. Social
b. Workplace
c. External

Question 3. The Chimp Paradox divides the brain into three parts. Which of the parts is the logical decision making part?

a. The human
b. The chimp
c. The computer

Question 4. Which of the following are examples of your chimp taking control of you?

a. Procrastinating and avoiding necessary tasks
b. Acting impulsively and then regretting your actions
c. Having unwelcome and unproductive thoughts
d. All of the above

Question 5. Which of the following are means of controlling your inner chimp?

a. Reward your chimp by asking for praise from someone whose opinion you trust.
b. Distract your chimp by focusing on another task
c. Only a.
d. Only b.
e. Both a. and b.

Question 6. the Stanford University Marshmallow Test (Mischel, 1972) measured...
a. how well children delay gratification
b. how children prefer to play
c. how often children eat sweets
d. how children react to experiments

quiz

Question 1. Analyse the job advert and then adapt your CV to its requirements
• Identify the skills, knowledge and competencies needed for the job
• Identify the desired personality characteristics needed for the job
• Identify areas of your experience which will interest the employer most.
• Target your application to meet the employer's needs, using clear and concise language
• Include key words from the advert in your CV
• Demonstrate your development potential

Question 2. Consider using a personal profile section in your CV
• Remember that employers spend only seconds looking at CVs.
• A personal profile gives you an excellent opportunity to showcase your skills.

• Use the following structure Situation
Skills
Selling point

Consider these two examples of personal profiles.
Which is more effective? Why?

A
Determined and ambitious business studies undergraduate with excellent communication and team working skills. Having worked for two summers for NatWest Bank, I offer proven experience in finance and customer service. I am now seeking a graduate opportunity in retail banking where my analytical and negotiation skills can be further developed.

B
Dynamic, natural-born leader and a ‘people person', who is also studying Business studies at London Met. Looking for an exciting opportunity in a global company to springboard my career.

Review quiz 2

Question 1. Which of the following should not be included in a CV.

a. Personal profile
b. Date of birth
c. Marital status
d. Transferable skills
e. Unprofessional email address
f. References on request

Question 2. Why might a person choose to use a skills-based CV?

Question 3. True or false?
You should analyse the job advert and adapt your CV to its requirements.
a. True
b. false

Question 4. Why is a personal profile useful on a CV?

Question 5. Which of the following are successful ways of making your CV and cover letter stand out?

a. Researching the company to refer to in your application
b. Ensuring that you have matched your CV to the specific job you are applying for
c. Including a photo of yourself
d. Getting a second opinion on your CV and cover letter

Portfolio task
Task 1a. Create a personal profile for your CV
Spend some time reflecting on your skills, abilities and competencies and create a personal profile for your CV

Task 1b. Upload a copy of your CV to CV360 and reflect on 5 key suggestions

Use CV360 to receive some feedback on your CV.
Write down 5 key pieces of advice that you received from the CV360 website and reflect on the advice you receive.

You now have the rest of the class to complete your class Portfolio Tasks and to work on your Development Episodes.

 

Part 2: Interviews

Question 1. Which of the following should not be included in a CV.

a. Personal profile
b. Date of birth
c. Marital status
d. Transferable skills
e. Unprofessional email address
f. References on request

Question 2. Why might a person choose to use a skills-based CV?

Question 3. True or false?
You should analyse the job advert and adapt your CV to its requirements.
a. True
b. false

Question 4. Why is a personal profile useful on a CV?

Question 5. Which of the following are successful ways of making your CV and cover letter stand out?

a. Researching the company to refer to in your application
b. Ensuring that you have matched your CV to the specific job you are applying for
c. Including a photo of yourself
d. Getting a second opinion on your CV and cover letterexplain the challenge or situation you faced.

describe the task you had to complete, including expectations and challenges involved.

explain the actions you took to resolve the situation giving specific details, and your rationale for this.

detail the results of your outcome in terms of your successes and what you learnt about yourself.

At the start of the final week of my internship, I was asked to provide a written report of the results of our client work, along with a list of practical recommendations to be put to the clients on the final day.

Part 3: Negotiation

Outcome 1: Understand different types of negotiating outcomes
Outcome 2: Identify key skills that make a good negotiator

• To develop your career and become more employable - negotiation skills are highly in demand from employers
• To ensure you receive a fair deal - negotiating involves seeing the value of a situation and finding a balanced solution that benefits everyone
• To help find the middle ground in a situation - The ability to empathize and see another perspective helps to develop conflict resolution skills.
• To remove pressure and friction from your life -

This benefits everyone.

A union and management are negotiating a pay rise for workers.

Before negotiating what type of information should each party research and prepare?

A union negotiator has told the management party that the union wants a new wage of $15.00 / hr. This is the union negotiator's initial offer. However, she also has a minimum reservation point of $13.25 /hr. This is the lowest wage that she is willing to accept for the union.

Considering the situation from the management side, the management negotiator offers $12.75 as his initial offer. His maximum reservation point, the highest wage that he is prepared to offer the union, is $13.75 / hr.

The bargaining zone is the space between one party's minimum reservation point and the other party's maximum reservation point.

Question 1. What is the phrase used to describe a negotiating team's first proposal?

Question 2. What is the phrase for the lowest price that a party is willing to accept?

Question 3. What is the phrase for the highest price that a party is willing to accept?

Question 4. What is the bargaining zone for the two parties in this example?

Part 4: Coaching

Learning Outcome 1: To identify how coaching can be used to improve performance in the workplace

Learning Outcome 2: To identify personal goals to improve performance

1. What areas of life does it cover?

2. Do you think it shows a good or poor balance of the person's life?

3. If this was the wheel on a bicycle would it be an easy ride?

4. Which areas do you think need improvement?

Practice the GROW model in pairs

• Select one segment from the Balance wheel to explore
• A starting question could be ‘What changes are needed to make your score improve by a segment?'
• Use the GROW model to explore your ideas
• Then change roles with your partner

Part 5: Problem Solving

Learning Outcome 1: To identify key features of decision making in the workplace

Learning Outcome 2: To analyse a case study to improve decision making abilities

Read the article on the worksheet and answer the questions

Use your skimming and scanning skills to read effectively.

1. Give 3 symptoms of fire-fighting that a company might experience
2. Why might a company find itself fire-fighting issues?
3. Why might one issue be prioritised over another?
4. What is ‘traffic intensity'?

Read the case study on Enterprise Rent-a-car and discuss the questions with a group.

Task

Read the case study and discuss the questions with a partner or small group.

Case Study - Business Problem Solving Skills

Enterprise Rent-a-car - Locating to enhance the customer experience

One of the most important decisions a business has to make is where to locate. Location of a business can have a significant effect on its performance. Businesses aim to operate from locations that provide the maximum competitive advantage. By selecting the best location, a business could connect with more customers, improve efficiency and generate greater profits. At an international level, they need to analyse which countries to operate in to maximise opportunities. Within each country, they need to decide where to locate the head office. At a more local level, they may need to choose whether to locate within or around major cities. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is an international brand, operating in USA, Canada, UK, Ireland and Germany. It is the UK's largest car rental company. As the company has grown, it has aimed to retain the personal feel of a smaller business. The company encourages branch managers to take responsibility for local operations. This approach helps to create a dynamic service, meaning that each branch is free to focus on the needs of its local customers, while delivering Enterprise's values and high standards of customer service.

Q1. What advantages are there to locating an Enterprise Rent-A-Car branch close to its potential customers?

Q2. What locations might be suitable for a new Enterprise Rent-a-Car branch?

Q3. Why is Enterprise Rent-A-Car's local focus an effective strategy?

Part 6: Self-development and self-leadership

Outcome 1: Learn about the Big Five Personality Model and its role in leadership.

Outcome 2: Discover theories and practical applications of Self Leadership

Outcome 3: Assess your own Self Leadership to guide your career development

What skills do you think are necessary for a leader or manager of a business?

How do you think the balance of these skills changes as an individual rises in management positions?

What personal characteristics are needed to be a good leader?

- You are going to watch a short video on self leadership by Lars Sudmann, an executive trainer on leadership, strategy and innovation.

1. Which three things happen naturally in organisations?

2. What does this tell us about leadership?

3. What is the formula that Sudmann uses to explain great leadership?

4. How much time does Sudmann suggest spending on leading ourselves?

5. He then suggests 3 strategies to improve self-leadership: self awareness, self- reflection and self-regulation. Give an example from each category.

Which of the suggested self-leadership tips do you think would be the most useful to you?

- What insights into your own self-leadership did you discover?

- What steps might you take now to improve your self-leadership?

Part 7: Comfort Zone

Learning Outcome 1: To identify what the comfort zone is and how it can affect personal and workplace performance

Learning Outcome 2: To identify your comfort zone and how to to broaden it

1. Describe a time when you stepped out of your comfort zone.
2. What were the effects of this experience?
3. What are some things that are currently outside your comfort zone?
4. What is one way you could step outside your comfort zone in the near future?
5. What would be the benefit to stepping out of your comfort zone in this particular way?

Review

1. What new piece of information will you never forget?
2. What is the most useful skill / technique you have developed?
3. What have you discovered about yourself?
4. What is a strength you didn't know you had?
5. What are your developmental priorities now?

Reflect on how this module helped you develop your professional, personal and academic skills during the semester.

Use your reflective learning logs, PDP development episodes, class materials and your own research to support your ideas.

1. Professional development
How has this module helped to develop your professional capabilities? Choose from:

• Assessment of skills (week 1)
• Occupational choices and planning (week 2)
• CV writing and interview skills (weeks 5 and 6)
• Negotiation skills (week 7)
• Coaching skills (week 8)
• Problem solving (week 9)
• Expanding your comfort zone (week 11)

2. Personal development
How has this module helped in your personal development?

• Assessment of skills (week 1)
• Emotional intelligence (week 4)
• Problem solving (week 9)
• Self-leadership (week 10)
• Comfort zone (week 11)

Choose a maximum of two topics to discuss. Do not discuss all the topics. Choose different topics than the first section.

3. Academic Development
How this module has helped you in your academic development?
• Assessment of skills (week 1)
• Academic writing (week 3)
• Problem solving (week 9)
• Expanding your comfort zone (week 11)

Choose a maximum of two topics to discuss. Choose different topics than the other sections.

Introduction

Give a hook, background and outline, telling the reader what this assignment contains.

Body Paragraphs

You should use your reflective learning logs, PDP development episodes, class materials and your own research to support your ideas.

Reflect on specific situations that helped you to develop your professional, personal and academic skills.

Explain why these skills are important and how you have used them / can use them to develop further.

Support your ideas with examples, theories, models and academic research.

Conclusion
Summarise your main points, then identify outline 2 or 3 ideas for continued skills development.

Part 8:

Presentation and negotiation skills exercise

Task for the Recruitment Manager

You are the Recruitment Manager at Supafone Mobile Ltd, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) which provides mobile services to business and private customers including phones and phone contracts. Supafone delivers its services online, and also through a chain of 50 UK-based stores.

Supafone has recently acquired a European competitor called Eurofone, which has another 50 stores, 10 located in each of the following five countries; Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.

The acquired Eurofone stores need to be rebranded urgently, so that they have the same look and feel, and deliver the same products and services as the Supafone Mobile stores.

As the Recruitment Manager, you have been tasked by senior management to find 5 Interim Project Managers who can deliver the rebranding programme.

Each Project Manager will be assigned to rebrand one of the five new territories where Eurofone have stores. Each Project Manager will need:

1) substantial mobile telco industry knowledge.

2) substantial project management expertise.

3) local language capabilities.

You expect to pay between £500 and £600 per day for each Project Manager. You have therefore estimated for senior management a maximum overall staffing budget required for the whole programme at £540,000. You have also agreed to complete the programme in 6 months. If you can deliver this programme on time and within budget, you will raise your profile significantly at Supafone Mobile. If the programme is a failure, you will take a good portion of the blame.

The combination of industry and language expertise required for these roles will make candidates hard to find, so you need to use external, specialist recruitment consultancies.

At present, you do not have a preferred supplier list (PSL) or even a consistent policy in terms of the profit margins of the existing recruitment consultancies who work with the firm. They typically charge between 17% and 30% fees for supplying such resource. This programme may therefore give you the opportunity and the leverage to put a cost-effective service supplier contract in place.

You have also had variable results when using recruitment consultancies before. For example, some recruitment consultancies have promised you the world, but in the end just wasted your time sending CVs of unsuitable applicants. Other consultancies found candidates who looked good on paper and interviewed well, but you had to fire them mid contract because they were not competent, or they left before the end of the projects. All of these issues incurred unbudgeted costs and delays, which you need to avoid on this programme.

You need to decide which (and how many) firms you will invite to tender for the business. You will then invite each of them in for a 30-minute meeting to sound them out.

Map out a negotiating plan for the Recruitment Manager to use in the meetings with potential suppliers.

Task for the Area Managers for Recruitment Firms A, B, C etc

You are an Area Manager at a recruitment consultancy.

Yours is one of a number of recruitment consultancies that have been invited to pitch for the above recruitment assignment at Supafone (i.e. to locate and supply interim project managers to work on the rebranding programme).

The client has instructed you to address the following questions in your 30-minute meeting: How much will you charge for your Project Managers?

What will be your profit margin?

What network/capabilities/experience do you have that demonstrate you will be able to find the required number and quality of Project Managers?

What guarantees can you give that the Project Managers will deliver their respective projects? Do you have any other suggestions as to how to manage the recruitment assignment?

You will also need to consider/address the following challenges in your negotiations:

You do not know the client's budget.

You do not know which other recruitment consultancies are being considered.

If you work at 17% or lower, you will struggle to turn a profit on the work, unless you place more than one project manager.

However, if you are able to contribute to delivering a successful rebranding programme with timeframe and budget, you will establish yourself as a supplier to Supafone Mobile, which is a market leader in a profitable business sector.

Map out your negotiating plan for the meeting and set out the key points in your pitch.

Task 1
a. Make a plan of your assignment
Add the key ideas you will discuss in each paragraph of your assignment.

b. Write the references for 5 of your sources.
Use the London Met Harvard Referencing System below. Press CNTRL click to access

Task 2: Reflective Commentary (250 words)
Reflect on your approach to completing this assignment.
Have you been as effective as you could have been? What issues have you encountered?
If you could start again, what would you do differently?

3. Personal Development Plan

Think about the results of the questionnaire you did and the information from today's lesson. What have you learnt about yourself and your skills? Are you satisfied with your results? Is this an area that could be improved? If so, consider making this topic one of your Development Episodes.
Complete the PDP below by answering the questions fully with specific details.Remember that it is normal for your ideas and PDP to change as the course continues and your priorities alter.

STEP 1: Identify Your Development Needs
A. Why are you seeking development at this time?

B. What are you seeking to develop at this time?

C. Emphasis: What do you need? What is your specific goal?

STEP 2: Identify Your Development Options
D. What steps could you take to developthe new knowledge, skills and behaviours?
E.g. read more about the topic? Watch some videos about the topic? Practise the skill
every day for 30 minutes? Organise the way you learn?

Think about your own learning preferences and adapt the task to suit.

E. Considerations arising from ‘why', ‘what' and ‘how'
Speed: How quickly do you need to develop the knowledge, skills or behaviours identified?

F: Identify Your Development Options

STEP 3: Plan for Development Activities
G. Write down the steps you will take to accomplish your task.
What could go wrong with your plan?
What will you do if your original plan does not work well?
Think of an alternative way to achieve your goal.

STEP 4: Undertake Development Activities
H. List your development activities completed throughout the semester

STEP 5: Apply new knowledge/ skills/ behaviours in the workplace
How do you intend to use this new knowledge/ skills/ behaviour in the workplace?

STEP 6: Review and Repeat
Reflect on how this new knowledge/ skill / behaviour helped in your professional development