Effective Idea Generation For Business: A Reflective Essay

Literature Review

This report would take into account as a reflective work of the ways I generate business ideas or plans for my course study. The purpose of this sheet of reflection is to transmit the ways I work while undertaking a project effort. The main tip of writing this report is to take in my reactions and thoughts of the experience that I have achieved while working. This reflective journal is an individual description that has been stated on the work based on the plan of the business that I have been a part of. I was selected to work in a team of four in building a business plan related to launching of a business in London. The business plan that we have worked in was regarding a launch of a multiplex cinema in London.

The rationale of this reflective journal is to state what happened, interpreting the events explaining what I heard and saw, my associations with the learning and the efficiency of what was pragmatic. It also took in the ways I have dealt with issues in the team during the planning for the business, interpreting my role as a team member. Other than solving of the problem, I tried mentioning about knowledge and understanding of associated theories, reflecting on the formulation of strategy and the ways I built upon my applied knowledge.

There is a common perception stating a new business should be intended prior to ascertaining a startup. Planning thrusts entrepreneurs in gathering and analyzing information, enabling the entrepreneurs in quickly identifying the things they do not know, evaluating the needful tasks helping in solving issues and attaining goals and prophesying the financial developments (Blank 2013). Crafting of the business plan helps people in communicating the purposes, activities and the objectives of the business.

Planning helps in fastening of the process of decision-making in business as compared to the trial-and-error learning where a rapid discovery needs to be taken place for surviving. Through proper congregation and investigation of the information, founders can augment understanding of the market, testing their assumptions without the implementation of the processes that are time-consuming in nature (Qureshi, Saeed and Wasti 2016). As per the organizational theory principles, planning before taking any action develops the quality of the action of humans.

According to Feenstra (2014), regarding the uncertainty, planning or idea generation for business can be stated as reducing the contingency of new businesses. Due to the factor of pre-planning setup, founders can probably take into consideration more efficient actions when there is gaining of more knowledge. Uncertainty in environment kindles planning as more learning is required under convinced conditions than other assured ones. Moreover, swaying of the decision-making process of founders along with the resource outflow and facing of the uncertain environment, planning assists entrepreneurs in concentrating on the most significant activities. Through establishment of the plan with precise steps in operations in achieving a greater goal, it facilitates the firms in focusing on the key activities of the company instead of the activities digression of their efforts.

Methodology

As per Jones and Penaluna (2013), although the pre-startup preparation has been originated in benefiting small or medium sized businesses in various ways, there are still conflicting views on whether the process of planning of pre-venture influences the business survival. Starting a business has become easier and cheaper, though survival has become tougher than ever. It takes a well-administered and multi-disciplined team and the required motivation within them to work in the best possible way, though several studies suggest that a team that is well-funded and smart does not always stick together and becomes dysfunctional.

Through careful observation of the environment and the surroundings within the business, I would be able to recognize the issues and therefore, gain ideas, proper solutions and the fresh ways of doing things. Apart from observing, the key to the process of business idea or plan for entrepreneurship is through networking, experimenting and questioning. A complete and systematic research of the market would help in better branding of the product or service. The feasibility or research related to market refers to any sort of attempt in gathering information about the market, preferences of the consumers and the competition (Kiznyte, Welker and Dechange 2016). The key purpose of conducting of the market research is to recognize and institute the potential market and getting the reliable data for the business product or service. Conducting of the market research would be a challenging job that I might face during the business plan writing process. I learnt about two sorts of market research: primary and secondary research.

Primary research would be gathering data from the probable customers through questionnaire, surveys and focus groups and interviews, while the secondary research would take in the analysis of competitors and target segmentation (Simón-Moya and Revuelto-Taboada 2016). My team and I would demeanor the primary research through questionnaires. I have learnt that generating a questionnaire is not a simple affair. A well-designed questionnaire would enable one in gaining the strategies for the process of marketing, deciding on location, determining the products and pricing along with defining of the target market of the business. It is the market research and the results of the survey that outlines and steers the remaining plan for business.

Different tasks were allocated to the team members, though I lingered in constant contact with each member, consulting on every potential incident. This in a way has also assisted me in learning and understanding the approach of the members. As an individual, functioning on a business plan has facilitated me in understanding the ways of making an official report. It helped me in research methodology, the ways of checking on various sources and the ways to carry out the research work. The business plan that is being proposed would be concentrating mainly on the penetration of the market along with market acquisition with facilities, projection technology and ambience. Besides all these, I have managed in learning various techniques of marketing, getting a practical experience of the ways in applying the models and theories of marketing.

Application to Idea Generation and Development

I have learnt to evaluate the probable customers and market before entering into any certain business. I implicated the market breakdown for the business through checking of the feasibility and the service absorbance in the market and applying strategies accordingly. I studied in carrying out the analysis of the market along with the market forecast and size, its behavior and trends. Assessing the competitors along with their strategies along with evaluating the core competencies of our business and other critical success factors is an important factor. I have taken in various models like Porter’s generic strategies, IR model, and McKenzie’s 7S in formulating the strategic plan.

I would be using questionnaire to evaluate the perception of people about the kind of service they would like to experience in a multiplex cinema in a place like London. The price and the service are important facets while considering for a multiplex to watch a movie. The questionnaire would consider all the questions related to the idea of implementing such a business. The investigation of the data from the questionnaire would give us a clear picture on the things most liked and disliked by the audience while choosing for a particular multiplex (Schaper et al. 2014). The questionnaire would be taking in both the open-ended and closed-ended questions.

Research Validity that is criterion-related takes into account the assessment of tests resulting with the outcome. This detailed validity type correlates the assessment results with another assessment criterion. The nature of the perception of the customer of a brand image and the service of a specific company can be evaluated via systematizing of the focus group (Mariott and Glackin 2014). The same topic can be judged through inventing of the questionnaire to be answered by the potential customers who visits multiplexes frequently. The higher the correlation level between focus group and findings of questionnaire, the higher would be the criterion-validity level.

Although all the team members cooperatively planned the business and divided the tasks as per to their strengths but we were still facing some problems. I have started changing my approach, focusing mainly on the issues related to motivation and management. The business has been launched as the questionnaire results have let us understand the things that needs to be focused on for better customer service and pricing. The positives have definitely been the seating flexibility, fooding and the ambience that has great potential in attracting the movie goers. Though there are certain areas that we need to improve on like parking lot for people, handling long queues before the movie starts.

Conclusion:

It can be concluded that this business startup requires strategic planning, as there is existence of big multiplexes in and around London. Starting a new one there requires something special to attract the movie goers. A proper market understanding, competitor analysis is important for this purpose. Starting a business is less risky, than maintaining its survival amidst all the key multiplex players.

It is important to discuss the action plan moving forward in keeping the entire action plan alive where regular feedback from the customers would be entertained along with inviting certain media persons and celebrities in writing reviews in their personal blogs about the multiplex. Follow-up meetings are required in discussing our progress, significant in revisiting our action plan that was initiated before the commencement of the overall process.

Reference:

Blank, S., 2013. Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review, 91(5), pp.63-72.

Feenstra, D., 2014. The Standout Business Plan: Make Irresistible-and Get the Funds You Need for Your Startup or Growing Business. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 19(4), p.116.

Jones, C. and Penaluna, A., 2013. Moving beyond the business plan in enterprise education. Education+ Training, 55(8/9), pp.804-814.

Kelly, M., 2017. What You Should Know About Successful Businesses.

Kiznyte, J., Welker, M. and Dechange, A., 2016. Applying Project Management Methods to the Creation of a Start-up Business Plan: The Case of Blendlee. PM World Journal, 5, pp.1-24.

Mariotti, S. and Glackin, C., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small business management. Pearson Higher Ed.

Qureshi, M.S., Saeed, S. and Wasti, S.W.M., 2016. The impact of various entrepreneurial interventions during the business plan competition on the entrepreneur identity aspirations of participants. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 6(1), p.9.

Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small business.

Simón-Moya, V. and Revuelto-Taboada, L., 2016. Revising the predictive capability of business plan quality for new firm survival using qualitative comparative analysis. Journal of Business Research, 69(4), pp.1351-1356.

Thomas, D.F., Gudmundson, D., Turner, K. and Suhr, D., 2014. Business Plan Competitions and Their Impact on New Ventures’ Business Models. Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, 10(1), p.34.

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