Entrepreneurial Practice And Gibb’s Reflective Cycle: A Case Of PRESTONMANIA

Overview of PRESTONMANIA and Profit-Making Policies

The current assignment focuses on the different aspects of entrepreneurial practice. It is governed by a number of personal attributes and key competencies which helps one to work in teams within a business environment. The success of teamwork lies predominantly on the ability to engage effectively within a team by reflection upon individual performance and team development. In the current assignment is PRESTONMANIA, which an online shopping portal will be created specifically for the Preston based people where variety of products will be offered to them under one roof. The numbers of services which are offered on this platform include- beverages, drinks, alcohol, clothing, accessories etc.  In the following sections of the assignment, the profit-making policies of PRESTONMANIA will be discussed. The individual and group performance will be further evaluated through Gibb’s reflection cycle. The fetish of people for online shopping has been utilised for the development of a comprehensive shopping portal. The Preston based people have been seen to be inclined towards some of the high-end shopping brands. Therefore, the PRESTONMANIA serves to develop as the one-stop solutions for all the comprehensive requirements of the Preston based people.

In the present section, Gibb’s reflective cycle will be used for focussing on individual attributes and key competencies within a team. The Gibbs reflective cycle could be divided into a number of stages such as – description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, action plan. I think as a newly recruited marketing consultant I faced a number of hurdles which prevented me from delivering the best performance.  Initially, I had difficulty in understanding the target market and the frequency of purchases made by the customers. Therefore, I had difficulty in understanding the marketing gimmicks which could be applied in the present situation to increase the sales output. I also felt as a newly recruited marketing head, I was apprehensive about approaching and communicating with my team regarding the sales output which further questioned my understanding of the lead generations. Additionally, working as a part of a multi-cultural team I had faced great difficulty in understanding few of the messages delivered to the team. Thus, I felt the gap in communication also affected my performance as a whole and also of the whole team. Some of the personal entrepreneurial attributes which I would like to discuss over here are organizational skills, communication skills, decision making and strategic planning.

The experience to work as part of a team had a number of positive as well as negative consequences.  Since I was working with a tenured team it had helped me in clearing much of my doubts related to multiple aspects of the work process. Based on my past experiences as marketing consultant I could guide my team better in the business strategy planning and also help them develop some of the professional skills such as empirical analysis, which is one of the pre-requisites of successful marketing. Therefore, having served in a retail company as a marketing analyst earlier I could guide my subordinates into conducting effective market research which would help them in understanding the market risks. I think conducting a well-planned research regarding the target market and customer preferences along with increasing the number of business partners can help in garnering sufficient profits.  For coping with future recurrence of the issue we will need to gather the support of the stakeholders with we will be dealing with the due course of the business. The support from the stakeholders will help in the generation of sufficient funds which will help in the development of an effective marketing strategy.

Using Gibb’s Reflective Cycle for Individual and Group Performance Evaluation

However, the downside of the experience was that there was a lack of continuous flow of information through effective communication. Therefore, I could not develop sufficient communication skills which could help me to communicate with my peers or subordinates within the organization. This also affected the business process significantly as working for PRESTONMANIA I found that I was required to work along with a huge number of market shareholders. Therefore, the lack of effective negotiation would mean that they would be quoting unnecessarily high prices for the individual raw materials of the products and the lack of communication skills would often mean that we will end up putting more. I believe working under a solely autocratic boos in my last organization resulted in me developing fear to voice my opinions. I had faced the similar issues while interacting with my team in PRESTONMANIA.

I also felt that the presence of more number of new employees in the team compared to tenured employees also resulted in lack of troubleshooting expertise which resulted in under realization of targets. Additionally, being newcomer I think I lacked the vision or the objective of the expansion of the business. This hampered my personal development as well as my development as part of a team. Moreover, I think working under an autocratic leader I was mostly a follower in my approach and not participatory. This further affected my decision making and trouble shooting skills.  Additionally, lack in experience of some of the newly appointed team members also resulted in me receiving less suggestions from them which further hampered the overall performance of the team.  Additionally, I also felt there was a lack of guidance from the management.

The last experience I had in one of my marketing based jobs further helped me in implementing effective organizational skills within my present workplace. Some of the organizational practices which could be referred to over here are effective staffing, training and provision of appraisal to the employees on performing better.  One of the most important criteria is recruiting the right candidate possessing the right kind of qualifications.  For this I had put up a transparent job design for a marketing and sales profile. It helped me in attracting the right kind of candidates to the job profile. Additionally, possessing prior experience in marketing also helped me in testing the amount of knowledge possessed by individual team members and therefore guide them with regards to strategy making and planning.

Positive and Negative Outcomes of Working within a Team

The current assignment is based on the development and marketing of a comprehensive online shopping portal based on the objectives of Prestomania. Prestomania refers to attaining happiness through digital means (McKenny et al. 2017).   One of the most predominant business areas promoted through the objectives of PRESTONMANIA is online shopping. The goal was to devise a portal where all kinds of services will be offered on the same platform.  The target audience cover could be increased with the help of incorporation of products from some of the other market players which are equally favourable to the Princeton people. The stores and shopping malls which required promoting their products could join the online portal free of cost. This was done in order to attract the maximum number of retailers offering diverse range of products. The free entry was implemented as a marketing gimmick over here. However, it was decided that we will be taking a commission of 1-5% based upon the profit margins of the brands and company. Additionally, we also decided to deliver our own products through the website. The delivery charges were decided based upon the weight of the products and the distances at which the products will be delivered. The PRESTONMANIA app was to be made available over play store and could be easily downloaded.

As commented by Burchardt et al. (2016), advertising strategies are one the crucial objectives of a start-up business.  Some of the channels through which the promotion could be done are radio, newspapers, television, and social media marketing.

Customer service is a very important part of any business process and needs to be taken seriously. The higher the customer satisfaction rates, the higher the success rates could be generated in a business.  One of the most important steps for any business venture is the after-sales services. Some of the most important aspects of the after sales services are – conducting a pre and post sales inquiry which will help in developing sufficient knowledge regarding customer opinions and preferences for a product (Osagie et al. 2016).Additionally, integration of easy returns and refunds can help in enhancing the customer satisfaction rates (Miller et al. 2016). As commented by Kuratko (2016), maintaining transparency in providing the right and appropriate product details to the customers can help in increasing customer loyalty towards the brands and the product.

The market statistics help in understanding the sales and the profitability margins of PRESTONMANIA.  The costs had been divided into both direct and indirect costs. The direct cost comes from stock, website, event launches and licensing. The indirect costs come from wages, server maintenance, marketing, miscellaneous and contingency charges. There has been a rapid growth in the net profit percentage from first month onwards. This reflects that PRESTONMANIA had been able to conquer a suitable niche within the online retail market. However, as argued by Rawhouser et al. (2017), there is number of challenges which are faced due to the existence of similar market players. Therefore, the survival of the organization is under constant threat and needs a number of changes which had to be incorporated (Zikic and Ezzedeen 2015).   Some of these changes brought over the process can provide the company with a competitive advantage.  As commented by Bae et al. (2014), product diversity and cost diversification are two such objectives, which can help in meeting with the changing market demands. However, the indirect costs are high throughout the twelve months across a year. A lot of additional costs have to mitigate in the marketing channels along with the miscellaneous charges. The extra miscellaneous charges had also arisen due to the hiring of outsourcing delivery agencies (Botha et al. 2015).

Organizational Skills and Practices for Effective Business Strategy

Additionally, the SWOT analysis could help in understanding the scope of improvements of the start-up venture.  In this respect, a detailed analysis had been conducted below:

Table: SWOT analysis

(Source: Author) 

The success of a team relies a lot on the team working skills and attributes. Effective communication is instrumental in meeting the team goals and objectives. Since I had to interact with a team of people from different multicultural background, the messages were not delivered as effectively as it should have been done. One of the most important steps in the realization of the team goal is the effective communication regarding the attainment of the team objectives (Andersson et al. 2016). Therefore, I believe organising and taking team sessions once or twice a week can help me understand the issues or the dilemmas faced by my staff.  In this respect, training forms an important component of business growth and also helped in the professional development of the staffs.  As commented by Frese et al. (2014), the training is also an efficient manner of developing the inter-professional skills of the staffs. As an online retailer one is constantly under pressure from similar market brands (Edwards-Schachter 2015). Therefore, we need to develop better advertising strategies to attract the maximum number of target customer groups (Fritscher and Pigneur 2014). I also think organising advertising and marketing training programs can help the staffs generate better annual sales target. In the development of the team entrepreneurial idea, I need to focus on the long-term objective s that prestonmmania desires to achieve. Some of these are achieving maximum sales of the products along with higher rates of after purchase satisfaction. One of the methods by which it could be done is to maintain personalised touch point with the customers through the online portals.   I need to brief my team effectively regarding maintaining a personalised and healthy relationship with the customers. I can use an audio-visual mode for the presentation of the business proposal idea to my staffs. The ideas should be supported by sufficient graphs and charts which will help them understand the present satisfaction rates as well as the required amount.  I need to use a participative approach with them staffs during the presentation of the entrepreneurial idea. This will help me in taking into consideration the view point of my team members and designing of an effective marketing strategy. The tone used by me during the team meeting should be encouraging and not authoritative.

Advertising and Customer Service Strategies for a Successful Start-Up

Appraisals also form an important manner of provision of sufficient motivation to the employees.  In this respect, I need to work with my team closely in order to observe the strengths and weakness areas of my peers. Therefore, provision of effective training programs along with performance bonus and incentives can help in improving the performance of my entire team and also enhance the productivity status of PRESTONMANIA.

References

Andersson, U., Dasi, A., Mudambi, R. and Pedersen, T., 2016. Technology, innovation and knowledge: The importance of ideas and international connectivity. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.153-162.

Bae, T.J., Qian, S., Miao, C. and Fiet, J.O., 2014. The relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions: A meta?analytic review. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 38(2), pp.217-254.

Botha, M., Van Vuuren, J.J. and Kunene, T., 2015. An integrated entrepreneurial performance model focusing on the importance and proficiency of competencies for start-up and established SMEs. South African Journal of Business Management, 46(3), pp.55-66.

Burchardt, J., Hommel, U., Kamuriwo, D.S. and Billitteri, C., 2016. Venture capital contracting in theory and practice: implications for entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 40(1), pp.25-48.

Edwards-Schachter, M., García-Granero, A., Sánchez-Barrioluengo, M., Quesada-Pineda, H. and Amara, N., 2015. Disentangling competences: Interrelationships on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 16, pp.27-39.

Frese, M., Rousseau, D.M. and Wiklund, J., 2014. The Emergence of Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship theory and Practice, 38(2), pp.209-216.

Fritscher, B. and Pigneur, Y., 2014, July. Visualizing business model evolution with the business model canvas: Concept and tool. In Business Informatics (CBI), 2014 IEEE 16th Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. 151-158). IEEE.

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McKenny, A.F., Allison, T.H., Ketchen, D.J., Short, J.C. and Ireland, R.D., 2017. How Should Crowdfunding Research Evolve? A Survey of the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Editorial Board. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(2), pp.291-304.

Miller, D., Steier, L. and Breton?Miller, L., 2016. What can scholars of entrepreneurship learn from sound family businesses?. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 40(3), pp.445-455.

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Rawhouser, H., Cummings, M. and Newbert, S.L., 2017. Social impact measurement: Current approaches and future directions for social entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, p.104.

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Zikic, J. and Ezzedeen, S., 2015. Towards a more integrated view of entrepreneurial careers: Qualitative investigation of the three forms of career capital and their relationships among high tech entrepreneurs. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 21(6), pp.756-777.

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