1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I have learnt so much through this module, especially as I had no previous enterprise knowledge. The things I have learnt, such as how to promote myself, are working in conjunction with things I have learnt about in the PPD module, and so are beginning to really come into my practice, meaning that I am applying these skills well. During this module I have created business cards, branded my blogs, set up social media accounts to promote myself, amongst other things, all because of what I have learnt.
I have learnt basically everything I need to know about how to set up a business, from a business plan to the legal side and much more, so much so that I feel confident that we could have actually set up this business successfully for real, meaning that I have applied the skills I have learnt effectively with the help of my other group members. I would have liked to have made our business live by holding some form of event or something similar, to really show how we have applied our skills.
2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your development process?
Most of my research has been gained through the lectures I attended, the workshops and tutorials with Jane, the business studies books I read myself, and the extra enterprise links I looked at. Without keep looking through these I couldn’t have developed my work at all, so they have been very useful, as a reminder of everything we have learnt.
As well as researching how to set up a business, I have also looked at our possible competitors, as well as researching locations. Researching these helped us to make decisions as a group, such as where we should base our business.
Another very useful way of researching this module was actually visiting The Unit, the location in which we proposed we would set up our business, and talking to someone there about our plans. This made everything seem a lot more realistic, and also, as we found out more information, and it actually inspired and reassured us that creating a business like this could actually be possible.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalize on these?
I have worked really hard in this module and the others have commented on how my organisational skills have come in very useful, for example, Lisa found the way I have recorded everything very helpful when she was compiling the business plan. I will continue to stay organised to stop myself from getting behind and to make sure others are up to date too.
I think looking for our competitors and using the methods such as SWOT that I learnt proved very useful, as this was a strength, as it helped to inform some of our decisions, and realise what our USP was and how we could stand out from the others.
I think my large quantity of research, especially extra things I learnt from reading business studies books, really helped to make sure that we didn’t miss out anything in our business plan and presentation. It also helped us to create a business which could really be set up.
I have been really thorough with the tasks set for and outside of the group business. I think this is due to me keep re-reading and thinking about what we learnt in the lectures. Again, this means that I am not missing anything out.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
I really struggled to understand the financial side of the business plan, despite being interested in it. This meant that when trying to work some things out I had to give up and felt a bit defeated. Luckily, in my group, I had Lisa, who used to be an accountant, so she could explain this side of the business plan to me to help me to understand.
The work that I produced has been limited due to the lack of time I had to spend on this module, as it was a busy time with the other modules such as image and critical studies taking up my time, so this creates weaknesses with how I worked. To address the problem, I think I should have started the enterprise work earlier, meaning that I could have spent more time on areas that we missed out of our group enterprise brief, like market research, which should have been a crucial part. Another example is not being able to design much for this brief, as we set ourselves tasks so that we weren’t all doing the same things, and unfortunately, apart from at the beginning where I thought of logo ideas, this meant that I didn’t have that much input into the designs.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
-1- The most important thing that we realised we had not done was market research, and this is such a crucial part of setting up a business, to see if what you are creating is actually needed. By doing this it would ensure that I would be creating a business that could survive rather than creating something nobody is interested in.
-2- If I was to do the presentation again I would practice it so much more, as I was very nervous and felt like I read off my notes rather than talking, which made me disappointed in myself as I knew so much about what I was talking about and should have felt confident.
-3- Next time I would like to be more involved in the design, as I feel as if me and Lisa focused more on doing the research and getting the information down, whereas Marty and Charlie concentrated on the designs. I know this isn’t a design brief but I think I would have enjoyed coming up with some designs for us if I had have the time.
-4- I think we should have spent longer discussing our ideas for what our business would actually be about. As we were in a workshop and had to decide quickly, we rushed in to the idea of setting up a re-branding company, and while I think overall it did work, I think we could have spent longer thinking of ideas.
-5- As we put so much effort in to this module, I would’ve liked to have done something with it, such as setting up an event as one of the other groups did. We did so much work that I feel as if we could really set up this business, so if I could do this again, I would like us to hold an event, to make it more real. There is lots to gain from this, from networking opportunities, being able to get our work out there, the possibility to make some money and learn even more as we make it real.
6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas
(5= excellent 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor)
Attendance = 4
Punctuality = 4
Motivation = 3
Commitment = 3
Quantity of work produced = 3
Quality of work produced = 2
Contribution to the group = 4
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