Assignment Sample on Professional Development
Section 1- An analysis of the Company’s Strategic Position
Overview of the company:
Fargo Scooters have always been passionate about the different kinds of modes of transport but they have always been very much passionate about the two wheelers. This is the main reason behind which they are known as a specialisation in producing scooters and motorcycles, both in new as well as vintage styles (Taleqani and Hough, 2020). The company offers a variety of range which mainly includes Royal Enfield, Modial, Vespa, Hanway and Lambretta. Apart from the vehicles, the company also provides clothing as well as accessories which would go with the selected models. The company also provides free parking to the rear portion of the showroom. The company was founded in the year 2014, and it has its registered office in the location of Coventry, West Midlands. The founder and the CEO of the company is Steve Parker Brown.
- 2 appropriate tools to identify the internal and external environment of the company.
In order to identify about the internal environment of the company, a detailed SWOT analysis needs to be done.
Internal environment of the company
Strengths: The owner of the company, Steve Parker Brown is very much optimistic in nature. Apart from just seeking profits, he always has addressed the health of the employees and does not believe in forcing his employees to go beyond their capacity (Huang and Huang, 2020). In terms of the company, he is very much confident about his products which includes the facilities of scooters and bikes which are imported from Italy and elsewhere. The company also has the potential to sell customised bikes and scooters. The company has also earned a considerable amount of brand reputation in the last six years. During these six years, the company has also gained a considerable amount of customer base and they are thriving hard to increase the customer base.
Weaknesses: One of the major weaknesses is that sometimes the sales does not prove to be a fruitful one. Due to high levels of competitiveness, the company had to slash the prices of their products which had minimal profit margins (KIARA, 2019). On the other hand the geographical concentration aspect of the company is also vulnerable to the risks. Apart from this, the scooters and bikes produced by the company are non-fuel efficient with less mileage and sometimes the maintenance cost becomes higher.
Opportunity: One of the opportunities for the company is that the company can expect a rise in the female customers due to its wide variety of ranges of scooters. The company can also seek to use the latest technology and order customised bikes and scooters. On the other hand, it has also been predicted that there will be a rise in the interest of the United Kingdom’s youth population (Mukhtar, Risnita, and Prasetyo, 2020). Since the company is already involved in selling customised clothes for selected brands, it can also move into other fields as well such as apparel clothing for fashion which will also increase the brand image.
Threats: One of the biggest threats that was mentioned by the owner of the company is that, UK has some stringent regulations. This can hinder the overall growth of the company within the UK (Abu Amuna, Al Shobaki, and Abu-Naser, 2017). On the other hand, it has been already pointed out by the owner, that it has to face a huge amount of competition in the UK market as there are a huge number of other dealers.
External environment of the company
PESTLE Analysis:
Political: The UK has been known for its permanent membership in the G8 group, the UN Security Council, as well as in the European Council. The UK also imposes huge regulations on the businesses (Shtal et al., 2018). Hence, in order to reduce the fiscal deficit, the owner of the company, needs to undertake certain healthy measures in order to cope up with the regulations of the country.
Economic: Within the European Union, the UK is considered to be the second largest economy. The country is also termed as one of the strongest in managing certain aspects such as the inward as well as outward foreign investments, interest rates or inflation, unemployment aspects and lastly in bettering the standard of living (Kapustina et al., 2018). Hence economically the country is economically safe and it can be expected that since the interest rates of the youth bikers are rising, the sales of the company will also rise.
Social: It has been also noted that the standard of living in the country of the UK residents especially in the healthcare as well as education system is quite high. On the other hand, the UK is culturally an individualist society with low power distance. Hence it will be easier for the company to deal with the customers since all of them will have a positive mindset.
Technological: The UK government has a high level of focus on the research and development sector and hence this can be very much beneficial for the company.
Environmental: The UK mainly commands all the principles of the governance based on the traditional environmental policies. The government is very much focused on maintaining the quotes and the standards, by carefully fulfilling as well as monitoring the system by the EPA systems.
Legal: The new regulations related to the driving license which mainly states about the implementation of the 3rd license, which are a part of the new set of regulations about driving and having a motorcycle according to the regulations of the UK Government in 2013.
- Analysis of the company’s strategic position:
Leadership and communication
According to the owner of the company, a business becomes more successful when a leader is able to lead as well as delegate people. Hence leading with delegation of responsibilities is the main aspect which is followed by the company (Gandolfi and Stone, 2018). On the other hand, the company follows a decent and a smooth line of communication with all its stakeholders, customers as well as the employees. The owner believes that in order to gain the trust of its employees and its customers, the management needs to be honest and transparent.
The company’s culture
The owner of the company follows the culture as followed by the residents of the UK and tries to inculcate all the principles followed by the society, through their products and earn a brand image.
The company’s Position
Over the last six years, the company has attained a considerable amount of competitive position in the market and the customers have gradually known about their product line (Stone, 2018). They maintain the honesty and integrity with the clients as well as the suppliers.
Critical evaluation of Strengths and limitations of the tools used
The strengths of these tools were that they gave an in depth analysis of both external as well as internal environments of the company. The limitations of the SWOT analysis are that it does not prioritise the issues and does not provide any alternative solutions. The time and effort required to do the PESTLE analysis is very much high.
The Client Needs
The company always strives hard to provide the best products and services to their clients and hence they have maintained a goodwill in the market.
- Issues that the company should address
The issues that are required to be addressed are:
- The company faced a huge amount of competitiveness and hence they had a reduced amount of profit margins.
- The company owner seemed to be reluctant to change the changing scenarios.
- The employees are not made much accountable for any mistakes.
Section 2: Recommendation to the organisation
Recommendations in reference to leadership strategy
- Defining and communicating the Vision: The leader must be able to define the future prospects and opportunities of their organisation. The future prospects must be measurable and should be done for a long term basis (Sherrard et al., 2018). This picture will drive the stakeholders to do the job in a more motivating manner and they will be inspired to reach the shared goal. When the team has a vision, everyone will be motivated to work and will be inspired to achieve the team goal in a positive manner. When a company has a shared goal, they will always strive to perform best in order to achieve the positive results.
- Encouraging and recognising the efforts: The stakeholders especially the internal stakeholders such as the employees always need and want to have a sense of feeling appreciated. They mainly want to feel valued for the work they do. The work environment in which they work mainly needs to create a sense of engagement and commitment among the employees so that the employees feel a sense of belongingness. The employees must be given a platform, where by the means of teamwork, they can achieve a greater level of results (Yue, Men, and Ferguson, 2019). In order to encourage the employees, the company must celebrate their achievements and give them the proper amount of recognition that they deserve.The aspect of excellence must be encouraged in a continuous manner and this will increase the level of productivity and will reduce the stress.
- Maintaining honesty and integrity: When an organisation maintains a high level of honesty and integrity with all its stakeholders, then it proves itself as one of the best leaders in the market. Leadership is not a quality to be born with. Leadership is an aspect which should be termed as a choice taken by an organisation or an individual (Mukhtar, Risnita, and Prasetyo, 2020). When a person communicates about the goals and visions of an organisation, his subordinates will know about his passion towards the company, just by the deliverance of his speech and will be thus inspired to achieve the company’s vision, mission as well as goals.
Recommendations in reference to communication strategy:
- Assessment of the present communication strategies: It has been termed earlier that the problems in communication are very much easier to spot. Even when the management is completely sure about the fact that the communication pattern is smooth and needs no attention, yet it may so happen that there would be many areas of communication to work upon. In order to provide a distinct communication strategy the following steps needs to be followed:
- Providing the employees a clear plan as to the process of effectively communicating within the work environment.
- The internal as well as external modes of communication needs to be measured.
- The internal teams related to the communication needs to indulge the employees within certain activities which would enhance the communication level.
- The process of optimising the meeting strategy: The conduct of regular meetings and sharing and revising the goals and vision of the company can also prove effective in enhancing the communication levels of the organisation (Abu Amuna, Al Shobaki, and Abu-Naser, 2017). The meetings can also be conducted by means of social media tools or meeting applications. The minutes of the meetings must be forwarded to the concerned people, right after the meeting is over.
- Conduct of the regular one to one meetings with all the team members: It is more important to do a regular one to one meetings with the employees in order to revise the mission and vision of the company. This will improve the productivity level and will reduce the level of stress and uncertainty. This will also build the trust level within the employees.
Section 3: Implementation of Recommendation
In order to implement the recommendations stated above, certain leadership styles needs to be followed:
Contingency Theory: The Contingency Theory, is a kind of leadership theory, which mainly aims at the main context of the leader. This theory mainly focuses on the situational effects leading to both the success and the failure of the leader. In order to determine the effectiveness of the leader, the situational aspect must be taken into consideration. The most important factor which leads to a leader’s effectiveness is based upon the situational context (Ahmad and Shabaz, 2018). According to this theory, it has been suggested that all good leaders have the capacity to adjust according to the situations. It has also been suggested that a specific kind of leader is required for certain specific situations. The different types of contingency theories includes Hershey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory, Fiedler’s Contingency Theory and the Evans and House Path-Goal Theory
The major advantages of this theory includes the fact that all the leaders are mainly able to be more effective in any kind of situational context. But on the other hand, this theory had to face certain criticisms, which opined that there is no great detail about the context in which the leader can prove himself (Borini and Malik, 2018). This theory mainly focuses on the particular situation and gives importance to that situation, but fails to give importance on the psychology of the people present in the company itself. This theory also does not focus on the aspect of evolution even if it is necessary.
On the other hand, there are also certain internal as well as external factors which influence the impact of a particular leader according to their situation. The factors may differ from the type of company along with the size of the team, or the styles of leadership and these factors may be defined as the internal factors. On the other hand, the external factors may include the feelings of the customers and all these situations play a vital role in the theory of contingency.
It is very important to communicate the vision of the company to the stakeholders. The stakeholders can be communicated by the following process:
The vision, mission and goals of the company needs to be kept in a visible format: The company has to make sure that the vision, mission and the goals of the company are communicated thoroughly to the stakeholders of the organisation (Gandolfi, 2018). This would help in empowering the people in the organisation and would be more effective if it is kept in a memo form on the desk drawer of every employee.
Getting all the stakeholders onboard: The mode of communication is followed in order to create a positive vision and such an atmosphere will help the organisation to achieve its preset goals. The internal as well as the external stakeholders needs to be assured about the mission and the vision of the company.
The employee engagement must be valued: The employees must be given a chance to take part in the decision making process and this will lead in them feeling a sense of belongingness to the company.
Usage of a variety of channels: Different levels of communication channels need to be followed in order to reach all the stakeholders within the organisation (Rjachovskaya, 2018). Every action needs to be communicated to the stakeholders as the company is liable to inform about every action and their plan to execute their future prospects.
Leadership strategy and the impact on organisational direction
The aspects of leadership mainly have a direct impact on the organisation and its success. The leaders are the main pillars who determine the culture and the values within an organisation and they are the ones who motivate the employees. The leaders are mainly responsible for creating a sense of inclusiveness and carry on to prove the effectiveness of their action plan. They are the one who creates the institutional strategies, which are used to focus on delivering the goals in an organisation.
Impact of leadership styles on organisation:
In the case of Contingency Theory of Leadership, the leaders mainly have the freedom to choose the style of leadership based upon the situations faced. This helps the leaders to adapt well in very dynamic situations faced by the leader within an organisation. The dynamism of situations will be managed by the leader by the usage of different styles of leadership and this will help in solving any kind of problems in near future.
Section 4: Critical Reflection
Rolfe et al (2001) model of reflective learning mainly refers to the aspects of simplicity as well as straightforwardness. The model mainly refers to three main and basic questions: what, so what and now what?
What: This project has identified the internal as well as external environmental factors of the Fargo Scooters company. It mainly identified the various avenues which will impact the business in various ways (Ukubassova, 2018). It has been noticed that the impact of the United Kingdom’s government will mainly have a huge impact on the business, since the country has various numbers of regulations and laws regarding business and every business unit operating within the country will have to adhere to its protocols. Apart from this, the project also discussed the leadership strategies and its impact on an organisation. On the other hand, the importance of having a smooth communication line needs to be followed.
So what: In this project, it is imperative for the people to know about the various environmental factors that will influence a business, if they decide to operate in the United Kingdom. When the individuals are well informed, they will be able to strategize in a much more effective way and can deal with the challenges. The leadership style and the means of communication is also required to be learnt, because the business needs to have a capable pillar in a form of a leader and all the action plans need to be communicated to both the internal as well as external stakeholders in an effective way, to keep them informed.
Now what: After the comprehensive study of this report, the reader will have a thorough idea regarding the process of doing business within the United Kingdom.
Application of this study in future career path:
If an aspirant focuses on performing business in the United Kingdom, it will be easier for the future aspirants to understand the various strategies of leadership, and it will help in creating an effective means of communication structure within their startups. The recommendations for leadership style and communication strategies will help the future aspirant to strategize their means of conducting a business in near future. They will be able to apply these knowledge and carry out a smooth form of business in their future.
References
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