MN7407 Management in practice Assignment Sample
Module code and Title: MN7407 Management in practice Assignment Sample
Introduction
Modern workspaces are transforming business operations to acknowledge the needs of the immediate and larger environments. Concerns about ecological conditions have increased over the last few decades, which is why businesses are transforming operational policies (Alsayegh et al., 2020). Irrespective of the industries, any form of direct or indirect production and manufacturing now needs to be able to minimise wastes, emissions, or even resource exploitations.
Such needed aspects have led to the emergence of sustainable business strategies. Critics have defined these strategies as a series of actionable processes companies use to improve their impacts on communities and ecological systems (Telesford and Strachan, 2017). However, the implementation and development of sustainable business strategies is a time-consuming process. It means that appropriate and adequate implementation can take a long-term outcome planning for all organisations. Keeping these in mind, the essay will discuss the mode of development and implementation of sustainable schemes in businesses.
It will try to identify the possible challenges and opportunities organisations might face in the process. It will critically discuss them and the extent to which they can advance or hinder plans and responses. The insights will help to anticipate changes and procrastinate measures that can be explored alternatively to prevent or reduce the concerns noted. These will also focus on exploring industrial examples that organisations have already noted.
Critical Discussion of Challenges and Opportunities Organisations face in Developing and Implementing Sustainable Business Strategies.
It is important to understand the concept of sustainable strategies’ alignment in businesses before critically identifying their challenges and opportunities. Analysing the need for sustainable integrations, companies have issued these practices based on the consumer requirements for eco-friendly product and service uses (Lee et al., 2018). Modern customers of all businesses have become more aware of social and communal problems. Environmental problems constitute both these concerns and even beyond.
Automatically, retail shoppers are more inclined toward buying organically produced and packaged products with recyclable plastics and alternatives. Therefore, companies find no other option than investing in sustainable policies. However, a prominent feature of sustainable practices is their uniqueness to all organisations. Critics have noted that every organisation tends to have its own sustainable goals, agendas, and practices.
The expanse of sustainable strategies seems endless, with many dimensions of operational excellence. For example, some companies prefer to replace the power sources for production and sales with a renewable source within a timeline, say five years. Examples include food processing, heavy engineering and construction, and manufacturing industries. However, many organisations also focus on immediate measures to positively impact the environment.
It includes removing plastic packaging options and replacing them with cloth items, recyclable plastics, and fibers. However, many companies also pursue financial and physical actions for ecological welfare. Therefore, it is individualistic for business owners to determine the impacts where businesses need actions with their resources and capabilities. In many cases, a mix of strategies is aligned in the companies to ease the experience of customers purchasing items regularly.
Having mentioned the core features and types of practices schemed, it is vital to discuss the implementation and development of sustainable strategies. Across diverse industries and organisations, the implementation of sustainability is focused on internal assessments. It includes an analysis of the business functions regarding emissions, wastes, and problems generated directly and indirectly. For example, the service sectors like parlours and transportation generate wastes (plastic containers, packaging items, and vehicular emissions) which create problems in the immediate surroundings.
Again, retail sectors have a wide range of plastics, paper scraps, clothing wastes, food, and other items that need to be disposed of. However, examples from several fashion companies like Gucci or Burberry have shown the burning of excess items, which leads to air and soil pollution. Chemicals used in agriculture to mass produce food lead to soil and water pollution. These areas must be tackled urgently, so respective industries must initiate thorough internal research. Implementation of sustainable policies requires the selection of causes and capacities simultaneously.
It means that, on the one hand, organisations have to locate the areas where they are failing to meet ecological and communal welfare standards. On the other hand, they have to identify the resources necessary in alignment with those available or accessible by companies. Studies have reiterated that giant companies can easily undertake several sustainable initiatives simultaneously. The reason is that they have the financial and infrastructural resources to advance the application with skills and experiences within and outside the organisations.
However, small and medium companies neither have access to resources nor the funding to continue these processes for the long term. Developing sustainable practices in any industry implies applying and retaining sustainable actions without which brand equity is supposed to crash in the future. So, internal resources and skills affect the longevity of goals.
It is vital to notice that challenges are common in executing sustainable business policies and practices. Several organisations have faced problems executing and developing sustainable strategies since early 2017. The main reason that critics have stated is the newness of the initiative. Critics have supported the concern of deficiencies in technicalities and insights to create and run a sustainability programme. However, many other challenges have been addressed by researchers.
A prominent issue critics have noted is the loss of trust in global corporations. A study based on survey recordings in 2017 shows that businesses have dropped in 18 out of 28 surveyed economies (Edelman. 2022). Only 52 per cent of businesses trust global corporations to do the rightful actions for sustainability (Edelman. 2022). Thus, a lack of trust in primary sectors is clear from these statistics. Among prominent concerns, critics have noted that falsification of information and claims, price fixing tactics, bribery, cheating in emissions, and dire work conditions are common for all global traders in any industry (Edelman. 2022).
A recent example is Volkswagen’s fraudulent case of the Diesel gate scandal. The company has claimed to generate engine components with lower carbon footprints and renewable energy usage, which is completely false (Holtbrügge and Conrad, 2020). Even transparency has become a major necessity for businesses in the present market. The main problem with creating clear business operations is the identification of loopholes in sustainability paradigms.
Mandatory corporate disclosure has become a vital challenge for many businesses using sustainability as brand promotion. The transparency trap is already affecting Uber’s quality of performance, which has negative reviews on work conditions and emission levels (Mckinsey. 2022). These are considered ethical liabilities for businesses’ longevity and trade licenses. Automatically, companies feel less urged to evolve their operations and approaches in sustainable reporting.
Another major challenge that comes with the implementation and retention of sustainable missions is growing inequality. Critics have noted that despite the tenth sustainable development goal being a reduction of inequalities, the actual scenario tends to worsen. It is already mentioned that business giants have resources to accommodate sustainable changes in regular functions. However, smaller and medium-sized businesses do not have the capabilities to incorporate robust changes. Ironically, critics state that global businesses also have inequalities in competitive strategization.
For example, collaborations of Burberry with local NGOs and social enterprises to actively engage in fashion sustainability makes other equivalent brands invest in similar measures (Hashmi, 2017). The competitiveness makes it challenging to maintain an equable pace of implementation of the collaborations. The tension between free trade and employment rates has existed in the political status of the United Kingdom. So, organisations flourishing here are only outsourcing their production to other economies.
By contrast, critics have researched that none of the businesses in the UK look after the work conditions or sourcing mechanisms in the outsourced countries. It justifies the news on improper work conditions for employees at Starbucks, which led to severe criticism of sustainable production and sourcing of materials.
Critics have also listed the widespread effects of identified challenges across different organisations and industries. Studies have shown that substantial crises and problems regularly emerge in communities and surroundings. Therefore, companies can have different forms and extents of risks to tackle while implementing sustainability initiatives. The first implication is noted in strategic risks, referring to contemporary challenges from the society on redesigning dated business models.
The transformation of business conceptions in fashion brands like Gucci and Burberry has come along with resistance to change and heavy opposition from the employee groups. Critics opine that the main reason behind the opposition is the lack of awareness and acquisition of sustainable ideas like employee welfare and resource handling. For example, handling resources with a selective inventory management system and automation technologies will likely generate fewer manual efforts (Minashkina and Happonen, 2020).
So, employees believe that their job securities are being tampered with by accommodating automatic systems. In addition to this, the misconceptions are advanced by trade union representatives who manipulate these missions based on their will. Financial risk is a larger impact generated from sustainable policies and transitions.
Companies like ALDI and Toyota have invested much of their profits in researching and developing alternatives to material sourcing. In retail, ALDI has focused on localising production for processed items to maintain the tags of fresh sourcing (Enthoven and Van den Broeck, 2021).
Similarly, Toyota is investing in refurbishing the old models with improved engines and components for the zero-emissions objective (Moultak et al., 2017). However, the main problem here is the consistency of returns versus investments. Surveys have shown that more than a hundred trillion dollars of assets in fossil fuels and other power sourcing have compelled organisations toward low carbon schemes (Cleantechnica. 2022). Despite this, the uncertainty of research and implementation success does not prevent a lack of skills to confidently produce new technologies.
Critics have rightfully claimed that operational risks exist in sustainable transformations. First, any sector’s supply chains and producing units have not evolved to meet new-age material requirements. For example, the need for solar power, thermal power, and other renewable sources requires the technical infrastructure, manpower, skills, and experiences and investments to proceed (Ozoegwu and Akpan, 2021).
By contrast, critics do not find much compliance in missions and actions due to lacking many of these requisites. Experts have also noted a rise in long-term considerations, which requires ideological changes. The reason is that all industry leaders and managers have been invested in short-term gains. They have been giving time to creating opportunities for short-term achievements. However, long-term processes require a steady mindset that can help sustainable practices. The lack of patience and perseverance in the workforce comes from talent deficiencies.
However, despite the odds and their effects, critics still reiterate the opportunities of implementing sustainable practices in businesses. There are many advantages and scopes of investing in sustainable programmes steadily. However, critics have also identified that these scopes can best generate with consistency and long-term planning. Critics have noted that companies evolve and transform into sustainable agendas to save their functioning and mitigate risks.
Research shows that all companies feel insecure about getting into a scandal. For instance, leaders of Volkswagen declared that they never knew about the problems (Holtbrügge and Conrad, 2020). However, the lack of implementation of SDGs in business functions affects branding and customer acquisitions. So, by initiating a sustainable strategy, companies tend to save the employees, environments, and even their brand images from facing media adversities.
By contrast, effective implementation of sustainable policies aims to create an all-around community and ecological development with good branding. Tesco, for example, has initiated a multidimensional approach to creating sustainable production and packaging (Pop et al., 2018). Not only that, but the company is also investing funds in different welfare causes across developing countries and neglected communities. These have enabled the brand to acquire more customer acquisitions as an active and aware retailer against competitors locally and internationally.
Another opportunity that sustainability has inculcated in industries is the scope for resource management. Physical resources like materials and energy have been facing problems in regeneration and sustenance for the last few decades. Critics have stated that power industries and construction businesses in the UK have been investing in building solar and hydel power sources alongside other renewable and cost-effective energy links (Kabir et al., 2018).
The principle is to create a long-term energy supply chain that generates minimal waste or pollution in the localities. However, construction companies consider these sources budget-friendly as renewable energy is easily accessed and employed using the minimal technological infrastructure. So, on the one hand, companies get to renew the stocks of exhaustible sources in nature.
Similarly, on the other hand, they transform into a more productive energy source without raising the expenses of production and regeneration. Almost all retail stores in the UK are now run using solar energy. Critics have also pointed out that company strategies are the core focus of organisations that affect the internal capacitances.
For example, initiatives taken by Tesla in building charging points for cars using solar energy is a long-term plan which will gain sales momentum (Barkenbus, 2020). Moreover, customer support for eco-friendly and staff development is noted to rise annually. For example, organic farming practices have enabled the government of the UK to raise soil conservation by 50 per cent per annum (Biothinking. 2022).
Similarly, strategic partnerships are also generating as businesses transform their production capabilities into sustainable schemes like energy conservation, rational resourcing, and employee development. In addition, the modern market culture is focused on ethical investment, which critics have noted to have a value-based rise in sales and referrals. Therefore, investing in sustainable agendas and policies helps different organisations access qualified buyers, investors, and partners with transformed thinking.
In addition to the opportunities, critics have also researched the interlinked effects of sustainable initiatives on business performance and profitabilities. Experts have not denied that installing a sustainable infrastructure is expensive. For example, solar panels are hefty expenses for companies needing heavy amounts of energy to run factories, stores, and outlets. However, critics highlight that McKinsey reports a reduction of net costs in business expenses using sustainability (equivalent to 60 per cent of operational costs) (McKinsey. 2022).
Moreover, the strategy of greening business has proven useful for many companies in handling brand expansions. Lego, for example, is a company that has invested time and efforts in acquiring the third position in plant-based sourcing (Forbes. 2022). So far, Legos sold were made of plastic, but now they are made from plant resins and eco-friendly items. It is a massive change that has taken time to implement but has enriched brand recognition also (Forbes. 2022).
The meaningful association critics note between businesses and customers is a prominent requirement in modern business growth. Sharing of mindsets in caring for communities, the environment, and societies has been regarded under the three business pillars of SDGs. Companies like The Swiss Impact Store have been able to connect the mindset successfully, which has improved brand referrals across existing and potential markets (Swissimpactstore. 2022).
Their logo is also redesigned to state, ‘we care that you care’ (Swissimpactstore. 2022). Again, the need to go greener in packaging, transportation, and deliveries has been criticised for adding value to companies. Reports claim that 99 per cent of the Chief Executive Officers in retail and other industries have stated the value of sustainability in future successes of their businesses (Accenture. 2022).
So, it is a needed approach and alternative for marketing relatable ideas and responses via education and awareness programmes. It justifies the funding calls from different retail chains worldwide to buyers for purchases and cashback returns on welfare causes.
Conclusion
The insights from the essay clarify that the long-term strategic planning and execution for sustainability do not appease the expected transformations. In most cases, as discussed in the essay, sustainable strategies are expected to change the conventional functioning of organisations. For example, in manufacturing units, the production and emissions now need further investments for installing and supervising emission levels and waste disposed of.
It includes technological systems and equipment like advanced air filters and wastewater treatment plants with higher expenses. Irrespective of the business industry, accommodating these strategies on a larger scale is only possible for the business giants. However, small and medium organisations fail to bear the cost and profit ratio amidst changing markets.
An interesting observation here is that every challenge and opportunity identified in implementing sustainable ideas involves some form of a link. The essay has pointed out how leaders and managers avoid long-term agendas at once due to a lack of resources and talent pooling. It is a negative feature coming in between sustainable implementation while it also locates that taking the initiatives can help to expand branding and access to diverse resources in opportunities.
The essay critically identifies the effect of market power and politics on the expenses and rates of sustainable products and services. These include the rates of equipment installed for monitoring and filtering wastes and pollutants, resourcing of materials, and some other areas. The essay also identifies the scopes of implementing sustainable regimes, ranging from the effective reduction of overall expenditures. For this purpose, proper planning and skilled teaming processes in organisations are necessary.
Assignment B: Individual reflective essay
Topic: Reflection on an experience as a member of a team
The challenges faced working in the team environment.
So far, I have worked in some internships and fresher jobs for smaller work tenures. However, the most recent work has the longest tenure, where I was appointed as a team executive for fashion marketing. Having worked with the sales and marketing teams of Sunderland Fashions Limited, I have realised that team ambience is the core element of employee development. It has been a mixed experience with many challenges faced in team coordination.
The first team-based challenge was to identify the style of management where members showed the best results. I have tried to employ my knowledge in executing team skills and behaviours. However, I have constantly faced issues in creating the ideal management mix for the sales team. The existing team mindset was hardcore conventional and limited.
There was minimal chance of creating a more liberal and open mindset for flourishing team outputs. Due to the strict work protocols, I have faced problems communicating with members. Sunderland Fashion’s authorities have focused on standardising performances using traditional expansion and production tools and concepts.
However, employee engagement in this environment does not exist in the first place. Automatically, employees and teams I have handled here were not interested in giving their opinions or insights. They were rather reluctant to use their knowledge to measure work performance and improvise the deficiencies.
Apart from the lack of team engagement, I have noted a major concern in this workspace: the lack of motivation and innovation. The team environment is driven by leadership and directorial decision-making. However, commands are only given without much insight on ways to improve the team’s approachability to customers.
For example, the innovative launches in fashion styles from Sunderland Fashions did not have good responses among local customers. However, team members were not eager to take feedback from buyers on what was going wrong in the deliveries and sales reviews. Teams in the company have not been trained to self-motivate themselves.
Automatically, without proper interaction with the leaders, my fellow team members did not feel bothered to improve their outputs in tasks. Rather, I distinctly remember handling all survey work alone without any response for a month or two after the annual report meeting. It has also affected my personality with negative insights from the lack of two-way interactions with the producers in Sunderland Fashions. As a result, I was unable to even innovate my ways of approaches.
Overcoming the challenges
I have worked for Sunderland Fashions for more than eight months. I continued their work format for the first three months, but the challenges worsened. The workplace was negative and called for a complete transformation. To begin with, I insisted the authorities call for a managerial meeting to discuss the problems. It took constant persuasion for around a month when the meeting was called. Finally, I moderated the entire process and sequentially presented the problems to directors.
Luckily, I have been backed by my seniors and other group members, which led to the reconsideration of the old business model. Leadership transformation has dealt with employee and team engagement challenges in the next two months. The first approach I have noted is the change in leading styles from authoritative to a mix of participating and coach leadership.
Employees have undergone separate training with leaders, which has helped to recover my and the team’s mindsets. Apart from these, motivation problems have also been tackled with a new team-building approach. I have used the concept of two factors in analysing my team’s engagement before and after the business model changes.
Things to do differently.
There are many areas which I believe doing alternatively could have improved performances. First, the way training programmes were organised was complete haste. It is mainly because of the long-term issuance of conventional business tactics that did not interlink the core aspects of fashion retailing with modern ideologies. Next, the hasty training was due to sudden and unplanned initiatives of the leaders, which was not what I intended.
It took me around six months of my tenure to accommodate an agreement that change was mandatory in the business model. Resistance was a vital challenge for the leaders, and some seniors could not cooperate. So, in these areas, some support from the directors could have altered the situation. The main problem that delayed the process was the communication gap and unidirectional mode of interactions.
There was no scope for other team members or me to communicate with the main authorities of Sunderland Fashions at once. Therefore, creating a more approachable and interactive work setting between owners and employees could enhance communication and transitions.
Apart from these, I have also felt the need to reconsider team management skills and behaviours. I have felt the team members lacking a clear and inclusive mindset for working with diverse people and cultures. It has been a major inhibitor in the process for which a proper self-assessment and reflective learning curriculum was necessary.
It could have altered and even eased how employees and teams interacted within themselves and with external staff and clients. I also believe training processes should have been initiated right from the beginning of every recruitment given the faltering business statistics in the last few years. All these areas could have given better stability to the company and the teams working under it.
Things to follow in behaviours when entering a new team environment in future
I think there are many areas where I should improve my contributions while entering a new team. First, I should do thorough research on the organisation and its internal work experiences based on employee reviews. Second, I should prioritise talking to the previous staff of the company or team in case of projects.
Insights from them can help me anticipate the type of work or behavioural skills the authorities would prefer or avoid. So, researching behaviours should reflect my conduct even when joining teams next time.
I also think that issuing an effective assessment of the members can best generate from personal interactions. So, mu approach should be of a learner with a likeness to speak with everyone within and outside my team. It can be a great step for analysing the people based on personal observation and understanding the reviews about one another.
The need for locating people’s feedback about other team members is vital in handling team conversations and engagement in future. Moreover, I believe the insight can help me stabilize my diplomatic nature and reiterate a positive and professional engagement towards all irrespective of differences.
Lastly, my behaviour should help seniors and others anticipate my genuineness for the work. It should not be overwhelming as such behaviours frustrate seniors and even colleagues. Any form of complex is a negative sentiment that I should not generate as an entrant.
Therefore, I have to be open and flexible in performing and learning from good and bad events I face. Every team member needs to be inclusive and welcoming. So, I should try to coordinate with fellow team members. It is expected to make them trust me and give me accountable work.
Ways to act to ensure that the team is effective and high performing
The point of proving a team’s ability is a greater concern when dealing with ineffective staffing. However, training the staff in proper directions is also the duty of every manager and team moderator. As a future team manager and member, I should understand that team gaps should not come out to the clients or other teams at workspaces. The reason is that people can either consider these gaps as indicators of unworthy allocations or can take undue advantages to tamper team performances.
However, I should also retaim a control on team members, enabling them to understand and perform in diverse situations. The first thing to do in proving high performance abilities of teams is to build creativity and innovation skills. Team members recruited should have some potential to think differently. As a fellow member or manager, I must reflect on my innovation and make others think rather than give them good suggestions or alternatives.
That way, these members would invest in mind working, reflecting on performances. Again, team effectiveness is also reflected by the mode and quality of task deliveries and end outcomes. More than outputs, my focus should be on justifying the effect of the outputs on short, middle, and long-term outcomes.
Apart from these, I should issue a constant reporting mechanism to detail team performances to seniors. Be it good or bad, the conception is to provide transparent and honest insights on team conditions and discuss improvement tools and techniques. Rather than identifying the problems, I should focus on showing how problems are being handled by team members. It is a crucial positive approach which can help to sustain positive feedback among the staff and build good interactions and scopes for suggestions.
References
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