Reflection
- Danny Tan (Group Leader) :
This integrated assignment for
Tesco has been a great journey. However, all good things must come to an end
someday. This project has also allowed
me to learn more of my group mates : on what everyone’s strengths and
weaknesses are. The group has definitely done a great job in covering each
other’s weaknesses. Everyone has got their contributions to the group. Quality
of work has also been top-notch for everyone. Needless to say, I’m really proud
of my group.
Now moving onto what I’ve learnt
from this project, it’s safe to say the knowledge I’d gained along the journey
is immense. For example, I’d learnt that Tesco is not just your typical
supermarket like the other competitors it’s facing. It has definitely stood out
among the rest as its innovation of having an eShop caters to the ever busy
working class. It surprised me when I found out most of the supermarkets are
franchises. (Thought it has always been decided by the CEO when a new outlet
opens). Also, learning that Tesco has had so many CSR events over the past few
years really warmed my heart as this shows Tesco is not just about the
profit-making but also caring for the needy. One of the biggest challenges
faced was understanding the term ‘sustainability’. It was somewhat foreign to
us so it gave trouble to everyone.
In terms of soft skills, this
project has taught me well. As the leader of the group, I’d learnt better on
how to communicate effectively with my group. For example. the entire group has
to know that I will be collating the work. Otherwise, everyone will send it to
different people and make everything really messy. This journey also highlights the importance of
communication not only to my group mates , but also to my tutors. Just like how
the word ‘laundry’ was so misleading. (Shoutout to Ms ManMeet). We did have
some setbacks in the process, but we overcame the difficulties as a group
together. What I have also learnt is that different kind of people requires
different kind of approach. Otherwise, everything might backfire, so it’s vital
to know how to choose your words correctly. Moving on, I have also learnt on
how punctuality is important for group meetings as they may slow the entire
group’s tempo down with just a simple excuse of “I overslept”. Meeting
deadlines is also really important as once again, it slows down the entire
group because of your laziness and incompetence. Despite these few minute
problems, everything else is just fantastic.
Moving onto intrapersonal skills,
this project has trained me on how to use my time efficiently. I think this has
got to be the hardest part for me as I am used to wasting my time on sleeping
and doing activities for my leisure. Adding salt to the wound, we only begun on
the project just three weeks before the deadline, so there was little to no
time to waste. Needless to say the three weeks were a struggle for me as it
contained many sleepless nights and the struggle to do unconstructive
activities was huge. At the very least, everything is fine and dandy now. As I
had mentioned earlier on top that everyone has got their weaknesses, it’s
really important for one to be humble. The first step to learning is to be
humble and accept constructive criticism from everyone around you. As a person
who is not really organized, problems like last-minute meetings and missing files here and there arose really
quickly. This horrendous experience made me so frustrated so many times, so
this here’s to hoping I have learnt to be organized the hard way.
My group is digital-literate. If
I want to announce group meetings, everyone will respond quickly as everyone
has Whatsapp. For my group mates like Calv and Yenyie who stays at Cheras and
Klang respectively, it is better for them to rush home as to avoid the terrible
jam that happens in front of Taylors and of course the highways. I figured this
was a really huge problem so I decided for my group to use Skype or Google
Hangouts to discuss the projects. The “Show screen” function on Google Hangouts
ensured that everyone knew which part of the discussion are we at (The function
basically shows what I’m typing onto my computer.). Cloud storage like Dropbox
and Google Drive has also served the group well as it acts as a common storage
for the group work to be submitted to.
- Bok Siao Ying :
There have many of learning experience I have learned
after visit TESCO branch. Those experiences which are I can’t learn it from
school. It helps me to gain more knowledge before I graduate and also prepare
for my further future to be a good businessman. Apart from this, it lets me
know that not only higher education is the best way for us to do the business
well and also need to have different experience in the society. So, a
businessman with extensive experience is able to solve everything in the best
way.
Doing research at TESCO branch we needs to have a good
observation because the space of TESCO branch is big and the goods are
many. On the other hand, I found that
after visited TESCO branch, group work is very important for us to complete our
integrated assignment as good as possible. This is because group members have
different of suggestion it can break complex tasks into parts and steps
together. Besides that, group work also can plan and manage our time perfectly,
because we can control our time and we are able to identify and set our
priorities as well as develop a plan of action to achieve our goals. If we have
a good plan and manage our time perfectly it may help us save a lot of time and
also spend more time to recheck our assignment. So, the assignment will be able
to be more likely better than the first when we were completed.
While I met
any problems or feels confuse group members can share different perspectives with
me. They help me a lot and give me many of suggestion and also group leader
guide me to the right direction while I doing the assignment. Not only I met problem and also mine group
members. So, we working on problems, answering questions about the reading, or discussing case
studies, when we work together on content, we can master the basics. The reason
we learn is pretty straightforward, when we work with content in a group we are
figuring things out for ourselves rather than having the teacher tell us what
we need to know.
In addition, group work helps me learn how to work with
people outside their circle of friends, including those who have different
backgrounds and experiences.From here
it used to mean that we need to have a good relationship among group members.
Only when we have a good relationship we are able to do everything well.
Besides that, I found out that my English is too poor and I always need to
figure out the meaning of the words and also keep looking on dictionary to
understand the sentences. I wasted a lot of time to do translate so I know that
I need to improve my vocabulary as fast as possible.
While doing
this integrated project we must reflect on finish our plan in time. We always
postpone every section that we plan. Simply means that, we didn’t participate
in group meeting, we keep on changing our time and nobody cares about the
assignment. It is a vicious circle for us to change our time, this is because
we have less time to complete our integrated assignment and the quality of
assignment out of complete. So, we need to be more responsible and manage our
time well. Apart from this, every group members have different suggestion we
don’t even write down the notes ,so we always forget our point and feel
confusing every time. We also have wasted a lot of time to redo and research
our point.
Next, we
always misunderstanding what other talking about. Sometimes we strongly
disagree at someone, so we quarrel every time to fight for our opinion. We need
to change this habit because it is unnecessary for us to having this attitude
while doing the assignment. We must learn how to listen attentively to others
not repudiate their suggestion. It is a rude behaviour in a group and also in
our social life. Besides that, when group leader asked us to do something we
can’t push our responsibility to others. We should do by ourselves and complete
it in time. This may make our group to be more efficient in doing everything.
In
conclusion, group work let me learn a lot of things. All these knowledge will
help me impacts my worldview and lead me to be a good employer or employees in
the further future. In my opinion, there are nothing is impossible because it
always have the way for us to solve it. We can ask suggestion from friends,
teachers and also parents to complete our task. Lastly, I am appreciates to
involve in this group, they have teach me a lot and we together solve all those
problem as well as possible.
- Chan Yen Yie :
As a student of the Foundation in Business course in
Taylor’s University, I’m honoured to be given a chance to pay a visit to Tesco
hypermarket with my group mates which is to be done in the integrated
assignment. During the visit, I was supposed to make an observation on the
business situations that Tesco is currently running through. I find this really
interesting and is a great way of learning as it can help the business students
to understand about business in an easier way. Moreover, it also did help in
improving my observation skills as I had to pay attention to all the stuffs and
even on those little things. Apart from that, this assignment required a lot of
group works which enhanced social skills and interaction that had built up a
good relationship between me and my group mates. We worked together as a group
by breaking tasks to each person and helped each other solving the problems on
the assignment. As a result, the learning outcomes are improved and a better
work is produced.
For Economic which is among one of the modules I am
currently studying, I had taken a few pictures of the economic problems which I
realised that Tesco itself is having during the visit and had also given the
explanation of the pictures. I was hoping that Tesco takes it as a serious
problem and would pay more attention to it. In order to run a successful
business and meet the goal, the management have to take action about the
problems. However, it is also a great opportunity in helping me to be more
alert so that I will not make the same mistakes and face the same problems as
Tesco is facing now in my future business. Besides that, I was also required to
provide some methods on improving the traders’ competitiveness. I supposed that
the methods that I had suggested will be helpful for the traders to become a
better one. Through the research I had done, I had also gained a lot of
knowledge in being a good trader.
Other than that, I had learnt a new topic which is about the
corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is somehow important for a company
in order to be successful. I did some research on the corporate social
responsibility programme that Tesco was involved in over the past few years. Tesco
had unexpectedly given me a good image of them for having their CSR events
which I did not realise about it earlier. This shows that they did not only
focus on earning a profit but they also care about the society. By doing the
research, I found out that there’s so many people out there that were facing
difficulties which I did not know about it before this. It did motivated me to
be kind and more caring to the people who needed help.
Talking about what I had learnt from group working,
responsibility is what everyone should behave in order to outcome a high
quality work. Everyone is responsible in completing the tasks given by the
group leader. If anyone in the group is failed to do so, it will surely delay
the completion of our project and might not be able to submit the work on time.
Time management is also really important. If one is not punctual and does not
show up at the meeting, this may cause problems to the other group mates and
the jobs will not be able to be conducted well. Apart from that, this
assignment had given me a better communication skills with other people. In
order to complete this assignment smoothly, I have to be able to communicate
with my group mates well so that there is no confliction happened among us.
However, if we do not have good communication skills, I’m sure that there will
be arguments on disagreeing with each other. On the other hand, group work also
allows me in getting together and solving problems together with my group
mates. For example, when we do not get what lecturer is asking for in the
questions, the group leader makes us discuss the questions together until we
solve the problems.
I personally find this assignment really helpful for me in
having good relationships with people surrounding me as I am a quiet person
which causes me not able to communicate well with other people. I understand
that if I do not have good communication skills, it will affect me in my future
as it is what a business person should have in the first place. I truly
appreciate my group mates that have help me out so much, especially my group
leader who had did so well in his part.
This
reflective report is going to show my experience of visiting TESCO Supermarket
at Puchong and how interesting it is to get through this integrated project. I have
managed to gain a lot of experiences and knowledge by doing this project. This
project has taught me that we need to work together as a team. Our purpose of
visit to TESCO is to investigate how the business runs, how they manage their
systems, the facilities that are provided and few others. I work together with three
of my group members, Danny (group leader), Siao Ying and Yen Yie. Only after
this project do we really get together very well.. On our visit to TESCO, I did
not reach at a previously designated time due to the heavy traffic. I
apologized to each of them for not being on time. This reminds me that
punctuality is the key to success especially in a group work. Since then, I
always leave the house early when I have meetings with them. In this integrated
project, the assignments for Economics, Business Enterprise, Accounting, and
Information Technology were all divided among our group members. Each of us was
assigned to complete one particular assignment. For example, I am assigned to
do the Accounting assignment. As a team, they have always been very
understanding as they know I have difficulty completing the assignment, they
have always offered a helping hand throughout the progress of completing it. I
have learned that understanding and tolerance are vital to complete a task
especially working in a team. This gives me a lot of encouragement and
motivation to complete it. I am constantly reminding myself to not disappoint
them. Being as a team with them, I have learned that individual weaknesses may
be converted to strengths where team strengths covering up individual
weaknesses. I have found out that working together can help to improve my interpersonal
skills (TGC 5.0) both verbally and non-verbally. I learn to accept the views of
others despite having different opinion on certain cases. Previously, I refused
to listen or accept opinions that are dissimilar as mine. Now, having such an
understanding team has taught me to learn to respect the views of other. As a
business student, I have always wanted to start a business of my own. In
future, I will be able to attract more customers to purchase my products. This
will help me gain more profit and I will be able to expand my business by
having good interpersonal skills and other qualities of a successful
businessman.
- Calv Chee :
Besides, working in a
team has gradually improved my communication skills (TGC 4.0). Before we were
teamed up as a group, I rarely had the opportunity to talk to anyone and have
always had difficulty to communicate with other people due to my nervousness. I
used to get nervous when I talked to others because my English pronunciation
was not as fluent. I had difficulty approaching others for help. Throughout
this project, we have always been helping one another so that it makes work
easier and lighter. Today, in the world of commerce, interpersonal skills and
communication skills are both equally important. For example, we have to clearly
communicate with other companies when we are having a business trade or deal. We
need to be very confident in ourselves in what we talk and how we react to
others when we are having meetings or business trades. In that way, it would
sound more persuasive both to the customers and stakeholders of a company.
Having these communication skills allow me to get a job that I desire in the
near future. This allows me to get a job easily because I have the right skills
that a company requires.
On the other hand, another learning
experience that I have gathered is that thinking critically and creatively is
important to arrive at the best solution. We can have unlimited ideas for what
we want to do if we think critically. We don’t have to fear that’s right or
wrong, we just have to share our ideas or opinions so that we can discuss whether
it is suitable to use it on our project or not. Other than that, we learn to
plan well to do the project. Leader had assigned us what to do so that we have
to complete them in a designated time. Our assignments are equally divided
among us to make work easier. Strategic planning teaches us how to manage our
time wisely. Problems solving often involves decision making and it is
especially important for leadership and management. This integrated project has
helped me to think wisely and improved my thinking and
problems solving skills (TGC 3.0). Having the
ability to think critically and come up with the best solution will benefit me
in many ways. For instance, I will be able to solve business issues like
shortage of capital, decreasing sales, and others without prior difficulties.
In that way, business will able to gain more profit and a high productivity. On
a regular basis, we often encounter problems. Therefore, I can apply these
critical thinking and problem solving skills in my daily life. These problems
may be as simple as deciding what color of blouse to wear to work or they may
be a difficult situation like choosing between two job offers in different
fields. Therefore, these problem solving and critical thinking skills will help
me to make better choices now and then.