Fall Semester 2013
Section: 202
Assignment#1: Personal vision, mission and values
Vision
“Aspire to be a very successful businesswoman to support my family business and play an important role in society.”
Mission
I see myself a very active and ambitious person who wants to reach a high level of success in professional and personal life. I’m planning to be a contributor to society and give full support to a charity organization especially for orphaned children. In my professional life I’m aiming to improve my family’s business, by trying to acquire experience in how to run manufactures. And then I want to open my own Flowers shop. Also, I want to generate a non-profit company specifies for helping the needy youth to let them build themselves at the beginning of their careers. In my personal life I want to get married and raise a wonderful children and I want to provide for them all their needs to be a successful generation in the future. Also an important thing I want to achieve is develop my personality to be self-confident and remain positive.
Values
- One of our names for god “Allah” is Ghafor, which means forgiver, so I believe that if I want form Allah to forgive me on my mistakes, I have to forgive his people who did bad things to me.
- I believe in being loyal with everyone because it’s a unique and special moral.
- One of the most values that I believe in is Karma! What I do today to people, tomorrow will happen to me.
- In order to feel great I have to do great things to others.
- Being on time on my appointments is a very high concern.
Personal and Professional Goals
Setting up goals for your personal and professional life helps you in identifying a course of action for the future. My main aim in my career is to achieve whatever I have decided for my future. This includes accompanying my family business in a way that I am able to make it flourish. For that purpose I have set some goals in my life. Initially my goal is to complete my Bachelors Degree in Strategic Management in due time. I know that I cannot be complacent in achieving this goal as it will serve as the root cause for my future success. In order to achieve my goal I am working hard by putting my studies before everything. I am doing this by not only receiving lectures in class but also understanding them by doing further research on the context of the lectures. In addition to that I make my assignments by researching on the topics properly so that I am able to learn various techniques related to business and strategic management. The researches I do not only make me do my assignments effectively but also to grasp a good understanding of the subject that will ensure that I get good grades.
Another of my goal is to become a good and contributing citizen of the society I live in. I want people around me to be better. For that I try to aid needy people with whatever I can. This habit will ultimately grow in the future and support my mission of funding for a charitable organization for orphaned and aiding a nonprofit welfare organization for the education of youth.
In addition to that I want myself to be a perfect social being. In order to achieve this goal I try to be a good citizen by following the law of my country in its severity. I also have a good nature which helps me in socializing with others. Socializing with people around me will help me in fulfilling my goal to be a perfect social being. While doing this I know I have a responsibility to my family and I try to do whatever I am obliged to do by my family. Both these traits help me in gaining respect from my family and friends.
Core Competencies
For an organization, it is important to have core competencies to develop a competitive advantage (Ali et.al, 2011). Likewise, for an individual it is also important to identify their core competencies so that they are able to convert it into a competitive advantage. As far as I am concerned, I think that my core competencies lie in commitment. I am committed to my tasks and aim at fulfilling them on time. My habit of being on time on my appointments ensures that I fulfill whatever I am asked for. This will help me in the coming future as well as being strict on commitments is one thing that many lack and I have it in myself as an added advantage. Apart from that, I think that I am aware of whatever is going around me and I take it as another of my core competency. I feel that I am able to stretch myself beyond the limits in a way that I am able to think in a dynamic way. I have a sort of appeal that helps me in pushing myself over the situations. This suggests that I do not give up on hard situations. This is also a quality, which every individual does not possess and thus falls into my core competencies. Moreover, as far as my family business is concerned, I am know that I am able socialize well, which I even do currently with the people around me. I am able to persuade them to do thing that I feel is good. My ability to persuade others will help me in working in a better way for my family business of manufactures. Even whenever I talk about my family business to my friends and people around me I am able to convince them about it. My friends are aware about my vision and mission for my family company, and they get attracted to whatever plans I tell them about.
Competitive Advantage
One of the competitive advantages that I feel I have is that I am getting quality education. It will for sure make my life better in the years to come. This makes me feel in a different way. Getting quality education helps an individual to gain more opportunities in the future and that is what makes it a bit different. In addition to that, I feel that I have a good vision that will help me prosper and achieve my personal and professional goals in the coming future. Having a good vision is the basic root cause that determines the future of an individual. I know what I want to be when the time arrives and if I work hard then definitely I can achieve my goals personally and professionally. Another advantage that I do have over others is an opportunity to succeed in the form of my family business. I getting education about businesses procedures and it will help me for my family business. I will not have to have a fresh start as the business is already there and I just need to step into it to make it flourish.
Personal Situational Analysis
Opportunities
Opportunities can be described as the chances available for development or growth. As far as I have analyzed about myself, I feel that my education brings me a new opportunity. Education that I am receiving currently will polish my skills to such an extent that I will be able to know how and where I want to be in the future. Apart from this, one of the biggest opportunities that I think can be an added point for me will be that I have an already operating family business. I will not have to go through different ladders that normally people do to grow; it will be up to me to exploit the opportunity in the form of family business in the future.
Threats
One threat that I fear about is the situation of women in Saudi Arabia. Women here are at times maligned with a differentiated approach. The society is male dominating society where role of women is limited. Even in such circumstances, getting quality education is somewhat a soothing factor but still the attitudes towards women limit the number of opportunities. The similar applies to me as well.
Strengths
My key strengths include being ambitious, hardworking and dedication. To grow in the future I need to capitalize on these strengths to influence the environment surrounding me. Alternatively, it is to adjust into the environment around me. Moreover, I feel that I am motivated to achieve my goals in the future. It is just like that once I decide to do something; I work hard to achieve that. Another plus point over my strengths is that my mind is creative enough to have innovative ideas in terms of business that I think will contribute to the future success of my family business, which I aim to join after my education.
Weaknesses
I see myself to be an emotional woman. At times, I am unable to overcome my emotions. This is something that I think I need to change in my personality. Moreover, I have a tendency that I am unable to concentrate on the innovative ideas that I have. I try not to lose my concentration, but somehow I am unable to do that. It frustrates me and I am aware that it can cause some problems for me in the future but still I have to improve on this. If I have to succeed I need to work upon these weaknesses so that I am able to achieve my goals.
Personal Strategic Plan
At this stage of my life, the thing that has the prime importance is to identify myself. As already mentioned I am much aware about my goals both personal and professional. I need to work upon them with dedication to reach them. Reaching any goals requires an individual to focus on them constantly so that there is no deviation. That is what I aim for. I am looking forward to stick to my goals so that I live a fruitful life ahead. As far as my personal goals are concerned that will be achieved when I am able to establish myself into the practical life. As of today and for some time to come I am a student learning the art of business and related techniques. This perhaps is the second step to achieve my goals after identifying them. As soon as my education is over, I will start working in my family business. From there on the struggle to achieve, my professional goals will start, but prior to that it is important for me to study and learn effectively as only then I will be able to succeed in the professional life. After that, I will try to apply whatever I have learnt during my degree program to my business. I do not aim for a return rapidly, but just as it should be. We can say that it will take a couple of years to make myself established in my professional life. Then I may fulfill my personal goal, i.e. of marriage. Furthermore, as far as the nonprofit organization is concerned, I guess after I complete my education and start earning good money I will be able to make it possible. The basic plan as of now is to work hard and complete my education. If that is done than the image of my future course of action will be clearer than now.
For a successful business venture, I will need to develop good strategies that will help me pursue my goals. As mentioned before I will be joining my family business of manufacturing, which is already running. I think by that time I may look for market penetration strategy to boost the sales of our products. For that I will need to learn market penetration tactics as in I need to focus which penetration tactic will work the best for a manufacturing business.
In addition to that, I will look upon the market situation of my family business. If by that time I feel that the entire market segment we serve in has captured, then I will surely look for a product development strategy that will help in boosting the current product line. In order to polish these skills I think I know that research and development is the basic ingredient. I will try to have a market research for what is needed in the market and what can be made through available resources. By matching both, I can opt for a relatively demanding but yet new product in the market from my business. I can even go for market development as a part of intensive marketing strategy (market development, market penetration, and product development). In order to adopt this strategy I will need to think about the available options. This again will depend upon that particular situation of my business at that moment. If it needs to go to multiple cities or multiple countries, I will try to look for the best option where our products will be in demand.
Another strategy that I think that I can use is of diversification. I can diverse into a number of options but as my business is currently of manufacturing, the most adoptable strategy for my business will be of forward integration. I may opt for my business to diversify into a retail business. I can recommend to my family business an option to open up retail outlets of our own products.
These strategies will help me generate considerable revenue so that I can fulfill my other goal that is of a nonprofit organization and aiding a charitable organization for orphans. Nevertheless, a good revenue is needed for that which I think I will be able to get once I am able to achieve good revenues by implementing initially discussed strategies.
Reviewing the Effectiveness of Strategies
I will have to check my strategies on a constant basis as it will remind me about my goals. If I progress well in education then for sure my strategies will be effective. My strategy of hard work at this stage is about studying by putting more efforts than I used to. So in case I am not lagging behind in some subjects I will review myself and see whether I am deviating from my initial plan (i.e. to work hard) or not. If I am not and results are as expected as I want it will all right otherwise I may have to check myself and see what I am missing in my plan of action.
References
Ali, A, J., Al-Aali, A., and David, F. (2011) Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases (Arab World Editions). Pearson Higher Education
