Sample MBA600 Capstone Strategy Essay

MBA600 Capstone Strategy Assignment Sample

Your task

Individually, you are required to reflect on the learnings gained from undertaking the capstone subject and assessments by writing a 2500 word reflective essay.

Assessment Description

The purpose of this assessment is to foster students ability to coherently reflect on their undertaking of the Capstone: Strategy subject together with a reflection on their entire MBA.

Assessment Instructions

You are required to look back at their MBA course as a whole and identify the specific skills developed that will assist them in becoming effective practitioners in the workplace.

Learning is a persistent change in performance or potential that results from experience and interaction.

Reflective learning is the process of stepping back from the experience and reflecting on how skills, attitudes, mindset and behaviours have evolved.

Your reflective essay must cover the following:

• Introduction.
• A brief discussion on the value of relective practice for managers and leaders
• A personal reflection on learnings from the capstone subject and consultancy research process.
• A personal reflection on skills developed over the MBA.
• A personal reflection on how these will assist in future career endeavours.
• Conclusions.
• References.

The reflective essay should include discussion of learnings from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Additionally, insights from undertaking assessments and research, capstone lessons as well as group activities from this and other subjects over the duration of the course. Specific examples should be cited to support and justify all points.

Solution

Introduction

Reflective practice is learning from and through past experience and gaining insight for future improvement. Reflective practice is necessary for students pursuing higher studies. It is also necessary for business professionals like leaders and managers to identify personal skill, attitudes and potentials for future improvement of professional qualities. For Assignment Help, The present reflective study focuses on investigating idea gain from the capstone subject and from the consultancy research process. Evaluation of the importance of reflective practice to leaders and managers of the business have been discussed here. Reflection about skill development in MBA and identification of future career endeavours are necessary elements of this reflection report.

Reflective Practice for Managers and Leaders

Reflective practice acts as the gateway for the professional development of business professionals. It acts as the basic door for enhancement of professional skill, potential and attitudes. The way by which reflective practice add value to leaders and managers within business areas are as follows:

Identification of professional skill gap:

Reflective practice helps leaders as well as managers to recognize and identify the gaps where improvement is required. As opined by Miciak et al. (2021, p154), reflective practice makes people rethink their experiences. I think rethinking professional experiences by managers as well as leaders help them to identify the skill gap. In addition to this, with the aid of reflection, managers can evaluate strengths as well as weaknesses where improvement is required.

Development in professional skills:

As reflective practice is necessary to create personal strength and weakness of leaders and managers, it is the best tool for professional development (Tlali, 2019, p. 95). I think reflection makes people think about their lack of areas that help them to foster the development process. Rethinking and memorizing the incidence and experience allows managers as well as leaders to focus on the development of skill. I think skills that are usually developed by managers and leaders with the help of reflective practice are communication skill, time management skill, decision making skill, problem-solving skill, motivation skill and critical thinking skill.

Achievement of success in career:

Career success depends upon the capabilities of the leaders and managers to determine their skill gap and improvement of that gap area. As mentioned by Saric and Steph (2017, p.89), reflection is necessary to investigate the limitations and flaws in managing people and regulating the workforce’s demand. With the help of reflection, managers and leaders can become able to implement reflective thesaurus into the practical business handling situation. Development of skill, potentials and professional behaviour, in turn, helps to help them achieve success in their professional career also.

Better handling of the professional team:

Reflective practice helps to add value to leaders and managers for better handling of their workforces. According to Geeson (2017, p.8), reflection allows leaders and managers to explore their mentoring role and guide people to effective manners. I think handling a professional team requires focusing on multiple areas like motivation, team handling, conflict manager and decision making. Reflection allows us to rethink and replenish all the capabilities of managers and leaders and exert their efficacy to handle a team for organizational development after all.

Deep learning and self-empowerment:

Reflective practice has value on the self-empowerment of leaders and managers. I think self-empowerment is the first and foremost important professional attribute that allows leaders and managers to regulate and guide the activities of followers. As mentioned by Gardner et al. (2019, p27), Self-empowerment and self-efficacy are necessary to handle change in professional areas. Self-awareness adds value to leaders and managers regarding understanding oneself when compared to others. It also helps in better understanding others and the development of relationships in professional areas.

Figure 1: Value of reflective practice for managers and leaders
(Source: Possessed by author)

Reflection from Capstone Subject and Consultancy Research Process

From the overall capstone subject, different types of models and theories about the strategic management process of business I have learnt. SWOT analysis and have helped me to gain ideas about the importance of analysis of internal business environments. I have gained ideas about different models of environmental analysis for a business. I have identified that PESTLE analysis is usually carried out to identify external theta and opportunity of business organizations. As opined by Bruijl (2018, p.128), Porter's five force model is used to identify the competitive forces of business. It has given me the idea that the power of consumers, power of suppliers, rivalries, the threat of substitute and the development of substitute are the five most important factors that determine the competitive environment of a business. As reported by Verhoeven and Johnson (2017, p.37), analysis of product market strategy is the necessary element of the product configuration process. The capstone project gave me an idea about the product life cycle that, in turn, helped me in providing ideas about different stages in which a product goes. I have gained insight from the capstone project that the development of corporate agility depends upon the dynamic capabilities of a business organization. The Capstone project and consultancy research process have helped me to gain insight into the strategic planning process. As mentioned by Koch and Windsperger (2017, p.5), digital technology is used widely in business to gain a competitive advantage. In this regard, I have gained an idea from the capstone subject that there are basically three most important primary sources of competitive advantage for business at present. These are cost advantages, especially lower-cost strategy, resource and capabilities of business and differentiation benefits.

I have captured insight from the consultancy research process, and capstone subject that sensing, seizing and transforming are the most important tactics used for the achievement of corporate agility. I have gained the idea that The McKinsey 7S Model is used to identify the organizational effectiveness regarding the achievement of success. These 7S factors are skill, structure, style, system, staff, shared value and strategy. As mentioned by Indartono and Wibowo (2017, p.7275), the VRIO model is used for the identification of resources for businesses that provide competitive benefits. The Capstone project has given me the opportunity to explore the idea of isolating mechanisms. The Caption project gave me an idea about the importance of performance appraisal methods. The consultancy research process and capstone subject provide me with an idea of how well the leader's style matches a specific setting or situation under the contingency theory. According to Loo and Lau (2019), capital management is necessary for a business to identify the investment performance of the business. The Capstone project and consultancy process helped me to access ideas about the cash flow management and financial stability analysis of business organizations. It is necessary to share that I have gained ideas about the ratio analysis, working capital and funding required for the evaluation of financial analysis of the business.

Consultancy research pieces and capstone subjects have given me ideas about the business model of Professor David Teece. It is usually used by the business for the achievement of sustainability via the four most important stages. These stages are market segmentation, value proposition, capturing value from market segment and isolating mechanisms to hinder imitation and disintermediation. According to Keane et al. (2020, p.6), the business canvas model (BCM) is used by entrepreneurs to outline their future business. Capstone subject and consultancy research process gave me the opportunity to gain ideas about business canvas models that can help me in future to implement my business. I can say that the idea gained by me about the balance score is used to track the execution of activities by my staff within their control and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions in future. I have gained an idea about different types of matrices used to analyse organizational performance. These matrices are Salary Competitiveness Ratio (SCR), Employee Productivity Rate, the average time to hire, Customer Support Tickets, On-Time Rate, Overdue Project Percentage, Net Promoter Score, customer effort index, Customer Effort Score (CES) and Key Performance Indicator (KPI). I have also gained an idea about the organizational decision-making process. In the future, I will apply designing thinking in the organizational decision-making process.

I have identified that employee engagement is a necessary element for business. In order to motivate employers, a suitable leadership style needs to be implemented within the business process (Kempster et al. 2019, p.4). I have identified different forms of leadership style from the capstone subject like transformational leadership, transactional, servant, directing, consulting, participating and delegating style of leadership. The consultancy research process also made me aware of different types of change models like ADKAR change management, Kurt Lewin model of change and also about organizational culture. Ideas about primary research and secondary research can help me in the future to carry out a business project. I have gained insight into qualitative and quantitative research. As mentioned by Aspers and Corte (2019, p.140), qualitative research uses data that are non-countable in nature. At the same time, quantitative research uses data that are usually countable. Consultancy research also gave me ideas about the research design consisting of several stages like problem identification, identification of purpose, theoretical framework, hypothesis development, determination of research scope, determination of methodology and final outcome.

Reflection about skill development in MBA

Over the MBA course, I have developed lots of skills that can help me in the future for my professional career. I want to apply all those skills that I have developed in my future career profession so that I can access success. A skill that I developed over the MBA courses are as follows:

Critical thinking:

Throughout the MBA courses, I attend lots of formative and summative examinations. All these assessments have helped me to think critically about the answers to the specific assessment question. Hence, I can say that MBA courses have helped me to develop my critical thinking power, which I will apply in my professional career to identify solutions to specific issues.

Communication:

Communication is the most important transferable skill that a business professional must have (Guffey and Loewy, 2021, p.29). During MBA courses, I have constantly interacted with my mentor and peers. The interaction was both face to face, verbal and non-verbal. The continuous interaction has helped me to develop my core communication skill that I will apply to my future professional life to bring organizational consultancy.

Problem-solving:

This is the most important skill that I have ever learned from MBA courses. During the weekly assessment, the tutor gave me reasoning and problem-solving tasks. With the aid of creativity and critical thinking, I solved the issues. In some aspect, the tutor gave us a group project and allow me to handle conflict between team members. This process allows me to apply my critical thinking and communication to manage conflicts.

Figure 2: Different skill developed during MBA course
(Source: Possessed by author)

Time management skill:

Throughout the entire MBA course, I have gained skill regarding the time management process effectively. As mentioned by Hensley et al. (2018), time management is necessary for students to achieve success in their academic areas. Short formative tests each week are taken by our tutor in MBA courses that allow us to answer all within a short period of time. This aspect has helped me to develop my time management skill which I think will help me even in future to complete tasks within the deadline.

Team working skill:

Group projects are given by our tutor to identify our team working potentials. This aspect allows me to develop my team working skill as well as a leadership skill. As opined by Jones (2019, p.3), working efficiently in a team helps both students and professionals to achieve success. I think team working helped me to learn about the importance of relationship building. This idea gained from the MBA courses will be applied in my professional life so that I can be able to build suitable relationships with my followers as well as customers.

Research skill:

This is the most important skill that I have gained from the MBA course. Each and every assessment, I focused on researching lots of resources so that I can provide the actual answers to the question of my mentors. This aspect allows me to build my core research skill that I can apply in my future career for the achievement of professional success.

Reflection of Future Career Endeavours

Though I have gained lots of skill in my MBA courses, I still identified certain areas where I need improvement for my future career endeavours. These skill areas are mentioned below:

Table 1: Timeline for future career endeavours
(Source: Developed by author)

Analysis

I can say that I have small insights about leadership skills, time management skills, decision-making skills and verbal communication skills. Though my MBA courses were effective enough to develop all four skills, I still think I still require improvement in all these four areas. I need to improve my leadership skills so that I can guide people in the future, especially in my professional areas. As opined by Guffey and Loewy (2021, p. 23), communication is a necessary skill in the business area to manage any conflict and bring clarity to the operation process. I need improvement in the verbal communication process only so that I can understand the needs and requirements of others as well. I need to improve my time management skill so that I can complete a business project task in future. I think the improvement of decision-making skill is required to make vital decisions regarding business processes. Hence, all four skills will help me in the future to become the successful professional I want to be.

Conclusion

From the overall discussion, it can be concluded that reflective practice also acts as the basic step for the professional development of leaders and managers. From the consultancy research process, I have gained lots of ideas about the type of research, types of data and data collection method. It has also given me ideas about the data interpretation process. I have gained insight into different types of models from the entire capstone subject. These are the SWOT model, PESTLE model, porter's five forces, resource-based view, McKinsey 7S Model, business canvas, balanced scorecard, BCG matrix and the idea of financial management in business. From MBA courses, I have also gained certain forms of skills like time management, critical thinking, decision making, team working, problem solving and communication skills. I have identified certain areas where I needed improvement in future to become a successful professional. The skills that require improvement are leadership skills, time management skills, decision-making skills and verbal communication skills.

Reference list