Academic Skills: Reflective Report and Personal Development Plan

This report presents a student's reflective analysis of their academic skills, focusing on their strengths and weaknesses in relation to academic research and writing. The report begins with an introduction outlining the importance of academic skills for both academic performance and future career success. The main body comprises a literature review exploring business issues, particularly the challenges companies face in adapting to new technology, and the skills required to address these challenges. The report then moves to a self-assessment, where the student reflects on their own skills, identifying those that contribute to their academic success (e.g., research, writing, critical thinking) and those that need improvement (e.g., independent learning, dissertation skills). A personal development plan is then presented, with action plans for improving specific skills. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and benefits of skill development, including improved academic performance and future career prospects. The student uses evidence-based writing and referencing throughout the report.

Academic Research and
Writing.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.........................................................................................................................3
Part 2................................................................................................................................................5
Part 3................................................................................................................................................6
Personal Development Plan.........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills are the core skills that must be had in the students in order to improve
the academic performance. AS not only help the student during the college time period but it also
helps in the future career of the student. So, in this context the report will discuss the business
issues that the company faces and how such issues helps the student in identifying and
visualizing their strongest and weakest skills. What steps that students can adopt in order to fix
their weakest skills.
MAIN BODY
Part 1
Literature Review
As per the views of the Lund-Thomsen, Hansen and Lindgreen (2019), there are various
issues the business face in their operations but the most common issue are adapting to new
technology in this technological innovative world. The various personal and professional skills
are required to deal with the technology challenge. Information security is the crucial aspects for
the business perspective because there is a risk of hacking of the internal and external data. So
implementation of the new software is become necessary for the business not only in order to
adopt new technology but also to protect the important data's of the business. In order to take
competitive advantage in the market and improve the brand name, company have to adopt
technological advancement in the business. The Muntean (2018), illustrates the following five
challenges that the company face during the whole process of adapting to new technology. The
challenge includes, employees accessibility, picking the right platform for success, connecting
the solutions to customer experience, compatibility with vendors and partners and getting the
right advisor.
 Employees accessibility: As per the Kane (2019), opinion, this is the critical challenge
the business face while implementing the new technology. The new technology are
mainly offers the benefits which are more customer focused and deep knowledge and
training are required for employees to deal with the same. So in order to positively react
with this challenge, company is conducting different training sessions and programs for
the employees to manage their performance and achieve their targets. This further result
in achieving the organization objectives. Training and development increases the
professional skills of the employees of the companies.

 Picking the right platform for success: Selecting the platform for implementing the
new technology is a difficult challenge face by the companies especially the small
businesses. The McLaughlin and Gogan (2018), illustrates that picking the technology
solutions such as cloud computing, edge computing etc. are very expensive that the small
businesses are not able to met its maintenance cost. So in order to deal with the issues
related to the selection of technological platform, companies start using cloud platform
that provide free credits such as AWS, Ali baba, Azure etc. This clouds platforms reduces
the maintenance cost of the software of the company.
 Connecting the solutions to customer experience: The Kaivo-oja and Lauraeus (2018),
state that many small businesses do not have the deep knowledge about the technological
platform which suits their company. They just incorporate the software which is
implemented by the large businesses without understanding the nature and environment
of their business which result into low return on investment and cause heavy losses. So in
order to react with this challenge the business is required to implement software which
underline their business objective and translate them into better customer experience.
 Compatibility with vendors and partners: As per Broekhuizen and et.al. (2019),
opinion in today's world, the businesses in order to deal with the customer demands have
an ecosystem of vendors and partners such as supplier, logistic, operational assistance,
security etc. But at the time of implementing platform for the new technology, there is a
risk that the platforms not being interoperable with the business vendors and partners. In
order to react with the compatibility challenges, company put more focus on their
communication, active listening, active learning, evaluating skills etc. This step may
solve the problem and help the company to attract and build relations with the vendors &
partners.
 Getting the right advisor: The McKinsey & Company and Manyika (2017), state that,
before selecting and implementing platform in order to adopt new technology, it is better
to take the advice from the IT expert. But most of the businesses especially the small
businesses are facing this as business challenge because of the fear of escalating budgets.
So after understanding the importance of IT experts on converting the every technology
investment into valuable additions, companies are hiring the IT experts. This reaction of

the businesses put positive impact on the businesses such as less maintenance cost of the
software but it also put negative impact of increase in the budgets of the company.
Part 2
With the help of the report, I am able to visualize and analyse my academic skills which
help me in my career and business development plans. Because of my deep research skill, I am
able to do thorough research on the business issues that the business are facing while adopting
the new technology (Latif, 2018). Most of the work is based on my behaviour to learn the new
skills where I am weak and the behaviour to face the new challenges while preparing the entire
report. The skills which I have and which help me in achieving the targets are active learning,
active listening, critical thinking, writing skills, presentation and referencing skills. The skills
motivate me all the times and help in practising the self care by taking the good night sleep.
These skills develop the ambitious attitude on me which further help me in preparing for the
competitive exams. The academic skills help me in concentrating on the relevant and non
relevant informations while writing the report on the business issues. The skills not only increase
my quality of the writing but it also increases my grades in the annual examinations of the
college (Bolton and et.al., 2018). This academic skills taught me that, the information and
knowledge provided by the study material of the college is relevant and more than enough for the
students.
Besides of all the benefits, the most important thing I notice while writing the report is
that I am able to retain the knowledge and information which I learn a long time ago. Before the
COVID-19 situation, I am unable to understand the short keys and don't have deep knowledge of
the computers (Foroudi and et.al., 2018). But because of the pandemic and lock-down, I am able
to put time on learning the computer tricks and techniques which help me in writing the report
effectively and efficiently. Despite most of the strongest skills, I also face my most of the
weakest skills which increases my time for completing the report. The weakest skills are learning
independently, producing dissertations, understanding assessment and using the university
electronic resources. Because of not able to understand the assessment independently, it is time-
consuming and eats most of my time and because of that I start my report writing late. To
improve all the skills, I joined the classes and do regular practice during the pandemic lock down
which help me in achieving my goal in less time for the all future assignments and reports. The

regular practise further improve my academic and reflective writing with the proper help of time-
management skills.
Part 3
Personal Development Plan
Academic Skills Action Plan Future Implications
Understanding
Assessment Skill
The understanding of the
assessment developed by
joining the training course of
interpretation and intervention
skill classes (Ebadi and Rahimi,
2017).
Because of the skills has been
developed, it helps in reducing
the time taken in understanding
the academic assignments and
professionals projects in the
future. This also improve the
project content because of
critical interpretation and
evaluation.
Producing Dissertations
Skill
Dissertations skill is developed
by the taking the online and of
line classes where the basic and
advance dissertation training is
provided (Huisman and et.al.,
2019).
Once the dissertation skill has
been developed in the students,
they are able to do many
research projects and
assignments with effectively and
efficiently at academic and job
level.
Learning Independently
Skill
In order to develop the learning
independently skill, students
have to do regular practise of
reading and writing after the
classes get over at home (Strobl
and et.al., 2019).
Once this skill has been
developed, the students are able
to handle the different tasks and
activities in academic and career
path (Grit, 2019).
Academic & Reflective
Writing Skill
Regular practice of writing on
the different topic help the
After the skill get developed,
students can write high quality

student in developing the
academic and reflective writing
skill (Rimmer, 2018).
content in projects and
assignments in less time.
CONCLUSION
The report concludes the writing on the topic of business issue such as adaptability to
new technology. The report further concludes the strongest skills I have which help me in
completing the work on time and the weakest skill I face as an challenges during the entire report
writing. This report further concludes the personal development plan of the four academic skills
along with the action plan required to develop the skills. The report also concludes the future
benefit the student enjoy after successfully completing the skill course and training.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Lund-Thomsen, P., Hansen, M. W. and Lindgreen, A. eds., 2019. Business and development
studies: Issues and perspectives. Routledge.
Muntean, M., 2018. Business intelligence issues for sustainability projects. Sustainability, 10(2),
p.335.
Kane, G., 2019. The technology fallacy: people are the real key to digital
transformation. Research-Technology Management, 62(6), pp.44-49.
McLaughlin, M. D. and Gogan, J., 2018. Challenges and best practices in information security
management. MIS Quarterly Executive, 17(3), pp.237-262.
Kaivo-oja, J. R. L. and Lauraeus, I. T., 2018. The VUCA approach as a solution concept to
corporate foresight challenges and global technological disruption. Foresight.
Broekhuizen, T. L. J. and et.al., 2019. Digital platform openness: Drivers, dimensions and
outcomes. Journal of Business Research, 122, pp.902-914.
McKinsey & Company and Manyika, J., 2017. Technology, jobs, and the future of work.
McKinsey Insights.
Latif, K., 2018. PARTNERS'COMPATIBILITY SYNERGISTIC MODEL: A WAY
FORWARD TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS BY WEIGHING ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES OF OUTSOURCING. Arabian Journal of Business and
Management Review (Oman Chapter), 7(4), p.87.
Bolton, R. N. and et.al., 2018. Customer experience challenges: bringing together digital,
physical and social realms. Journal of Service Management.
Foroudi, P. and et.al., 2018. Investigating the effects of smart technology on customer dynamics
and customer experience. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, pp.271-282.
Ebadi, S. and Rahimi, M., 2017. Exploring the impact of online peer-editing using Google Docs
on EFL learners’ academic writing skills: A mixed methods study. Computer
Assisted Language Learning, 30(8), pp.787-815.
Huisman, B. and et.al., 2019. The impact of formative peer feedback on higher education
students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 44(6), pp.863-880.
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Strobl, C. and et.al., 2019. Digital support for academic writing: A review of technologies and
pedagogies. Computers & Education, 131, pp.33-48.
Rimmer, A., 2018. How do I prepare a personal development plan?. Bmj, 363.
Grit, R., 2019. Managing your competencies: personal development plan. Routledge.
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