Business Environment Reflection Report: Motivation & Expectations

This report is a reflection on a business environment course, where the student explores their motivation for pursuing postgraduate studies in business. The student defines business, explains their reasons for choosing the course, and highlights past experiences in a business environment, emphasizing the competitive nature of the Central Business Unit (CBD). They outline how they will meet course outcomes by creating a personal and professional development plan, including SMART goals. The report details short-term goals like academic success and skill enhancement through internships, and long-term goals such as starting a business and becoming a manager. The student plans to apply course concepts in business administration, leadership, and entrepreneurship, using various leadership styles and business management techniques. The report concludes with a discussion of both short-term and long-term SMART goals, emphasizing their specificity, measurability, achievability, relevance, and time-bound nature. The student references relevant academic sources to support their reflections.

Business Environment
Name
(Affiliation Institution)

Reflection report
Scholars argue that a business is an organization or enterprise that has engaged in
professional, industrial or commercial activities. I can define business as organized efforts and
individuals’ activities to produce and sell and goods and services that can generate revenues or
result to profit.
I choose to pursue a business course for various reasons. Firstly, through the business
course, I will understand various business concepts and be familiar with strategies and situations
that am likely to encounter in my business or organization am going to work for in the near
future. Furthermore, with basic concepts of business, I will be in a good position for working
with diverse types of organizations and further adding values to them. Through the business
course, I will also gain entrepreneurship concepts such as basics of operating business which in
turn may assist me to operate my business effectively. I will also gain skills which will be useful
in the future leadership role in organizations or companies am going to work for.
I have past experience of working in a medium-sized shop which has significantly
developed my interest in pursuing a business course. Indeed, the shop was very busy dealing
with diverse internal and external stakeholders. With the shop being located at Central Business
Unit (CBD), the rate of competition from a small, medium, large companies and even
multinational companies were very high. This exposed me to challenging the business
environment and I developed an interest in going to college and pursuing a business course so
that I can gain skills and knowledge of managing such kind of businesses in the future.
The experience of working in a very busy shop prepared me significantly for the business
course. Firstly, dealing with diverse stakeholders’ like customers, suppliers and my fellow
employees exposed me to the business world and prepared me for the business course I intended
to pursue. In addition, the basic business concepts I learned during the day to day activities in the

shop such as preparations of ledger accounts and other types of entries prepared me for the
business course.
I ensure the required outcomes of my course is met by creating a personal and
professional development plan that clearly states my SMART objectives, long terms and short
term goals and the actions that are required to achieve them. The development plan will create
self-awareness as I will be able to identify my strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats that
surround the business course. Through self-awareness, I will be able to identify learning needs
and work on key areas that need improvement. I will measure whether I have improved through
diverse methods like surveys and feedback from my colleagues. Once I receive a positive
response then I will be assured that my required business course outcome has been met.
I can manage and monitor my studies to a successful conclusion by checking my progress
against my assignments and planned projects weekly and often checking whether my Set goals
are in line with timelines. For example, if I planned to carry out a certain business project like the
writing of thesis within a timeline of 6 months, I will often review whether my progress is in line
with the project timetable. Reviewing set goals often will also help me manage and monitor my
studies. For example, reviewing goals to prioritize some goals will help me in balancing the
studies.
In the future, I will apply my studies in diverse areas such as business administration,
leadership, entrepreneurship and my personal and professional development program. In terms of
business management, I will apply the business concepts in organizations to makes sure human
and capital resources are effective managed. For example, through gaining of skills such as
decision-making, interpersonal, communication and problem solving, I will be able to resolve
contemporary issues in the organization such as employees conflicts, harassments and job stress.

I will also be able to contribute innovative ideas that could give a business a competitive
advantage and increase performance. In terms of entrepreneurship, I will apply entrepreneurship
concepts I learned from the course to start my own business, manage all human and financial
resources of the business, explore macro and microenvironment of the business to identify
opportunities of expansions and generation of incomes. In addition, I will also be able to identify
threats that could affect my business returns and further come up with strategies of curbing the
changing business environment and competitive markets. In a leadership context, using
behavioural trait theory that states that leaders are developed and learned, but not inherited
(Derue, Nahrgang, Wellman & Humphrey (2011), I will apply the leadership concepts learned in
the business course to lead others. For example, with changing situations and procedures being
experienced in diverse organizations every day (Ahmad, Masri & Lee, 2019), I will be able to
use diverse leadership approach such as transformational, transactional and situational leadership
style to facilitate performances in the organization.
The goals which I would like to set with regard to the business courses can be categorized
as either long term or short term goals. Long term means goals will take longer to be achieved
while short-term means goals will be achieved quickly (Zomorrodian, 2019). In addition, all my
goals are SMART goals meaning they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely
(Troelstra, Kunst & Harting, 2019). For example, in regard to short- term goals, I would like to
graduate with first-class honours or upper-division in the business course by the end of course. In
addition, I would also set a goal of attending 4 seminars, 10 meetings and 2 mentorship program
during the course to empower my business visions as well as improving my knowledge and
abilities. Furthermore, I also have short term goals of finding a part-time job or internship related
to my business course in order to improve my skills and experience. In the long term goals, I

would set goals of using the knowledge, skills such as entrepreneurship and past experience from
the course to start my own company in the next 10 years. In addition, I would also set goals of
using business notions such as cognitive thinking, decision making and leadership skills to
become a manager in the next 5 years. Finally, in 5 years to come, I would also go back to school
and pursue my masters in the business course.

References
Ahmad, A. M. B., Masri, R. B., & Lee, C. A. (2019). Future Challenges to the Entrepreneur in
Relation to the Changing Business Environment. Global Business & Management
Research, 11(2).
Derue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. E. D., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and
behavioural theories of leadership: An integration and meta‐analytic test of their relative
validity. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 7-52.
Troelstra, S. A., Kunst, A. E., & Harting, J. (2019). “Like you are fooling yourself”: how the
“Stoptober” temporary abstinence campaign supports Dutch smokers attempting to
quit. BMC public health, 19(1), 522.
Zomorrodian, A. (2019). Grave Consequences of Lack of Strategic Plan at the Highest Level of
Government: SP as a Defense Against the Malice of Short-Sighted and Self-Serving
Leaders. Available at SSRN 3358600.