Case Study Report: Developing Business Skills Through Challenges

This assignment is a reflective report detailing the author's business skill development through participation in challenges such as the Apprentice Challenge, Presentation Challenge, and T-shirt Challenge. Each challenge provided unique learning opportunities, enhancing teamwork, communication, and entrepreneurial skills. The Apprentice Challenge focused on leadership and commercial awareness, the Presentation Challenge improved research and presentation abilities, and the T-shirt Challenge fostered creativity and business acumen. The report also includes an action plan for future skill development at the university, emphasizing leadership, communication, and meeting skills. The Emotional Intelligence theory is used to understand the personal development from these challenges. The conclusion highlights the importance of communication and business development for organizational effectiveness.

Case Study | Report Writing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
REFELECTIVE REPORT...............................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

REFELECTIVE REPORT
I have taken certain challenges as the part of my development in business skills for my
continuous improvement. These challenges will be very effective for me to work as a team and
also be successful in focus to business angle. I will be able to develop business skills which
would help me to include the presentation of the skills and emotional intelligence that has helped
in meeting skills. These challenges I will be taking for my development in reflective report are
going to be Apprentice Challenge, Presentation Challenge and T-shirt Challenge. These
challenges will be able to develop different types of skills. An action plan for the development of
my skills is also going to be created over the next few years at the University. At my university I
have been able to develop a good understanding of how I develop my team building skill which
would help me to develop my business skills in the future. I challenged my self with different set
of challenges which were linked with the development of skills which are required for the
success at the university and also for my continuous improve in the field of business. I have been
able to also understand the importance of developing these skills for my future.
Apprentice Challenge
The first challenge which I was the part of was the Apprentice challenge, It is a type of
challenge which is specifically designed for the bringing out the major core business attributes
that are present in the individual or the group. As a part of this challenge the participants are able
to improve their leadership, delegation and commercial awareness along with teamwork for
being a success. I had to be the part of the following which are listed as the items that are set for
embarking on the bartering mission. In this challenge my team had to develop an Apprentice
Start-up challenge which would help of a local contractor. In this challenge there are going to be
different team which were going to compete and the team with the most revenue would be
considered the winner of the competition. For this challenge I had to plan my start-up due to
which I had to communicate with the team members, suppliers and also the customers which
visited the start-up. It was a challenge that improved teamwork as it was team activity and also
time management as we were in a competition and all of us wanted to win (Nevskaya and et.al.,
2019). The most important developed that happened was the businesses skills development in
which I was able to understand how it feels to establish an own business and what are the key
strategies which I need to adapt to be successful.
Presentation challenge :

This was the second challenge in which I took part in and it was considered to be one of
the most effective and efficient challenge that helped in the development of the different types of
skills. For this challenge we did not have any team in this all the students were on their own. In
this challenge we had to prepare and deliver a presentation in front of the class regarding the
business start-up that I was going to start and what were going to be the steps which were
involved. First of all as I lacked personal experiences in the field of business I had to do some
research on the topics which I could have chosen for my business. While choosing from all these
topics I was able to develop my key understanding about the different types of business topics
available. Preparation of this presentation also improved my research skills, presentation and
written skills (Feekery and et.al., 2021). In order to prepare for the presentation in front of the
class I focused on the developing my communicational skills by practising the way in which I
will give the presentation. All these things that were related to the presentation challenge were
considered to be very effective for the improving my communicational skills due to my practices
in the field of business. In this challenge my business skills improved a lot along with the
competencies which helped me in the development of time management which was due to the
tasks which I needed to complete.
T-shirt challenge :
This was a challenge in which I had to set up a business of T-shirt with a budget of £200.
In this challenge I was a part of a team in which we had to prepare a small business on T-shirt.
Thus, we took team meeting deciding about the T-shirt logo. There were different idea that we
analysed before came of with the idea of “Save Trees Save Life” as logo on the T-shirt. Thus, we
decided to price the T-Shirt according to the expenses which we had to incur on the
manufacturing, marketing and promotion of this product. This challenge was able to draw out the
internal entrepreneur in me. It helped me to explore ideas which would be the key to the
development of business skills, communication skills, meeting skills and strong competencies.
This challenge was one of my favourite as it was very innovative and also had included creativity
in the business which helped me to improve my business operations. It can also be said that
through this challenge my knowledge regarding the development of a product also improved.
All these challenges were able to improve my skills related to business in different ways.
The apprentice challenge was more of a practical challenge in which we had experience of how a
small retailer does their business. In this challenge teamwork was one of the most important way

of developing my business practices. In the Presentation challenge due to my research I was able
to improve my business research which I used for finding new ideas for presentation that I
delivered in front of the class which was on of the key towards boosting my confidence. In the T-
Shirt challenge the brand logo on our T-shirt was about the “Save Trees Save Life”. This was the
key to the branding of out product. Our brand had the plans of using environment awareness in
amongst the buyers alongside sending a strong message to the market. This brand logo would
attract the customers which are concerned about the environment. Branding is the way of
creating a strong, positive perception of the business (Lin and et.al., 2018). The pricing strategy
for this product was according to the types of the T-shirt. Hooded Sweat shirt with the brand logo
costed £16, Colour T-shirt with logo and print costed £7 and Plain white T-shirt with only logo
cost only £5. Thus, the selling price of these T-shirt were kept higher depending on the type of
products the price were distributed by our team.
The budget for our T-shirt challenge was £200 in out of which we spend £168 for the
purchasing of the T-shirt it was considered to be very successful for the business as the
customers were very satisfied by the product quality and also the price. We had to spend £20 on
the marketing of this product which lead to the total cost of this challenge £188. Thus, our team
was successful in making a profit of £12. This was a moral victory for our team as we were
successful in creation of profit out of this challenge. From this challenge I was able to develop
the operations of how to purchasing the products effectively can result in development of
business. Efficient marketing and promotions were also the key to the success of our challenge.
The success of these challenges as the personal development can be understood by the
Emotional Intelligence theory which has the following elements (Emotional Intelligence Theory:
Highlighting and Developing Leadership Skills, 2021),
Self-Awareness :
I was able to understand the skills which I had which and that I needed to develop in the
business world through these challenges.
Social Awareness :
These challenges were the key for developing the sense of teamwork and understanding
the key behaviour in while working as a team (Wraae, Tigerstedt and Walmsley, 2021).
Self Management :

I was able to adapt to the different situations which I faced and also understand the
importance of driving motivation in the key initiative for the being competitive in the business.
Social Skills :
There were times when I took the initiative during these challenges in which I developed
leadership qualities and also helped others to improve. My influence on the team was splendid.
ACTION PLAN
Skills Actions Step Description Resources Time Taken
Leadership Need to lead more teams in
challenges other such
challenges.
Would require
opportunities for
which joining classes
would be very
effective (Madsen and
Lund, 202).
2-3 years
Communication Aim should be to focus on
improving key skills.
Active interactions
with people and online
technologies.
2-3 years
Meeting Participation in more and
more meetings and debate
will help me to improve
social interactions.
Participation in
meetings can be a way
of providing growth
opportunities (Dahl,
Peltier and
Schibrowsky, 2018).
1-2 years
CONCLUSION
From this reflection report I was concluded that these challenges which involved business
related options. In this report the ways in which I would be able to improve my business
practices through communication and business development would help me to provide
organizational effectiveness. With the help of action plan I was able to develop a strategy of the
future skills I need to improve at the university.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dahl, A.J., Peltier, J.W. and Schibrowsky, J.A., 2018. Critical thinking and reflective learning in
the marketing education literature: A historical perspective and future research needs.
Journal of Marketing Education. 40(2). pp.101-116.
Feekery, A.J., and et.al., 2021. Enhancing students' professional information literacy:
Collaboratively designing an online learning module and reflective assessments. Journal
of Information Literacy. 15(2).
Lin, C.J.,and et.al., 2018. A flipped contextual game-based learning approach to enhancing EFL
students’ English business writing performance and reflective behaviors. Journal of
Educational Technology & Society. 21(3). pp.117-131.
Madsen, K.M. and Lund, M., 2021, October. Resilient Business Design: Training a reflective
business design mindset through design games. In European Academy of Design
Conference: Safe Harbours.
Nevskaya, M.A., and et.al., 2019. Environmental and business challenges presented by mining
and mineral processing waste in the Russian Federation. Minerals. 9(7). p.445.
Wraae, B., Tigerstedt, C. and Walmsley, A., 2021. Using reflective videos to enhance
entrepreneurial learning. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy. 4(4). pp.740-761.
Online
Emotional Intelligence Theory: Highlighting and Developing Leadership Skills, 2021[Online].
Available through: <https://www.educational-business-articles.com/emotional-
intelligence-theory/#:~:text=Emotional%20Intelligence%20Theory%3A
%20Highlighting%20and%20Developing%20Leadership%20Skills&text=
%E2%80%9CEmotional%20Intelligence%20is%20a%20way,and%20our
%20understanding%20of%20ourselves.>

Appendix
Logo