University Reflective Journal: Strategic Enterprise Planning Report

This report is a reflective journal detailing a student's experience in a strategic enterprise planning project. The student discusses the challenges encountered, including difficulties in data gathering, time management, and team collaboration. The report analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of strategic enterprise planning, emphasizing the importance of stakeholder management and adapting to market uncertainties. It highlights the significance of data analysis, research skills, and teamwork in achieving project goals. The student reflects on the limitations faced, such as reliance on secondary data and the impact of external factors like global recession and political changes. The report concludes with a self-assessment of skills demonstrated and plans for improvement in future projects, focusing on enhancing research methods, time management, and analytical tools.

Running head: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
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Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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The aim of this paper is to discuss the journey in this research project where three
member team was developed. In this particular team, there were two Indian students, namely
Avneet Kaur and Harmandeep Kaur Gill and one Chinese student, namely Anqi Xie. In this
paper, the critical challenges of research regarding the business operation of a beverage
company named “Coffee on the way” will be discussed.
The first and foremost problem in this project was related to the data gathering
process and citing their evidence. Gathering information about this type of company was by
and large too problematic for us because all of us were utterly dependent upon the
information available on the internet. In most of the cases, we could not access the core data
as these are entirely confidential to the company and was accessible only to the members.
Through various sites and online journals, we have gathered data about this company, and
some of them were not authentic. This is the reason why we had to take more time to
complete this assessment. The time management factor affected our presentation of the
solution and led us to complete the writing in a hurry. However, we have tried to reduce any
mistake in this solution but had some misspelt words and grammatical errors as pointed out
by the tutor in his feedback. The problem of arranging evidence from different sources we
had to take help from the online libraries and textbooks that could not sufficient answered all
our queries properly. In addition to this, the issue of collaboration among the team members
was one of the key challenges that I have faced during this time that affected our plan
development process.
For the strategic enterprise planning we have found out both their advantages as well
as disadvantages. The organisation can engage in the strategic enterprise planning process for
different regions like clarifying direction identifying shared vision and solving problems.
Now, this type of planning can firstly help the organisation to achieve their already set goals
by identifying all the resources needed for its success. Strategic enterprise planning also

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allows the Agencies to keep competitiveness with the changing need of the stakeholders’
program priorities and funding. Over the scores we have come across the understanding that
strategic enterprise planning helps the company to increase its operational efficiency and
profitability by promoting market share. It gives long-term business benefits by making the
business more sustainable because planning takes into account all the potential opportunities
and threats to understand the trend in the market and respond to it.
The disadvantages of the strategic enterprise plan are related to the guarantee of
success of the organisation. The business plan is only a plan or guidelines which the
managers need to follow, but this also does not guarantee success. In this case of "coffee on
the way" we have found that if a manager has planned to guide the business on a particular
path he cannot bring changes in the plan until and unless the other stakeholders approve the
changes. Because of this changing nature of business, the company needs to incorporate new
changes in the market according to the trend of the customers (Betz & Betz, 2018). If a
business plan is already made, then changing some factors according to changing trend can
be impossible.
There are some limitations of the strategic plan that mainly associates the
effectiveness of the company to handle the situation. The strategic business plan if it becomes
too rigid, can lead to arise some problems by making the company less flexible. Therefore the
need for flexibility for adapting necessary changes when the market trend is changing is
essential. These affect the company internally as well as externally. From the internal point of
view, the policies rules programs and procedures are determined, but small changes are often
overlooked, leading these two to gain potentiality and harm the overall growth of the
company. The external inflexibility relates to the problems of political, economic, social,
technological, environmental and legal changes in the external environment of the market
which along with the competitors may harm the company also (McLean, 2019). We initially

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had shown high sales Expectations that can cause overspending in different areas but also
found the planning reduces the scope for creativity. As planning incorporates all the activities
connected to attain the objectives of the company therefore no new ideas can be Incorporated
during the execution of that plan. In order to respond to the dynamic environment, the need
for innovative ideas are not supported by strategic business planning.
During this assessment, my team members and I found that for the successful
operation of the business management of the stakeholders are essential. There are various
types of stakeholders associated with the successful business which include the customers’
employees, suppliers, local community, government, shareholders, media and many others
(Morden, 2016). All of these stakeholders have different points of view and different
expectations. This is due to the fact that all of them have different interests associated with
the company. Therefore managing the Expectations of the stakeholders through proper
communication and negotiation process is mandatory (Argenti, 2018). As found out in the
case of coffee on the way it has been understood that the consonants to meet the interest of
the stakeholders can be solved by addressing issues and resolve the conflict situations. The
interest of one stakeholder can clash with the other therefore the strategic management
process is mandatory to be implemented. In order to achieve the project goals the support of
the stakeholders is mandatory there for any conflict situation must be prevented from being
originated (Dearman, Lechner & Shanklin, 2018).
As I have mentioned before we did not possess the access to the core data of the
company because these are highly confidential and limited to the Employees and
management of the organisation. This is also impossible to know the internal environment of
the company because we could not arrange employee survey or interview who will be able to
reveal the actual issues of the company. Therefore I had to depend only upon the internet
sources to understand the internal and external situations of the company. Based on these

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secondary data I could analyse the competitor analysis, market and industry research (Cheah,
Amran & Yahya, 2019). However we accept some government data bases and Australian
Bureau statistics so that we can understand the actual situation of the company while
operating in the market of Australia.
The market of the world is full of uncertainty because the market trend keeps on
changing and new factors start influencing the decision making of the companies. In these
last few years the types and operations of Global Business have changed a lot making the
management more focused on the sustainable growth (Brinckmann & Kim, 2015). Therefore
business planning has little importance in this world full of uncertainties. For example the
Global recession can affect the economic aspect of the industry which eventually affect the
company operating in it. It is very uncertain whether the country will face measure
commercial failure or financial market instability (Betz & Betz, 2018).
The regulatory risk is relate d to the political changes in the market which can also
force the company to change their attitude towards the employees, customers and other
stakeholders. The sudden changes in the political system can mandate the company to be
more focused on the maintaining interest of the labour unions, customer forums and other
groups or community of stakeholders for successful operation (Brinckmann & Kim, 2015).
The threat for terrorist attack or natural calamity have become another factors that open push
the company to face uncertainty in the business.
In order to meet all the needs of this solution, I had shown the skills of analysis and
interpretation of data. In addition to this, the team work skills and networking process also
helped me in the process of finding out information from different sources and apply those
into the strategic business planning process. I have also shown great patience over the
understanding of the points of view of the team members that reduce conflicts. Finally, the

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problem that prevented out timely presentation of the solution will be solved. I have shown
my capability of using more appropriate analytical tools for the proper understanding of the
situation of the company.
In case I get this similar task in the future, I shall be expanding my own research a
great deal by getting access to the authentic core data. The problems in the decision making
that I faced in the team, will be solved and more sincerity will be shown towards this task. I
will be taking care of the time by categorising them into slots. The plan for completing this
type of task will be laid based on which all the works will be done in a proper way. Most
importantly I will be more careful about the writing process and presentation of my view of
this task so that no grammatical errors can affect the core understanding of the solution.

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References:
Argenti, J. (2018). Practical corporate planning. Routledge.
Betz, F., & Betz, F. (2018). Summary–Strategic Modeling', Strategic Business Models:
Idealism and Realism in Strategy.
Brinckmann, J., & Kim, S. M. (2015). Why we plan: The impact of nascent entrepreneurs'
cognitive characteristics and human capital on business planning. Strategic
Entrepreneurship Journal, 9(2), 153-166.
Cheah, J., Amran, A., & Yahya, S. (2019). External oriented resources and social enterprises’
performance: the dominant mediating role of formal business planning. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 236, 117693.
Dearman, D., Lechner, T. A., & Shanklin, S. B. (2018). Demand for management accounting
information in small businesses: Judgment performance in business planning.
International Journal of the Academic Business World, 12(1), 93-102.
McLean, M. (2019). Understanding your economy: Using analysis to guide local strategic
planning. Routledge.
Morden, T. (2016). Principles of strategic management. Routledge.