Week 4

Reflection 

In the lecture this week we learnt how and why Business Intelligence is so crucial to organisations. This includes reacting to threats and opportunities, gather and analysing 'Big Data' so decisions will become much more better suited to the company therefore being more effective. The final reason why BI is so important is because it allows continuous planning of a company as it continuously analyses and monitors the company's processes so the results given by BI improves decision making across all levels of hierarchy and the company's business plans can have on going adjustments to allows be the most efficient.

We also went into depth about systems data bases, the advantages of a database and how to effectively manage them.

Teamwork 

Now we have the answers to our questions about JTI our group were able to start roughly planning the beginning of our presentation, including how we will introduce the business and the best way to describe the businesses problems with the information we have gathered.

One of the biggest problems the company is facing is the restrictions that the UK government have been placing on smoking since 2007. This majorly affecting the company's revenue as the governments aim is to discourage the public to smoke which in turn decreases sales of tobacco.

Our next priority for this project is finding possible solutions to pitch to the company, looking at the expected outcomes of each solution then determining which solution is the most suitable to JTI.

Week 2

Reflection

In this weeks lecture we learnt how to write a piece of reflective writing effectively. There are 3 main steps in Borton's model which can help me to do this. First is 'What' where you describe the event in which you are reflecting on. Second is 'So What', this is the main reflection part where you reflect by analysing what happened during the event and draw conclusions from your own analysis. Third is 'Now What' which involves you putting what you have learnt into action and integrating it into your future goals which will help you improve in the future. 

I found this lecture very helpful as I have never tried to write a reflective piece of writing before so I had no prior knowledge, this was all brand new to me. English as a subject has never been one of my strong points, therefore I have often struggled with writing different pieces of texts in the past and I wasn't very confident. However, after having everything broken down in the lecture into steps through models it has really shown me how simple reflective writing can be. 

I am going to use this skill in the future with each blog post I will be writing weekly which will help me build my skill level for the big reflective piece we will have to do individually after Easter, as I know at the moment I will not be very good at reflective writing as I have not practiced it.

Teamwork

Throughout the week each member of our team worked individually, we all went away and did our own research on JTI. In today's seminar we brought together the research we had done, this has gave us a much better insight on JTI as each of us had different information which when brought together gave us a rounded idea of what JTI's purpose/message is and how they operate successfully. Once we had gathered all our information we then used this to create a set of questions for Chloe to ask her dad about the business in general, his role on a day to day basis and any technological problems he may face, specifically communication due to the distance for an international company like JTI. Once we have the answers to the question, we will be given an idea to the depth of the company internally, be able to understand what problems they face and whether these problems are on a big scale for the company. 

As we do not yet know the exact problems the company is facing we cannot designate roles and begin to think of solutions; for the moment no one has a specific role except from Chloe as she has to take questions to her dad, which she will do throughout the week, and then relay the information back to the rest of the group in next weeks seminar. During next weeks seminar is when we will begin to decide on roles and split our group up as by then we will know exactly what problems we need to try and solve and we can begin to go onto the next step in our group project. 

Week 1

Reflection

In the lecture and the seminar there wasn't much to reflect on as it was very much an introduction to the module where everything was outlined for us; how the lecture and seminars are going to run, how coursework will be marked and the deadline dates for example.


In the seminar we learnt how to create a blog account so we can post here every week at the end of each seminar. Before this we chose our groups for the coursework project then used the time to begin a plan for the project as well as choosing a name for our group and what company we would base our work on.

Teamwork

For the first seminar we have created a team of 4, which consists of myself, Chloe, Keelan and Jess. Our group name is Kinetic Consultancy; the business we have chosen to work with is JTI, short for Japan Tobacco International, as Chloe's dad is a regional manager for this company so he has a high position within the company while also being someone who is willing to open up about the company and its potential problems, in order to help us with this project.

We have also set out a plan for the timings of each section of content to ensure that we can finish this project on time while keeping a high standard of work. We have set 1 week to introduce ourselves to the business case which means for this next week we will all be doing our own research on the company so we understand the company, its objectives and what its purpose is.

After this we will have 3 weeks to identify problems of the company, which will include meeting with Chloe's dad to interview him on the business. Prior to this we will meet as a group ourselves so we can plan together what questions we want to ask, this will ensure we are getting the most important information we need and we are using the time we have with Chloe's dad effectively.

Then we have set ourselves a further 3 weeks to suggest possible solutions and how they would solve the business, as well as 3 weeks after that to propose and justify our groups ideal solutions along with our expected outcomes from the solutions. This final step will be where we make the video presentation. We haven't planned these last two steps into much detail yet as they're the final two steps, we want to find out the problems of the business and how deep these problems may be before properly deciding how long and how often to meet to think of suitable solutions.