My Dream Job A Business Manager Cultural Studies Essay

Personal qualities are the one of the key elements of employability .They are actually the real aspect of humans character. They are important for an employee to fulfill the requirements of the superior and the company.Especially in the communication of business.It is good for one to know his/her personal qualities so that one will know his own strength and weaknesses.A person with a huge range of personal qualities will be able to cope with people in the organization and become more successful in his career.In the development of a company,it will need bunch of people with good personal qualities to work together to create a perfect environment where everyone works happily.Different jobs will require different personal qualities because they have the different job scopes.Employees will select the new employees based on the personal qualities.So,personal qualities can also be defined as one of the qualification for the jobs that we apply for.

My dream job- A business manager

My dream job is to become a business manager.To fulfil the requirements of my dream job,I will need a lot of effort,hard work and also the personal qualities to make myself qualify for the job.As stated in ‘The practice of management’ (Drucker, Peter F.),2004,p3,the manager is defined as the dynamic,life-giving element in every business.Without it’s leadership the “resources of production” remain resources and never become production.The role of a business manager is actually to observe and oversee the activities of the workers and make sure the operation runs smoothly to increase the productivity and the effectiveness of the workers.The business manager job is very challenging that it needs plenty of important personal qualities to help the company to improve the production.

Personal Qualities for a Business Manager

Be courageous

A Business Manager will have to be courageous to take calculated risks,believe in what he is doing stick in his guns.He should be brave to take up challenges and always be ready to accept new challenges so that problems can be solved as fast as possible and become an inspirational leader to the team.Besides that,I can learn how to cope with stress and new duties to be completed.I need to make my sub-ordinates to have a people that is dependable.

Effective Communication

Business Manager need to employ effective verbal and non verbal communication.He should use clear and concise communication with everyone.It should be preferably be devoid of jargon and complex terminology.How well a manager passes on information and instructions for easy understanding of others is of paramount importance for his success.I will need to receive the messages from the superior and precisely transfer them to my colleagues.I will also need to understand the feedbacks from the sub-ordinates and try to figure out all of them.

Self-motivation

Self motivation is very important for a business manager in both internally and externally so he will be able motivate all his/her sub-coordinates as well.On the other hand,it is also important for the personal growth where this will also increase the productivity and overall efficiency of a team of people.Business manager has to solve many problems that occur to the people that he manages.A business manager will always think how to archieve the company’s goal.I will try to motivate myself and try to solve all the problems before going to my superior.

Leadership skills

3.4.1 A business manager must know how to lead all his team members effectively,so that he can always guide all his sub-ordinates since the he plays a very important role in a organization.He will need to encourage all the employees in the organization to be more productive at the workplace.He has to show confidence to the team members so that they will have the trust on the leader and this is the way to communicate with the employees to understand and solve the problems that they face.This will definitely increase the productivity and efficiency of work.

3.5 Decisive

3.5.1 I need to make a decision precisely in a short time.I will also need to become a good decision maker.As a business manager there are many things that I will need to handle and make decision for the issues of the employees of the company and also in my life.I need to lead all my team members to the right direction so that it will build trust between me and the team members to work more effective and strengthen the bond between me and my colleagues.All the decisions I make must be fair and I will need to use the problem solving skills to solve some of the issues and brainstorm for more solutions before making any decision.

3.6 Responsible

3.6.1 I have pay responsible in the growth and the development of my company.I have to organize all my team members according to their abilities and make sure that they do their part.In order to archieve the company’s goals,I will need to make sure the operations of the company run smoothly and try to improve the interest of my colleagues in their work.I will have to get my duties done before the deadlines.Besides that a business manager will also have to build a positive and comfortable environment so that the employees of the company work happily and this will definitely improve the productivity.

3.7 Be punctual

3.7.1 As the business manager,I need to be punctual in meetings and to work not only to show the good behaviors to the colleagues but also to help in my personal growth and development in my life.A business manager need to manage his staffs,so he need to be punctual and reach the workplace before all his sub-ordinates reach.By being punctual,I can train myself to become a more productive person and increase the professionalism of myself.

3.8 Self-confidence

3.8.1 A business manager,I need to have self-confidence so that the sub-ordinates will listen and trust me and this will makes my job easier.I can easily get the co-operation from the employees.This can reduce conflicts and misunderstanding when all the staffs respect me as a manager when I have high confidence in myself to manage them with my experience and skills.Things will definitely go smoother when I have self confidence.

4.0 Conclusion

All things considered,a successful business manager will need to have all the personal qualities .If a business manager is lack of leadership skills,time management skills and also confidence,he will not be able to take up the position.Employers will look for people who can increase the productivity and effectiveness in a team to work for them so that they can archieve their goals effectively in a short time.Personal qualities influence most of the things in a position.Without the personal qualities,a business manager will not be able to manage the team well.Thus,a person will have to qualify with all the personal qualities before going to a job interview.It is very important to understand the personal qualities of himself for personal development.

Questions that I have asked

What is one personal quality that you think you are different from other business manager?

How you manage to convince your sub-ordinates to listen to what you say?

Describe how you helped your sub-ordinates to solve a problem.What did you do?

What is the procedure when you deal with problems with the attitude of the workers?

Did you ever come late to work?

Describe about a goal that you set for yourself in your work?

Are you able to take up new challenges?

Describe the processes of a major project that you handled in your company?

The person that I have interviewed

Name : Tham Fook Ming

Position : Business Manager

Company : Daisan Enterprise

Relationship : Uncle

Name : Yip Weng Long

Position : Business Manager

Company : Yokohama Batteries Sdn.Bhd

Relationship : Uncle

Name : Teoh Meng Kwan

Position : Manager

Company : Hup Heng Motors Sdn Bhd

Relationship : Cousin

Definition of conflict

A conflict can be both good and bad. According to the book “The business communication handbook”. 6th ed. Julie Catalano, p.240.(2003) by Judith D, a conflict occurs whenever two people,teams or groups have different wants or goals and one party interferes with the other’s attempts to satisfy these.Differences in the way people interpret facts,differences in values, and the various ways people take action to satisfy their wants and needs can all cause conflict.

The conflict happened to myself

The conflict I have been involved is a relationship conflict happened to me and my girlfriend. We argued because of that she refuse to look for a job after her SPM examinations. She prefers to stay at home rather than going to look for a short term job so that she can learn something new to get some experience.

The primary sources of my conflict

3.1 Bad attitude of her

The primary source for my conflict is that her bad attitude that makes her to have this conflict with me. She is so stubborn that she will never listen or even analyze what other people advice her to do. I have been advising her for nearly two months so that she will get a part time job to spend her time. Every time we quarrel about this quarrel and ended up nothing. She complains that she feel boring when she stays at home but she refuse to get a job and she doesn’t know how to use and manage her time wisely. She always says that she wants to enjoy first before taking any courses. When I give advice to her, she will keep on telling me that her parents didn’t say anything when she just stay at home without doing anything and not going out to work.

3.2 Lack of understanding between each other

We don’t really understand each other although we have been together for a couple of months. Maybe I don’t understand her deep enough and also how she thinks and reacts. Sometimes we might be confused of what the partner thinks and wants. This also related to our communication problem where sometimes what she hears is different from my original intention. This will also lead to the misunderstanding in this relationship. We have problems in communicating because she supports only her own opinion and not the advice by the people who have more experience. She will never try to understand my feelings although I do always share my thoughts and feelings with her. She always agrees with her own opinion.

3.3 Different Perspectives and background

What she thinks is totally different with me since we have a different background as I come from poor family and while she is from wealthy family. In some situations we might see things in a different way. Her parents spoiled her by giving everything she wants because they have only one daughter and one son so, she loves to blame. Before she do something that will destroy our relationship, she will never think about the effects to me and she is just being selfish and do what she thinks will make her happy. Most of our ideas are different maybe because of that she is still young and has limited ability to think in more perspectives. She will follow her friends’ idea when too many friends suggest the same thing.

Feedbacks from the other party

She agreed with the primary sources stated above as she understands her own attitude and behavior. She did complain that we have communication problem as we often argue for a small matter. Every time after we argue, we found that we still can’t solve the issue. Although she doesn’t like my advice but then sometimes she realize that she is wrong.

Secondary sources of the conflict

Peer influence

As she is still a teenager, she can easily be influenced by her friends where her friends have the same background as her. She will do what her friends say because she thinks that what they say is right. They always ask her to hang out in the middle of the night. She will still hang out with her friend without me. Although I told her that this could be dangerous, she never try to listen to me.

Different Expectations

The life she wants now is to enjoy every day without doing a single thing while what I want is to concentrate on my studies as I need to have some better achievements to show her parents that I can work something out. What she expects is to have a life as a rich girl and I just can’t afford to spend her all those expensive stuff. I always tell her that I am not a rich guy and I can’t give you most of the things you want now, she will tell me that she won’t bother about that and after a few days she told me that she is a very materialistic person and I can see it. What she wants are all high expectations items which I don’t think I can give her.

Raising Problems

She always complains that I don’t want to spend some time with her. In fact I was so busy with assignments and projects and how could I spend my time with her when there are so many assignments to be done in just a few days. I happened to be in a scenario where I promised to hang out with her and suddenly something happened in my family and I tell her that I couldn’t make it, she didn’t even bother about me and scolded me that I broke my promise. She just mad at me and she stopped talking to me for a few days. She will never try to understand the problem and think positively before making any decisions.

Approaching the conflict

At the end, I know that both of us will need to approach the conflict no matter what. I asked her out and we talk about what both of us want and need. With the positive thinking we both listen to each other and accept the fact that actually both of us have mistakes in the conflict as this relationship involve of not only one person but both must pay responsible when problem arises. We sat down and started to accept the ideas by each other and analyze the problem with multiple solutions and choose the best solution for our conflict. She decided to listen to my advice and slowly change some of her bad attitude. After choosing the right solution and finally the conflict is solved.

Importance of a brand name

A brand is the identity and the image of the company that will help in attracting customers and marketing strategy. A brand name is important for consumers to identify the product, services and its producer also a promise to the customers and also makes advertising easier. Smart branding allowed the company to clearly communicate a change in direction while continuing to build its reputation.Branding also gives reasons why consumers choose the brand over all the other competitors.Consumers will always remember the name for a particular product or services.For example,when consumers think of carbonated drinks the first thing they that will come across is Pepsi and Coke.A better name can convince consumers purchase and decision making.The objective of a business can also be easily clarified by the brand name.When a brand is easy to be remembered it can be spread easily by a consumer to another consumer.A brand name can affect the sales performance of a company if the name is not suitable for the product or services that a particular company provides.

The Proposal

Proposal on Changing of the Product Name

To : Mr. Jason Dalz ( President )

Mr. Michael John ( Managing Director )

Mr. Justin Bryan ( Chief Executive Officer )

Date : 25th March 2013

Subject : Proposal on Changing our Cereal’s Product Name

Regarding the subject above, as a product manager I would like to change the name of the cereal. I believe that this will give consumers a brand new image and also will attract more customers where this will increase the sales of our products.

Statement of the Problem

For the past 3 years, the cereal sales of our company is decreasing.Therefore,an official meeting was held on the 13th of March with the sales team to identify the problem and we found that the actual profit do not meet the minimum profit estimation.

Sales for the ‘Prohealth’ cereal for the year 2011-2012

Year

Earnings ( Thousands)

2010

$450

2011

$400

2012

$ 320

The sales performance for the cereal brand named ‘ProHealth’

Analysis of the Problem

We did a research to identify the main problem where we have distributed survey forms to investigate the main cause of the problem.As a result, we found that the main cause of the sales drop is because of the brand name of our cereal product.The feedback from the customers shows that the brand name ‘Prohealth’ actually sounds more like health products than cereal to a large amount of customers and because of that they seldom pay attention to our products.In addition to that, they also think that the packaging of our products is not attractive as the picture on the box showed a women with a bowl of milk.In fact, it does not look like a cereal product. From the customers feedback, some of the customers recommended us to rebrand the product with a new name and a brand new packaging as the t packaging for ‘Prohealth’ can only attract customers mainly aged between 60-69 we will need to attract younger consumers to consume our products.The name ‘Prohealth’ can never attract attention and it will never satisfy customers expectations.

The packaging for the two products:

The Packaging for ‘ProHealth’

The Packaging for ‘Cerealize’

Questionnaire

What attributes are seen from this ‘Prohealth’ cereal?

Will you buy a product named ‘Prohealth’?

Does the packaging looks attractive to you? If NO please state why?

How satisfied are you with the usage experience of ‘ProHealth’ products?

Overall , are you satisfied with ‘Prohealth’

Is there any aspect that you think ‘Prohealth’ needs improvement?

Do you think the name ‘Prohealth’ is suitable for this cereal product ? If NO please state why ? Please give suggestion on the name that is suitable.

The market research report is as follows:

Market Research on preference of the two new brand names (‘000)

Age

10-19

20-29

30-39

40-49

50-59

60-69

70+

Brand Name

ProHealth

8

4

5

3

7

15

5

Cerealize

12

9

11

6

4

19

7

(Preference of consumers to the two brand names)

Survey Form

Name :

Age :

Which one do you think is the best name for our cereal product? Please tick and state why you dislike the other name.

ProHealth

Cerealize

Reasons why you dislike the other

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Solutions

From the market research, we found that a new name for the cereal product will definitely show a brand new image to our customers. Customers would always expect the appearance of something new that they can have. From the research, some customers gave feedback on the name of our cereal product and some suggestions on the new name are given. A brand name is important attract customers and to affect the decision making of the consumers. The new name ‘Cerealize’ is given by one of the customers after careful consideration that we pick from the list of selection of the new name.After a discussion with the marketing department, we found out a name that is suitable to become the new brand name of our cereal products which is the ‘Cerealize’ where customers will have a clearer picture of what our products are about and what we produce. Once they see the word ‘cereal’, they will have an idea on their mind stating that this is a type of cereal product and the word ‘lize’ brings a meaning specialize where to show the consumers that our company is specialized in producing healthy cereals to the consumers. As the brand name is simple, consumers can easily recommend it to their friends. On the other hand, the packaging also should be changed as the illustration is not attractive. If they put a picture of some superheroes or cartoons on the box, this will attract kids to pay attention on our products and definitely they will convince their parents to buy it.This will help in widen the range consumers that we target. Hence, the sales of our cereal products will increase as the number of consumers increase.

Conclusion

In retrospect, the new name and a new packaging will definitely increase the sales of our products. It gives customers a new impression of our products and this name is suggested by one of the consumers. Besides that, it can also widen the range of consumers who consume our products. We can show a good image to the customers where we consider all the suggestion and feedbacks from the customers. Hence, this will build more credibility and the trust between the consumers and our company. After changing the name from ‘ProHealth’ to ‘Cerealize’ and the packaging of our products, I believe that our products will be more special than other cereal brands. I hope that you will consider adopting this idea of changing the name on the brand of cereal as this is the way to keep the good reputation of our company and to increase the sales performance of our company.

Prepared by,

____YONG____

( Yong Jun Keat)

Product Manager