PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT'S E-PORTFOLIO
On 6TH December 2014, my course mates and I have attended the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards organised by Entrepreneurs’ Organisation from 8 in the morning to 3 in the evening, which was being held at our own university. Entrepreneurs’ Organisation is the only worldwide network for entrepreneurs, and it helps them learn and grow through peer-to-peer learning, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and connections with experts. In addition, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards is a worldwide competition for students who are running their own businesses, and it gives opportunities to them to make connections, find resources, and expand their businesses as nominees compete with each other around the world to win capital and sponsorships.
There were five groups of student(s) that made it for the finals of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards at national stage, but Entrepreneurs’ Organisation will only be sending the top three groups from Malaysia for the global competition. Therefore, all of the groups have presented their businesses the best they could to a few respected judges in order to secure themselves a ticket to the global competition, which will be held in Washington, DC, USA around April this year.
Apart from that, we also had the opportunity to watch a live interview between two students and 4 successful entrepreneurs, and these include Mr. George, Ms. Mac, Mr. Sharan, and Ms. Jazz. Mr. George is the CEO of Revenue Valley Sdn. Bhd. that operates The Manhattan Fish Market, Tony Roma’s and Popeye’s in Malaysia, while Ms. Mac is the CEO of Nandos in both Malaysia and Singapore, whereas Mr. Sharan is the CEO of The Valiram Group, and Ms. Jazz is the CEO of the website called Youth’s Today, and she was also the winner of EO GSEA in 2011/2012. The most memorable part of the interview was when an audience asked Mr. George whether is it a good idea to hire family members or relatives to work for you, and Mr. George responded by saying “No, never hire someone you can’t fire.”, and what he said made me realise that what he said is true because it will be hard for you to work with someone who you can’t fire even though they are doing the wrong thing or so. Plus, attending this event made me really motivated to be better entrepreneur than four of these successful entrepreneurs in the future, and also made me feel that I should also join this respected global competition as I am also operating my own online business now through InstaGram and renting booths during the weekends, and it is called The Beauty & Fashion Library.
About two weeks later, I had to submit my individual assignment, which weight 15% of my total grade, meaning that it is definitely important and that I had to do it very seriously. Since we had to write about the duties and responsibilities of a manager, along with their problems and solutions, I did a research on what I was supposed to write about before starting it so that I know what I can write for this particular assignment. Not only that, but I have also applied some theories and concepts that Ms. Manmeet have taught me in both lectures and tutorials, which were really helpful and helped me earn 14% for this assignment.
A month after submitting my individual assignment, me and five other course mates had to submit our group assignment, which weight 25%, where we needed to create a scrapbook on a local business, and we have decided to use Yogen Fruz as our company of choice as one of our group members own Yogen Fruz. Therefore, it would be a lot easier for us to get the facts and details about the company. Our group leader has assigned equal work for all of our group members to do, and I was responsible for completing the function of the outlet manager, where I believe I have done it really well, so my group members and I are really hoping that we would get high marks for this particular assignment as all of us had put a lot of our effort to ensure that our assignment would be exactly what our teacher wants.
Just recently, I have also attended the Professional Development Activity, which took place on a Saturday. For the purpose of this event, we had to form a group and participate in some teambuilding activities, such as Dodgeball, Treasure Hunt and a few other activities. There were five games in total, and my group was the champion for three games, which secure us a point of ninety in total. But unfortunately, we only got 2ND place as we lost points in two games. Nonetheless, it was definitely a great experience for all of us to be closer to each other and to work together as a team, and we also shared what we won together as a team.
Overall, being a student in this module was definitely very useful for me as I am planning to take Business Management for my degree soon. Not to forget, my lecturer, Ms. Manmeet, is a really good teacher too because she explains the syllabus perfectly to me, and if I do not understand something, she will explain it to me until I get it, plus she is also a very patient lecturer as she can still handle our class even when we get out of control, and for that I have a really high respect for her. I really hope I will do well and get an A in my final exam for this module to repay Ms. Manmeet for being a great lecturer to me.
