b. What you learned as an individual :

• from the experience of using a construction management simulation (Enginuity)
• from working in a team to complete weekly decisions

Answer:

Assessment of the performance of the company

A new management team took over the leadership of the company in period ... at that time, the working was at some point, despite having some areas which needed some improvement. Some of the attributes of the company at that particular period has been articulated in the appendix below.

Mission statement

The management team came up with the following mission statement in its bid to showcase the potential client what the companies do and the strategic plan of ensuring that the laid down objective s are achieved (Amit & Schoemaker, 2014)  

As means of determining the performance as well as attaining the mission statement, the management team came up with a set of objectives and aims together with an appraisal of whether they aims were attained or not which have been
illustrated in the appendix below.

Company strategy

Job progression

When it comes to job progression, the plan was to develop a good relationship with the client and this was to be achieved by completing the task early enough and on time.  While doing the assessment of the requirements of the staff, the management team unceasingly overmanned the early periods by the over naming limits which was dedicated to every sector. The figure below illustrates this since our group has always been at the front when it comes to the completion of tasks.  Additionally, our team aimed at procuring expertise in the management sector a defined their levels in regards to theory expected salary pay. When this was being done, there are some values which were accorded strong considerations such as respect, obedience, commitments among others (Ansoff, 2010).

Financial management and company growth

Capital base

Our management team had earlier on invested in capital investment since it was our belief that it was one of the best ways to ensure the growth of our company.  Conversely, as time elapsed, our team managed to realize that the decision we made earlier on did not include some aspects, for instance, the ways in which we would manage the debt as well as how the finance would be used in effective financial management. As shown in the appendix below, this strategy worked since it led to the success of the company.   Besides, in the 7 months, all did not go well as expected since there were some factors which resulted in the decline of the company’s growth (Ansoff, 2013).

Investment

The company did not have enough amount with regards to the finances which they could invest in other companies. Despite this, some commendable returns were obtained from the investments though there was the feeling that our team did not realize the benefits to full potential. For instance, a bigger investment would ordinarily take a minimum of $ 40000 to obtain cost reductions of averagely 0.8% together with 25% in the risk costs. Each period is permitted an investment of $ 200000.  

Shareholders

Ordinarily, it is of great significance to ensure that there is a good relationship with the shareholders. Besides, whenever a company is said to be progressing, then some key factors that are reflected in are the share price of the company. Our team managed to at least pay some small dividend to the shareholders though it resulted in a negative impact mostly on the share price (Burgelman & Wheelwright, 2011)

Job procurement

Job selection

 Our team mostly focused on clients who had the objective of ensuring that the team would progress to greater heights. This majorly was focused towards ensuring that the relationships with the clients are good and maintained (Burgelman & Wheelwright, 2011)

Overhead management

Marketing staff

Since one of the objectives of the company was to prequalify the work. The plan was to increase the number of the staff from 20 to 24 this was then revised in the period ... when there was a significant increase in the marketing (Freeman, 2010).

 Head office and management staff

A more in-depth and keen approach was required to assess the levels of the staff in the measurement departments as well as the head office. An inclusive methodology had to be developed which has been illustrated below.

Reflection

Reflection on the management performance

The composition of the management team played a various significant role in the decision making part of the project (Venkatraman, 2015).  The team had at least 6 individuals from various countries and not everyone was on the same level of expertise.   This seemed to be an uphill task initially, but surprisingly, the team managed to sit down and ensure that there was harmony in terms of the various platforms that we engaged. Generally, effective communication is what aided this. A divisional type of structure was used in order to make effective decisions for the various sectors of the company.  This structure applies the standardization of output as its chief coordinating mechanism (Lumpkin & Dess, 2016)

Reflection on simulated management

Apparently, there are various types of construction company management software’s which are present in the market.  In my view, I think that the ingenuity software stands out as one of the best management software due to the involvement of some highly technical experts in its management. Besides, its offers presentation of high satisfaction.   Hence, it’s my humble belief that the success of managing a construction company would be easily achieved while working with this software (Schendel & Hofer 2009).

Capital base timing

The timings of an investment are of crucial value to the success of a company.  In our case, in the early years, we did not benefit with a lot of considerations and as the company started to grow, it reached a point that all not was going as had been anticipated thereby the company risked going into loses. We later learned that it would have been of great benefit had we timed the investment decision when there was a surplus in finance in order to reduce the investment cash (Porter, 2011)  

 Investments

Importance of being in a teamwork and actively participating

Personally, I have managed to learn some few lessons with regards to being one of the team members in the project.  For the smooth and effective running of the organization, I have managed to learn that a majority of the organizational activities have become complex as a result of advancement in technology. As earlier stated the team comprised of ... persons who had different personalities and characters. I managed to learn that despite all the members to the team being enthusiastic and really willing to add positive impact to the project, it was clearly evident that some members did put more effort towards the project. Personnel, for instance, when the meetings of the strategic planning commenced, I had a feeling that we could be documenting the minutes down so that we always have a point of reference may be in the coming meetings. I easily managed to persuade the team to buy into this idea, which we did successfully in form of minutes (Priem & Butler, 2011).

Reference:

Ahlstrand, B., Lampel, J., & Mintzberg, H. (2012). Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic Management. Simon and Schuster.

Amit, R., & Schoemaker, P. J. (2014). Strategic assets and organizational rent. Strategic management journal, 14(1), 33-46.

Amit, R., & Schoemaker, P. J. (2015). Strategic assets and organizational rent. Strategic management journal, 14(1), 33-46.

Ansoff, H. I. (2010). Strategic issue management. Strategic management journal, 1(2), 131-148.

Ansoff, H. I. (2013). Strategic issue management. Strategic management journal, 1(2), 131-148.

Burgelman, R. A., Maidique, M. A., & Wheelwright, S. C. (2011). Strategic management of technology and innovation (Vol. 2). Chicago, IL: Irwin.

Freeman, R. E. (2010). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Cambridge university press.

Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (2016). Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance. Academy of Management Review, 21(1), 135-172.

Porter, M. E. (2011). The contributions of industrial organization to strategic management. Academy of management review, 6(4), 609-620.

Priem, R. L., & Butler, J. E. (2011). Is the resource-based “view” a useful perspective for strategic management research?. Academy of management review, 26(1), 22-40.

Schendel, D., & Hofer, C. W. (Eds.). (2009). Strategic management: A new view of business policy and planning. Little, Brown.

Venkatraman, N. (2015). The concept of fit in strategy research: Toward verbal and statistical correspondence. Academy of management review, 14(3), 423-444.