For this assignment the objective for me and my group was to step into the shoes of a digital marketing consultant and analyse a digital marketing campaign of an emerging company. We chose the pharmaceutical industry, and the organisation we agreed to present on was AstraZeneca, who are currently in the spot light for developing the most popular Covid-19 vaccine to date.
For us planning our presentation swiftly was important, therefore we immediately created a group for us to contact each other as easily as possible, via Whatsapp. West (2012) claims for teams to function with effectiveness, everyone in the group must actively review our objectives, and the possible strategies to achieve them. This is because everyone frequently uses Whatsapp in their day to day life, meaning we it was very simple to actively stay up to date with what was being discussed. This therefore let us to discuss our strengths and weaknesses and the skills we had. Allowing us to identify and to apply the best roles and responsibilities suited for one another.
When any of us were stuck we were to consult the group via Whatsapp or message each other individually, for example when I found very useful and important information for AstraZeneca .I was unable to access the website statista.com a member of my team helped me access the website. allowing me to gain access to graphs and data I eventually used in our presentation. with out this use of teamwork I would have been unable to put in quality information for key areas. It goes back to the old saying…
“Team work makes the dream work”- John C. Maxwell (Cited in BrainyQuote, N.D)
Teamwork was key for this assignment as the finished presentation was a sum of all of our efforts. each of us took leadership in certain areas, for example when it came to the colour scheme and presentable style for our presentation I lead with what I thought to be appropriate; the primary colours of the company.
Effective business communication is absolutely key to organising to achieve objectives. (Hynes, 2005 as cited by Conrad & Newberry, N.D). Communication was important for us in this academic year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. this meant that none of our group had actually met each other in person at university, only through video chat in occasional lessons. we needed to stay on top of communication for this reason. Whatsapp and Microsoft teams came in vital for us to talk to one another and share documents. as they virus had everyone at home, international students were back home all across the world. in our group time difference was an issue. however regular check ins in the group made sure were stayed on top of our work.
My personal skills came in useful as i enjoy presenting and creating presentations. i get to show and express my work in non conventional ways like an essay. Therefore I designed the presentation style when everyone uploaded their work and presented my slides enthusiastically. I found my group to be very helpful with another and were honest when it came to expressing their ideas and views towards our assignment rather than being ‘yes men’. It meant our ideas were challenged and discussed more to reach better quality work. If there was one thing I hoped we could have improved, it would have been meeting in person to bring more creativity out of us, however given the nature of the situation I am happy with the way our group and I performed.
References
Conrad, D. and Newberry, R., 24. business communication skills: Attitudes of human resource managers versus business educators. American Communication Journal, 13(1), pp.4-23.
Maxwell, J., n.d. John C. Maxwell Quote. [online] BrainyQuote. Available at: <https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_c_maxwell_600892> [Accessed 2 February 2021].
West, M., 2012. Effective teamwork. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, p.7.