2020
Portfolio GRTB
Table of Contents
CITM3-GRTB-01
HOUTEPEN, RAFAËL (182515)
VERMEULEN, GERT JAN
3CITM-TB-03.P1
9/10/2020
Chapter 1: Self-reflection..................................................................................................2
,Chapter 2: Individual Assignments....................................................................................6
2.1 SWOT:...................................................................................................................................6
Reflection previous years:............................................................................................................................6
Reflection entrepreneurial mindset:............................................................................................................7
Description myself after TB:.........................................................................................................................8
Tourism employees:.....................................................................................................................................9
Skills to learn:...............................................................................................................................................9
2.2 Project Plan:.......................................................................................................................10
1. Situational sketch and background of the project.................................................................10
2. Project Assignment...............................................................................................................11
3. Risk analysis..........................................................................................................................11
4. Structure of the project........................................................................................................12
2.2.1 Initiation phase.................................................................................................................................12
2.2.2 Definition phase...............................................................................................................................12
2.2.3 Design phase.....................................................................................................................................14
2.2.4 Development phase.........................................................................................................................16
2.2.5 Implementation phase.....................................................................................................................18
2.2.6 Follow-up phase...............................................................................................................................20
2.3 Conflicts on the working floor:............................................................................................23
Position general conflicts on the working floor:........................................................................................23
2.4 Business Model Canvas:......................................................................................................25
The Business Model Canvas:......................................................................................................................25
Polarsteps:..................................................................................................................................................26
Advice & improvements:............................................................................................................................26
The new BMC of Polarsteps:......................................................................................................................27
2.5 Lean management:.............................................................................................................28
Lean Management in the tourism industry:..............................................................................................28
Check-in process ‘T Hart van Breda:...........................................................................................................29
Food serving process ‘T Hart van Breda:....................................................................................................30
2.6 Cross-cultural management:...............................................................................................31
Importance cross-cultural understanding..................................................................................................31
Hofstede's theory in businesses.................................................................................................................31
Dutch culture with Hofstede......................................................................................................................32
Own professional behaviour......................................................................................................................33
Critical cross-cultural situations.................................................................................................................33
Disadvantages of Hofstede.........................................................................................................................33
Appendix I: Weekly Reflections.......................................................................................34
Self-reflection week 1:..............................................................................................................34
Self-reflection week 2:..............................................................................................................35
Self-reflection week 3:..............................................................................................................36
Self-reflection week 4:..............................................................................................................37
Self-reflection week 5:..............................................................................................................38
Bibliography...................................................................................................................39
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,Chapter 1: Self-reflection
Looking back and evaluating the past 5 weeks of the module Get Ready Tourism Business is
quite interesting to do, because this is going to show the exact progress that I made from
the beginning until the end. Therefore, the self-reflection will start from week 1 and will
then be followed up by the other weeks until week 5. In this self-reflection I will not go in
depth on the assignments since they are all included in chapter 2. Therefore, I will keep it
short and simple on what new content I have learned, new skills have obtained, what went
wrong and looking on the future. Furthermore, in Appendix I all the weekly reflections can
be found, since those are input regarding my evidence what I have learned at that specific
week of the whole module.
In the first week of this module all the assignments were the be conducted individual and it
was about yourself and the entrepreneurial mindset. The new content that I have learned
this week started with creating a project plan by making use of the waterfall method. This
was a lot of work, because I never had worked with project plans before and I have never
heard of the waterfall method. Therefore, I have to research a lot about it, but in the end I
actually learned a new skill by being able to use this project plan. This will come become a
key factor when operating in a business, because by applying this plan there will be
structure and overview. In addition, the project will be led in the best possible direction
and it can be monitored easily.
Furthermore, the second assignment was about creating a personal SWOT analysis in
which I had to reflect on the previous years. In addition, this assignment also included the
basics of an entrepreneurial mindset in which I needed to look and plan in the future.
Therefore, this assignment has taught me how an entrepreneurial mindset should look like
and the skill of planning in the future & reflecting on the past. This was pleasant to do
because this gave me inspiration regarding becoming an entrepreneur in the future and it
was nice to reflect on previous accomplishment. Therefore, this is going to help my priority
of creating an own business. This is due to the fact if you want to start up an own company
the mindset of an entrepreneur is needed in order to be successful.
One of my long-term goals which I shaped after the assignment of the personal SWOT is to
start-up my own company after my graduation and possibly a few years of working in the
tourism industry. My plan of achieving this goal is travel around the world when I am
graduated from the BUAS. During this trip around the world I will bring my laptop on which
I can work out all the plans and parts that I am going to need to start-up a business. I think
this can be perfectly combined with travelling around the world, because when I am
travelling I can clear my mind and I can be very creative during travelling. To start up my
own business will be a challenge, however due to the Tourism Business track that I have
chosen, I will exactly know how to do this and how to operate this business. Therefore,
when I come back home again after travelling the world I have the perfect plan to create
and operate my business which I am going to expand and innovate each year. In addition, if
this business does not operate well in the beginning, I will start working as a manager in a
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,tourism company where I can get extra knowledge how to improve my side hustle and
eventually grow that into my full-time company.
Furthermore, this long-term goal has some short-term goals in it. One of those goals is to
use my graduation project as a basis to start up a business, since I can still receive feedback
from the experts working on the BUAS in order to complete my business plan. Therefore, I
will already have a basis for creating start-up businesses before I am going to travel around
the world and finalize business plans into real operating businesses.
Since this was the starting week of new year and modules, I found it hard to motivate
myself to finish everything in time, because I was quite a busy week already for the starting
week. This was due to the fact that all assignments were individual and I needed to realize
that holidays were over. Therefore, I want to improve my planning skills and discipline
myself more in order to finish those assignments.
In the second week we had to conduct a classroom debate about generational conflicts on
the work floor in a group. The new content that I have learned was about characteristics of
different generations and the conflicts that could arise at the workplace. Therefore, we as
a group had to conduct research in order to create valid arguments to convince the
opposition of the debate. Therefore, the skill that I have learned by doing this, is to create
valid arguments and which methods you could use in order to be more convincing. For
example, by referring to recent and valid sources which indicate a research or report.
This debate went excellent for our group, because after the 1st round everyone voted for
my team and also the 2nd round all votes were on us. Therefore, we easily have won the
debate about different generations at work can actually create an inspiring working place.
These skills of debating and argumentation is going to be very helpful in future, because
later at work in meetings you need to be able to convince your colleague of your ideas. In
addition, you will also need to be able to convince investors with arguments in order for
them to invest in your own company or ideas.
In this week my time management and planning went perfectly, since everything was
finished in time and I even had time left for leisure activities. In addition, my discipline got
back on track regarding starting on assignments and finishing them. Therefore, I have
already grown in skills of planning and discipline when comparing with week 1. During this
week there were also no other problems that I have encountered.
This subject has changed my ability to interact with others, because I have learned that
generations have different motivation factors, values and needs. Therefore, if I look
towards the future where I am possibly a manager, I would interact differently with baby
boomers than generation-y. For example, baby boomers are inspired differently than
generation-y, if this is done incorrectly, then the working place will become uninspiring for
both. Therefore, this week changed my mindset and feelings of a professional.
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,In the third week we had to give a pitch about polarsteps and its business model canvas in
a group. The content that I have learned this week was about the BMC and its 9 building
blocks. Therefore, we had to apply this BMC to a start-up company and we as a group had
chosen Polarsteps. In which we had to create their already existing BMC, then had to come
up with improvements & recommendations and then create a new improved BMC. Based
on the work we had done, a pitch had to be given in order to convince Polarsteps to
improve those specific building blocks in their BMC. The skills that I have learned of this
week are creating & presenting a pitch and producing a BMC. This is going to be extremely
helpful with regard to my plan to create a company myself later in which I am definitely
going to use the BMC. Due to the fact, that it gives a clear overview of all the important
matters in a business and it can be seen clearly on which points your company can
improve. In addition, knowing how exactly to pitch an idea is going to be very helpful when
trying to convince investors.
Since, I already had some knowledge about the BMC, due to block 6 of last year R&H, it
went quite easy for me regarding the BMC. However, the pitch could have been shorter,
since we exceeded the 5 minutes. Therefore, time management need to be improved in
next pitches, since a short amount time is a vital aspect of pitches.
In the fourth week we had to give recommendations on a business process by making use
of the Gemba walk method as a group. The knowledge that I obtained this week was about
performing a Gemba walk in order to be able to draw concussions on what to improve in a
process. Therefore, the first step that has been learned this week is to use the Gemba Walk
and observe a process. After observing knowledge is needed of lean management in order
to improve the process and eliminate waste. For me it is very important to know this,
because when you are an owner or manager of a company you need to be able to see
waste and come up with improvements for processes. Therefore, the skill that I have
learned this week are observing processes with use of a Gemba walk and I have refreshed
my presentation skills, since we had to give a presentation again. This presentation was
about the results we drew from our Gemba walk including recommendations for the
business processes.
Furthermore, in the individual part of this week it was asked to create flowcharts. This
knowledge was not new for me, since I have had it with SMOR in the previous year.
Therefore, I still knew how to create flowcharts and I even upgrades the simple flowchart
into a swim lane chart, since I enjoy creating those for business processes. Those
flowcharts gave a clear overview of the waste parts in the processes. Therefore, it could be
easily seen which points could be improved in the processes in order to eliminate waste
and create more value for the customers.
During this week we had to meet up with the team in Breda to perform the Gemba walk.
However, this did not go very well because it was hard to find each other in the city since
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, we were all spread out. Therefore, this had cost us some time which resulted in less time
to observe the business processes at ‘T hart van Breda. However, we still had enough time
to finish our Gemba walk, but not enough time work on the presentation and conclusions.
Therefore, we had to meet again the next day to finish up the improvements and
presentation. Furthermore, the presentation went perfect, since everyone was satisfied
and we were able to answer all questions that our audience had for us.
In the fifth week the assignment had to be conducted individually again. This was about
cross-cultural understanding in which I had to create a paper with how my cultural and
social identity is influencing my professional behaviour. This week had me brought
knowledge about Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, which was needed in order to explore
your own cultural identity. Therefore, I obtained the skill of reflecting on my own cultural
identity, which can indicate why I react or communicate in a certain way. In addition, this
also taught me the skill to communicate with other cultures that have different dimensions
in Hofstede’s tool. Therefore, I now able to understand different cross-cultural situations
that will be caused if people have cultures with different assumptions and believes.
Those cross-cultural situations might show up during my future career in the tourism
sector. Therefore, Hofstede’s method will come in very handy regarding different countries
that have different company cultures. It is important to pay attention to those different
cultures, because this could indicate that some cultures work completely different than
yours. Therefore, you should adapt and show empathy in order to have an as fluent
cooperation as possible with international businesses and people. This is especially
important in the tourism sector because in the future it is guaranteed you have to work
with different cultures and companies from all over the world.
In class we had a discussion about different cross-cultural situations on the work floor,
which inspired my individual paper with some new insights. Furthermore, this week has
changed my feelings and values towards other cultures, because now I feel like I am more
capable of understanding other opinions. Especially from other countries, since they have
completely different cultures with other assumptions, etc. Therefore, I can show more
empathy and I also value their other ways of thinking.
To conclude, this module have brought me a lot of insight how to become an entrepreneur
and start-up your own business. It starts with having the mindset of an entrepreneur in
order to be able to think of business ideas and investing. Then a BMC is needed in order to
start-up a business and have a clear overview on what the company is build upon.
Therefore, in order to operate the business a project plan is needed to fulfil invoices from
clients. However, business processes can always be improved by applying lean
management and observing by making use of Gemba walk. In addition, employees of an
international company need to be inspired and understood, therefore knowledge was
needed of cross-cultures and different generations.
Looking at the future of my career my plan would be to graduate from the BUAS with a
graduation project regarding starting up an own business. From that project I will continue
operating and growing that business, however next to that side hustle I want to start
working in a tourism related company, for example at my internship or another travel
agency company. I think it is important to obtain knowledge from the real business world
in order to make your own business successful, since the real world is different from the
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