3: Human Resources

Skills required in developing the business

ü  Communication skills

ü  Organisational skills

ü  Financial skills

ü  Marketing skill

ü  Recruitment and Selection skills (HR)

ü  Negotiation skills

ü  ICT skills

Communication skills

Communication skills are very important to run a business as I will have to deal with people from all background based on the types of wedding they have planned. Therefore, by understanding exactly what they want, I will be able to deliver a good service to them. This could also increase demand for my service as if one of my customers understand me well, they could probably share the experience with others.

Organisational skills

For the business to do well, I should be well organised with all my equipment needed. For example I should know where to get the flowers from, where to get the cake from etc. At the same time, I should provide a guidance book to my customers that are well presented and organised so they can choose their wedding venues, honeymoon destination and so on.

Financial skills

Financial skills are very essential to my business, because I will be dealing with weddings thus, I will be getting lots of money to put in different areas e.g. catering, lights. This means that I should control money using a budget to avoid future debts for my wedding planner business. Moreover, I should know to make profit in order to make a successful business and spend that money in effective areas for example employing an assistant to help me out.

Marketing skills

This skill is very important to new businesses as it allows promoting new product/service. It will help me to know where, when and how to advertise my service e.g. how to promote it on TV or newspapers. . I will also get a chance to know who my target audience is. By using good marketing tools, I will be able to have a unique selling point and become more competitive

Recruitment and selection skills (HR)

I will need good recruitment and selection skills to recruit the right people to help me out in my business. Therefore, they should have appropriate qualification in wedding planning in order to make a successful business. By having the right candidate to help me, I will be able to provide a good customer service. Even though, I will not employing lots of candidate, I should make sure that the one selection is worth the job.

Negotiation skills

This skill will allow me to negotiate with customers in situations where they will have to choose one venues from 50s of them. Therefore, I will be telling them which one is appropriate based on their budget. For this reason I should know how to liaise with them and get them to agree on one thing.

ICT skills

ICT skills is very essential for business as it allow them to provide them product and services online, allow them to edit information etc. in my case, I will be using IT skills to sell my service online, put pictures and videos about wedding venues and I will also be using Excel to budget my business.

My skills audit: level 1(bad) to level 3 (good) – these are the skills I possess.

Skills	Skills level
Communication skills	3
Organisational skills	3
Financial skills	3
Marketing skills	2
Recruitment and selection skills (HR)	2
Negotiation skills	2
ICT skills	3
Customer service	3
Decision making skills	2

My strengths

Looking at my skills audit, I see that my strengths are Communication, Organisational, Financial and Customer Service skills. Therefore, my Communicational skills will help me to communicate with people from different cultures and will allow me to know what exactly they are expected form me. At the same time, my financial skills along with my ICT skills will help me to design a budget to control my inflows and outflows. Also, by using Financial and Marketing skills, I will be able to identity my market trends (competitors), know how to price my service and how to promote it effectively. In addition to that, my Customer Service skills will assist me to deal with my client well. In other words, if I satisfy them, they will come back for their friends and families meaning more demand for my business.

My weaknesses

Based on my skills audit, I can see that my weaknesses are HR and Marketing skills. This is because these are not my strong points therefore; I will have to go through a training process. At the same time, I find it difficult to act quickly and make decisions to sort out problems.

Skills and abilities I don’t have

• Able to work under pressure
• Patience

I believe that I do not have full experience of how to operate a business and how to promote a new service. Therefore, it could be risky for me to run a business on my own. For that reason, I will have to find someone fully qualified to assist me. Even after completing a course in wedding planning, I have realised that I can not work under pressure and be patience when a problem had occurred.

How will I compensate for those weaknesses?

As I am not able to work under pressure, I will have to recruit someone who can do the work for me. Furthermore, I will have to employ a candidate with good marketing skills in order for me to promote my business and use marketing tools well.

What will I do about each of those missing skills and abilities?

In order for me to improve my skills and abilities, I will attend a training session of how to operate a business. From this I will be able to build up my confidence. This will allow me to gain more insights of how to operate business stress free and be patience with all kinds of situations.

Skills gap and development needs

At the moment I have good ICT, Financial, Customer service and Organisation skills. However, I will have to develop my Marketing and HR skills which are required for my wedding planner business. In order for me to develop my skills, I will be recruiting someone to cover me up with the areas I’m struggling with. This is because it is a new business and is very important to avoid small mistakes. However, for the long term basis, I should be ready to operate the business on my own and if not, I will provide my staffs with training so they can build up their confidence.

Action plan

Short term:

• Look at for my market trends/competitors
• Promote my business well as it is new in the market
• Recruit a qualified candidate that will help me in my weakness area

Long term:

• Design a good and attractive advert for my business so my service reaches a wider target audiences
• Come up with new business ideas to extend the business.
• Have more training session