Being a person who is not satisfied with what has already been achieved, I have a great number of career and educational goals that encourage me to invent new personal development strategies. In fact, it is difficult to prioritize over some of them as all opportunities are rather attractive. As for the primary career goals, after I leave the university, I would like to start my own business related to the travel industry or the restaurant industry as I am interested in both business areas.
Nevertheless, I suppose that the second area of business involves more opportunities for development. I would like to start my business in Europe in order to broaden my horizons and fulfill one of my educational goals – gain new experience and learn how to apply the principles of entrepreneurship in countries other than the United Arab Emirates. More than that, I am planning to attend business courses to learn more about the chosen areas of business.
Based on that, my long-term vision statement is the following: in 5-10 years, I am going to become an experienced entrepreneur and the owner of a popular restaurant chain in Europe. Personally, I suppose that my mission is to popularize Arabic food in European countries and, therefore, make people of different cultural backgrounds more interested in the values and traditions of my native country. As for values that I am going to act in accordance with when developing a business plan, they include the high quality of service, employee happiness, client satisfaction, innovation, and responsibility. The questions guiding my choices are the following:
- What can I do for society?
- What is the impact of my work?
- How can it be improved?
External opportunities and threats remain an important question to be considered. People in Europe value cultural diversity, and this tendency is also manifested in their gastronomical predilections. This is the primary opportunity to help me to realize my mission. Also, I have an opportunity to refer to my friends’ experiences to avoid making common mistakes. As for threats, the global restaurant industry is highly competitive, and it will be necessary to develop a unique restaurant concept to meet with public notice. At the same time, some parts of the European population can associate the culture of the Middle East with terrorism, and the need to eliminate these biases is an additional threat.
My personal strengths that will help me to achieve the goal are presented by developed analytical skills, a spacious mind, and the ability to make agreements with anyone. Despite that, I am going to gain new knowledge to become more inventive and communicate with people who have various cultural values. I would like to put emphasis on these skills to differentiate from other students and the entire population.
The key milestones and checkpoints in my plan include finding business partners in Europe, developing a unique restaurant concept, conducting motivation research, and developing an effective marketing strategy. To define whether the milestones are attained, I am going to use industry reports, financial data, and opinion surveys and for me, being successful means getting support from customers and partners. External factors that can impact my success are presented by changing consumer purchasing power, changing food preferences, growing popularity of fast food, and the popularity of other restaurants that offer Arabic food.
To mitigate threats related to competition and cultural bias, I am going to rely on the unique design of my future restaurants, combining Eastern and Western decorative elements. Even though it is extremely difficult to combine these two sets of cultural values due to the impact of religious beliefs, historical events, and the attitude to individual freedom, it is possible to use the elements of interior design that are popular in both cultures.
It will help to achieve balance to ensure that Europeans perceive the culture and cuisine of the Middle East in a positive manner. Also, the unique design and diverse workforce are expected to help my future restaurant to distinguish itself from the restaurants of the key competitors. Also, it will be important to pay attention to diversity in staff selection to overcome threats related to competition.
To practice ethical principles in my daily actions, I am going to be just and sincere when collaborating with my future business partners and protect the security of important information related to my partners, colleagues, and employees. The principles that I am going to use to create a successful team include evaluating people only based on their performance. In other words, I believe that any biases related to culture, religion, political orientation, and other similar factors should be eliminated, and the only way to shape an opinion concerning an employee is to evaluate his or her contribution to the success of a company.
Practicing ethical principles is strictly interconnected with learning from one’s failures. In the past, I often had conflicts with people because of different points of view, and I understand that it was detrimental to our common goals. In the future, I am going to focus on goals when working with different people.
There are people whose recommendations would be extremely important for me. The list of these people includes my best friend whose ideas are extremely creative, my cousin who can find the right words to support me, and my grandfather, who taught me to be honest. If summarized, my personal career plan would look like a “creative entrepreneur, responsible leader, reliable associate.”