Colleagues of Richer Sounds also get good and fairly salaries. The company will give bonuses to the ones who work hard. They also share profits that earn from the business to everyone, at every department, every level, which the colleagues are very happy about.
Julian Richer believes that no colleagues should be redundant in his business, there will only be changing of colleagues from one department to other; or one shop to the other; he also thinks that people who work for the company will know more than other people.
Unless special colleagues such as financers are needed, Richer Sounds won’t employ new colleague, which will also prevent the redundancy.
Customers of Richer Sounds:
The very main stakeholder of every company is their customers, which also exist in Richer Sounds; because without customers, a business won’t earn any profit, and the company will no longer survive.
Richer Sounds communicate with their customers everyday in different way, which can help the business to know more about their customers needs:
- Through the Richer Sounds web site
- Through their in-store catalogues
- Through telephone
- Talking to customers
- Giving out questionnaires
Customers’ feedbacks, ideas and advices are very important for a business, because to make a customer thinks that your company is good, you have to know what they think of your company and change the company to the best.
Customers always influences the way which the company runs and operate, but this is expected by Julian before he start the business, because customers are the most important part of a business. The will effect:
- The prices of the goods. If they think that the prices are too expensive, they won’t buy the products, so the company have to lower their prices till the customers are happy.
- The services of the company. If the customer doesn’t like the way that you serve him/her, he will complain, or even not to come back to the shop as well. So to run a good business, the company should ask what their customers think of their services.
After taking in what their customers want, they will try their best to change and achieve their aims, but sometimes, some of the suggestions of their customers might cause a lot of money and introductions, for example:
- Have a larger store
- Larger car park
- Reset the shop
The entire examples above take quite a lot of time to change and the store might have to shut for a period of time, which might also cause losing profits of the company; so the company will have a serious discussion before they make up their decision.
Anyway, the company will do their best to respond to their customers’ feedback.
Financers of Richer Sounds:
The main financier of Richer Sounds is the bank. The company has a bank overdraft (amount of money by which a bank is overdrawn) and a bank loan (lending out money), which are listed in their business account.
To help the business financer to works well, the company has a close relationship with the bank manager. If the bank manager knows more about how Richer Sounds operates and where their problems are, he can help to solve them. The bank will also be more willing to lend money to the company when they have difficulties.
Annually, the company will send a finance report to the bank manager, which shows the profits and the loss of the company. Except that, there are few more important things to show him for letting him know more about how’s the company running:
- Balance sheets
- Chase flow
- Forecasts. Etc
Also David Robinson, the managing director will meet the bank manager regularly.
The bank is very important since it is responsible of all the money that Richer Sounds earn.
Distribution Company of Richer Sounds:
Two Way, the company which is responsible for all the distribution of Richer Sounds (suppliers to warehouse; warehouse to stores). Richer Sounds always keep good relationship with their distribution company, because that will benefit both companies:
- Using a company that know more about the Richer Sounds warehouse to distribute their goods will be easier run.
- Because the two companies have close relationship, so Two Way might charge Richer Sounds cheaper.
- If Two Way hasn’t got any business, they can still depends on Richer Sounds to survive.
- Driver that distributes the goods and colleagues that work in the warehouse will understand each other and the goods easier. Instant of changing different people who don’t know anything about the company and the goods.
- Driver of Two Way and colleagues from will work together better since they trust on each other.
- If there is any problem, it will be solve quickly, because most of them are workers which full of experiences.
Suppliers of Richer Sounds:
Purchasing department of Richer Sounds are responsible of contacting their suppliers, they also have to look for the cheapest supplier.
Suppliers are important, because when a company hasn’t got a supplier, they won’t be able to get any stocks, no matter how good is the company, without stocks, the company is not going to work; just like without customers, the company is not going to earn any profit.
Supplier of Richer Sounds trusts on the company because they never have problems on paying for the stocks and they always pay on time. Richer Sounds also listen to what their supplier says about how they should pay, they never have argument on paying for goods, and that’s why the company are known by a lot of company. Of course, if the supplier wants Richer Sounds to pay regularly or on time, they should also deliver the goods on time; if both companies work perfectly, there will be no problem.
The community through the Charitable Foundation:
Every year, Richer Sounds gives out 5% of it profits to charity through a company, Persula. (Persula, a charitable company, which were set up in year 1994.)
Julian refuse to give out the money to the government, religious, sport, art or other national large company, which they say that they use their money to help people, rather than a charity company because they wants to concentrate on helping poor people, than giving out heir money for people that don’t really need help. Charities which the company have been given money are:
- The Big Issue
- Victim Support
- Kidscape
- The Prince Trust
- Amnesty International. Etc.
And they gave out their money mostly for:
- Researching on cancer
- Animals
- Kidnapping
- Homelessness
- Bullying. Etc
Which all of them help a lot of people and animals.
The company also encourage their colleagues to get involve of the charity projects to help people, and every project nearly have about 60-80 of the colleagues joined in. Colleagues are allowed to take one to two days of to go out and help people, which is very meaningful.
There are some examples of the charity projects below:
- They set up touch-screen information points, which are free in London and most of the railway station. These free information point can let the homelessness people find out where they can get help and get a place to sleep. Through this year, more then 42,000 people get use of these machines.
- They give out free booklets called ‘inreach’ for homeless people. In the booklet it tells them about where can they get services or help (like the information point).
- They set up Tapesense, which help those who cannot see well.
- They go around different places to tell people that which can’t see well stories in centres and schools.
Since Richer Sounds use the name of Persula Foundation to go around and help people, so they might not know that the stakeholder of the charity company actually is Richer Sounds. Though people don’t know about it, but colleagues of Richer Sounds don’t really mind, because their main purpose is to help people, not to get well known.
Stakeholder conflict and Richer Sounds:
Since there is no one ever has complained on Richer Sound buying a new shop, their prices are too low, etc, Richer Sounds never have a stakeholder conflict.
Although they haven’t got much problems on their stakeholder, but the think of their stakeholder are not always the same.
For Example:
- Customers wish that the shop can open for longer hours, which the colleagues don’t agree since they are the one who working hard in the shop.
- Sometimes supplier might have problem of supplying the goods. If Richer Sounds wants a large amount of stocks, which the supplier hasn’t got, it will be a problem.
- Customers will get unhappy when Richer Sounds broke down after few days they bought it. Of course Richer Sounds service department can fix it anytime, but that will still give the company a bad reputation.
- Some customers wish they have larger stores, which can show more different type off products. Colleagues might not agree, because for them, it might be already quite hard to manage the present stock room; if it goes larger, it will be worst.
- The time that the deliveries should arrive the warehouse sometime will dilate, since no ones no the traffic, but many because of that, the colleagues working in the warehouse will have complains on the driver.
- Time to pick up the deliveries might not be agree by both supplier and distribution company.
Above are some examples that might cause troubles between stakeholders.
