Competitor watching is where businesses take note of other businesses that are selling the same product/products progress in the product/products they are selling and make sure that the product they are selling looks like its is better quality then the other businesses. They analyse other businesses advertisement and make sure when they advertise the same product/products they make theirs look better. They monitor other businesses prices and make sure that their own prices are cheaper then other companies and advertise more about the lower prices. The long room do not need to advertise low prices due to the fact that they have hardly any competition the most competition they have is pizza take-away, coffee shops and fish and chip shops. There is nowhere customers can go to have a meal apart from the long room. In the future they may consider when/if they expand to watch other restaurants prices quality and adverts. If they move near more restaurants or if more restaurants open close to the long room.
Suitable location is where businesses locate in such places to make a profit they locate some where deliberately where there are a lot of customers or they even can locate in places where there is little competition. The long room has located themselves in Lewes, in a busy area where there is little competition. They also located themselves here because it’s a quiet area, people travel there because it’s a nice place and its one of the top 15 market areas also because customers may want to just have a nice quiet meal. In the future they may want to relocate to a much busier area if they open more stores because with the more stores open they will make more of profit and they will find it easier to compete because their name would be more popular.
Suitable resources are equipment the business needs to work, for example, employees, money and a premises. With these resources the business would not work. The long room has all the resources it needs, the restaurant, the money, the staff, the furniture, plus more. In the future they may wish to hire more staff, chefs, bar staff or buy more cooking equipment etc because they may become a larger company.
Suitable ownership is where the ownership must suit the business, different types of ownership’s are: sole trader, partnership, private limited company and public limited company. The long room is a private limited company, which in the future would make it harder for them to compete with larger companies if they relocate, but if they open more stores they will become a larger company making it easier to compete with other big companies.
Market penetration is when a business builds up their presence in a market. They either build up their presents geographically or in terms of a market sector. The Long Room builds up their presence geographically because they have no competitors. In the future if they become bigger and if they open more restaurants they may change their presence in terms of a market sector meaning they compare themselves to other business in their presence.
Expansion/Merger is where a business expands by itself or by merging with another company. The Long Room is a small company, which hopes to expand in the future. They wish to open many other stores over the UK. This is competitive because if one company expands or merges other companies profits may drop so they may expand or merge themselves.
Research and development is where businesses try finding new ways to make their product better or they make a whole new product that customers may be interested in. The long room uses good quality, healthy organic food because this is what the customers want. Even though this is very good food there is still no need for any improvements because they have no competitors and the customers are happy with the quality of the food and drink. In the future once/if the company expands or merges they may want to try and improve the quality of their product or introducing new meals.
I conclude that the Long Rooms’ maintaining its competitiveness but in the future may want to make changes such as:
- Opening more stores.
- Watching other company’s methods and techniques e.g. Prices.
- Relocate to a busier area.
- Wish to hire more staff and buy more equipment.
- Change from a private limited company to a public limited company.
- Change from a geographical presence to a market sector presence.
- Expand or merge with another company.
- Improve quality of food or produce new meals or products.
