As this is a large area of the business we decided as a group that we would elect three members of the team. As a group I was elected to be the marketing manager as I work well with the public and enjoy and understand the different types of research which has to be completed. As well as myself we elected two other member of the group to work within this department. Sarah Crawford was elected as she has excellent skills when working with the public also has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject. Rachel McMullan also fitted the profile of wheat we needed to in a marketing team she knows the target market and knows what will work to attract our target market.
Human resources
This department is responsible for overseeing the welfare of the staff members within the group. They will need to record and understand the welfare and personal development of the staff. They will need to make sure each person is happy with the role they have been given within the company and that each person in the group is working fairly in the group. They will also have to develop documents for the business such as a rota and job descriptions they will also have to develop interview questions for the staff employment in different roles. These documents need to be fair and equal to all members of staff in the business.
We decided that Pamela would be the best suite to this job title as she has brilliant organizational skills. She is also a warm friendly person that would get all well with every member of the group as well as motivate them. Alongside Pamela we elected Aaron as her assistant.
Customer service
This department would be responsible for dealing with our target market and answering any questions or problems the customers of our business might have. The team would need to understand and develop a relationship with this target market. They will also have to monitor orders and keep control of the orders for the business. The customer service team need to make sure each customer is happy with the service they are getting from super sweaters and happy with there finished product.
We decided that the people who we would elect for this team would need to be friendly, bubbly and easy to talk to by out customers. We decided that these two people would be Clare and Ashleigh within Clare being the manager of the department. With both of these team members having a strong personality and have experience in working in the area of customer service they fit the job well they both have to not only be polite and easy to talk to but have to be well organized.
How our team communicate
Communication is an important part of any business when trying to achieve success within the business. Each employee within the business needs to know what is going on within the business not only to complete tasks but also can help to motivate the employees and make them feel valued within the business. As communication is so important we need to look at different ways of communication to see how effective these methods will be within our business.
Email
Email is a growing trend which has been becoming more and more popular throughout the years and is a near necessity for any business competing in today’s competitive market. Email is a efficient and free method of communication, as each member of our business has a email address and access to the internet we decided to reduce costs of printing and waste of paper to and use email. Within our school intranet system there is a email account set up to send internal emails, this is the email method we choice to use to communicate information between employees, for example Katherine our secretary sends the agendas and minutes from each meeting through email. This method is fast and effective which works well for everyday informal use within our business.
Formal Meetings
As a group we decided we would meet up as a full group once a week and discuss different issues which we felt needed to be address as a whole company. These meetings were to take place each Wednesday. We then decided that for each meeting which takes place an agenda should be writing up by the secretary and the manager, this is to make sure that each issue gets talking about and nothing is forgotten about. Minutes are also produced for each meeting, these minutes will remind the team what was talking about and what tasks need to be completed before the next meeting takes place. (See appendix 1 for all agenda and minutes)
Face to face
As we are working as a team there will need to be daily communication so that tasks will run smoothly. Although this method can sometimes be hard as all member of the team as not present within school. A rota was produced as that each person on the team could be aware of when each person was working on the stall and the manager could locate them. With each person communicating well the team will be able to monitor the progress and success of the business on a daily bases.
How our team will use teamwork and deal with problem solving
As business studies takes up a large amount of a time within school we are fortunate enough to have spent a lot of time together of the past two years in sixth form. Although we are a large class and had to be split into two groups we gel well as a class and work well within a group. This is an advantage when working in a business situation as people feel more comfortable working with people they know well and can relate to on a personal level. This makes working well as a team an easy team for our group. When starting any new job there is a settling in period of the employee which can be time consuming for a business, therefore knowing each other well saved time as we could easy be aware of each others skills and weaknesses making it easier to identify job areas people would be best suited to.
Teamwork can be defined as “the co-operative effort by a group of people to achieve a common goal” within out business our gaol is to develop and run a successful business. It is also a well known fact that people are working well together as a team decisions and tasks are completed quicker and motivation levels are high.
As a team we well we work well together as we all value each others opinion and allow each other to express there point of view to the group. This has a whole range of benefits to the business ranging from better customer service to the group developing better ideas and strategies. This also made for a great start for our business as each person felt they could voice there ideas of how the business should be run. While discussing the different ideas within the first few sessions we had as a group it was visible that we were excited and enthusiastic about the project.
While brain storming the ideas for our business each member of our team found the idea of producing hoodies the most exciting and effective, which meant we all agreed on what our business was to be producing quickly within the first session. However disagreements occurred when deciding whether or not to run a business to help found the production of the hoodies as some members of the team felt pupils would not pay a high price for the hoodies. The decision was made to run primary research into both he hoodies and the meal deal idea to see there popularity and the prices pupils would be willing to pay. On completing the primary research we discovered that our target market would be willing to pay £20 for the hoodies meaning there would be no need for the meal deal business to run as well. On finding out this information the group become excited about the idea of starting our business and maybe making a profit on selling the hoodies. this is prime example of problem solving within our group and shows we can work well within a team to problem solve.
We discussed as a group how we could problem solve and what problems could develop over the next 3 weeks of our business. We decided that the human resources department and the manager would be the first port of call if any problems would occur. We decided this would be the best way to combat any problems we might have because our manager fully understands the target market and has come in contact with the most common problems the year before in selling the hoodies. The human resources department have the skills to work well with people and understand any problems which can occur with the employees of our group.
Formation of our company
Our ideas
At the beginning of this project as a group we brainstormed a number of ideas and narrowed them down to three mean ideas we would be interested in doing. We then had to look at each of the benefits and the feasibility of each idea.
Meal Deal
This idea came about while thinking of different fundraising ideas. This business would put together a meal deal which would consist of sweats, chocolate and a drink, which we would sell at junior lunch times. Although this would have been a very popular and profitable business it would not have coincided with the schools recent healthy eating program.
Milkshake
This idea was prompted by the success of last years business studies class in developing a smoothly business. Yet when we discussed this idea we decided it would be tricky to keep the ice cream frozen to make the milkshakes fresh and some of the group members were not as excited about the idea.
Hoodies Company
This is the idea we decided on as a group, we decided on this idea because we were all excited about developing this as a business and thought it would be a good idea which would be popular and would develop a large amount of profit for the group. However we would have to carry out market research to see which of these projects would work best for our group.
Market research
When any business is staring up it is always useful for the business to do market research so they fully understand there target market. To fully understand our target market and find out which idea would work best we had to do primary and secondary research for each of our ideas. As marketing manager myself, Sarah and Rachel were reasonable for designing the three questionnaires and getting them filled in by the relevant people. We decided to take a sample out of the junior school for the questionnaires about the milkshake and the meal deals , as the hoodies business would be targeted at only 6th from students we only asked a sample of people from the year to fill it in. we collected all this information quickly and then began to analyses the information.
Meal Deal Company
When looking at the reserarach we discovered that we were getting a good responce from the junor school and a wide spread amount of interest from a wide range of years which was all positive feedback. The only negitive feedback come from the selling price the people who were asked were only willing to pay 50p for the snack bag and this would not cover out costs. We knew this because on finding out this information we got in contact with wholesaalers to find out the price of buying each of the products to go into the meal deal, for eample makro. The items which our target marketing were chosing to be in there meal deal were turning out to be the most costy items on the list. For eample when asked which crisps bikers were chosen which retail at £14.00 a box. Along with this issue we also had the issue of healthy eating.
Milkshake
At the initial point of research we discovered that there was quite a postive amount of feedback, but the problems came when we discussed issues we would have when making and getting the products to make the milkshake.
Hoodie company
Before we collected the market research as a group we all wanted this idea to work well. Therefore we were delighted when the feedback which was returned was so positive. We decided that we would use this idea and then do more research to back up our initial research.
Questionnaire
We put together a questionnaire to find out more about our target market, each question gives us an insight into the most popular colour popularity and style. This helps our business to put together a product which will satisfy the needs of our target market.
Q1. Would you be interested in a class of 2008 hoodies?
This question helps us fully understand the popularity of our product, as 96% of people asked said they would be interested in a hoodies this displays to us that our business should be a success and make a profit.
Q2. How much would you be willing to put towards the hoodies?
This is a key question for our business, within our group we felt pupils would only be willing to pay around £5 for our products but on producing this questionnaire we discovered that 70% of people were willing to pay between £15 and £20 for our product. This ment we were going to sell our product at £17.00.
Q3 what colour would you prefer your hoodies to be?
This is another key question in that the colour of our product is an important part as our target market may not what to pay money for a product that they do not like the colour of. On carrying out our questionnaire we discovered that both black and navy were popular colours. We decisded to choice navy as black was used the year before.
Q4 Would you want the school badge to be on the hoodie?
Although 70% of people stated they would like the school badge on the hoodies it would be been to costly for our business and therefore would have raised the price of selling our hoodies.
Research
Once we had decided that we were going to set put a business which would sell class of 2008 hoodies to 6th year pupils within our school we needed to do more research into the costs, availabilty and planning of our business. As a buisness the frist thing we needed to find out is how much it would cost us to produce our product, our manager took on this job as toni knew people working in this field who would be able to give us the best price possible for producing out hoodies.
We research a number of different suppliers
- www.tshirtstudio.com – £26.00
- Inshops - £12.00
- Ski and sports - £12.34
On doing this research we decised that ski and sports would be the best place to buy our products, although the inshops were 34p cheaper, there has been problems with getting delievers of products on time from this suppler . This price is based on having at lest 30 hoodies sold so we can take advantage of buying in bulk for our products.
We also made sure we fully understood the colours which would be most popular within our target market. although ur school colours are red yellow and black we could not produce the hoodies in red as the PE deptment sports hoodies were in red, and we did not feel yellow would be a popular colour for our target makret. when we looked at the questionnaire which we had handed out we found that black and navy had the same amount of interest from pupils, as last years hoodies were black we decisded to produce navy hoodies with white writing.
We also needed to do research into what area of the school would be the best place for us to set up our stall, within our questionnaires we asked this question and found that the most popular choice was the Foyer or packet lunch area. We decisded to do our own research into this area and take a random lunch time and break time within the week and see the popularity and number of people going through each area. On doing this we discovered that the foyer had the highest level of 6th form going through this area.
Our product – Class of 2008 Hoodies
Price - £17.00
Production cost - £11.50
Place – Foyer
Time – seniour lunch time
Colour – Navy with white writing
Types of organisation
As a team we had to decide what type of organisation we would create. We looked at a number of different types such as a sole trader, partnerships and a private limited company. Each of these types of organisation had there advantages and disadvantages we had to make sure we made the right choice for our business.
As there are a number of people within our group, who are putting time and effort into the business, we could not work as a sole trader or a partnership. We also could not bring shareholders into the company as we were only trading for a short period of time, therefore we might not be able to repay the shareholders as well as make a profit for our business.
As a group we decided that a private limited company would work best for our business. As this would mean that all the money which was invested into the company is ours which would also help motivate our team to make more profit within the business.
Formal documents
Now that we had decided on what type of business we were and the product we were going to produce, as well as what each persons role within the business would be, we needed to produce formal documents which would ensure the business was running to a professional standard.
We put together the memorandum and articles of association, these documents were out together by our business managers who made sure each area which needed to be covered was covered within the documents and were at a high business level. (This documents ca be found in the appendix)
Use of resources
Every business uses resources in its day to day running, these resources can be found in a number of different ways from physical, human and financial. Our business is no different to make our company a success we will need to make sure of a number of different resources.
- Tables- as we were selling out products in a foyer we needed to have a table to set up to be our place of trading. This table would be placed in the same place each day so that our customers would know were to find out and would also pass us each day creating interest for the business. We decided to use a table which was found in the Foyer, this is useful for us as it is in an easy to access and leave back as the table is placed close to our point of sale.
- Sample Hoodies- We knew from past experiences that the public like to see what they are buying before spending there money it is, therefore were able to arrange a selection of sized as a sample for our target market to look at and check which size would suit them best. Our supplier is allowing us to keep their samples until the order is made. Therefore our customers feel more confident in paying for our product.
- Money box and receipt book- we needed these resources in order to keep control of our orders, and therefore help our company to run smoothly. The money box is to make sure that any money which belongs to the business is kept on the one place and is kept safe. This money box is kept in our class room in a safe place. The receipt book is a very useful and important part of our business as all the orders need to be kept on the one place so each of our customers gets the correct order and has paid the correct amount of money.
- Hoodies- one of our major physical resources is the hoodies, although the hoodies will not be made until all the orders have been collected it is still the main part of our company. We need to make sure that each of the hoodies are made a high standard and each customer is happy with their finished product.
- Internet- As we had decided that as a company we would use the internet as our main way of communication this is because it is a quick and easy way of each employee to stay in contact and send information. This also gives us frequent use of the computers meaning we can get all the relative documents completed.
- Permission- we needed to ask for permission from Mrs McHugh our school principle.
- Our team – this is the most important human resource that our business needs, we need to work together as a team to make a success of our business. Each member of our team needs to make sure they are equally contributing to the team. Each member of our team will have the same amount of time working on the stall of the business.
Finance
This is a very important section of not only our business but of any business as money is a very important part and is the bases of any business. We needed to keep in total control of our finances. We needed to discuss the different ways of finance which were available to us and which would work best.
As our business did not have put together a large amount of up capital because we only had to pay money to the suppler when we had put the orders in for the hoodies therefore we would have collected all the money from our customers. This limited the places we could achieve this start up capital.
Loan
It wouldn’t have been logical for our business to apply for a loan as our start-up capital is so low. We would have had to produce a professional business report and present it to the accountant within the school. This could have been very time consuming as we would have had to put the presentation together and then wait for a reply from the school. If the business did not work out as we had planned then we might not have enough money to pay the school back the loan. Therefore the option of a loan did not seem like the right idea for our business.
Shares
The option of selling shares of our business to our friends and family was also talked about within our group. This would be an effective way of raising capital for the business as it would not have to be paid back if the business did not work. As a group we all felt people would not be interested in backing our business as it was it was a new company only running for a short period of time. Therefore we decided that the option of shares would not work for our business.
Private Finance
As we have such a big team of people working within our business we decided as a group that we would all invest money ourselves within the business. This would have many advantages to not only the business but to the employees within the business. We decided that as we don’t need much start up capital we would sell the shares for £2 each and each member of the group bought a share of the business, therefore each person owned the same percentage of the business and felt like an equal part of the business making this method a excellent way of motivated employees. As each person put the same amount into the business each person will get the same amount of return from the business, which will give each employee the motivation to work harder to ensure the business to make a large profit. Therefore we felt this method of finance works best for our business and is the one we are going to use.
Aims and objectives of the company
Each person within our business needed to be aware of what their own departments aim and objective is, along with the businesses overall aim. As a group we came up with our overall aim as we felt each person should have an input into the main aim of the business. Each department came up with there own individual aim so they felt a part of that department and fully understood the aim on all levels. These aims and objectives would be placed as benchmarks for the whole business and all also help to motivate employees and help our customers understand and be clear of what our aims and values are towards the business.
Legalities
Each business needs to make sure they follow all the different laws that relate to them, this is no different for our business.
Fair employment act 1989
As a group and a business we need to make sure we understand the fair employment act 1989. This law lays out all the different areas which effects employment today, this law makes sure that employees are treating there employees fairly and protects not only the employee but also the employer. The law covers area from the promotion of equality and opportunity to reviewing and recruitment of employees. Within our business we will need to make sure that we totally understand this law and what it means for our business.
Sale of goods act
As out business is selling good directly to the public we need to ensure we look at all areas of this law and fully understand what it means to our business, and obey all the rules within this law. One of the main rules within the sale of goods act is that, the goods which we are selling to the public must be as described and fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. We need to make sure we obey this run and only advertise what we know we can deliver on the hoodies for example when placing writing on the back of the hoodies we need to make sure each person is aware of what this is going to look like and we are not overselling or underselling the products to our customers. If the products do not reach the standards which we advertised then the customer has a right to their money back after a short period of time, this is an important issue for us to cover as we are selling a clothes item and many people return clothes items for a number of different reasons.
Companies Act 1989
This law refers to the account of the business making sure each business publishes and displays there account regarding there regulations. We need to make sure we are doing this.
Trade Descriptions Act 1968
This law makes sure that we are clearly displaying every part of our product so that our customers know what to expect from our business. This will mean describing in detail what our hoodies will look like. This will ensure that manufactures are not misleading towards customers.
AO3 – research into our business idea
As a business we had to do research into all areas of our business, this is to make sure our business is as successful as possible. As we have already put together a questionnaire for the hoodies business we needed to look at different areas of the questionnaire.
When we decided on the hoodies business we needed to look into our target market. Our initial questionnaire had all the relevant information we needed for example
- What colour would you prefer your hoodies to be?
- How much would you be willing to put towards the hoodies?
Out of the 40 people asked we were delighted to find that 100% of people would have been interested in buying our hoodies, this made us confidant that we could make a success of our business and the demand for our business would increase.
We wanted to gain more information on the competition that existed. As none of our main competitors are within school we had to look outside of school and the popularity of people buying there own printed hoodies. From the feedback we got from pupils within the school we felt that people saw our option as a more convenient option for pupils, also as it if a class of 2008 hoodies the pupils of the school would want al the hoodies to be the same as we are all apart of the same year group.
From the questionnaire we found out that 17 ( 34% ) out of the 40 people asked wanted a navy hoodies as this was the most popular choose we went with a navy hoodies with white writing
Navy 34%
Grey 24%
Green 8%
Black 34%
Navy and black both got the same amount of interest from the pupils asked but we decided to go with navy as the hoodies last year were black.
The price which we decided to sell our hoodies at was an important decision which each person in the group had to agree on. Within the questionnaire we asked the question “how much would you be willing to put towards the hoodies?” from the secondary research we carried out we got the impression pupils within our year would not be willing to pay the full amount of the hoodies and we would have to do fundraising to make a profit, but on carrying out our own research we discovered pupils were willing to pay between £15 and £20 for our product. Therefore we decided to sell out product at £17, as a group we decided this is a fair price for our hoodies as they cost around £12 to produce and we feel this price will attract customers to our product.
We had to make sure we were given permission for our business to set up within the school and sell our products to pupils within the school. Once given permission we had to decide were and when we were going to set up our stall. As a group we decided that the foyer would be the most central place to hold our stall as it is the centre of the school and most 6th years would walk through the foyer on there way to the toilets, canteen, pack lunch area and library. This will get our business noticed within the school.
The research we had tone into our target market and asking to past pupils who have sold hoodies within the school before helps us to totally understand our target market and finalize a number of details about our business and also helped us to discover how important market research is to any business not only when it is starting up in the market place but to provide continues grow for the business.
Marketing Mix
The ensure that all our research is collected and summarised as our final decisions on each area of the business and is clear to everyone within the group it is a good idea to put together a marketing plan of the businesses marketing mix. This will help keep all the ideas and information about our business together and clear.
Product
The product is the most important part of the marketing mix as without our product we would not have a business. At the beginning of this project we brainstormed a number of ideas and came up with three main ideas we would be interested in doing. Once we had done this we used primary and secondary research to help to decide on our final idea of selling class of 2008 hoodies. Then we had to decide what this hoodies would look like and we did this again by using market research.
Price
While thinking about the different prising strategies we decided that our business would use skimming as a way of pricing our business, from the information we got back from our questionnaire we discovered that people would be willing to pay a high amount of money for our product. Also the price of producing our own printed hoodies can cost up to £25 and as we are buying in bulk the price is lowered. As a group we were pleased with this price for a number of reasons, by selling our product at this price we are keeping our product at a completive price and still selling our products to get a good amount of profit back.
Promotion
As I am a member of the marketing team we are in control of this section of the business. Promotion is a large section of any business and a large part of our business. This area is so important as people are not going to buy our product if they do not know it exists within the school and do not have promotional hints to get them excited about the product. As a part of the marketing department we designed posters which were put up around the school which would tell our target market everything they needed to know about our business and informed them that the business was beginning to trade within the school. We also hoped that word of mouth would help us in advertising our business, and that when our business began to trade we would have a large amount of demand for our product. We also did amusements within assembly which we hoped would get people talking about our product.
Place
Place is also an important part of the marketing mix, as people need to be able to find us if they are going to buy from us. If the business is placed in the wrong place we might not make as many sales. We needed to make sure we picked the right place within the school and stuck to this area. As we have a large school we needed to make sure we placed our business in a high traffic area were there would be people coming and going from the area. We decided on the foyer in the main school building, we picked this area as people are coming and going to a number of different places within the school which would get us noticed within the school. The area also has access to a table which we need for setting up our stall. as people need to be able to find us if they are going to buy from us. If the business is placed in the wrong place we might not make as many sales. We needed to make sure we picked the right place within the school and stuck to this area. As we have a large school we needed to make sure we placed our business in a high traffic area were there would be people coming and going from the area. We decided on the foyer in the main school building, we picked this area as people are coming and going to a number of different places within the school which would get us noticed within the school. The area also has access to a table which we need for setting up our stall.
Swot Analysis
A SWOT analysis is a useful tool for assessing and evaluating a situation as part of the decision making process for a business.
It involves an analysis of internal strengths, internal weaknesses, and opportunities in the external environment and threats in the environment.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
It is very useful for checking market needs, business opportunities and marketing plans against the ability of the business to deliver and satisfy the needs.
Strengths-
These are all the good, positive attributes that can be identified. Strengths come from within a business and are positive aspects of the qualities or product.
Weaknesses-
These are the elements of the situation that make a business vulnerable. Again they come with in the business, or may be negative attributes of the qualities of a product.
Opportunities-
These represent potential objectives which a business could achieve. These opportunities again come from within the business.
Threats-
These are external factors; outside the direct control of the business for example other competitors or government legislation. These threats can be harmful to the business ore cause delay for future plans.
SWOT analysis
Strengths
- A strength for our business is that it a unique idea within the school which pupils within the school would be interested in as it is something to remember their time in Lagan College.
- Market research enable us to more accurately reach our target markets needs, this increases the chance of high sales and profitability.
- We have the monopoly of hoodie sales within the school.
- We have no overheads therefore increasing our profitability
- Our business is placed in a prime location which has easy access and a high level of pupils walking through.
Weaknesses
- When we begin selling our products pupils had to develop interest for our products
- We began to sell on the week for our school formal pupils may not be willing to spend their money on luxury products for example our hoodies
- Less opportunity for people to purchases due to sales times and time we can sell for.
Opportunities
- Maximum market share as we will have a monopoly on hoodies market within school.
- When we develop an interest for our product there is potential to extend the length of time we are selling for to give everyone a chance to purchase one of our products.
- There is a potential to increase the profit margin for our business.
Threats
- Other momentums of school life, for example a year book could be produced and take away from some of our sales, as people may chose to buy a year book rather can a class of 2008 hoodie.
- Permission for selling our products within school could also be a threat, if we do not get the right permission from the right people within the school the business can not trade.
- We also have to make sure we understand all the legislations which are connected to our business for example sale of goods act.
