Unit 33 Small Business Enterprise Assignment merit copy

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 33 Small Business Enterprise Assignment merit copy
QFC Level	Level 4

Introduction

The report is developed in concentration with small business enterprise. Information related with performance management will be provided in the report. Icon corner shop is taken to develop better understanding with the small business enterprises. Icon corner shop is a small business enterprise which provides products and services to the customers of rural areas of uk. Business plan will be developed for the enterprise which will help it to grow in the market. Information related with various strategies will also be shared which will help icon corner shop to make the decision and will help it to attain competitive advantage in the market. Objectives of icon corner shop will be discussed. With the help of swot analysis strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of icon corner shop will be discussed and strategies to overcome from the weaknesses will also be discussed in this report.

Task 1

1.1Produce a profile of your chosen small business environment (sbe). The profile of the sbe should identify its three smart objectives, context and competition in which it is operating, strengths and weaknesses and key performance indicators/ measures.

Small and medium sized enterprises (smes) are termed as the backbone of the economy of europe. Approximately 99% of the businesses are represented by the small and medium sized enterprises in european union. These enterprises have generated around 85% of new jobs in past 5 years. Small and medium enterprises are considered as the key to ensuring the economic growth, innovation, job creation and social integration in european union (klikauer, 2016).

There are various smes that are working to deliver better services and support to the economy, some of them are: icon corner shop, abbicorn corner shop, brindle corner shop. These are some of the smes which are working to provide effective set of services to the economy as well as people of uk. These smes share certain set of objectives with the effect of which they want to develop the market and manage the market conditions so that economy could grow and develop. These objectives are:

• These smes wants to create the business friendly environment
• Want to promoting entrepreneurship
• Wants to deliver the access to new market and industrialization
• Wants to facilitate access to finance (aguinis, 2009)
• Wants to ensures that the innovation and competitiveness could get supported
• Smes provide key support to the networks and develop the information system

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats attached with icon corner shop, abbicorn corner shop and brindle corner shop

Strengths	Weaknesses
These enterprises are more customer focused They are more responsive to the market They have highly visible top management which provides access to remain transparent These firms are not bureaucratic They do not have formal working environment which helps in managing the flow of information and increasing the working efficiency Enterprises rely upon the innovation and ensure that they could generate innovative product These enterprises remain flexible and work accordingly	These smes have outdated facilities which hinders in the production process Do not have proper management which could manage the things and people working in the organization Do not have proper plans to manage the future risks; risks could affect the organization process (obadan, et. Al., 2013). Sometimes they may have the financial problems as they do not have a large business. Faced high competition from the big firms May not be able to cover large customer base.
Opportunities	Threats
There are opportunities available in the new markets; these smes could easily enter into the new market. These enterprises helps in the growth of economy due to which these are supported by the government Emerging technology is an opportunity as companies could adopt new technology and could grow in the market (amico, 2015).	Various new competitors could affect the market There is shortage of resources which affects the productivity of these enterprises Market keeps on changing due to which enterprises gets affected. Taste and preferences of the people are the biggest threat for these enterprises Availability of substitute products is also a threat for these enterprises

1.2 Theory and practice has mentioned various indicators of measuring organizational performance (such as financial profits, roi, market share, customer satisfaction, employee motivation, operations quality, flexibility, speed and cost indicators and so on). Carry out an analysis of your sbe using any three different comparative measures of performance. Use appropriate theories to support your investigation.

Performance measurement is one of the most important aspects attached with the organization. It is being analyzed that icon corner shops profit is being decreasing by 2 percent since 2010, on the other hand profit of abbicorn corner shop was increasing by 3 percent and so the profit of brindle corner shop also grew by 5 percent since 2010. Coming on to the growth of the enterprise growth of icon corner shop grew by 1 percent, abbricorn corner shop grew by 2 percent and brindle corner shop grew by 3 percent (broekemier, et. Al., 2015). To ensure that company could grew in the market they have to do performance measurement and comparative performance management is the aspect that helps in developing effective set of strategies and growth of the organizations and behavior in the market.

This suggests that one of the indicators that determine the performance of the business is the financial profit. Another factor that can be used as the indicator of the performance is the employee satisfaction. It has been analyzed that most of the employees from abbicorn corner shop has switched to icon corner shop because they have not been given importance at the workplace and they were feeling exploited. This suggests that in terms of employee satisfaction, icon corner shop is functioning better. The last one can be the operations quality. The same observation has been analyzed in this criterion. The quality of the operations can be determined by the quality of the product. Icon corner shop is serving better quality than other corner shops. This suggests that, in terms of quality also, icon corner shop is perfuming better.

Performance of these enterprises could be analyzed by using various factors like managing the cash flow statement, developing the pro forma of profit and loss and doing the ratio analysis of the company. Cash flow management helps in managing the inflow and outflow of the cash from the organization, managing the cash flow helps in ensuring that organization could evaluate the expenses and could work towards to reduce them.
Pro-forma of profit and loss is another aspect which helps these enterprises to manage the performance. It is necessary that these enterprises should evaluate the report of profit they have earned or losses incurred. Profit and loss report will help in developing the strategies with the effect of which company will be able to manage its functions in a smooth manner and will be able to grow in the market (klikauer, 2016).
And lastly these smes could do ratio analysis to gain the information related with the information of performance. With the help of ratio analysis organization could evaluate the performance with the effect of which new strategies could be developed by the organization to attain success in the market and to generate effective set of revenue.

Task 2

2.1 based on the findings in task 1.1, recommend with justification, appropriate actions to overcome the weaknesses in your sbe you identified.

It is necessary for the smes to take appropriate action regarding the weaknesses. Making the appropriate strategies will help the enterprises to sustain and overcome from the weaknesses which could affect the businesses. Developing the strategies is one of the most important aspects with the effect of which organizations could prepare to fight with the weaknesses and grab the new opportunities available in the market (anon, 2016). There are various methods that could be adopted by these smes to overcome from the weaknesses these methods are:

• Problem solving strategies: it is very important to use the problem solving strategies in order to resolve the issues of the outdated facilities used in the sbe. The sbe is facing the problem of the outdated facilities that restricts the quality of the production process.
• Quality management system: it is important for the sbe to implement a quality management staff in the company so as to check the quality of the processes conducted in the company as well as to manage them accordingly.
• Planning: planning is the key for every company to conduct the processes effectively. Planning needs to be done in order to manage the overall functioning of the company in sbe. Planning is also done in order to analyze the risk for the future.
• Proper financial data needs to be managed and cost cutting practices should be implemented to overcome the weakness of the financial crunch in the company. This can be done by optimum utilization of the resources.
• Marketing research: it is important to conduct prior research of the market so as to face high competition from other firms.
• Innovative processes needs to be installed according to customer’s need so as to cover large customer base.

2.2 based on the findings in task 1.1, and 1.2, analyze ways in which existing performance of your sbe could be maintained and strengthened.

Growth is one of the most important aspects for smes. Adopting the growth strategies will help the enterprises to maintain the performance and strengthen the businesses. There are five growth strategies that should be considered by the sbes to strengthen their business, these strategies are:

• Market segmentation to target customer: market segmentation is the process of bifurcating the market according to the nature of the people available in different places. It is necessary that sbes should do the division of the market according to demographic, geographic, behavioral and psychographic aspects. Doing so will help in availing the products and services according to the needs and requirements of the people and will help in increasing the sale in the market. This helps in targeting the customers that are relevant for the product.  (obadan, et. Al., 2013).
• Leveraging partnership: small businesses faces issues while competing with the vendors relationships which are enjoyed by the big firms. To enjoy the competition it is necessary that these small firms should leverage partnership and should work accordingly. Providing the small share of profit to the partners will help the organizations to strengthen their performance and to sustain in the market. This also helps in acquiring the innovative practices of the partnership firm.
• Use checklists: preparing the checklists and prioritizing the work will help the enterprises to grow in the market. Prioritizing the work will help in managing the work process and improving the performance. It also helps in strengthening of the management of the company.
• Employee engagement: employee engagement helps in increasing the motivation of the employees as well as helps in enhancing the flexibility of the process. The employees feel motivated and adapt the changes with ease.

2.3 ansoff’s matrix discuses four areas of business expansion and growth. Based on the findings in task 1.1, and 1.2, recommend with justification, any two new areas in which your sbe business could be expanded. Use appropriate theories to support your analysis.

Business expansion is one of the most important aspects attached with the small enterprises. Working towards to develop the strategies which could help the enterprises to grow and expand their businesses. Ansoff matrix is one of the most effective strategies which could be adopted by these enterprises and move on the path of expansion (broekemier, et. Al., 2015). There are four aspects attached with the ansoff matrix which helps the enterprises to adopt the best suitable option to expand in the market. These four aspects are:

• Market penetration- Market penetration is the growth strategy in which existing products are being sold by the organizations in the existing market. Adopting the market penetration strategy will help in increasing the market share, restructuring the mature market by driving the competitors, increase in the use of products and services by the existing customers and will help in securing dominance of growth market.
• Market development- Market development is the strategy that could be adopted by the small enterprises in which existing products are being sold by the enterprises in new market. Market development helps in sustaining in the new geographical market, adopting new distribution channels and applying different pricing policies (klikauer, 2016).
• Product development- Product development is the business strategy which helps the organization to introduce new product in the existing market. This strategy helps in developing new competencies, introduction of new and innovative product, gaining detailed insights into the customer needs and preferences, generating monopoly in the market and attracting more customers towards the business.
• Diversification- Diversification is the strategy that could be adopted by the enterprises in which enterprises develops new product and enters in the new market with that product. It is one of the most risky strategies that could be adopted by the enterprises and requires a huge investment.

Hence, it could be suggested that adopting market creation and development will help the sbes to grow in the market and will help in generating effective set of revenue (anon, 2016).
Icon corner shop can expand its business by diversification. This diversification can be done in two areas. The areas can be increase in number of stores and increase in number of products offered. Partnership with other firms helps in increasing the market share by the strategy of market penetration.

Task 3

3.1 produce an assessment of existing business objectives and plans of your sbe. What are good and bad points in the existing business objectives and plans of your sbe and why?

To grow in the market it is necessary that enterprises should develop the plan and set the objectives. Icon corner shop should prepare an appropriate plan which could help it to sustain and maintain the performance.

Business objectives of icon corner shop

• Increase the customer satisfaction by 5% by the end of 2016
• Increase the profit by 10% by the end of 2016
• Develop the market by doing market survey and adopt new and effective promotional strategies.

Business plan

Mission statement: icon corner shop want to expand its business and wants to enter into the new market by the end of 2017 (huffington post india, 2016)
Company background: icon corner shop is a small town store which carries a general line of merchandise. Broad collection of merchandise is carried by the store. People from rural town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all the general goods. Routine stock is carried by the store and sometimes obtains special orders from the warehouse.

Marketing strategy: company could adopt the marketing strategy in which it could advertise the products and services it avails to the customers. Advertisement on the social media like facebook, twitter and youtube will help the enterprise to attract effective number of people towards its products and services.
Financial indicators: there are various micro finance institutions available from which funds are borrowed by the business at the time of requirement. Several private firms also avails the funds to help the organization to grow its business (icaew.com, 2016).
To develop the market company will have to ensure that it should do the survey of that market and try to gain information related with customers needs and wants so that it could avail the products and services accordingly.

Assessment of objectives: As far as the objectives are concerned, they are not in line with the opportunities available for the company. There is opportunity for the organisation to develop technological innovations that has not been included in the objectives of the company.

Assessment of business plan:

The safe criteria:

Suitable:	The plan is very much suitable according to the objectives decided.
Acceptability:	Not acceptable by some of the stakeholders The risk level is high in terms of financial plan Returns will be good
Feasibility:	Skilled people are not available for social media marketing
Edge of competitors:	As far as the marketing plan is considered, it is very much innovative ion terms of the marking plan of the competitors.

3.2 based on your assessment in task 3.1, prepare a revised business plan to incorporate appropriate changes to overcome weakness of exiting plan. Use appropriate theories and business models to support these changes.

It is necessary that the business plan of icon corner shop should be revised because there are various aspects that are required to be improved which could help the organization to grow and develop in the market.

Weaknesses in the plan:

• The time limit is too short for the objectives to complete
• The objectives were not in line with the strengths and the opportunities available
• The plan is not feasible in terms of the availability of the skilled labor.

Mckinsey model: this model has been developed in order to organize the process of the company. It splits the functions into two groups:

1. Soft: shared value, skills, staff, style
2. Hard: structure, strategy, system

According to the analysis, these elements need to be used to accept the changes accordingly. All these elements need to be set in such a way that they compliment each other.

• Shared values: the value should be employee engagement
• Skills: availability of the skilled workers for social media marketing
• Staff: marketing manager and social media executive needs to be hired
• Style: participative leadership style should be opted
• Structure: open structure for more and more employee engagement and better communication.
• Strategy: the main strategy of the company is to plan the things before implementing.
• System: the main function that supports the business is the marketing team and the financial team.

Revised business plan

• Mission statement: con corner shop want to expand its business and wants to enter into the new market by the end of 2017
• Vision statement: To grow in the market by providing quality products to the target customers and building trust among them (infoentrepreneurs.org, 2016).
• Company background: icon corner shop is a small town store which carries a general line of merchandise. Broad collection of merchandise is carried by the store. People from rural town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all the general goods (smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016). Routine stock is carried by the store and sometimes obtains special orders from the warehouse.
• Marketing strategy: ompany could adopt the marketing strategy in which it could advertise the products and services it avails to the customers. Advertisement on the social media like facebook, twitter and youtube will help the enterprise to attract effective number of people towards its products and services.
• Financial indicators: here are various micro finance institutions available from which funds are borrowed by the business at the time of requirement. Several private firms also avails the funds to help the organization to grow its business.
• Structure: A structure is to be developed in which icon corner shop will have to develop a hierarchy of the employees and the staff members. Structure will include the owner, finance manager, sales manager and marketing manager under whom staff members will work and manage the work accordingly (session-1-takeaways-guidlines, 2016).

Doing so will help the enterprise to grow and manage the work according to the requirements of the market and people.

3.3 based on your revised plan in 3.2, prepare an action plan to implement the changes you identified in order to strengthen the performance of your sbe. Use appropriate change management theories and models to implement these changes.

Developing the action plan will help ics to set the priorities and will help in moving a step ahead to manage the work. It is necessary that an action plan should be developed so that business could implement the plan accordingly and could estimate the total time that would incur in the implementation of the plan.

To implement the business plan, following theory can be used:

Kurt lewin’s three-step process:

• Unfreezing: this is the stage of preparation where all the pre existing structure and functions need to be removed.
• Implementation: it is the stage where all the changes need to be managed in order to implement them.
• Refreezing: it is the last stage where the change is being implemented and the process starts again with the innovations. Monitoring of the process is done after that.

Task 4

4.1 in the task 3, you have proposed some major changes in your sbe. Now write a report on the impact of those changes on the operations of your sbe and its personnel.

Change management is one of the most important aspects attached with the businesses. It is necessary that the business should develop the plan which should remain flexible because plans of rigid nature always affect the business and cause loss to the same. Although change management is a very critical aspect but for a small enterprise it is necessary to remain prepared to accept the change and work accordingly. Flexibility is the key to manage the changes which could affect the businesses (aguinis, 2009). Icon corner shop will have to remain flexible so that it could grab the changes in an easy and effective way. Icon corner shop will have to educate the employees so that they could accept the change because employees resist for any kind of change at the workplace as they have the fear of loss of their jobs due to change at the workplace. Ics will have to provide job security to the staff members before adopting any change at the workplace and will have to ensure that policies should be developed in such a way which could be modified according to the changes applied to the organization.

Positive and negative change on the business:

Value chain element	Positive change	Negative change
Technology	Technological advancement in the process of the organisation	Many more chances of technical failure
Human resource	Hiring of new employees that are more skilled	Some of the employees resisting the changes made in the processes
Organisation	Improvement in the organisational hierarchy and system	The changes made have disturbed the normal functioning of the organisation.
Purchasing	Increase in the purchase	Increase in the purchase affect the financial management
Logistics	Change in the distribution channel has led to increase in range of the customer base	Increases the cost
Marketing and sales	New technology	Chance of failure is more
Manufacturing	Makes the process fast	Chance of damage due to unskilled labor.

4.2 plan how you would manage those proposed changes at your sbe. Use theory and examples to support your discussion.

There are various methods that can be adopted by the organizations to manage the change. Managing change helps in the smooth functioning of the business which avails the opportunity to perform better and to grow in the market. Various methods that will help in change management and Operations are:

Be prepared- Ics will have to remain prepared for any kind of change. Even a single change could affect the whole business. It will have to educate its employees and will have to develop the alternate plans which could help in accepting the change and functioning accordingly (obadan, et. Al., and 2013).

Communicate constantly- Effective communication is a key for the success of every enterprise. In the same manner ics will also have to communicate all the aspects related with the change to the staff members so that staff members could remain relaxed and work to manage the change accordingly.

Learn to flow with change- Simulation is one of the techniques that could be adopted by the organization to prepare itself for the change. Ics could provide training to the employees to deal with the change and could learn to flow with the same.

Mckinsey model: this model has been developed in order to organize the process of the company. It splits the functions into two groups:

1. Soft: shared value, skills, staff, style
2. Hard: structure, strategy, system

According to the analysis, these elements need to be used to accept the changes accordingly. All these elements need to be set in such a way that they compliment each other.

• Shared values: the value should be employee engagement
• Skills: availability of the skilled workers for social media marketing
• Staff: marketing manager and social media executive needs to be hired
• Style: participative leadership style should be opted
• Structure: open structure for more and more employee engagement and better communication.
• Strategy: the main strategy of the company is to plan the things before implementing.
• System: the main function that supports the business is the marketing team and the financial team.

4.3 write a report, how you would monitor improvements in the performance on the operations of the chosen business over next two years. Use theories on performance monitoring and change management and Operations to support your analysis.

There are various methods that could be adopted by ics to monitor improvements in the performance on the operations. There are certain theories that could be adopted by ics they are:

Goal setting theory

The theory has been proposed by edwin locke. According to the theory setting the goals for the organization and each and every employee will help in monitoring improvements in the performance on the operations (amico, 2015). When goals will be set then the enterprises will work towards to attain those goals and when these goals will be achieved then the performance of the organization will be evaluated.

Expectancy theory

Expectancy theory was proposed by victor vroom. The theory is based on the hypothesis which is based on the behavior of the individuals. Applying such theory helps in modifying the behavior according to the required performance which leads to attain the goals.
These are the theories that will help in monitoring improvements in the performance on the operations of ics (broekemier, et. Al., 2015).

The following method can be used to monitor the new plan:

• Matching the objectives with the actual plan: to match the objectives with the plan results helps in determining the deviation
• Tracking the progress: tracking the progress of the pan timely helps in determining the faults in between the processes. This helps in taking the corrective actions.
• Generating records: this can help in reducing the faults in future that have been made in past or present.

Conclusion

It could be said that small enterprises works under very competitive market for which it becomes necessary that these enterprises should work towards to manage the performance. Performance evaluation helps the businesses to sustain and develop the strategies. Developing the strategies and working accordingly helps in enhancing the performance. Another aspect is business plan; enterprises like icon corner shop should try develop a proper structure and business plan so that they could attain success in the market and competitive advantage in the market.

References

Wthsites

• Anon, (2016). [online] Available at: httpi/lcon Corner Shop [Aased 12 Nov. 2016].
• Hnffmgton Po bdia. (2016). Change Management How to Build and Run a Beffet Biisins. [online] Available at httpJ/w.buffiagoaposlin/e.hy/d ge-managementh ow-to-_b_3480601 [Acctsed 12 Nov. 2016].
• Icaew.cxnn. (2016). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at http1/ww.iewa.I4mediakorpornte/fiI&tahnicaL’busincss-and-financinl- managemontm&enterprisnporLFIcaw-uk-emterp-vb.aidiz [Aaxssecl 12 Nov. 2016].
• bfoentrcprenenrs.org. (2016). Measure performance and set targeis. [online] Available at httpllwwwiafoentreprenews.orgkn/guid&.easure-pafonnance-and-flet-targd& [Acceacd 12 Nov. 20161.
• Smaflbnsiness.chron.com. (2016). Methods for Managing Change. [online] Available at:
httjd/smaHbusins.chron.corn1methods-inanaging-change-45 I 2.html [Aceessed 12 Nov. 2016].
• Ssioii-1-Takeaways-Guidlinea. (2016). SWOT analysis and PEST analysis.
• Academiaedn. (2016). THE ROLE OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN SMALL FIRM
CR0 WTH_FULLJ)APER. [online] Available at
http1/www.ac’demIn/1238740t1}IE_ROLE_OF_CHANGE_MANAGEMENT_IN_ SMALL_FIRM_GROWTh_FIJLL_PAPER [Accessed 12 Nov. 2016].