HND Business Management: Discussion And Strategic Recommendation For Growth

Discussion

Discuss about the HND Business Management.

Over the last few decades, the whole idea of business has undergone a drastic change. It no longer involves the traditional idea of purchase and sale through a few limited numbers of shops, because it is much more than that. In the strictly competitive market of the present world, there are multiple shops, which are selling the homogeneous products, and as such any organization has to make a lot of research and has to keep on interacting with the consumers, to be able to evaluate its present market position, as well as its prospect in the near future (Bryman and Bell 2015). The Wing Wah Company has been able to gain much reputation in the local market, by being the only cake shop, in the area, till the year of 2009. However, from 2009 onwards, many new, modern and much more lavish cake shopping outlets have been set up in and around the locality. Resultantly, this has reduced the sales growth of Wing Wah Company, and hence the organization must take up some immediate steps to combat the issue of revenue decline in the recent years.

Although there are various new cake shops which are developing around the locality, this cannot be deemed as the actual reason for the sudden decline in the profitability of the Wing Wah group of companies. The main problem underlying this whole scenario is that Wing Wah company , as a cake shop has failed terribly to update itself in accordance to the changing needs and preferences of the consumers in the modern business world. Hence, a few recommendations are advisable in order to assist the store provide consumers better satisfaction as well as to regain its position in the consumer market.

Information and Knowledge Needs:

Identification of an Objective for improvement within the Organization:

As the organization is going through difficult times at present, Wing Wah has attempted to identify the major problem that is challenging the organizational success. It has been understood, that because of a huge number of cake shops developing in the locality, the demand of Wing Wah has gradually reduced. It is for this reason alone that, the organization has decided to increase its engagement and communication with the consumers as an objective, which will aid it in regaining its position in the market (Vivek et al. 2012 pp.122-146). Communication with the consumers is an important part of any business organization, and Wing Wah is following a less digital and more traditional approach to the marketing process. As a result, it is unable to create positive engagement with the consumer base, unlike the other rival shops. The presence of Wing Wah on social media tools, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, will help the company to interact with the consumers, and to keep them engaged with the current updates of its latest offers and discounts. The online presence of the organization will further help in the development of the brand recognition of Wing Wah. The importance of “Likes” and “Shares”, in making a brand popular cannot be overstated. Hence, social media marketing strategy will be the new objective of wing Wah, that it will aim to achieve.

Information and Knowledge Needs

Examination of Information Needed to Ensure Effective Decision Making Process:

The authority of the company has to undertake a research to study the reason behind the change in the consumer’s attitude towards the shop . There may be multiple reasons behind the same, but the most obvious ones should be chosen first for conducting the research. Since the major problem the organization is encountering, is that it is facing a lot of competition from the other rival shops, it must be able to track down the factors which are present in the rival cake shops, and yet cannot be availed in Wing Wah.  It may happen that the consumers are getting greater and more attractive discounts and offers on the cake products, in the other shops. Information should be gathered from the potential consumers, as to, whether they prefer virtual shopping facilities of the other shops or not. Hence, a questionnaire may be distributed among the existent consumers as well as the old ones, asking them if they feel that their products sold by them, are a bit overpriced. The survey method should distribute a questionnaire in the following format:

Questions	Response	Response	Response
Do you feel that the price of our confectionary product is comparatively high?	Yes	No	Maybe
Do you prefer online mode of business over the offline method of shopping?	Yes	No	Maybe
Are you content with the customer service offered by the organization?	Yes	No	Maybe

Strategic Recommendation for Improvement of the Organization:

The objective that Wing Wah has set before itself is to create brand awareness with the help of social media tools. Hence, the present strategic plan of Wing Wah will be focused on creating social media marketing plan. First, Wing Wah, will aim at interacting more freely with the consumers, which will help them to build a stronger relation with the consumers. It will also introduce attractive discounts on social media platforms, so that it can gain the attention of potential consumers. The organization will improve its customer service via social media marketing methods. However, while the marketing managers will be entrusted with the duty of responding to the consumers’ inquiries and feedbacks, they must be trained as to how to deal with negative feedbacks. The marketing managers must deal with complaints or negative remarks, patiently, and apologize individually to the clients in case there us any fault on part of Wing Wah. in order to create a loyal customer base. Wing Wah will introduce various attractive offers and coupons for the existent consumers. Through the online presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Wing Wah will create meaningful relationship with the consumers. Last but not the least, Wing Wah will use analytics such as Facebook Insights in Hootsuite, which will help the company in understanding the demographics and patterns of the consumer behavior. On the one hand, while this will help in creating target audience, on the other hand it will also help Wing Wah to understand the actual needs and specific preferences of each consumer.

Examination of Information Needed to Ensure Effective Decision Making Process

Assessment of Internal and External Sources of Information:

The cake shop will conduct research and enquiry into the recent business researches and studies being done, in the country as well as abroad, to acquire a comprehensive knowledge about what are the recent innovative strategies that are likely to contribute to the success of an organization. For instance, a recent research was undertaken by IBM, which established the fact that consumers, all across the world are more interested in and are attracted to the digital form of marketing. Being a traditional shop, Wing Wah does not offer any digital experience to the consumers, and it is here, that it may need to reconsider and reevaluate its business needs and strategy. The research was carried on more than 1,10,000 consumers being an online research, and the statistical data collected can help even medium scale organizations, such as the Wing Wah, to exploit the information, for formulating a better business strategy. The organization does not always need to spend an enormous amount out of its own budget for conducting the research, but it may seek help from the internet to collect the wealth of information about the factors behind the change in consumer behavior. The organization needs to be technologically updated, and the company has to track the information about the nearby cake shops from online sites, to comprehend the things in which Wing Wah is lacking. This will be an external source of information, as the organization; itself will employ means to research about the market condition of the rival organizations. Again, the organization, may hire a professional, but as it is not big enough to do that, it can ask its managers to invest more time for doing the investigation. The responsible official of the organization may be asked to shop in the rival cake shops, and he must ensure that he is discreet enough to take note of the different pricing system and unique servicing methods, which are lacking in the Wing Wah organization. Most of the organizations nowadays have an online presence, and Wing Wah, can easily track the performance and market condition of its competitor shops by following them on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Apart from the primary mode of research, the store can also seek help of some secondary mode of research, with the help of the professional information providers, such as Hoover’s which will charge the organization a minimum amount of subscription fee for gathering information, about the recently implemented strategy, of the rival stores. Hoover is an organization that helps organizations understand the market value or competitive strategy of the rival organization, in a competitive market, and this will be an example of an external source of information.

Strategic Recommendation for Improvement of the Organization

Identification of Stakeholders:

The stakeholders of an organization are the people who are deeply involved in the business activities of the organization, and have interest in the concern of the organization. The stakeholders of an organization may be its employees, or its customers or even its investors (Miles 2012).The stakeholders of an organization are the biggest assets, and hence the Wing Wah Company must ensure that it is capable of communicating well with the stakeholders, especially through the use of social media. The first and foremost step, here, is to open up the official business page of the organization on various social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and others. According to a recent research, 74% of the consumers get influenced by Facebook, while purchasing a product. Hence, Wing Wah Company should start up a Facebook page, and it should keep on updating the consumers about the latest offers and discounts, that the company is offering (Hajli 2014 pp.387-404).

Explanation of the Method of Making Contact with the Stakeholders:

As Wing Wah company is already suffering from a decline in the rate of sale and growth, it must introduce lucrative offers to its consumers, and much of the offers will go unheard and ineffective, until the organization starts publicizing them on social sites. Again, a huge number of the consumers claim that they use their Twitter accounts to know as well as to recommend their favorite products and services to their acquaintances (Brodie et al. 2013 pp.105-114).

Figure 1: Statistical Data showing the Use of Social Media by the Small Scale Business Organizations

(Source: McCarthy 2014)

Involvement of Stakeholders in the Decision Making Process:

As the above diagram represents, most of the small scale as well as the medium scale organizations are nowadays seeking help of social sites, to communicate with the customers, both existent as well as the potential ones.  As Wing Wah, is losing out much of its, customers recently, it must keep in touch with the consumers, and interact with them in a more engaging way. However, this communication procedure must be done in a friendly manner, so that the consumers do not feel that the organization is solely making connection with them, on materialistic ground, but they should feel that they are being valued, and their needs are being prioritized by the organization. Hence, the store should every now and then, present some sort of participatory games, which will invite the customers to the store to check out the latest offers, and also reward them with small things, as per the budget of the store (Aral et al. 2013 pp.3-13).

Assessment of Internal and External Sources of Information

Strategic Recommendation for the Improvement of the Networking Process in the Organization:

Companies like Kroger, have already used business strategy for communicating with the consumers through the social sites. One example is when Kroger had proposed an offer via Facebook, whereby the consumers could get one item free with anything that they buy from the store on Friday. These advertisements go viral on a social site, and helps in increasing the publicity of the organization. However, the objective of involving the consumers in a more active way, cannot be fulfilled, unless the internal stakeholders of the organization, come forward and assist in the communication process. The employees of the store have to be more active on the social sites. At least two to three employees have to be involved in the process. While one can be entrusted with the duty of updating the customers about the latest discounts and recent offers via the social sites, the other two can be successfully used to keep a track on the customer’s response and feedback on these sites. It often happens that an organization’s reputation is marred by the negative feedback, complaints or grievances posted on the social sites, and hence it is the duty of the internal stakeholders to remove such negative comments, or if necessary, get back to them, by apologizing to them.

Report on the Existing Communication Method of the Organization:

Wing Wah is a medium scale organization, and this is the reason why it mostly communicates to its consumers with the help of print media. The company takes help of pamphlets, and flyers and provides advertisement on the newspapers about their service. The organization does not make much use of online strategy of business communication, but it relies more on leafleting methods. However, this proves to be more expensive for the organization, as it requires recurring expenditure for almost daily circulation of the advertisements. Additionally, it cannot reach a wider mass, as recent studies suggest that the young people spend more time on social media, rather than reading newspapers and going through pamphlets.

One Method to Improve the Communication Process:

Keeping this in consideration, the company has decided to communicate with its customers via social media. The organization will open up official business pages on various social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This method of social media communication will have two important functions:

• To inform the consumers about the recent offers and new products
• To communicate much freely and intimately with the consumers

Further the company also needs to improve its inter personal communication. As the current objective of the firm is to improve its communication and engagement with the customers, it must make sure that the organization also maintains good communication within the organization to help it achieve the plan.

Method to Improve communication Skills in the Organization:

At present, the store has a manager and he looks after the financial transactions taking place within the firm. The workers in the store help the consumers in the act of purchasing the cake products. The organization, however, needs to be more interactive with each other regarding the implementation of the proposed plan (Subramanian 2013). The manager of the store, before the beginning of the day, should call forth all the employees who are responsible for the social media marketing, and should direct them as to what they will be required to do in the given day. He should first summon the worker who is assigned with the job of promoting the products and service online, and tell him what aspects about the store need to be updated by him. The employee may also preferably make some suggestion, apart from listening to the manager. Next, he should call forth the employees who will be responsible for responding to the inquiries of the consumers, and he should be given proper instruction as to what his reply should be. This work will also demand adequate communication skills, as the individuals will be required to interact with the consumers in a friendly and engaging way, feeling free to apologize whenever the situation will demand. The manager should communicate in a very simple way, the needs which are to be addressed by the employees and as to how to achieve the same, by increasing co-operation with the consumers and improving inter-personal skills.

The senior manager of an organization must be very adept in interpersonal as well as intrapersonal communication skills. I should be able to not only communicate well with the staffs and the consumers, but also need to reflect on my own position, and understand what more I can do, to bring about significant improvement in the business. I should be able to interact more fluently and in a straight forward method with my working staffs with respect to the goals I have formulated to boost our sale growth, and how to implement them, in a given time. I must also improve my communication skills, so that I can be more resourceful about the emerging and immediate needs of the organization. As part of my good communication skills, I will need to not only give out commands but also listen to the suggestions and advices, if any, of my working staffs. If any consumer comes to me complaining about any aspect of the shop which he is not liking, I will need to respond in a much friendly and polite way, and I should be capable of convincing him that such a problem will not crop up in future. Speaking in a friendly manner with the consumers can help to avoid much dispute and ill reputation in future (Wood 2015).

Diagram Report on the Existing Approach of Data Collection and Dissemination:

The Human Resource department of the organization is highly responsible not only for collecting the information about the employees, but also about keeping the confidentiality of the same. First of all, the information will be collected by the HR department, and it will consist of detailed information about the employee, and the following points regarding his background will be first collected:

• Name
• Age
• Designation
• Address
• Qualification and experience
• Salary and position history
• Present salary and other job benefits

At present, all the information pertaining to the details of the employees are kept by the HR of the company, and he keeps this information, after collecting the details from the recruiter. These personal details are kept in the personal folder allotted for each employee. However, such information is highly confidential and personal, and does not get shared with any second person. A successful HRM department is that which ensures smooth transfer of information regarding the employees, as and when required. Wing Wah company maintains a well-organized system of storing all the information about a single employee, whereby the HR is responsible for keeping all the information pertaining to the employee, such as name, address, beneficiaries, in a single file. Each employee has a single folder maintained under his name, so that the HR can pass over the required information, whenever necessary to the respective managers. Further, the HR of the organization not only stores the information about the employees, but it also updates the information, as and when the need arises. However, the HR also ensures the confidentiality of the information collected, and hence it does not allow an easy dissemination of the information, unless it is a case of emergency. Further, the organization collects the information from the employees, which are required only for legal purpose or for the sake of the business. The organization has also made strict rules as to what extent can the personal records of the employees be viewed by a third party, in case of emergency. In addition to all these, the HR of the organization also checks the history and background of the applicants before recruitment, in order to reduce chances of theft and fraudulence within the organization.

Figure 2: Flow of Employee Data within the Organization

(Source: Paginas.fe.up.pt 2016)

Formulation of Strategy to Improve the Collection and Dissemination of Information:

Although Wing Wah already enjoys a well-organized HR management team, yet it has recently realized that the organization is facing certain inconveniences in the process of accessing the data about the individual employees. To help in easy access of information, the company can store all its information in the computer, as it will not only help in easy access of the information at the right time, but will also reduce the risk of data loss in subsequent period. The computer based storage of information is also a very wise decision in case the company fears the chance of data breach. The HR department of the organization bears extremely valuable information about its employees, and it must ensure that this information do not get leaked or damaged.

Implementation of Strategy to Improve the Collection and Dissemination of Information:

The company needs to seek the regular guidance of a professional computer forensics expert to ensure the firm that its employee information is safe, and is not getting leaked. Further, the employee’s information should be recorded on the computer in an alphabetical order to help in easy and convenient access of the information (Cdpgroupltd.com 2016). However, there remains a possibility that the data may be lost even from the computer, and as such the whole organization may be in a great problem. Keeping this in mind, the computer-based storage of the information will be beneficial for the organization, as the HR can copy and paste the data of the employee, in an USB hard drive, in case the data gets misplaced or lost. Plus, the use of computer based data storage system will also enable the organization to keep a separate track on each sphere of the HR department, as there are some really useful software available in the market. The Wing Wah company can make use of the available software as these can be used to keep the data of the employees in a more accessible way. One very popularly used software for this purpose, which the organization, can also make use of, is called Staff Files, which offers various tabs to the HR, like wagestab, benefitstab, or accrualtabs to manage multiple aspects of the employee data accurately.

Reference List:

Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue-social media and business transformation: A framework for research.Information Systems Research, 24(1), pp.3-13.

Brodie, R.J., Ilic, A., Juric, B. and Hollebeek, L., 2013. Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis. Journal of Business Research, 66(1), pp.105-114.

Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Cdpgroupltd.com. Employee Data Management Service (EDM). [online] Available at: https://www.cdpgroupltd.com/En/Services/Services225.shtml [Accessed 5 Jul. 2016].

Hajli, M.N., 2014. A study of the impact of social media on consumers.International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), pp.387-404.

Miles, S., 2012. Stakeholder: Essentially contested or just confused?.Journal of Business Ethics, 108, pp.285-298.

Subramanian, K. ed., 2013. Excellence in business communication. Pearson.

Vivek, S.D., Beatty, S.E. and Morgan, R.M., 2012. Customer engagement: Exploring customer relationships beyond purchase. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 20(2), pp.122-146.

Wood, J.T., 2015. Interpersonal communication: Everyday encounters. Nelson Education.