Jenine Aliss: Growth And Development Of A Successful Australian Entrepreneur

The background and idea behind Boost Juice Bars

Discuss about the Discussion of Jenine Aliss as an Australian Entrepreneur.

Jenine Aliss is one of the successful woman entrepreneurs in Australia. She was born in the year 1965 and grew up in Knoxfield. According to Allis (2013), she went to school but drop out of school at the age of sixteen years against the wishes of her parents. Jenine started working while she was seventeen years old in advertising agency McCann-Erickson. She also engaged in other forms of jobs that included being an assistant gym manager and in modeling.  She never attended any form of business training nor went to the University for Studies in order to come up with a business idea that had made her very successful (Allis 2013).  She had a desire for traveling from places but she did not have a clear mindset of what she wanted to do in the course of her life.

The idea to start the boost juice bar was after a trip in which she traveled with her husband Jeff to the United States in the year 1999.  Jenine noticed that the business for smoothies’ categories and juices were booming in the USA but there was hardly a juice bar in her home country in Australia despite its warm climate (Allis 2013). According to Allis (2013), Aliss was having the urge to start the business but due to other responsibilities like being a touring comedian and publisher deterred her from imagining that at one time she would be a successful entrepreneur. Jenine was an advocate for living a healthy lifestyle and the business idea she developed from the USA would have been the turning point to change the health lifestyle of her family and the community.  Belbaly and Cheruy (2013) assert that the awakening of her dream as an entrepreneur was driven by  the desire to provide her kids with healthy fast food when on out but the only food that was present in the stores were only sugary, empty calories with high-fat content.  She analyzed the local retail sector and she could hardly get healthy fast food snack for her family when she went shopping in the Aussie market. The passion for initiating a juice bar grew bigger after analyzing the market and coming to a conclusion that there were very few healthy snacks for consumption in the Australia market (Menzies and Orr 2014). Jenine, therefore, decided to initiate the boost juice bar which she believed that the customers would love the freshness of the fruit. She believed on “love life” and she decided to conduct retailing differently from the other retailers in order to develop a unique customer experience (Allis 2013). The first store she opened was in Adelaide and she did all the activities from scrubbing the floor, serving the customers to making the drinks.

Factors that drove Jenine’s passion for entrepreneurship

Social Mobility

The social mobility played the main role in the development of the entrepreneurial person of Jenine. The migration from one place to another can trigger new ideas to most of the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs are able to identify the gaps available that need to be satisfied by a good or a service by traveling to new places (Sarasvathy 2001). According to Sarasvathy (2001), the culture change after migrating from one place to another provides good avenues in developing a new business idea. Aliss accompanied her husband Jeff to a trip to the USA which resulted in her invention of a business idea.  The trip of Jenine to the USA is what made her discover new healthy smoothie and juices that were not in existence in Australia.  The movement of an entrepreneur from one place to another can serve as a new source of a business idea as the encounter of new products in new places can provide insights for an entrepreneur in identifying a gap for introducing new unique products in his /her place of residence.

Family Motivation

Entrepreneurs need to be motivated by the family to be able to develop an entrepreneurial passion. The entrepreneurs who have family back up are more likely to implement their business ideas by developing a product or a service (Hanke 2016). The family must develop a positive attitude towards the business idea and provide it with support.  Jeff the husband of Aliss had a positive perception of the business idea and joined hands with Jenine which made her feel motivated and have the zeal for entrepreneurship.

Gender Roles

The gender roles can also be an important factor for developing passionate entrepreneurs in the society (Gherardi and Giampietro 2014). Jenine being an advocate for health food and being the person who was taking care of her kids by providing them with healthy food could easily recognize that most of the retail shops lacked the healthy food that she wanted to provide for her kids the snacks. Jenine as a mother, healthy living was her utmost importance and it is healthy living that drove her passion towards establishing Boost Juice bars that would provide healthy drinks and food.

Customer’s Satisfaction

The acceptance of the products by the customers in the market drives entrepreneurial passion (Bradberry 2011). The passion for Jenine to entrepreneurship was due to her brand acceptance by the customers.  The customers were crying for healthy foods with fewer calories as most of the people by then were obese due to the intake of unhealthy fast foods with high calories from the retail shops. The people of Australia were looking forward to the introduction of healthy foods.  The customers’ demands for healthy food products is what drove Jenine in starting the Boost Juice bar as she was also and an advocate for healthy living.

The competitive advantage of Boost Juice Bars

Friends Support

The moral and financial support by the friends’ drives entrepreneurial passion (Morrison 2006).Aliss’s friends supported her during the initiation of Boost Juice bar. After the development of the business plan, she was able to raise $250,000 from her friends for investments. The passion for her entrepreneurship was therefore driven by her friends as the initial capital for the business was high for her to generate.

Business

Jenine Aliss is the founder of Boost juice bars whose main role is to sell healthy fruit juice and smoothies. The first store that she opened was in her home country in Australia at Adelaide.  The business grew rapidly as the customers accepted the products that she made that made her opened other new stores within Australia (Pung 2008). The business grew and she was able to capture the market outside her home countries to other countries. The stores are currently operating in more than fourteen international countries. Boost has more than four hundred stores and the turnover is more than $195,000,000 (Allis 2013). Jenine Aliss is determined to spread the Boost juice stores to more countries so that it may capture the market globally. Boost juice provides an alternative for fast food options in Australia by providing the best healthy food alternative.

Competitive Advantage

The uniqueness of the products has been the most important competitive advantage of the Boost juice Bars (Tan and Smyrnios 2011). The Australian market is flooded by unhealthy foods, juices, and snacks within the retail shop. The Boost juice is unique as it avoids any nasty preservative, colors and artificial flavors or sweeteners that are included as part of the ingredients in the manufacturing of juices. The products are delicious juices and smoothies that offer fresh and natural ingredients with more than 98% fat-free. The Boost juices use different types of freshly squeezed vegetables and fruits. The uniqueness of the Boost Juice is what has resulted to its brand loyalty as most of the people are advocating for healthy foods that do not have additives due to the increased prevalence of diseases that result from consuming foods that are unhealthy.

Boost Culture|

The boost culture has also been the competitive advantage against other entrepreneurs. The “love life” philosophy has made it possible for Boost juice to surpass the other entrepreneurs. The relentless pursuit for satisfying the customers has been the main goal of the company by producing products that are customers centered. The brand’s philosophy which has been facilitated by producing products that surpass the customer’s expectation and recruitment of employees determined in achieving the mission of the company has been the competitive advantage against the other entrepreneurs.

Jenine Aliss with her passion for a healthy life should not only concentrate on providing healthy food as the only means of promoting a healthy life. She was ones an assistant gym manager and should, therefore, think of introducing gym centers where people can go for exercises and pay. The health of the person is not just entangled on the healthy food he/she consume but also on exercise and health care services that he/she is able to access. Jenine can, therefore, start a hospital venture which can capture most of the customers as most of the Australians have already recognized her as an individual that aims at promoting the health of the people.

The Boost juice bars concentrates on selling fruit juices and smoothies.  The company can take a different direction in order to maximize its profit by availing to the customer’s other types of food products in the stores. The snacks usually go hand in hand with the juices and smoothies and most of the customers like the stores that they can be able to purchase them simultaneously. The Boost Juice should, therefore, commence on diversifying their products from not only the smoothies and juices but also snacks and another form of food products. The company should ensure that the snacks and other food products retain the natural freshness to ensure that the customers retain loyalty for their products.

References

Allis, J, 2013. The Secrets of My Success: The Story of Boost Juice, Juicy Bits and All. John Wiley & Sons.

Belbaly, N and Cheruy, C, 2013. How Creative are Your Executives?.Available at SSRN 2449200.

Bradberry, J, 2011. 6 secrets to startup success: how to turn your entrepreneurial passion into a thriving business. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.

Gherardi, S and Giampietro, M, 2014. Gender and entrepreneurship as an intertwined social practice: narratives of a learning trajectory. Business and Management Research, vol.3, no. (4), p.p61.

Hanke, A, 2016. Rethinking business. Books+ Publishing, vol.95, no. (4), p.16

Menzies, JL and Orr, SC, 2014. Internationalization of Boost Juice to Malaysia. Asian Case Research Journal, vol.18 no.(01), pp.175-197.

Morrison, A, 2006. A contextualisation of entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol.12, no. (4), pp.192-209.

Pung, A,  2008. Franchise Nation. Monthly, The, (June 2008), p.20.

Sarasvathy, SD, 2001. What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?.

Tan, CSL and Smyrnios, KX, 2011. How do Australian fast-growth small-to-medium enterprises measure performance?. Journal of Enterprising Culture, vol.19, no. (01), pp.41-60.