Brief description of the case under consideration
THESIS: Generally, evaluating the facts, it appears that with finding more efficient ways of marketing along with the wise advertising company, “Beautiful Legs BY POST”, might become a successful and flourishing company occupying new markets with its revolutionary “know-how” sales strategies making the work of sellers easier and more efficient; in addition, supply chain management is to be an improvement in order to make it more effective and minimize all the possible manufacturing expenses.
Reflections
“Beautiful Legs BY POST” is a London-based company specializing in women’s tights sales. In the following paper, the current financial situation of the company along with some ways of its improvement and the possible opportunities for it will be discussed. Generally, evaluating the facts, it appears that with finding more efficient ways of marketing along with the wise advertising company, “Beautiful Legs BY POST”, might become a successful and flourishing company occupying new markets with its revolutionary “know-how” sales strategies making the work of sellers easier and more efficient; in addition, supply chain management is to be an improvement in order to make it more effective and minimize all the possible manufacturing expenses.
Speaking about the current financial situation of the company, the basic information concerning “Beautiful Legs BY POST” is to be addressed. According to Bygrave (1996, p.1):
Since graduating in July with MBA degrees from INSEAD (The European Institute of Business Administration located in France), Elizabeth and Dickon had worked hard to implement the business plan that they had written when they were classmates. Each had invested £4,000 to launch Beautiful Legs BY POST. With the seed money in hand, they had found a supplier of tights, purchased a mailing list, and printed and mailed 4,000 catalogs. They had not yet paid themselves any salary and had not budgeted to do so until December. Their plan called for a mailing of 80,000 catalogs in November, to be followed by two mailings of 20,000 catalogs each in January and February. To finance those mailings they needed to raise £110,000 within the next month.
The opportunity
Thus, a conclusion can be made as to the basic financial situation and the opportunities which can be seen for this company. In particular, the company is meeting women’s needs for tights and related goods. Their target customers, as a result, are women, and the value proposition is seen in a great choice and good prices. Regarding the competitiveness of the product, it should be stated that it is rather high as well on the reason of the above-mentioned factors including the price and rich assortment. All in all, taking the above-mentioned facts into consideration this business opportunity can be evaluated as a genuine one.
With regards to the company’s team, it appears that it is experienced, “healthy”, creative, and can be evaluated as a union of professionals. As a result, this team has a needed basis for competing with others in this area. Addressing the recourses they need for their success, additional training is to be mentioned first of all especially the one in the area of analytics (Barrett 2012). Nowadays, knowledge and professionalism is the strongest power, and, thus, it is very important to never stop in the process of professional growth (Helping to Keep the Possibilities Blooming’ 2011). To put it briefly, the company’s team can be evaluated as successful for achieving good results in their business, and, thus, can be addressed as relevant for this business opportunity.
Overall potential
Discussing the overall potential of the company under consideration and the ways of its improvement, it should be stated that if some few possible measures would be implemented the company could be evaluated as presenting a good business opportunity for its owners.
Recommendations
First of all, the company strategy should be improved including supply chain management enhancement in order to make it more efficient and minimize all the possible manufacturing expenses. In addition, the financial management of the company is too much focused on paying the personnel but has few expenses for an advertising company. “Advertising is the engine of commerce”, everybody knows this simple truth. How many companies have proved the truthfulness of this saying! Only wise financial management focused on aggressive advertising companies can prove to be successful (Rynecki 1993). Finally, inventory management is to be improved as well.
The company is to offer new products as the market never stays the same; the more new products and services are offered the more the customers are attracted. This tendency is even explained by the psychological peculiarities of people (Helping to Keep the Possibilities Blooming 2011). Major opportunities for the development of the company are also connected with the goals for its expansion into new territories.
The very important point with regards to this will be the legitimacy of these strategies and methods. Considering the demand cost of “Beautiful Legs BY POST” it should be stated that it is well defined by the level of the income of the chain’s clients, the price for related services offered by the companies-competitors, the number of buyers, and their preferences, expectations, and tastes.
Further, it is universally accepted that the main objective of starting any business is to maximize profits. Thus, the advantage of using larger retailer nets is the reduced costs and increased customer service level to one or all the acting members. The retailers’ outward delivery costs will be reduced and hence there is an advantage when analyzing one’s profits. Speaking about the issues that affect the cost of Beautiful Legs BY POST” products, it should be stated that they are classical ones, and feature such main categories as a price to the consumer’s expectation, price dependent on competitive price as a foundation, the economic conditions, the level of demand, costs of stock materials, established salary levels, and different types of discounts including seasonal, reseller and corporate ones.
The impact of technology on productivity and the average total cost is considered as it affects numerous areas. On the whole, it affects the costs lessening them out as many processes connected with the production become less complicated, labor and stock material investing. However, technology also offers the opportunity to present the clients with exclusive services; in this case, the costs will grow on the contrary.
Conclusion
This paper has identified the way the market and economic conditions, along with the impact of modern sales technologies affect the viability of the company products along with their costs. Concluding on all the information related above, it should be stated that “Beautiful Legs BY POST”, a London-based company specializing in women’s tights sales, can be evaluated as a company with good perspectives and significant potential.
In particular, with the changes in the company’s retailing management and financial politics, the case would likely have developed in a very profitable way for the company. Finding more efficient ways of marketing along with the wise advertising company, “Beautiful Legs BY POST” might become a successful and flourishing company occupying new markets and growing on a regular basis. In addition, the inventory sector of the company is also to be regularly innovated in order to provide the best quality and design product for its customers.
References
Barrett, R 2012, The New Theories of business. Web.
Bygrave, W 1996, ‘Beautiful Legs BY POST with Financials”, the Frederic C. Hamilton Chair for Free Enterprise, pp. 1-50.
‘Helping to Keep the Possibilities Blooming’ 2011, Business Credit, 113, pp. 28+.
Rynecki, J. 1993, ‘On-site Management in a Post-cfc World’, Journal of Property Management, 58, pp. 30+.