Executive Summary
The presented report was commissioned to examine the strategic business vision of the grooming service facility Paws n’ Tails. The research draws attention to the critical components of any business planning process, such as organization overview, target market segmentation, current and future implications, and the service concept. The report estimates the grooming services, including necessary hygienic procedures, as a core of the analyzed business. The self-service washing room and retail of certain pet goods are formulated as peripheral services. The servicescape of the business consists of both a physical office and an online platform. The target market is identified as a group of young individuals and families with a stable income who own pets and live in the office area.
The report aims to evaluate three current issues that can affect Paws n’ Tails business, such as the coronavirus, increasing costs of utilities, and the neighboring competitors’ arrival. The potential future implications are viewed using a SWOT analysis, which takes into account the four factors of the organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and potential Threats. The report evaluates the given business’s service concept and concludes that all the discussed issues combined will ensure the successful operation of Paws n’ Tails.
Strategic Service Vision Report
Strategic planning has proven to be the key to a successful business operation. Nowadays, businesses are pressured to show perfect performance to gain customers’ recognition and respect from their competitors. The service business is no exception, as it deals with direct satisfying of the customer’s needs and has to be thoroughly envisioned to achieve it. It is a difficult task, given the constant challenges of the global economy. It is especially difficult for new businesses that only start to make small steps towards establishing themselves on the market. This research paper aims to analyze the Paws n’ Tails grooming business and evaluate its target market, offered services, potential issues and risks, as well as determine a precise service concept of the organization.
Organization Overview
Paws n’ Tails is an organization designed to provide high-quality grooming services for pets of all breeds and sizes. The organization is located in San Francisco, CA, in a modern and secured housing facility in the city center. Paws n’ Tails is a family-run grooming facility established to help pet owners look after their pets’ hygiene in a clean, safe space with qualified personnel and reasonably priced services. The organization’s primary goal is to set a standard among the grooming facilities of the operating area and attract clients that will become devoted long-term customers.
To ensure this goal is achieved successfully, the facility has defined the main objective of operating, which is offering hygienic care for dogs, cats, rabbits, and other pets. It also includes the following core services: bathing; hair and nail trimming, hair and teeth brushing; ear cleaning; tick and flea treatment. Being focused on providing general well-being and healthy physical appearance of pets, Paws n’ Tails offers a scope of some other services which complement the grooming services. These include self-service dog washtubs; retail of pet goods; healthcare supplies and dietary supplements; pet food of different dietary ranges.
Paws n’ Tails is concerned with their services being delivered in a fast and professional manner to ensure both the client’s satisfaction with prompt maintenance and the animal’s safety. Thus, our facility aims to hire competent employees who possess the necessary skills and are encouraged to work hard. All the new workers take training courses and practice under the guidance of our best professionals to guarantee careful accurate performance. Paws n’ Tails cares for our team of workers, securing fair wages and welfare packages for the secure employment and financial stability of each individual. This helps us make sure that our employees are eager to stay in the organization and invest in its development.
Alongside providing high-quality services and skillful personnel, Paws n’ Tails seeks convenience for our clients. We understand that many owners are busy people with jobs and responsibilities, so we make sure they spend their time wisely when using our services. In order not to stand in line waiting for their turn, customers can go on our website www.pawsntails.com to select the best time for their visit, as well as view the pricing for each available service. If the client does not have time to go to our office to purchase pet food or any other available goods, they can as well purchase them on our website in the online store section. Free shipping is provided along with the wide-range bonus programs and discount system.
We understand that using online platforms is not for everyone, so there is no particular need to schedule a visit. Paws n’ Tails office is operating on a round-the-clock basis for the convenience of our clients. When a customer comes, there are always available employees to help with any kind of service. We have a comfortable waiting room, where customers can have a cup of coffee and watch TV while waiting for their pets to get all fresh and clean. There are also special waiting rooms for pets where their owners can pick them up later on if they could not stay and wait. Additionally, in our grooming area and self-service washroom, each animal has its personal separated space for them to feel comfortable and safe.
Target Market Segments
The target market for pet owners in America is quite massive. More than 60 percent of Americans own a pet nowadays willing to pay to provide their pets with the best products and services (Insurance Information Institute, 2020). However, pet owners have different goals, values, lifestyles, and levels of income. When determining our target market, we used a target segment strategy, evaluating each potential segment to develop products appealing for a particular group of customers. It was essential for us to focus on a particular audience, as we do not believe that trying to satisfy everyone does not work. Paws n’ Tails is determined to provide high-quality services that will perfectly match with the vision of a certain group, and will not be just merely sufficient for a larger number of people.
To make customization most effective, we categorized the market based on demographic, geographic, and psychographic segmentation. As a result, we defined our target market as individuals aged 25 to 45, having a stable high income, living in the area near the Paws n’ Tails office. Moreover, they lead an active lifestyle (often together with their pets) concerned with animal rights movement. This group of clients is determined to pay for their pets’ health and well-being, often leaving them in our office for a while to finish work or household duties. In turn, we are more than happy to give our customers a helping hand.
Current and Future Implications
Current Issues
Here at Paws n’ Tails, we understand that no business can avoid outside factors that influence the standard operating of the organization. Changes happen all the time, and there is no other choice for the business apart from embracing the challenges and trying to solve the issues that follow. At the moment, businesses struggle much from the COVID-19 consequences, and Paws n’ Tails is no exception.
Due to still existing distancing restrictions and unstable situation with coronavirus outbreaks throughout the country, we cannot guarantee full operating capacity within the present time frame (Fairlie, 2020). This may affect our working schedule and, therefore, revenues may undergo a temporary shortage.
Growing costs of utilities such as electricity, gas, food, and drinks supply can easily become an issue, especially for a new business like ours. When facing these rises on price, lower income is unavoidable (Çera, Belás and Strnad, 2019). Fortunately, it is possible to resolve this issue by cutting out non-essential expenses – turning off the lights alone when they are not used can save quite an amount of money.
However, these manipulations must be conducted without any damage to the successful operating of the office, a conscious reasoning should be put first. Another common issue businesses have to face is the arrival of a competitor in the nearby location, which disturbs the client flow (Disemadi, 2019). Competing with another organization aiming at the same or similar target market is stressful and might harm the business. However, we are determined to outstand our rivals by implementing different discounts and bonuses for clients.
Future Implications
When operating a business, it is essential not only to analyze and solve the current issues but also to consider the factors that can potentially harm or benefit the business operation in the future. Doing so will improve the planning and management of the business and prepare it to adapt and learn from the made mistakes. Business owners often use SWOT analysis for these purposes (Vlados, 2019). We find the the analysis convenient and beneficial, as it takes into account two internal factors: Strengths and Weaknesses, and two external factors of Opportunities and Threats. The organization itself can directly influence the first two; thus, it is possible to regulate and optimize its operation. The two external factors are more complex and challenging to deal with, as the company cannot change them or make them disappear.
As a relatively new organization on the market, we are convinced it is crucial to address the future challenges with qualified outside help. Paws n’ Tails has hired a business consultant to build a structured operating process and provide the organization with the best possible outcomes of potential difficulties. Thus, with the assistance of the qualified professional, we developed a SWOT analysis for Paws n’ Tails identifying the future issues that might arise as our organization grows.
The ultimate strength of Paws n’ Tails is our great team of qualified personnel. We made sure to involve only professionals in the field and considerably invest in training the newly employed. Additionally, we gathered only the best possible grooming techniques and provided our office with innovative equipment for safe use. Further working on our personnel’s growth and maintaining high productivity of the equipment will greatly improve the quality of our services in the long run. Unfortunately, being new on the market brings the main weakness of Paws n’ Tails which is customer scarcity resulting from the lack of built reputation.
Our organization is relatively unknown among pet owners; thus, it will take some time to break into the market and gain trust and loyalty from customers. We acknowledge that, putting a strong emphasis on advertising our services, building flexible loyalty programs, and offering free grooming sessions for new clients.
However, being new to the market brings about many promising opportunities. Paws n’ Tails is eager to take on any new challenge that will result in our professional growth and gaining the trust of our clients. The foremost opportunity we may face in the future, provided we continue to operate successfully, is increasing numbers of pet owners. The area where our office is located has many new housing facilities that are being rapidly occupied by young married couples with kids who usually own more than one dog or any other pet. Thus, we are expecting new clients to visit our office for quick and professional pet services, which we are more than happy to provide.
As stated above, businesses must be prepared for potential threats that come from external factors. Being prepared does not mean they can be averted, but rather it means that we, as an organization with a strong managing team, can quickly adapt to the unfortunate challenge and minimize its harmful effects. The main threat Paws n’ Tails may face in time is unfavorable government policies or global economic downfall. Such factors may interfere with our normal operating; however, we must be prepared by careful management planning and cautious development of crisis strategies.
Service Concept
For any service business, it is necessary to determine the concept which outlines how the given service will be delivered to the customer. Any service is a sequence of elements that play an equal part in delivering the best outcome to satisfy the customer’s needs. Accordingly, the service concept consists of four equal dimensions: service operation, experience of the service user, outcome of the service, and value of the provided service. Paws n’ Tails is a process oriented company concerned with providing our clients with the best service experience.
We offer grooming services, as well as retails pet goods, healthcare supplies, dietary supplements, and pet food. Our clients receive them as the users of the offered services. As a result, they obtain direct benefits of the purchased services or goods, evaluating them against their cost. Thus, we do our best to make the four dimensions cooperate as a whole, minimizing the space between the client’s expectations and the actual service delivery process.
Conclusion
To conclude, Paws n’ Tails is a new round-the-clock business focused on providing grooming services for pets and offering pet food, supplements, and other animal goods for the people of San Francisco’s city center. We made sure to hire qualified professionals and make our physical office as comfortable and safe as possible both for the animals and their owners. Paws n’ Tails supplies customers with a convenient and easy-to-use website to make appointments and buy products online.
We, as an organization, have defined our target market and created the service concept best suitable for the selected target audience. The current issues and potential risks for our business were thoroughly analyzed with the help of the hired business consultant. Thus, we can guarantee excellent performance of our facility and aim at becoming the best among our rivals in San Francisco.
Reference List
Disemadi, H. S. (2019) ‘Risk management in the provision of people’s business credit as implementation of prudential principles’, Diponegoro Law Review, 4(2), pp. 194-208. Web.
Fairlie, R. W. (2020) ‘The impact of COVID-19 on small business owners: the first three months after social-distancing restrictions’, The National Bureau of Economic Research. Web.
Insurance Information Institute. (2020) Facts + Statistics: Pet statistics. Web.
Çera, G., Belás, J. and Strnad, Z. (2019) ‘Important factors which predict entrepreneur’s perception in business risk’, Problems and Perspectives in Management, 17(2), pp. 415-429.
Vlados, C. M. (2019) ‘On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis’, Journal of Strategy and Management, 12(3), pp. 347-363. Web.