Bus302 | Business Language | Assessment Answer

Reduces Alison`s burden

As stated above, Alison`s business is at the brim and has reached its capacity. Moreover, this puts her under additional pressure to operate whereby she might be affected severally. In case she gives her business for franchising she would be able to reduce certain operational pressure which can then assist her to maintain a wok life balance as well as mange the existing business well.

Maintaining consistent operations

If Alison continues her operations in this state, the quality of her work shall deplete and this can have a negative impact on the brand name of the organization. Hence, in case the operations get divided, she will be able to manage the current operations well.

The expansion shall be cost effective

Franchising can be described as a cost effective manner of expansion. This is because the firm does not have to incur any extra costs for the expansion of the enterprise. Along with it human capital is also not required.

Marketing benefits

In scenarios where the franchisee purchasing her business will market the firm, this shall have a positive impact on Alison`s business as well and help it to become popular in the long run.

Assistance and Scalability

In case Alison is not being able to manage well, she can get the assistance of the talent manager of the franchisee for her operations and moreover, with respect to the scalability aspect, Alison will be able to ensure that the size of the franchisee and other terms are as per her convenience.

Problems associated with expansion of Alison`s business

Although Alison has been successfully running her business, however being a sole proprietor in this set up, she is not being able to successfully manage it and hence, as stated earlier should give it out for franchising (Storey, 2016). However, expanding the business operations is not an easy endeavor and the firm may be faced by the following shortcomings and barriers.

Loss of personal life

Alison`s business has already reached its maximum capability and hence, she has been facing difficulties in managing it. In scenarios where she will be required to expand the operations, her business will become impossible to manage and hence, she would be now be looking after two branches. This can take a toll on her health and lead to several complications.

Funding problems

Expansion requires funding and hence, funding can be difficult to attain. Very often even though finding is available, the different managers may find it difficult to manage these funds and utilize them effectively (Nijmeijer, Fabbricotti and Huijsman, 2014). Hence, for this purpose, it will act as a barrier.

Maintaining work life balance

As mentioned in the case study, Alison needs to look after her family as well and at present even though there is just a single branch to look after, Alison finds it difficult to maintain a work life balance and in case she expands it, she will not be able to take care of both these aspects at once.

Lack of assistance

Alison is working alone in her business and hence, she already finds it very difficult to manage the business she has in hand now, it will be very difficult for her to look after an expansion plans single handedly.

The chances of failure

Expansions, even with the right factors are always not successful in nature and any organization who wants to attain success, has to take a considerable risk at the first step and then ensure that they are able to be successful. Hence in this scenario, Alison is faced by a risk as well and also stay with the psychological barrier of a failure.

Maintaining pace with the business environment

Moreover, the environment in which her business is operating in is already very complex and tends to change quite often (McAdam, 2013). Earlier, she was able to face the economic down turn effectively however, this may not be the case at present and she may not be able to adapt to the new trends alone.

Franchisee issues

It is not easy to maintain a franchisee and for this reason, very often the enterprises are faced by the problems arising from the control exerted about the franchisee. If the franchisee turns out to be dishonest then it would lead to a loss of business for Alison.

Legislative regulations

Expansion of the business involves abiding by various legal rules and obligations. These are expensive in nature.

Reasons for Alison’s failure over a Bespoke shop

Alison is operating her business from home. As given in the case study, operating the business from home has various advantages and helps Alison to save conveyance, managing and other relevant costs but there are certain shortcomings of her business as well. Moreover, in case of a mis-happening, the chances that Alison`s business will fail is more than the chances of the failure of an actual bespoke fashion shop (Wynarczyk and Graham, 2013). This is not due to the fact that Alison has been managing her business alone but has several other aspects associated with it. They have been stated as follows:

Household distractions impact

There are various distractions present in a household and these distractions are bound to have an impact on the operations of the business (Kuratko, 2016). As she is mother to a young child, she needs to contribute some of her time to the son and therefore this time she will not be able to invest in the store which may have an impact on the operational efficiency of the business enterprise.

Lack of professionalism

Home businesses are less professional in nature. When an office is located in a house, it is bound to be taken informally by the owners as well as the different customers. This shall also have an impact on the perspective of the different employees towards the organization and thus, for this reason, when a business lacks the professional look, the brand name gets damaged.

Lack of window shopping of store traffic

Window shopping and in store traffic although have no positive impact on the revenues as earned by the organization but they tend to have an impact on the operations of the organization and disrupt the image and brand name of the firm.  As the business is running from home she may be facing troubles with respect to encouraging the store traffic and make no conversions based on this.

Limited expansion

Running the business from home has limited options and hence, the manner in which Alison will be able to expand her business is quite limited in nature (Hoy and Stanworth, 2014). Moreover, without proper employees, assistance and other relevant resources, it will be quite difficult for her to manage the business effectively.

Continuous guarding

Lastly, in scenarios where she operates from the convenience of her home it can be stated that, she will not be able to maintain a continuous presence at home (Lee et al., 2015). A proper traditional shop will be open round the clock even when the owner of the business is not present, however, this may not be the case for a business which is based in house because, in case Alison leaves for a daily chore or some travel expeditions, the shop has to be closed down too.

Therefore, from the given analysis as done on the home based business of Alison, it can be stated that it is because of the stated reasons why Alison`s home based business is more likely to fail than an actual bespoke shop.

Conclusion

Hence, it can be concluded that after the different components of the business have been analyzed, there exists a number of areas which need attention in a proper business. These comprise of expansion possibilities, home based business enterprise, startup requirements and others. Although partnerships assist a business and help them to get the word divided, managing a business is not easy when alone. The report was based on the case study of the Bespoke trade by Alison whereby the background of the case was stated which was then followed by the reasons why the business could ho for a franchising opportunity. In the second section pf the report, the reasons why expansion is a difficult step had been stated. Lastly, the reasons why Alison’s business is less likely to be successful than the business of a proper Bespoke business have also been provided. The following sections will lay down certain recommendations for Alison.

Recommendations

Hence, after studying the case study of bespoke fashions by Alison, the following recommendations have been provided.

• Alison needs to ensure that in future, she can easily expand her business in case she gets assistance in the long run. Moreover, she cannot continue with her home based business any longer and may be required to shift to a professional set up soon. Although additional costs will be invested, this shall assist in maintaining the welfare of the firm.
• Alison has already applied her best efforts and when reviewing the different business opportunities, she will be required to ensure that she is able to invest in a franchising which shall then reduce the pressure on her and provide other benefits as well.

References

Burns, P. ,2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.

Fan, Y., Kühn, K.U. and Lafontaine, F., 2017. Financial constraints and moral hazard: The case of franchising. Journal of Political Economy, 125(6), pp.2082-2125.

Hoy, F. and Stanworth, J., 2014. Franchising: an international perspective. Routledge.

Kuratko, D.F. ,2016. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.

Lee, Y.K., Kim, S.H., Seo, M.K. and Hight, S.K., 2015. Market orientation and business performance: Evidence from franchising industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 44, pp.28-37.

McAdam, M., 2013. Female entrepreneurship. Routledge.

Nijmeijer, K.J., Fabbricotti, I.N. and Huijsman, R., 2014. Making franchising work: A framework based on a systematic review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(1), pp.62-83.

Parker, S.C. ,2018. The economics of entrepreneurship. Cambridge University Press

Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B. ,2014. Entrepreneurship and small business.

Storey, D.J. ed. ,2016. Entrepreneurship and new firm. Routledge.

Wynarczyk, P. and Graham, J., 2013. The impact of connectivity technology on home-based business venturing: The case of women in the North East of England. Local Economy, 28(5), pp.451-470.