Never land Toys Limited Assignment Help

This is a solution of Never land Toys Limited Assignment Help in which we discuss Developing business

Never land Toys Limited Assignment Help

Neverland Toys Limited is a small SME owned by Peter and Kyle. Since its creation in 2007 the partners focus has been on building up the clientele, getting the right staff mix and building the company’s cashflow for future expansion.

The retail assistant manager (Margo) has been employed for the company for the past 4 years and she has built a great rapport with their regular customers and has taken on the responsibility for training new staff, and creating a shop atmosphere (music, lighting and smell) that entices customers into the shop space and she knows it is successful from the customer feedback that she and the other staff consistently receive. Margo’s previous employment has always been in the retail industry with 40 years experience.

On a strategic level Peter has decided that the business model he and Kyle created is a winning formula and so at their last discussion with their accountant, Susan, the idea was put forward that the expansion goal could be to make the business into a franchise. This would mean that the company would need to develop the business model further, with set guidelines for management structure, marketing management, accounting, performance reporting and legalities for consistency across each branch. Kyle did point out at this meeting though that there would need to add some flexibility with each branch so that each manager had a little discretionary power to customise the retail space and inventory based on geographic and demographic differences (climate, local population, transportation etc).Between Susan and themselves the timeline was set that the franchise model and legalities would be developed over the next 6 months, with the first franchise being ready to ‘roll out’ in 12 months time.

Within a few weeks of this decision, Peter approached Margo at the end of the working day and put forward the idea of franchising the business and whether she would be interested in developing the HR processes and training manuals/inductions for new staff. He felt that as she has been self-appointed in taking on this responsibility in their own shop, that she would have the expertise in ‘getting it right’ and having the right level of processes in place. Of course Margo was delighted with the opportunity and was more than willing to be part of the marketing management team in this venture.

Peter and Kyle talked over Margo’s role and the extra responsibility she would undertake so they decided to offer her a managerial salary of $55,000 per year as a starting rate. Margo was thrilled and signed her new employment contract which was effective as of immediately!!!!

Peter. Kyle and Margo decided to meet fortnightly for 1 hour to discuss any plans or to make team decisions. Peter’s workload included developing the financial and management structure for each franchise; Kyle took on the responsibility of developing a marketing plan and creating templates for reporting that each franchise manager would need to be responsible for on a weekly/monthly basis i.e. monthly sales, weekly productivity reporting etc and Margo the shop layout and staffing requirements based on good design, legalities and what is considered best practice for the retail industry.

Four Months Later………

At the next management meeting Peter arranged for Susan to attend, to discuss the amount of resources that had already been assignedand/or used in this franchise venture. This was to inform all of the management team what resourcing had already been proportioned and whether there were areas that were over spending which would be a concern as funds were limited.  Of course, from past projects Peter had been involved with, there was always a fundamental difference between the proposed budget and the actual budget in projects.

Peter led the meeting and the items on the agenda were as follows:

• Whether legality requirements were being met and incorporated in policies for the individual parts of the franchise model.
• What milestones had been met.
• The status on reporting standards for each department.
• Any issues that have arisen (collective brain storming of solutions).

It became apparent that Margo hadn’t spent a lot of time formulating processes as she was still required to work in the shop and she had been struggling with her own time management. Adding to this was the complication that Margo had only worked in retail in two geographical locations, so she was duplicating a retail space model that didn’t offer the flexibility of different demographic markets. Kyle felt that this would show an inconsistency in sales reporting and was likely to be a variable that potentially would detract from enticing the right customer.

Margo got quite defensive as she felt that she didn’t have the right support in this new role and hadn’t been guided by other members in the management team as to how she was meant to complete her tasks. Therefore the milestones that were connected to HR or processes were not complete. Kyle suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea for her to contact the Labour Department and perhaps to become a member of the HRINZ for guidance. Susan agreed with this proposition in regards to funding Margo’s membership as she felt this was a cheaper option rather than hiring a HR Consultant.

Susan then pointed out that reporting processes and templates were of utmost importance to be developed, as these would form the framework that she would need to work from in regards to profit and cashflow performance. Margo was very unhappy, she felt that she was being singled out as a non-contributor and that maybe she had been too quick to say yes to this position.

Peter then concluded the meeting as he needed to pick up his dog (Rufus) from the animal grooming parlour.

The first franchise……..

After completing the franchise model for Neverland Toys Ltd, the second store was opened a year later and was situated in a semi rural location. The new franchise manager (George) was a local and bought the franchise because of the upturn in recent employment due to two coal mines opening. This had brought in younger families and he found that employing Gen Y’s (students) were cheap in regards to the minimum wage requirements but that also there was a steady stream of talent he could call on in busy times. See more : Mergers Acquisitions and Private Equity Assignment Help

In regards to the staffing training manuals, George didn’t think that they were relevant and so as part of the new staff induction process, he just gave them the manual and asked them to sign on the back page when they had read it.

One of the issues George had spoken to Peter about was the time required for completing performance appraisals. To date, George had a very transitional workforce because young people often moved to the city for work or to study at university. This meant that the opportunity to meet with individual staff after one year of employment was albeit null in void.

Another point that George raised to Peter was that it wasn’t clear at the central office who he reported to when it came to asking for advice and recommendations. As an example, each week George had to send through the sales report to administration but there was never any feedback given on whether he was meeting criteria met or how the store was progressing on a national level. The reporting took quite a bit of his time (as it was not automated) and so he questioned the viability or usefulness of the information.

George also put forward the idea that he would like more control over what products and inventory levels were for sale at his store. He felt that there was a need to customise some of the product lines. As an example, the rural community that the store served was based on the dairying industry and a lot of the children who lived there were home schooled or were completing their studies via correspondence. Therefore the toy product range that he felt would be a better ‘fit’ was educational toys, games and puzzles that would complement the children’s schooling situation.

Peter took these comments to the next business management meeting with Kyle and Margo and the response was fairly negative as neither Kyle or Margo had visited George’s franchise and they had no experience of servicing a rural community. Peter felt that this was a strategic management issue that would need to be broken down into milestones so that an operational plan could be put in place.

Also discussed was the ‘roll out’ of the next franchise which was going through the sale process to a woman called Samantha who was situated in a provincial town that had fallen on hard economic times with the closing of the local sawmill. This was leading to families migrating to the city and the families remaining were statistically considered low to middle socio-economic families. What attracted her to buying this franchise was that it is a ‘key turn’ type business where all reporting and structure is set and with the bonus that the local council were prepared to lease the building free of charge for the first 12 months of operation.

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