A Small Business and a Reflection on a Program of Reading I Have Implemented for the Course - Essay Example

?On Small Business I. Introduction This work consists of two parts. The first part is a case study of a small business while the second part is a reflection on a program of reading I have implemented for the course. For the first part, I identified a small business that made use of internet technology. Simpson et al. (2011) noted that the use of internet technology is a fairly recent development in small business. They said further that in recent years, more and more small businesses are using internet technology. I tried to find a small business firm that appear to have acquired a wide global reach and yet continued to be a small business. I am interested to find out how a small business firm can do it and yet remain in the category of being a small business. For me such a case is important: the case can provide lessons on how one can have a global reach despite being small or despite being initially small. II. Task A: Study of Market Intelligence International (word count: 2,987) My case is Market Intelligence International Ltd. or Marketii. Marketii is a member of the Federation of Small Business of the United Kingdom. The firm is located in Suite 204, Business Design Centre, and 52 Upper Street, London N1 0QH. 1. Reasons for Selecting Marketii as Case I am been interested in Marketii because I have been amazed that a small firm like Marketii can conduct global operations and have international clients. In a way I have also been interested in the firm because the business in which Marketii is involved, consultancy, is a line of business in which I wish to be involved someday, either in the near or distant future. As the global community is a big ocean of opportunities, I initially thought that Marketii would become a big firm in the near future. However, as I acquired knowledge about Marketii, it occurred to me that Marketii is small business because being small is her strategy. Towards the end of this work, I will be saying that being small is actually a business strategy for Marketii. Being small is a business decision and strategy that will allow her the greatest chances for survival and resilience in the competitive business world. This realization is an eye-opener that created in me a strong belief that the study of small business firms must really include the study of firms like Marketii: SMALL but the decision to be small is actually the result of a business strategy that will allow the firm to acquire the greatest profitability, chances of survival, resilience, and success. There are several ways of defining a small business. However, the way Marketii is being operated defies the expectations suggested from the definitions of Simpson et al. (2011) and D’Amboise & Muldowney (1988). Marketti’s small business structure may be a way of implementing downsizing as a business strategy (Appelbaum et al. 1999). 2. Study Method Because my means and resources are limited and also because I anticipated that business firms like Marketii would be strongly protecting its business secrets, I decided to employ a study method that would allow me to get a large amount of details on a firm by using records and data that are widely accessible to the public. In particular, I maximized the use of the internet for getting data on Marketti. On hindsight, I believe I have not been wrong on my decision because the data that I have acquired on Marketii allowed me to have a very good and in-depth idea of how Marketii is being managed and on how firms like Marketii, small and yet conducting international operations, are being operated. The study method that I have employed is not inferior because in the process of studying Marketii by using data that are available to the public, I have obtained this important insight for small business: some of the small businesses that we actually see operating in the world of business are small not primarily because the business owners have capital constraints but they are small primarily because it is the business owner’s decision to keep their business small so it would be profitable, resilient, flexible, and capable of surviving the volatility of the business environment. I have used data that are available to the public and yet I have acquired this very important insight on why putting up small businesses can be a strategy that can be employed even by large firms: 1) large business organizations can divide its work into several independent units cooperating/interacting with but not exclusive to each other; 2) relatively large businesses (which can also be small businesses) can put up a small business to coordinate work among themselves so all of them can remain small. The small business that coordinates work among several other small businesses performs an alliance or cooperative business venture on behalf of the other small business firms. Several small business ventures, for example, specialize on a particular line of skills or services and the other small business firm performs intermediary or broker/negotiator work on behalf of several small business or even large firms. 3. Basic Details on Marketii Officially, Marketii is fairly new, having been established on 9 January 2006. However, it is highly possible that an earlier ego or identify of the firm using a different business registration may have existed. Nevertheless, the Federation of Small Businesses of the United Kingdom confirmed that the Marketii is a small business under the laws of the United Kingdom (2012a). The company website boasts 15 years of experience in “customer satisfaction and service quality” (despite government registration only on 9 January 2006). Marketii boasts that she has carried out “research ranging from localised surveys to world-wide projects, operating in 30 native languages across more than 90 countries” (Marketii 2012a). This indicates a very important point: firms can go international even if they are small. Based on her website, Marketii is in the business of providing market intelligence or information to firms through research and surveys. According to the company website, Marketii services can cover the assessment of consumer satisfaction and service quality, measurement of customer loyalty and retention, inquiries on and metrics of employee satisfaction, company growth analyses, and relationship surveys. Although it is classified as a small firm, Marketii is capable in “real time web based reporting” and can access a network of “native language call agents” (Marketti 2012b). How Marketii implements her business operations is a story by itself of how a business is managed and how Marketii help other businesses. For instance, the Marketii official website report that Marketii specialises on “monitoring, assessing and reporting on how customers feel” on firm services. In her official website, Marketii reports that she uses “call centres, helpdesk, field service, depot repair and in-branch/sore/showroom” for monitoring consumer product interests and satisfaction (2012c). If follows that if a small firm like Marketii can use the locations for monitoring the consumer satisfaction level of client firms, it follows that small firm can do the same for her own consumers. According to the Marketii official website, Marketti’s services to clients can include the collection of consumer data and responses to survey questions, analysis and reporting to clients Marketti’s recommendations on how clients can strengthen their relationships with their customers as well as bridge the gap between consumer expectations and business production. It is expected that the Marketti is doing the same to her own clients but the matter is not immediately possible to verify. In assisting call centre companies to improve their services, Marketii’s services can be tapped. In her website, Marketti informs that Marketti can field questions to customers of call centre companies in their native language. Marketti can assess call centre units for calls per unit time, speedy of resolution of problems brought before the call centre companies, and other metrics (Marketii 2012c). Marketti can cover the technical and non-technical aspects of call centre operations (2012c). For instance, Marketii can inquire and assess consumer views on the call menu options, the competence and professionalism of the call centre professionals, and whether consumers are prepared to recommend the services of the call centre company assessed (2012c). Most important, Marketii can also ask and assess consumers for their perception of the company business for which the call centre services were provided (2012c). Another service that Marketii can provide is to assess the field services of client firms. The assessment of field services can cover field employees’ promptness of attending to the job, time on the job, technician’s professionalism, and other matters such as the ability of technicians to communicate well with clients (2012c). Related to the assessment of clients’ field services, Marketti can also assess the reliability of client firms’ depot repair services. For brevity, we no longer discuss this as the discussion is similar with what Marketii can do for field services operations of the client firms. As pointed out earlier, Marketii can assess and monitor consumer interests and product satisfaction based on the effect on consumers of their exposure to client firms’ branch or showroom (2012c). According to the Marketii website, Marketii can disaggregate consumer response based on variables like age, type of account, location of consumers, demographics, and other variables. In addition, the Marketii website also points out consumer impression on showroom cleanliness, style, staff courtesy and similar other variables. In short, Marketii claims a strong and deep reach over consumers in that it guarantees that it can reach consumers more compared to Marketii’s client firms. This is a tough claim from a small business firm: Marketii is small business but her consumer reach is both broad and deep, international yet in deep touch with consumers. Again, as pointed out earlier, Marketii’s service to client firms can involve the measurement of metrics related to consumer loyalty: would the consumers of the client firm of Marketti recommend the products or services of the Marketii client firm to other consumers? According the Marketii website, Marketii can assess this aspect of the Marketii client firm’s products and services. Marketii also claims that she can help the client firm maintain a score card through which progress in maintaining, satisfying and retaining employees can be measured. Viewed in this light, Marketii is small business firm but her knowledge of management techniques is probably among the best and she probably surpasses big large firms on how their personnel or human resources are being managed. 4. Analysis of Marketii Business Operation The market sectors covered by Marketii are very many: information technology, medicine, financial services, consumer goods, utilities, and many others (Marketii 2012d). This is only possible if Marketii has large pool of skills. How can small firm like Marketii access a large pool of skills? Further, given the big or large scope of services and big or large territory covered by Marketii, how does Marketii manage to be small? Note that Marketii’s operation is global and yet her business size is small. The answer is in outsourcing and use of technology. This is clear in the section “Careers” of the Marketii website. In the section “Careers” of the Marketii website, Marketii reveals that she is “always looking for experience professionals to join one of their teams.” This can only imply that she is perpetually building a network of skilled manpower in boosting her set of skills. Given her capability to reach consumers in their homes, display or showrooms, call centres, and the like, it follows that Marketti is always on the lookout for both very skilled and less skilled professionals and labours. However, she has maintain herself small because she is only keeping a small pool of personnel as regular or permanent employees but maintaining a very large pool of skills as part-timers, impermanent staff members, or skills that can be tapped as needed in a project, undertaking, or contract. Thus, her being small is not a weakness but actually a strength suited for her operations. Even with her size, Marketii is able to reach the world by exploiting internet communications technology. 5. Capitalization and the People Behind Marketii The organization known as “Companies in the UK” confirms that Marketti has been in the business for at least the last six years in 2006 (2012). In addition, the organization reported that the firm has a capitalization of only ?200.00 in 19 January 2011 (Companies in the UK, 2012). Certainly a capitalization of only ?200.00 qualifies the firm to be a small business. This seems incredible but possible. This is possible because the firm’s primary role appears to be that of representing the individuals (and possibly the firms associated with the individuals) through Marketii. Thus, the office maintained at the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London, primarily functions as a representation office only from which the member individuals (and probably firms associated with the individuals) acquire contracts or businesses with clients trying to reach the organization through the representation office. According to the Companies in the UK (2012), the board of directors of Marketii in 2011 include Polina Antoniades Carol Maynard, Polina Antoniades, Paul Lawrence Farmer, Stephen Robert Heal, Duncan Oliver William Heal, Deborach Sonia Meaden, and Deborah Meaden. As correctly pointed out by our references in the course, many of the small business firms are family businesses. The composition of the board of directors in 2011 indicates that Antoniades, Heal, and Meaden are the recurring surnames in Marketii and this strongly indicates the dominance of three if not one family in Marketii. Bizzy, an information company, indicated that officers of the company Polina Antoniades, Paul Farmer, Duncan Heal, Stephen Heal, Jason Malone, and Deborah Meaden are British while Carol Maynard is an American (2011). It is not clear whether they are all residents of Britain but it is clear that a small company can also have a multinational or multi-citizen composition. This provides a natural set-up for Marketii or any small organization with multi-national or multi-citizen composition to operate internationally or across nations. Thus, a small business firm can operate internationally even if its capital base is small because its social base can compensate for the limitation of its capital base. 6. Interaction Within the Marketii Workforce (Behaviour of People Concerned) It should be easy to see or analyze how Marketii is operated. A small skeletal staff is maintained but even the funds for the operation of the skeletal staff are secured from the consultancy contracts. Thus, it is viable for the Marketii to reflect in her books that Marketii has a small capitalization in that even her funds for its skeletal staff are secured from the consultancy contracts. Even the cost for operating offices can be reflected in the books as funds obtained from the cash advances of clients for services to be rendered. Consultancy groups can put into the contract an amount for mobilization or start up of the consultancy operation and further releases from the paying clients are made based on the work progress of the consultancy. Of course, occasionally it would be possible to reflect capital inputs from members of the consultancy group as loans which the consultancy group can pay later to the contributing member based on payments from clients. The implication in all these is that relationships in the small businesses need not always be personal and face-to-face as indicated by many of our references but the relationship can be impersonal and even restricted to interactions within the internet only. 7. Competition Bizzy (2011) identified that the some of the competitors in there market research and public opinion polling business in the United Kingdom are the Millward Brown UK Limited, IMS Health Limited, Mori Group Limited, IAC Search & Media UK Ltd., GFK NOP Limited, AOTL Consulting Limited, Abacus Insight, Nuance Research Limited, IFF Research Limited, ORC International Limited, Discovery Research Limited, ORC European Information Centre, Changes Research & Consultancy Limited, Razor Research Limited, Living Brands, Apogee, SmartAnalyst UK Limited, and Seriami Marketing Limited. In the market, among the leading companies are Millward Brown, Mori Group, IAC Search & Media, GFK NOP Limited, IFF Research Limited, and Changes & Consultancy Limited. In other words, a number of firms are in the industry and there are several firms leading in the industry. This indicates that there is a highly competitive market in the international consultancy business. It also seems that the favourite form of business organization in the industry is a limited partnership rather than a corporation. It also suggests that small or medium firms are appropriate for the business rather than large or big firms. This is plausible because we cannot expect the business of consultancies to have a business all the time. A market research project is only implemented on a per need basis and on particular phases of a company operation. Many of the operations in consultancies such as consumer research need not be operated on a continuous period but only occasionally or on periodic basis. Thus, it will work against a business firm engaged in international consultancy to maintain a pool of labour the whole year round. The likely case is that even the salaries of regular staff or skeletal force in the consultancy company are obtained from consultancy contracts that the company secure from its clients. Thus, there is really no fund allocated for the skeletal force (funds for the skeletal force are obtained from the periodic consultancy contracts). Viewed in this light, therefore, it is possible for Marketii to window-dress its books and make it appear that its capitalization is only ?200.00 (or there may be an error in the database). 8. Summary In summary, my study of Marketii led me to this realization: a small business size is not necessarily a weakness but a choice or a strategy to be more profitable and appropriate to one’s business. Another insight that I have obtained from studying Marketii is this: growing need not be from small to big but it can be from big to small. It can rely on outsourced services to be more profitable and retain only that pool that can serve as the skeletal force that will tap the right skills for a given set of tasks demanded by clients. Moreover, building a firm need not have a large capitalization. Advances can be sought from clients and the skilled and semi-skilled workforce can be paid after the services are delivered and additional payments from clients are received. Thus, being small can be the right track and the right size for a number of business operations. Except perhaps Omar (2011), my impression is that the theory materials on small business tend to overlook this possibility for small business: small business is the right size for some businesses. Some of the small businesses are deliberately engineered to be small for flexible and profitable operations. In my opinion, this is an important aspect that is not appropriately emphasized by our lessons on small on business even if our lessons CORRECTLY reflect the general case for small businesses. References All in London (2012) Location of Marketii [Online]. Available at: http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/mapping/map.php?pc=N1+0QH [Accessed: 2 January 2012]. Amboise, D. and Muldowney, M. (1988). ‘Management theory for small business: Attempts and requirements’. The Academy of Management Review. 13 (2) pp. 226-240. Appelbaum, S., Everard, A., & Hung, L., 1999. ‘Strategic downsizing: critical success factors’. Management Decision. 37 (7) pp. 535-552. Bizzy (2011). Market Intelligence International [Online]. Available at: http://bizzy.co.uk/uk/05669656/market-intelligence-international [Accessed: 5 January 2012]. Companies in the UK (2012) Market Intelligence International [Online]. Available at: http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/market-intelligence-international [Accessed: 5 January 2023]. Federation of Small Businesses (2012) Membership’ database [Online]. Available at: http://www.fsbonline.co.uk/SearchResultsSummary.aspx?F1=research&F3=London&C [Accessed: 2 January 2012]. Marketii (2012a) Welcome to Market Intelligence International [Online]. Available at: http://www.marketii.com/ [Accessed: 2 January 2012]. Marketii (2012b) Services & programs [Online]. Available at: http://www.marketii.com/services.htm [Accessed 2 January 2012]. Marketii (2012c) Measuring customer satisfaction, service quality and delivery assessment [Online]. Available at: http://www.marketii.com/services.htm [Accessed: 2 January 2012]. Marketii (2012d) Market sectors [Online]. Available at: http://www.marketii.com/market.htm [Accessed: 2 January 2012]. Nwankwo, S. & Ghadamosi, A. (2011) Entrepreneurship marketing: Principles and practice of SME marketing. London: Taylor & Francis Group. Omar, M. (2011) ‘Competition and competitive advantage in SMEs’. In Nwankwo, S. & Ghadamosi, A. (eds.) (2011) Entrepreneurship marketing: Principles and practice of SME marketing. London: Taylor & Francis Group. Simpson, M., Taylor, N., & Padmore, Jo (2011a) ‘Marketing in SMEs’. In Nwankwo, S. & Ghadamosi, A. (eds.) (2011) Entrepreneurship marketing: Principles and practice of SME marketing. London: Taylor & Francis Group. Simpson, M., Taylor, N., & Padmore, Jo (2011a). ‘The role and relevance of marketing in SMEs’. In Nwankwo, S. & Ghadamosi, A. (eds.) (2011) Entrepreneurship marketing: Principles and practice of SME marketing. London: Taylor & Francis Group. III. Task B: Reflections on My Learning (word count: 246) From the course, I have come to realize the importance of small businesses. Small businesses are not only important because big ones come from small ones but also because small businesses constitute the large bulk of businesses not only in the United Kingdom but also worldwide. Typically, small businesses have problems with capital. Many of the small businesses raise their capital form their family and friends although lately a number of small businesses are accessing loans from the banks. There are also other small businesses like the one I have discussed, Marketii, who finance their operations from the cash advances made by their clients. To me, it is important to study small businesses because even the big ones have to tap small businesses for their operations. For instance, big companies can tap small businesses for supplies as well as in accessing consumers through market surveys as well for distributing the products and services of large companies. Besides, it is also important to study small businesses because even large ones can use the small business strategy to be more resilient given market volatilities. Large firm organizations can be restructured to become several small businesses. Moreover, I consider myself lucky to have been exposed to the Powerpoint Slides under the course. Doing the readings on my own could have taken me a lifetime. However, the PowerPoint Slides offered during the course enabled me to browse through the literature in a relatively very quick period of time. Thank you! Read More