A major increase in sales between 2000 and 2006 has made Hotel Chocolat’s competitors eager to find the key to the company’s success, leaving the founders to face the challenge of how to protect the business from plagiarism. Trademarking its name and all its products, although a widely-used defence mechanism, is not a satisfying solution here; with 30% of its products replaced by another annually in order to meet the demands of its customers and continuous product range expansions, it would become a burden, adding administrative costs and bureaucracy. Now a luxury provider, the company started in 1980s supplying mints, before moving to chocolate and, finally, rebranding in 2003 as Hotel Chocolat. With own cocoa plantation, 11 retail shops in popular tourist locations, a call centre and an online store, Hotel Chocolat is now reaching customers in the UK, USA and in Europe, with aspirations to become one of the world’s top chocolate brands. Despite these developments, Hotel Chocolat is not interested in offering department store concessions or own-label goods and wants to keep the number of its high street shops to the minimum in order to retain its premium brand image and uniqueness as well as keeping full control over staff training and storing conditions of its products.
The weakness of Kudler Fine Foods is that an IPO (Initial Public Offering) has many inherent and potential weaknesses that must be examined prior to selection as a means for expansion. An IPO is the first sale of stock by a company. There are many advantages and disadvantages for the Kudler Fine Foods to go public through the IPO. The advantages include generating more capital needed to expand their three locations The IPOs are very expensive undertaking, and a large portion of any capital acquired will be lost to this cost. Because the company must produce all financial information to the SEC many businesses find it to be very stressful and time consuming which takes time and money away from a company that is thriving like Kudler Fine Foods.
The weaknesses that Kudler may face would be the financial burden of going public. Sometimes expenses pile up just from seeking help from outsiders to protect the investments. The economy has fluctuated over the years; therefore the company needs to ensure they have contingency plans in place when business may not be as stable. There are ample opportunities that can come about from selecting an IPO. A company's debt-to-equity ratio will usually improve after going public, which tends to result in more favorable financing arrangements (2014, Going Public, para 1).
For the cinema market building something which can seat enough people with the right equipment (e.g. huge high definition screen with state of the art projectors) can be hard to create, due to high set up costs. Furthermore there is more to do, for example gain the rights to shoe new films, which can be very expensive unless you benefit from economies of scale. A natural barrier to entry is the exploitation of economies of scale, where the big firms in the business, in this case Vue, Cineworld and Odeon are using their economies of scale to deter any new entrant away. The top three firms have a relationship and power to obtain the viewing rights to screen 2”first-run” films and to do so at a lower price.
Question 1c Environmental Scan The labor market of the Pacific Northwest indicates a high unemployment rate, and therefore difficult environment for individuals to find new jobs. There tends to be a consistent supply of qualified individuals in the urban markets of Seattle and Spokane, however it is difficult to recruit these college-educated individuals into entry-level positions in a retail environment. Retail stores tend to have a reputation of requiring long hours of work, including weekends and holidays, with little compensation. It is difficult to hire individuals that are willing to start in an entry-level position and work their way up over the years into managerial positions. Tanglewood prefers to promote from within, allowing the managerial employees to grow with the company, already experienced with the social and cultural environment.
Kudler Fine Foods Photography The pros and cons of outsourcing the photography to a professional photographer Kudler Fine Foods is a rapidly growing online retail business that needs photography services just like any other business. This makes the company reach a decision-making point on whether or not to outsource its photography services. Such an initiative has both advantages and disadvantages that company managers involved in decision-making must put in place before making a move (Tuck 2010). Cons Some of the disadvantages of outsourcing photography services include • The possibilities of losing total control over the process of the professional thus resulting to results that may not have been envisioned by the company owners. The photography process is always internal and in line with the photographer’s imagination, which an external party may not fully understand.
The SOX also calls for additional audits which increase business costs. If a business has increased costs and expenses due to the abidance of the SOX, it will most likely take money from other aspects of the business which can negatively impact the investors. The effectiveness of the SOX is debated by the advantages versus the disadvantages that companies and investors face. De Vay (2006) stated that, “The majority of the survey respondents feel that the benefits of
Does working in teams make people less receptive to outside input? How can social comparisons undermine trust in working relationships? How do the training and technical knowledge entrepreneurs take from previous employers impact the success of their new ventures? Wharton professor Jennifer Mueller and lecturer Julia Minson, and professors Maurice Schweitzer and Evan Rawley, respectively, examine these issues, and what they mean for business, in recent research papers. Confidence's Cost to Collaboration The corporate formula for innovation often focuses on creating a team of experts to cook up the next big thing.
Off-the-shelf software is cheaper than developing custom software. Conversely, due to Boeing’s massive scope and size, outsourcing certain elements would be inefficient. Outsourcing payroll or sales force management with 158,000 employees in 70 countries would be an extremely difficult, let alone expensive, task. Processes like payroll and sales force management often require much human interaction in order to work properly, so outsourcing these elements could create major roadblocks for employees and employers alike. On the other hand, why would Boeing develop in-house some of the software applications used in conjunction with its products?
However, this was a problem because some of the products needed more DL or OH available to them. Furthermore, because of this, the proportion of DL used to the proportion of direct machining used for each component weren’t the same, though they were are all being charged at the same rate. Shifting from labor-intensive testing to a more advanced machine-based testing system caused this single cost pool system to become obsolete, and was also expensive due to the cost of these advanced machines. This costing system drove up prices for customers so Seligram feared it would lose business. 2.