Case Study: Planning for Growth
Kelly's Sandwich Stop is one of the best-known and most loved sandwich concessions in town. In business for about five years, she sells sandwiches and other lunch items made from locally produced food from her mobile food trailer. Kelly's passion and talent for creating reliably fresh, tasty lunch fare popular among a business clientele (largely employees and shoppers) has made her small enterprise a booming success.
In the last year, Kelly added a bicycle-towed concession that travels to different strategic locations in town, selling her popular sandwiches to customers who work beyond walking distance of Kelly's Sandwich Stop. She now has a total of four employees, all part-time, working both concessions. Because she caters to urban customers, her concessions operate on week days from 10 am to 2 pm. To promote word-of-mouth advertising, Kelly uses Facebook to publish her daily menus and the locations of the bicycle concession.
As a sole proprietor, Kelly has been pleased with her lunch business success. Now it's time to get serious about the future of her business. In the short and medium term, she wants to see it grow into a potentially more lucrative enterprise, implementing a greater variety of food products and services, and increasing her competitive edge in the region. Ever the ardent entrepreneur, Kelly's long-term dream is to develop her creative, health-conscious culinary skills and services into a wider clientele outside the region.
An opportunity has arisen to lease restaurant space about 10 miles away from her trailer concession location, close to a mall and the suburbs and nearer to her local food producers. Kelly has jumped at the chance. While she has hired professional business consultants to help her set up the space, design the menu, and implement the opening of the restaurant, she must also consider the short- and long-term financial, HR, and management needs of such an expansion. Kelly is particularly sensitive to her relationship to her customers, employees, and the community.
Directions for paper below:
In this paper, students will analyze and discuss small business growth in terms of growth strategy, business forms, short and medium term goals, financing assistance, organizational structure and staffing needs, customers and promotion, and ethics and social responsibility. Students are expected to apply business and management concepts learned in our course.
By completing this assignment, students will meet the outcome(s):
• identify the critical business functions and how they interact in order to position the organization to be effective in the current business environment;
• explain the importance of the integration of individuals and systems to organizational effectiveness;
• describe the ethical and social responsibilities that confront a business.
Required Elements of the Final Project:
• Read critically and analyze the case below, Planning for Growth;
• Review the project description listed above and review the final project grading rubric, which you will find in the Syllabus and under the Course Content area of our classroom;
In your paper, answer the following questions:
• What steps should Kelly take to organize and prioritize her business growth strategy?
• What business form might make sense, given her expansion plans, and why?
• Focusing primarily on Kelly's short-term goals, what kind of financial assistance might be available to Kelly? Which options would you recommend, and why?
• How might Kelly's staffing needs change? What kind of organizational structure do you think Kelly's expanded business should have, and what is the best way for her to organize, orient, and train her restaurant staff (e.g., functional categories, units, teams, flat or vertical hierarchy) to meet the needs of her new business?
• How should Kelly deal with her current customers in regard to the change? What kind of promotion should she consider in attracting customers to her new location?
• What are the ethical issues and potential social responsibilities highlighted by this change? (Consider customers, employees, the current and new communities, and other stakeholders.) How might these issues be dealt with most appropriately?
Required Formatting of Paper:
• This report should be double spaced, 12-point font, and four to five pages in length excluding the title page and reference page;
• Format in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format (rtf);
• Title page;
• Follow this format for your paper (based on elements detailed above)
o Title page
o Introduction
o Body, in paragraph form. Use the following section headings:
o Growth Strategy
o Business Form
o Financial Assistance
o Organizational Structure and Staffing Needs
o Customers and Promotion
o Ethical Issues and Social Responsibility
o Summary paragraph
o Reference page formatted according to APA requirements. Include at least three
• This paper is to be written in the third person. There should be no words in the paper such as "I and we;"
In-text citations from the course material. If you use additional sources from the Internet or the library, do not forget to use in-text citations and include in the reference.
• You are expected to paraphrase and not use direct quotes.