The Performance Of Jerrys Company

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

1.0 Introduction:

According to Robert D. Hisrich who states that "entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction."

In task 1, the main topic would be the reviewing of the performance of Jerry’s company. Jerry is a young graduate and is the owner of Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co which he founded in 2010. Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co focuses on selling beverages such as tea and fruit juices which are mixed with jelly beans where all these ingredients are made from organic and natural substances. He first started this company 3 years ago when he rented a shop-lot in a shopping complex, and later opened up another branch in a residential area. Since beginning operation, Jerry’s company has seen its shares of ups and downs where Jerry experienced and enjoyed high profits and also suffered his share of losses.

In task 2, where the main focus is on the strength which can be defined as is the qualities which will enable us to achieve the organization’s mission and the basis on which continued success is able to assess and sustained while the weakness is the character that to avoid from achieving our mission and realize our full potential and will be affecting the organizational when come in success and growth. Besides that, the opportunities and threats that his company may face are also briefly explained.

After identifying Jerry’s company strengths and weakness through the SWOT analysis, the next step would be to recommend a plan of action which may help in overcoming its weakness. By recommending a plan here, Jerry would be able to use the Chatime franchise as an example to that will help him overcome his company’s weakness and to improve its competitive advantages in task 3. Finally in task 4, the main topic is to investigate the number of steps which could be carried out for maintaining and strengthening its business existing performance. As an example, new ideas from sources such as customer feedback, research & development, distribution channels and existing products and services provides the vital information which can be applied by Jerry were explained with relevant examples.

Performance

A performance of a company can be defined through analysis and is an essential process of the employment to be undertaken at a regular point in time which identifies the resources and defined practices of an organization and to the degree that the objective and expectations have been reached. A review on the performance can reflect and show the overall health, performance of the employee and the overall productivity of an organization. In additional to that, this is a meticulous and specialized periodic assessment of an individual worker or overall performance which will help in the future potential for the organization to expand and the result in a pay raise with rewards and promotions for the employees.

Review the performance of Jerry’s company

For the review of the performance of Jerry’s company we will focus on Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co which is located in the residential area. The reason for this is that, by doing so we can analyze what are the key factors which are affecting and impacting the performance and success of his company.

Since Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co opened another branch which is located in a residential area, the sale and profit for this particular branch has been seeing a drastic decline in sales as compared against the past two years where the shop is located in the shopping complex. In comparison, the shop in shopping complex has been much more profitable than the shop in residential area; this could be due to the fact that the shop in shopping complex is much more noticeable and convenient for their customers to take a break from shopping and to buy a cup of coffee or tea from Jerry’s Shop.

The shop is located in the residential area, has to improve and develop a plan to solve the problem since the sale and profit are much lower than other branches. The target market of this company is aimed towards student and mid-range income group hence it should be located in town area as most of the target market will more likely have their lunch or tea time at home. As for local competition, it is at a minimal level where most of the shop blocks are coffee shop and mini market, so there has no stores are selling the similar product and no immediate competition in that area. The rental of the shop-lot increases yearly hence he unable to afford the current rent with his current profit.

The signature product of Jerry’s company is a health drink made from a combination jelly beans and traditional tea and also the selling of organic drinks made from fresh fruits. The product itself is made from home-made jelly beans and fresh ground tea leaves purchased from tea farms in Cameron Highlands and can be served hot or cold. The drawback of Jerry’s company are the usage of low grade quality product packaging such as the plastic cup and containers and is not exactly environment friendly as it is not biodegradable. For example, Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co uses flimsy and thin plastic cups which are especially unsuitable to contain hot beverages as it may melt and release harmful chemicals into the drink itself when heated. The product quality of the tea and the standard of tea differ depending on the person who makes the drink, for example there are complaints by the customer that sometimes the drinks are too sweet while sometimes it can be too dilute.

A review on the operation of the business seems to be rather disappointing and needs improvement as the management and the structure of this company are rather unprofessional due to the lack of monitoring and control over employees. For example, there are complaints from the customer that the employees take their own sweet time in preparing the beverages which leads to the long waiting time while ordering drinks. Besides that, the employees are not punctual and often turn up late for work due to the lack of discipline.

Conclusions

In a summary, performance reviews and evaluation is very important and often will be used analyze how the company accomplishes its goals and targets. Hence from the evaluation and the review, Jerry will be able to run his company smoothly and to be able to see how well is his company doing and whether the customers are satisfied with the services and if not, he is able to know why from the feedback from the customers.

Strengths and weakness (SWOT analysis)

Strength can be defined as is the qualities which will enable an organization to achieve the organization’s mission and the basis on which continued success is able to be assessed and sustained. Strengths could be tangible or intangible whereby the trait and qualities of your employees, the act of well-versed in or expertise in, and also the distinct feature which can be consistency to organization. While, weakness is the character that to avoid from achieving our mission and realize our full potential and will be affecting the organizational when come in success and growth. The weakness is able to depreciate machinery, lacking research and development facilities, poor decision- making in an organization.

SWOT analysis of Jerry’s company

Based on the review of the performance of Jerry’s company, the strengths and weaknesses were analyzed and explained below. Besides that, the opportunities and threats that his company may face are also briefly explained.

3.1.1 Strengths:

Healthy products are the main strengths of Jerry’s company as their signature products are specially focused on natural and organic ingredients.

The main ingredient used in their beverages is premium grade tea which is sourced from suppliers in Cameron Highland. Besides that the jelly beans are made with the highest grade of sea weed that is imported from the Japanese and which are sourced from Jerry’s business associate supplier at a very reasonable price as Jerry is practices with the economies of scale by buying in bulk to get the price more cheaply. Hence by using all these organic and natural ingredients, the drink has a high nutritional value as it contains natural vitamins and minerals.

Besides that, it can be defined as a unique drink as it is the first of its kind in the market as his product not only offers a refreshing taste but only provides health benefits to the consumer. The reason for the above statement is that the drink has a combination of herbal properties such as is cooling to the body and can is soothing for fever and headaches as it contain with vitamins and minerals. In addition to that, Jelly Bean & Tea beverages can act as the substitution for soft drink whereby a can of soft drink has contain much higher level of sugar. The higher level of sugar could be result in the higher risk of getting diabetes or obesities for those who is drinking it often.

Besides the serving of Jelly Bean Tea, Jerry’s company also offers Fresh Fruit Tea which is made wholly by fresh fruits all the time. The fruits used for making the Fresh Fruit Tea are brought from the whole sale suppliers directly to get freshly fruits every day that to ensure the fruits tea are brew freshly continually. This is a stark contrast to other competitors which uses cordials which contains high amounts of food dye and coloring besides preservatives, making it extremely unhealthy to consume as all these food additives pose as a serious health threat to the consumers.

3.1.2 Weakness

There are a few weaknesses within Jerry’s company, namely the poor quality product packaging and slow service, and another major issue which is the problem of having differing taste and quality of the product.

The poor quality of product packaging and service was been a major weak point of the company as the company had been receiving bad feedback from the usage of such packaging by their customers. The main issue is that the customers are aware that the poor quality of packaging is a health risk especially when consuming hot beverages where the packaging may release harmful chemicals. Also, it will be a very dangerous container and unsuitable for children as it is easy to scald their hand if the hot drink is spilled.

Besides that, the drinks quality is a big risk and threat to Jerry when serve tea or fresh fruit to the consumer. The quality of the drinks will be effect the sale of the company and changing the mind of the consumer that to loyalty towards with other brand of tea. The effect of the drinks quality could be differ due to batch processes that the consequences at different quality of tea standards from the supplier. The consequences of different quality of tea, it could due to different weather and seasons in the tea plantation. Hence, it may due changing the mind of the customer as the quality and taste of the tea are not consistent where the taste can be somewhat diluted or sometimes having a heavy tea taste as reported by customers.

In other hand, the inconsistent taste of the drinks could have been caused from the batch process which depends on the stuff who prepares the drink. As the taste of tea is not standardized, it will affect the reputation of Jerry’s company. For example, there are complaints from the customer that there are different taste of tea at times that sometime is too sweet while sometime is too dilute. Besides that, poor site selection is one of the weaknesses to Jerry’s company such as residential area. The branch at residential area is limited access to customers due to low exposure to customers. The sale of this location is lower than other branches due to poor selected site and as most of the target market will more likely rather have their lunch or tea time at home.

3.1.3 Opportunity

As Jerry’s company mainly focuses on creating healthy product in the market, it has a much larger opportunity and chance to capture the hearts of the consumers as compared with others competitor.

Since Jerry’s company first started its business, they notice that consumer prefer to buy organic beverage as compared to their non-organic beverages. From the outcome of the sale, it can be seen that organic products and fresh ingredients has seen a much higher quantity and the increase in sales of their products in their business and the most people are very health conscious nowadays. In other word, seems Jerry has adopted an organic-orientation trend that is increasing significantly, especially in the food sector and the shrinking price gap between organic and non-organic foods has been accelerated.

Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co focuses on the creation of healthy products, hence it can be said that Jerry is following a health trend. Health trend pays much attention on health maintenance and concerns with the health care that is able to provision together, whereas it could be continue in the next decade as the world population ages today.

3.1.4 Threats

Although there are many opportunities for his company, there are also threats to the company. A major threat to the company will be potential entrants or new competitors who will try to imitate Jerry’s company. Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co is not as well established as other larger competitors such as Chatime or 18Celcius and may not be able to successfully compete in this already saturated market.

3.2 Conclusion

In a conclusion, the key purpose of SWOT analysis is to identify and analyze the overall strategy will create a firm specific business form that can be align with the resources to the degree of ability on the requirements of the environment in which the firm operates. It enables the company to view all the positive and negative factors within its internal and external environment that will be affecting the success and also assisting in estimating the changing trend and the decision-making process.

A plan of action

By recommending a plan of action that will not only be able to capitalize on the company’s strengths but also overcome its weakness, Jerry will be able to improve the performance of his company. As an example, Jerry could use the success story of one of its major competitors which is the Chatime franchise as an example to help him overcome his company’s weakness and improve its competitive advantages.

4.1 CHATIME as example to overcome its weakness

According to Chatime Co website (2011), Chatime is a Bubble Tea franchise offered an authentic tea and is one of the fastest growing in the world. Chatime is owned by the La kaffa International founded in 2005, has operates more than 800 stores in roughly 62 cities in more than 25 countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, HK, etc. LA Kaffa International has owned three major of brands which is including Chatime, ZenQ and La Kaffa. From the achievement of the each brand, it had successfully brought the Taiwanese authentic flavor to the worldwide of the customers.

The success of Chatime franchise chain encompasses several key issues which includes well-developed training programs such as an exceptional retail audit system, cutting edge product innovation, and a specialized management and research team. Based on these several key issues, Chatime are able to provide high quality product and a great customer service experience while satisfies the consumer needs and wants. The operation management of this company is utilizing technical tea mixer which uses the state-of-the-art technology to ensure the bubble tea is brewed freshly continually. Chatime franchise has commitment by delivering high quality of tea and efficient customer service to the consumer. Hence, every Chatime branch are uses feature machines to achieve the highest quality of tea such as sugar machine, coffee and tea machines, a special ‘fresh tea’ machine and included other equipment in order to provides the freshest bubble teas on the market. By using all these kind of tea machine, Chatime franchises are able to save on time and space when to maximizing each cup of tea quality.

Chatime franchises use a number of ways and steps when it comes to opening a new branch of itself. The Chatime franchise will first consider the selected site as find the most appropriate site for its businesses based on the economic and operational perspective. For example, an ideal location would be an area which is able to get a lot of passing foot traffic or is a high exposure area as it is close to public transportation and where there is car parking available. The next time which is equally crucial would be the hiring and recruiting of skilled people for the job as a lot of emphasis is placed on the highest quality of their products and services.

Secondly, Chatime would first consider the demographics of the area to determine whether the populations are mostly students, office workers or elderly group of people. Then, they would identify the area is there any other stores were selling with the similar products whereas will it be hard to compete in that area and also to compare and determine the competitors pricing and promotion strategies.

4.2 Overcome of weakness of Jerry’s company:

Jerry’s company is focusing on healthy product which is an extremely popular product to the customer as most of the populations nowadays are very health conscious; this in itself is a major advantage to Jerry.

One critical step where Jerry will be able to overcome a weakness in his company is to focus on ensuring a standardized quality of the product they offer. This is because there have been many complaints by the customers where they state that the drinks and beverages made by Jerry’s company have different taste and is not consistent most of the time. This is a major weakness as it will affect the sales and reputation of his company. To overcome this weakness, Jerry can implement the usage of a mechanical mixer or drink dispenser where the beverages will be pre-made according to a specified recipe to ensure a standardized taste all the time. Also, he has to pay attention on quality inspection for the tea from the supplier to ensure standardized quality of the beverages. In addition to that, this kind of technology is able to save on time and space when to maximizing each cup of tea quality and serve to customer.

Besides that, the poor quality of product packaging and service has to improve and develop for the cold and hot drink. Jerry should change the packaging to higher grade plastic for cold beverages while use Styrofoam or insulated paper hot cups for hot beverages. Hence, this can prevent and protect the consumer from health risk when purchasing hot beverages, particularly for the children who may easily scald their hand.

Poor site selection is one of the weaknesses that Jerry has to overcome and improve, he should follow the steps and consider on how the Chatime franchise to selected location. By following the example of Chatime franchise Jerry should follow a number of steps when opening a new branch, such as first considering choosing a high exposure area that there are close to the public and has car parking available and also determining the demographics of the area, whether there are student, working place or elderly group of people.

4.3 Conclusion

In conclusion, weakness can be said to be the barriers of an organization in achieving their mission. It will be a major influence on the success and growth of the organizational and may be caused in the decrease of value of the machinery, cause of increasing the employee turnover and difficult on making decision process. In fact, there must be finding restructuring a plan in order to minimized and overcome the weaknesses and flaws of a company.

Investigate ways that could be maintained and strengthened

After spending a week in Jerry’s home in Penang and reviewing the overall performance of his company, there are many steps which can be carried out to maintain and improve his business’s existing performance. One of the many ways to do so would be to examine and improve on the company’s operating and business strategy where it can capitalize and focus on the creation of its own unique competitive advantage. Jerry Jelly Bean & Tea Co has much lower price as compared with its competitors such as Chatime and 18Celcius. For example, the beverages sold in Jerry’s Jelly Bean & Tea Co are priced between RM 3 to RM 6 as compared to drinks sold at Chatime which is priced at RM5 and above.

Based on the review of the strength and weaknesses seen in task 2 and task 3 respectively, Jerry can improve his company’s performance by a variety of ways. These ways would include the sources of new ideas, which could be involving used sources of ideas for entrepreneurs such as the consumers, its existing products and services, research and development, and through its distribution channels.

5.1 Sources of new ideas:

The consumer is essential where constant attention and focus should be placed on the customer and customer. The reason to pay attention on the customer is to take the form of informally monitoring the necessary ideas and needs or formally organizing for consumer that to have an opportunity to express their opinions. By listening and taking heed to the feedback of the customers feedback, Jerry will be able to identify what is causing dissatisfaction among the customers and take the necessary measures to eliminate or minimize the problem. Hence Jerry will be able to focus on what the customers want and fulfilling the customer’s expectation.

In addition to that, Jerry can offer the consumers with a wider choice of topping for their drinks such as pearl, grass jelly, pudding, coconut jelly, rainbow jelly, red bean or Aloe Vera toppings. By providing additional choices and giving the consumer the choice to choose what and how exactly they want their drink to be. For example, the customers can be provided with the choice of choosing how much ice or how sweet do they want their drink to be, this way Jerry will be able to ensure customer satisfaction.

Existing product and service evaluations should be establish as a formal method for monitoring and evaluating their products and service compared against others competitor on the market. In fact, this analysis is able to uncover ways to develop on these offering that may result in a new product and service, which assess to have more market appeal and increasing the sales and profit potential. In this case here, Jerry can consider advertising their products by using internet or social media to promote the product as it is a popular channel to target younger and trendy target markets. Hence, these channel are able to cut cost on advertise and promoting the product, wide audience and also efficient and effectively.

In addition to that, distribution channels can be defined as is members of the distribution channels as the excellent sources for new idea accordingly of their familiarity with the needs of the market. By doing so, not only do channel members who habitually have opinion for completely new product, also they can help in marketing the entrepreneur’s newly improved products. Besides that, research and development can be said is the largest source of new ideas for the business can experience future growth by improving new product or processes to develop and expand their operation. It could be investigative activities a business to perform with the intention of creation discovery that can either lead to the development of new product or procedures, or to expansion the existing products and procedures.

Another effective way where Jerry can improves on his company’s competitive advantage is by adding to the value of their product instead of cutting down the selling price. This can be done by increasing the value for money, whereby the customer will be able to enjoy an increase in benefits for the same amount of money that they are paying. For example, Jerry can consider creating a membership card where members will be entitled to a 15% discount on all their drinks. By having a membership card, the members will be able to enjoy benefits such as buy 1 free 1 promotion for regular drink for any member card during festive seasons such as Chinese New Year.

5.2 Conclusion

By implementing the methods suggested above, Jerry should not only be able to improve and grow his business but also be able compete more effectively in the current market. For improving and growing, Jerry should focus on what people want to buy, not on what you want to sell and also to focus on sale and marketing trends such as testing and measuring everything in order to maintain and increase the profit.

6.0 Conclusion and recommendation

In conclusion and recommendation, A review on the performance can reflect and show the overall health, performance of the employee and the overall productivity of an organization. In additional to that, this is a meticulous and specialized periodic assessment of an individual worker or overall performance of the company. In other hand, the SWOT analysis is important to identify and analysis the overall strategic that will be create a firm specific business, can be in the form of resources and the degree of ability to meet the requirements of the environment in which the firm operates in. Besides that, the threat to an organization is its weakness which will be a major influence on the success and growth of the organizational, also is the barriers when to accomplish its mission. Hence, there must be implement and creating a plan that overcome and eliminate its weakness and should be testing and measuring everything in order to maintain and increase the profit.