Business Analysis and Challenges of Solent Sport Company - Case Study Example

The paper "Business Analysis and Challenges of Solent Sport Company" is a perfect example of a case study on business. Solent Sports is a business entity that deals with sports and outdoor equipment. Its head office is in Southampton, with six branches situated in Southampton and other cities, namely Winchester and Bournemouth. The company has two hundred employees distributed in all the six branches. From its inception in 1978, Solent Sports has maintained a close relationship with its customers. This is attributed to the fact that it offers its customers with suggestions and advice on the ergonomic requirements of their products, as well as the information regarding sports facilities and outdoor events in the area. The company aims at becoming the main provider of sports and outdoor products and services in the vast region of South East England. Additionally, it aims at ensuring that the retailing business grows by an increase in the retail outlets. It is worth noting that the company aims at expanding its operations by venturing into the Wales and South West England regions.

• Challenges/Problems/Current Situations

Solent Sports has several managerial problems that obstruct the effectiveness of its operations as well as its ambitions for future operations. Therefore, these problems and possible solutions will be addressed in the table below.

Challenges

Problems

Situations

Accounting systems

A-Its distribution and accounting systems having been implemented fifteen years ago, lack integration; thus, they are based on traditional management techniques of filing.

B- POS commonly known as Point of Sale system used by its six branches is not fully integrated into the company’s accounting system, and this does not allow in-time monitoring of all the inventory levels.

Solent Company should use SAS Business Intelligence since it offers a robust, integrated and flexible presentation layer for data and text mining, predictive analysis, optimization, and forecasting for faster and better decision making.

Management systems

A- The branch managers have also failed in preparing detailed management reports since they gather information from various systems and deliver their reports every month by use of spread-sheet software and existing word processing templates.

B- Training remains a challenge

for all the branches, as they not only require their salespeople to be aware of the qualities and attributes of the products in the stores

The Company makes use of SAS as well as the Knowledge management system. This is because KMS will help them identify and address their leadership competencies to ensure leadership continuity and sharing of knowledge within the company.

The Company should invest in organizing training workshops for its employees to enable them to relate to their customers well.

Technical and organizational systems

A- Inaccuracy of the data reports used by branch managers to make decisions that involve their branch operations’ long and short term planning.

B- Adopting a training system in the company is extremely difficult despite the importance of training to instill knowledge among salespeople to make them aware of the ways customers in their local area use their products.

Branch managers should make timely reports to ensure the information they provide is up-to-date. Additionally, they should use business intelligence software such as SAS, RFID, among others in report preparation.

Communication systems

A-Relaying information obtained by the branch directors to the head office is extremely problematic. This is attributed to the fact that planning for the meetings for this update normally takes place every month.

B- Branch managers and employees from all the branches do not attend the regular meetings occasionally held at the head office. In most cases, they are not aware when these meetings are held; and this poses a serious threat in adopting all the policies adopted in these meetings.

The company should improve its communication system to ensure all information relayed from the branches reach the head office in time. Additionally, they should use memos and notices to invite branch managers and employees for periodic meetings.