Save Money Britains Microenvironment - Case Study Example

Running head: save money britain’s microenvironment 23rd February Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive summary 3 Introduction 4 Key stakeholder groups 4 Analysis of the industry 7 Recommendations 8 Conclusion 10 Executive summary Save Britain Money (SBM) is a company that is based in Welsh. The company which was established in 2005 by Neville Wilshire is headquartered in Swansea. As a way of meeting high demand for its services across the UK, the company has opened a huge store in Cardiff. This paper will identify the key stakeholder groups in the micro and internal environment. These include the Wilshire, who is the CEO, the directors who are responsible for company expansion, the employees, the investors and the customers. All the stakeholders play a major role in the growth of the company. The paper will depict how the strong positive relationship between the employees and the CEO has greatly motivated the staff. As the competition in the energy industry stiffens, SBM rivals have turned to forming associations to face of the company in the market. This paper will recommend that SBM can counter attack such moves and attain a competitive position in UK market by forming association with other firms, expanding its marketing strategies, extensive research and development and expanding distribution network. Introduction In order for any company to be successful in the international and local markets, it is always appropriate to ensure that a strong positive relationship exists among all the stakeholders. Stakeholders including the shareholders, creditors, customers, managers and the employees among others are vital in that they ensure that organizations continuity is ensured. For example, in a limited company, the shareholders and investors contribute a significant amount of capital that is needed in the expansion strategies of their firm. Similarly, the consumers ensure that the products provided by the organization are sold thus increasing the sales of the firms. While stiff competition is viewed by firms as a challenge, it is beneficial in that it results to innovation as firms aim at providing brands that out do those of the rivals. One of the notable organizations that have effectively met the needs of its market is the Save Britain Money (SBM). SBM is Welsh based company which is headquartered in Swansea city. The company was established in 2005. Based on the high demand of its products across the UK, the company has established a huge sales office in Cardiff. In this way, it is in a position to maintain constant supply of its products and services in its target market. Having been established by Neville Wilshire, a businessman based in Swansea, SBM provides various money services to its customers. Other services that SBM provides include renewable energy advice, doing surveys on energy efficiency and price comparison services, on-line fuel switching, mis-sold payment claims. This paper aims at discussing the Save Money Britain’s microenvironment. Key stakeholder groups Neville Wilshire, the founder of SBM is one of the key stakeholders. During the formation of SBM, Neville first established the Nationwide Energy Services (NES). As the overall manager of the organization, the CEO has greatly impacted on the success of SBM. The aim of the CEO is to ensure that the organization experiences a sustainable growth. Neville does this by ensuring that good planning becomes a culture in his organization (Fast Growth 50, 2013). Another need for the CEO is to ensure that the organization seeks new opportunities. In this way, he significantly contributes in the expansion of the organization an aspect that has resulted to a wide customer base and increased sales. Being a part of the board of the directors, the CEO provides quite a number of management ideas that are useful in the day to day activities of the firm. According to Neville, community is a major part of the firm that any company aims at succeeding cannot overlook. Thus, the CEO indicates that his aim is to help people in his neighborhood to have warmer homes. For example, the CEO targets the South Wales region where he in corroboration with the surveyors provides advice on the energy conservation. Another key stakeholder in SBM is the staff fraternity. The company employs more than 950 employees on permanent bases and more than 500 self-employed in UK. The need of the employees is to ensure that customers get quality services and to enjoy a high level of motivation based on the flexible benefits that the firm provides. The major role of the employees is to ensure that the company services are well distributed among the consumers (Laermer, 2007). For example, every week, it is the duty of the employees to contact over 15,000 households. To ensure that the employees are motivated and that they remain productive, SBM provides its work force with a wide range of benefits. For example, majority of the employees earn between £7,500 and £15,000. The wages are sufficiently enough to help them address their family and personal needs (Weightman, 2008). According to the employees, the compensation that SBM gives them is fair as compared to other firms. Another motivating factor for the employees is the opportunity to air their grievances and ideas to the CEO. The firm has established a scheme referred to as tell the CEO through which the employees gives their suggestions and feedback (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). As a result, the workers have benefited from improved car park, pool rooms and working in shifts. Apart from the inspiration that the employees get while working in the SBM, their need for development is also significantly attained. This is through the adequate training programs that are provided by the organization. Being a major part of the SBM stakeholders, the directors assist the organization in its expansion strategies. For example, together with the CEO, the directors have embarked on looking for marketing opportunities locally and globally. Additionally, the directors have undertaken various measures that are aimed at maintaining strong and experienced human resources (Ishmael, 2008). Through undertaking an effective recruitment process and flexible benefit scheme, the directors have significantly helped the organization to enjoy a strong workforce thus enhancing the productivity and profitability of SBM (The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies, 2013). The need of the directors is to ensure that their organization is successful and the shareholders returns are increased. Similarly, the director’s objective is to ensure that the company experiences a sustainable growth in its provision of services through acquiring other firms in the same industry. In every organization, customers form a significant part of the stakeholders. On its part, SBM produces wide range of services in order to meet the needs of its wide customer base. Thus, the high demand by the customers is essential in triggering the high and continuous production of the SBM services. In order for the organization to serve its customers in an effective way, customer’s contacts are stored in the company’s database (Dev and Don, 2005). In this way, it becomes easier to contact the customers for example by the NES surveyors and energy installers. Another group that forms the stakeholders is the investors. As the company continues to expand in the UK market, large numbers of investors who want to invest and save their money in their effort to improve their returns. Investors are important for the organization based on their financial contributions that helps the company in its expansion and research strategies. Through the acquisition strategies and the innovation that SBM has embarked on, the investors needs including increased positive returns and security for their investments will be achieved (OBrian and Montazemia, 2004). This implies that as a firm that is focused at remaining competitive in the local and international markets, SBM should be focused at creating strong positive relationship with its investors in order to enhance investors trust. Analysis of the industry Energy efficiency and renewable energy advice and installation are major services that are adopted by many companies in the energy industry. Within large towns in the UK, firms dealing with energy services have embarked on creating positive contributions including environment conservation in the neighbouring communities. Most importantly, stiff competition in the energy industry has led some firm to expand their product portfolio as a way of distributing the investment risks. Save Britain Money operates in an energy industry that attracts large number of competitors. Based on the large number of customers who demand energy services in the UK market, various firms providing energy services invest in the industry. Despite the quality services that are produced by SBM, the competitors have taken measures to face off the impact of the organization in the UK market. For example, the competitors have formed a synergy that entails 80 companies to form an organization referred to as the Energy UK (Porter, 1998). This is an organization that is composed of companies producing energy related services. Serving more than 26 million, Energy UK has created stiff competition among the local companies. Even though such competition is appropriate in creating an opportunity for innovation, it affects the sales of the smaller firms who are not able to be at par with the production capacity of the bigger firms. Just like the SBM, Energy UK enhances the reputation of the energy installation and research by involving customers and the surrounding communities. However, Energy UK has a bigger impact on the global market. Thus the 80 companies that forms the Energy UK benefits from a larger customer base in the international market an aspect that results to increased sales and profits for the member companies. Major companies that offer a stiff competition to the SBM are the Ecotricity, Good Energy, Ebico, Ovo Energy, Utilita and First Utility among others. According to the energy satisfaction survey that was conducted in 2014, Good energy and Ecotricity were the top energy suppliers. In order to evaluate their performance in the market, firms within the renewable energy and installation activities employ a satisfaction survey (Miles, 2003). The survey entails various aspects that cover the needs of the consumers. These includes customer service, value for money, helping in saving energy, bills, complaints and lastly customer score. Based on the fact that SBM also has interest in money saving services as well as debt management plans, the organization activities are also under scrutiny by the banking institutions in order to ensure that it performs its roles in line with the monetary policies. This implies that apart from the competition that SBM experiences in the energy industry, the company is also faced with stiff competition from financial institutions including banks as well saving and credit co-operative societies that offers similar services. Recommendations As the competition becomes stiff in the UK market, SBM has emulated the culture of business planning in order to meet the needs of the market. The company might sustain future competitive advantage in the UK market by adopting four major aspects. First, the company should join associations that exist in the market. Based on the fact that SBM has wide range of services, it should ensure that it joins an association that is formed by firms with similar services. In this way, the company will be able to effectively explore new markets without using a lot of financial resources (Goldstein and Lee, 2005). Since the firms forming such associations are headed by managers with diversified skills, SBM will benefit from transfer of knowledge in all its services. Thus, customer will experience an improved in the service delivery while at the same time they will feel that they have enjoyed value for their money. The second recommendation is that SBM should adopt new marketing expansion strategies. For example, since e-marketing is now a major marketing tool, the company should target users of social sites to create stronger positive relationship (Chaudhury and Jean-Pierre, 2002). This can include opening a face book group account where customers and other users of the social sites can provide ideas and feedback on the quality of services provided by the company. Other areas that the company should use to advertise its services include You Tube and Twitter. Thirdly, SBM should expand its research and development. As the demand of its services increase in the UK market, consumers will now be more concerned on the value and quality of the services. This implies that a thorough research will need to be put in place in order to identify the actual needs of the consumers (Aaker, 2008). In this way, the services produced will match the customer needs thus attracting quite a large number of them. The company should also ensure that new technologies are adopted in its production facilities. In this way, SBM will ensure that it produces quality services that are adequate to meet the needs of its customers in the UK market. The fourth recommendation is that SBM should establish more distribution and production centres in the UK market. The high demand of its services will only have positive impact on the company’s revenue if it takes those services closer to the consumer. It is vital to note that apart from quality services, customers are highly attracted by products that are easily accessible. The new outlets in more within UK should be under the leadership of skilled managers who will ensure that all the technical complaints by the customers are professionally handled. Conclusion Stakeholders have positively impacted on the growth and expansion of SBM. The CEO for instance has embarked on effective planning, looking for new opportunities and creation of stronger relationship with the community (Kotler and Philip, 2011). These are similar roles that the directors have also embarked on it order to make the company attain its objectives. On their part, the employees are highly motivated based on the benefits given by the company as well as close relationship with the CEO. SBM Investors have also played a key role in SBM expansion strategies by providing funds. Despite its impact in the UK market, SBM face challenges from its competitors who have formed synergies in the form of associations that makes strong rivals (Kotler and Keller, 2012). However, the company has an opportunity of attaining a competitive edge in the UK market by adopting four key strategies including forming associations with other firms, expanding its marketing activities, expansion of research and development and establishing more distribution outlets. 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