Strategic Planning and Use of the Financing and Entrepreneurial Firms to Success - Case Study Example

Entrepreneurship Customer’s Name Customer’s Course Tutors Name 25, March 2011 Doug Perkins; SpecSavers Introduction Doug Perkins was born in Llanelli though he has most of his lifetime been in Ammanford, Australia. In his early years, he worked in a boxing early that was amongst the smallest in his home town. This was before he worked as an optometrist in the neighborhood. He ventured in other tasks such as being a doorman for a cabaret club and being a player in the local rugby club. Mary Perkins, his wife was born in Bristol. They both met at Cardiff University as they studied to become opticians. Both of them are in the top management of the company with Doug being the chairman and Mary taking care of among other things customer relations. The first opticians practice for the couple was opened in Bristol. From this first venture, the couple opened up a small chain and later came to sell the business for two million pounds and moved to Guernsey. A little while later, they got back to the same old business but this time with specsavers. The first bases for the specsavers company were based in Guernsey and Bristol. They later ventured into Plymouth, Swansea and Bath. The company is up until today privately managed as a family business. The company is managed as a joint venture where the couple owns a fifty percent stake in all the outlets and the remaining part of the company is owned by the other local opticians. The company has over time grown to be the biggest of its kind in the UK controlling 70 percent of the local market for sale of spectacles and 30% of the market in dealing with contact lenses. The company is now making a huge sale from spectacles totaling to over 1Billion annually. The company also boasts of outlets in quite some countries including Finland, Australia, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Ireland. This paper will seek to establish some of the entrepreneurial strong points that the Doug Perkins has applied in making his business a success. In essence, the paper will look into the ways in which Doug Perkins managed to effectively realize the idea get able to have the right sources of financing for his venture. Financing and entrepreneurial firms: A case of Doug Perkins and Specsavers Specsavers is an opticians’ business which is involved with the sale of spectacles, contact lenses and hearing aids. The group which was launched in 1984 by the Perkins has over 1390 stores in various countries and employs over 26,000 people. The company initially started in venturing with optical services before it got to the hearing center some time later. This company now enjoys the lion’s share of all the transactions in the market for its product in Ireland and in the UK being the biggest of its kind, from the various research that has been covered by this paper; this has been as a result of the strategic planning mechanisms that have been applied by the owner. This will be looked into details in the succeeding chapters of this article (Jenkinson and Sain 2003). According to Jenkinson and Sain (2003), there are various factors tat are known to influence the success of any business depends on a number of factors. Integrated marketing can be influenced by some factors as evident in Specsavers which include; adjusting the brand to the local context, expertise in the brand, integration of all the components in the brand, balance of the needs of the stakeholders, keeping values, keeping objectives in coherence with the competencies of the company, concern on motivation to the people in general as an asset, aligning the business processes to the value and promise of the brand, have the right leaders, having the company and its agencies/outlets work min unison, common communication mechanisms, contribution from all parties in the projects, effective measurement of returns on investments, evaluation of communications to measure attitudes and effects of response to the customers (Wright et al. 1990). These are some of the success factors that are bound to make the company succeed and get better towards the achievement of its objectives. The company’s operations After the deregulation of the optometric industry in 1983, Doug Perkins and Mary Perkins got hold of the opportunity to hold up the industry. This was during a time when many opticians were not satisfied with their jobs and also many people had little confidence bin the opticians. The opticians wanted to be involved with their own jobs following an act that had been enacted though most of them did not have the means to do so. It was due to this challenge and opportunity that Perkins established the business coming up with a joint venture as well as a retail service. In coming up with a joint venture, the opticians have a pert to play and opticians have their part too thus making the cost of establishing an outlet fairly lower to the Doug’s unlike it would have been if they were to do it on their own. The mode of the business is where each venture is independent and jointly owned by the practitioner and specsavers. Specsavers is in charge of training, support, expertise, experience, promotion and information. The work of the practitioner is service delivery and running of the business. By the use of this model, there is achievement of integrated marketing objective. In this case, the objective is made up of a panel that is enthusiastic, committed and work towards the values of the company (Van der Vegt and Van de Vliert 2002). The company’s mission is “to be the best value opticians satisfying personal eye care needs at affordable prices clearly, simply and consistently”. This is in line with the culture of the company which is based on “clarity, consistency and simplicity”. Value in the business There is little or almost no competition in the value that is offered by the brand model of this company. Due to the size of the business, there is proper sourcing and economy of scale which has eventually led to lower prices for the clients (Porter 1998). One of the key ideas on offer by the brand is to offer values of “clarity, consistency and simplicity”. They are also projected towards offering the best quality and cheaper prices. The company also boasts of a formidable range of products and quality service in retail (Bennett, 2010). Consistence in brand marketing by the company is achieved through local marketing initiatives as well as the international ones. In defining their brand, the company considers all the essential requirements by the various and diverse base of customers present. The company also holds up some consistent training programs which are rigorous and are also subject to day to day review. The company’s objective of offering low prices to the customers is realized through the joint processes of outsourcing as well as manufacturing of the products jointly. Another critical reason that has led to the success of the company is constant motivation. The corporation is made up of self-governing practitioners who are given a chance to work for themselves and for the whole company. There is a set mechanism through which the profits are distributed to the stakeholders which act as a key motivating factor. The profits that are realized get to the practitioners in a way that makes them realize the benefits of their direct contribution to their own good and to the company as a whole (Campbell et al, 1993). This is one of the clear manners in which the finances for running this organization are realized and effectively utilized to make the company go on. There is also a regard of all the practitioners who work in the company as partners in the business. This group is accorded the desired assistance in professional matters such as advice and support. The focus that has been laid on people by the company an increased commitment to professionalism is joint amongst the staff members, the partners and the management of the organization thus creating a very strong partnership support (Postmes et al. 2001). For the success of this approach, the vision of the company, the brand and the overall culture have to be inline at all times. For the leaders in such an environment, there is a need to have consistency in adherence to company values. Such values should also include all the people who are involved in the company in all facets. With the desire for each and every business to keep committed with their set of values, this company has fought to keep the original set as portrayed by the proprietor, Doug Perkins. This is led by the promise of giving quality at a cheap rate. Communication is also a valuable asset that has been used to realize success of this venture. This is a method that has been realized by first being aware of the various needs of the customers and thus communicating to the various patients in terms of their needs. The mode of communication that this business has adhered to is basically based on the objectives of the business. This has been used to dictate the modes that they use to communicate to their various customers through the different channels of advertising. Looking at the various methods that have been applied by the company to realize its success, it is thus clear that the company has been able to achieve its success from consistency in the trade. The management has been able to keep its people aligned and in commitment to the value propositions of the company. This has been made possible through constant communication with the various stakeholders (Kotler et al. 2007). Conclusion Doug Perkins is an entrepreneur who was able to seize an opportunity through strategic planning and use of the entrepreneurial firms to a great success to achieve and eventually realize a formidable company (Fisher 2000). This kind of planning combined with the savings that Doug Perkins had from his previous work was a starting point for the great company. The strategic planning was mainly in the way that he designed his company as a joint venture as well as an independent entity. In this manner, he is able to maintain ownership of the business through the 50% stakes that he commands in all outlets and at the same time be able to expand in a cheaper way. The joint ventures proved workable at the time of inception due to the negative perceptions that various opticians had towards their jobs and thus a new opportunity was more than acceptable to most of them (Goodstein et al. 1993). References Bennett, A. (2010) The Big Book of Marketing: Lessons and Practices from the World's Greatest Companies. NY: McGraw-Hill. Campbell, J., McCloy, R., Oppler, S., & Sager, C. (1993) A Theory of Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Fisher, K. (2000) Leading self-directed work teams, A guide to developing new team leadership skills. New York: McGraw-Hill. Goodstein, L. Nolan, T. and Pfeiffer, J. (1993) Applied Strategic Planning: How to Develop a Plan That Really Works. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, Jenkinson,A and Sain, B. 2003 Specsavers: an integrated innovative marketing business model, Center for integrated Marketing; University of Luton. Kotler, P., Brown, L., Adam, S., Burton, S. and Armstrong, G. 2007, Marketing. 7th edn, Pearson Education Australia, Sydney Porter, E. (1998) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. New York: Prentice Hall. Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Cihanger, S. (2001). Quality of decision-making and group norms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(6), 918. Van der Vegt, G. & Van de Vliert, E. (2002) Intragroup interdependence and effectiveness, Review and proposed directions for theory and practice. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 17, 50-67, Wright, P., Kroll, M., Kedia, B. and Pringle, C. (1990) Strategic Profiles, Market Share, and Business Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Appendices Interview questions 1. What is the idea behind specsavers? What really made you come up with the idea? 2. What are some of the toughest financial decisions that you have been forced to make as a director for your company? How did you manage to get through? 3. Considering the joint venture kind of business that you undertake, how do you manage the risks that can be posed by the other opticians in the trade? 4. Have you ever made a decision that you wished you could ever change in the course of your duty? 5. How do you manage to control the different ventures and get all the resources running smoothly? Read More