Major Business Analysis - Research Paper Example

Analysis Of 3 Business Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts Inserts Here (Day, Month, Year) Ahmed Salahuddin is working as General Manager at Star Cement in United Arab Emirates. as@starcement.net Tel.: +971 4 706 1766  1. When was your business started? Since the discovery of oil, UAE has been focusing on infrastructure expansion, and Cement Industry is one of the leading industries in the region. Start cement started working in 2007 and is now among the leading cement manufacturers. 2. Did you start the business yourself or did you inherit it or buy it from someone else? Star Cement started business on its own, in association with FLSmidth. FL Smidth help us in providing technical assistance. 3. Is your business a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, franchise or something else? Star Cement is a corporation. It is listed in Dubai Stock Exchange. 4. What types of products or services do you provide? We are specifically a Cement producing company. Start Cement has a widespread range of molecules of cement which are manufactured to cater to all kinds of cement requirement in the region. 5. What part of the population do you market your products to? With the production of 2.2 million tonnes we fall among the leading cement manufacturers of the region. Our sales consist of 80% B to B selling. Our target market includes private builders building mega projects and government projects which focuses on infrastructure expansion. 6. How do changes in the economy affect your business and if they dont, why not? Changes in economy affect the business of cement industry on a macro level when growth rate increases and decrease sdrastically. On micro level economy does not affect our business. We are the leading cement manufacturers in the region and have more than 65% of the sales. Export and local requirement for cement remains constant until economy faces a major crunch. 7. What brought your business at the position it stands today? Our company’s team plays a vital role in the growth. Star cement has always focused on innovation and strict quality assurance to establish a satisfied customer base. 8. What do you enjoy most about your business? We are the trend setters in the industry. The requirement for research and development to produce new products makes it a competitive industry. And this cut throat competition makes me enjoy my business and triggers me to think something different and new all the time. 9. What is your organization culture? We have a very structured hierarchy in organization. Working environment is very pleasant and comfortable, senior employees help, guide and motivate the employees. 10. How much IT influences your business? We have state of the art systems at plants for all the process, from extraction of raw materials to manufacturing and sales of the products. Entire production is monitored by automated systems. Offices are less advanced in IT and use basic information systems to perform day to day work. 11. Is your business located in one area or office or do you have multiple locations? Star Cement started working from Ras al-Khaimah region. But they, now have many offices locally and abroad as well. 12. What are your future goals for your company? My future goals for the company is to expand its production capacity, export of cement to Asia wide countries. To implement a system that will analyze the bulk capacity of cement in market and warehouses. And increase the growth rate of the company with more educated staff and efficient capacity. Shamil Razack is working as Regional Manager at The Contact Centre in Ajman United Arab Emirates. Tel.:+ 971-6-714-4112 1. When was your business started? The Contact Centre started its business in 2008. It provides call center services to local and international companies. 2. Did you start the business yourself or did you inherit it or buy it from someone else? With the growing demand of call center solutions and analyzing the demand of jobs for call centers we started our business on our own. 3. Is your business a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, franchise or something else? We started our business on small scale. Partnership with two more partners brought our company into existence. 4. What types of services do you provide? We provide three kinds of call centre services to the industry. Call centre services, automated voice hosting services and call centre consulting services. We provide out sourced services and services to local companies as well. 5. What role do IT plays in your organization? Call centre industry is completely dependant on IT. Overseas calls are made through internet and telecommunication. High speed of bandwidth is required to perform efficiently. 6. What part of the population do you market your products to? We market our products to companies looking for out sourcing their call centre services. Our target market are local companies. We prefer local companies because it is cost effective to provide assistance with our local resources. We have a qualified staff of 800 people who are fluent in Arabic and English for providing call centre solutions. 7. Which segment of market generates the maximum revenue? why? Segment of marketing different products generates the maximum profit. More than 60% of the companies take services of call centers to sale their products. It also satisfies the customers quickly leading to increase in sales figures. 8. How do changes in the economy affect your business and if they dont, why not? Changes in global and local economy affect our business indirectly. An international company out sourcing its call centre services to us has a downfall in country’s economy, it will focus more on cost cutting but a company which focuses on feed back and after sales services has call centers. Downfall in economy will not affect its requirement for call centers. 9. What do you enjoy most about your business? Our business is suitable for all age groups and requirements to join the company are not strong. Students in high school and undergraduate can also work here part time. Only thing that is compulsory is the fluency in language needed by an employee to work with. 10. Is your business located in one area or office or do you have multiple locations? Our business is located in one area. Our physical existence doesn’t matter much, as we do our complete business on telephone and internet. 11. Are you considering expanding your operations? If so, how? If not, why not? We are not considering the expansion of our operations. We still have lot of potential to tap in the employees and in the regions we are catering to. We need to explore that potential and keep increasing the operating profits. S.M Salahuddin is working as Operation Manager at East Horizon Transport LLC in Dubai United Arab Emirates. 1. When was your business started? East Horizon Transport was started in 2005. It provides all kind of transportation services throughout UAE. 2. Did you start the business yourself or did you inherit it or buy it from someone else? Our business was inherited from a person who used to own a small company that provided taxi services in Dubai. A group of 2 partners adopted this company and expanded. 3. Is your business a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, franchise or something else? Our business is a partnership of two partners. East Horizon is a local company that is spread all over UAE and provides excellent services to people for all kinds of transportation services. 4. What types services do you provide? We provide almost all kinds of transportation services to the public. We have delivery truck services, movement of goods from one place to another. 5. What part of the population do you market your products to? We have a very diversified range of products in our product line. We provide transportation services from school bus for children to logistics for goods and transportation for public. 6. How do changes in the economy affect your business and if they dont, why not? Changes in the economy affect our business a lot. The most essential is the cost of transportation. Economic ups and downs affect the fuel prices significantly hence the operating profits as well. We could transfer all the change to customer but our strategy is to build a brand image in the market and strengthen relationships with our customers. 7.How you strengthen your relationships with customer? We strengthen our relationship with customers by providing best services to customers at their door step and keeping them updated about lowest fares and new offers. 9. What are your company’s achievements? We have built a large customer base in transportation. We have provided many new ideas for improving transportation infrastructure in UAE. In collaboration with other sources we gave the concept of Dubai metro to government. 10. What are your future goals for your company? Future goals for our company are to improve and establish more strong relations with customers and attract large scale customers’ base by our innovative techniques at minimum cost. Comparison Star cement was working on a very large scale among all three companies. The contact centre and East Horizon both are formed by partnerships. Both have less number of people who take the decisions and they respond to situations more quickly. All three companies provide a particular kind of service and they all depend on IT infrastructure in some way. Star cement and East horizon have a huge customer base. Star cement and East horizon serve international markets. Both worked on customer relationships to establish long term sales and services and both have to work innovatively to create products and services for market that serve the customers well at comparatively low rates and also maintaining quality at the same time. Star cement emphasize on B 2 B sales more while The Contact Centre and East Horizon serves the customer directly. All three of companies manufacture products and services that belong to entirely different categories. The Contact Centre have employees who are not necessarily professionals, people from any working group who have good speaking and convincing skills can join the Centre. While the employees at Star Cement and East Horizon has to be professionals and working as permanent employees. The most successful business in terms of sales and profits is of Star Cement. It is a local Cement manufacturing company which has by the time established its plants in foreign countries as well. The company is included in top ranking companies of UAE. It has most scope of expansion among the three and is continuously expanding. The company has efficiently adopted the technology where it was required and has very warm and comfortable culture, which itself contributed to employee’s production capacity. Among three, the least successful business is The Contact Centre. It acquires the jobs other companies want to outsource, and provide services to them. The profit margin is very less. Large number Employees are not professional and committed because they are either working as a part time or working to earn more, so they keep on switching jobs. This brings more cost to the company by losing employees. Scope for expansion and diversification is limited as compared to other two companies’ scope. If any company closes down its business which had out sourced through Contract Centre the contract centre will also face some loss as they will lose a potential customer. The most appealing business to me is of Star Cement. Unique and sky rise constructions’ are increasing daily. Need for cement is more than the supply. This field requires new research and development. Industry needs more advanced, strong and light cement. The room for improvement and development of new products is huge. Raw material for manufacturing of cement is available in bulk quantity in UAE and surrounding areas. A lot of expansion could be done in the business, although in times of economic down turn the business can face low sales but of the company establishes its name as the most prominent cement manufacturer the sales figure won’t drop down dramatically. And as Star cement already has established name and sale to 65 % of the total industry they won’t face problem, other then the fact that, UAE is developing at a fast rate new malls and hotels are being opened up on a very fast pace and the essential requirement to cater the need of this fast growth is cement. Conclusion The preceding analysis highlights major industries and their core business goals environments and future perspectives. Through this assignment I was able to increase my knowledge base dramatically; it provided me with great practical experience and exposure to industries of different type. Visiting the working environment and coming in close contact with the corporate world is an invaluable experience gained by me and a learning that no text can teach. I’m looking forward to more such types of projects in which we get to meet in person with the entrepreneurs. It helps built up our confidence by coming contact with such great peoples and also motivates us in doing something great like them. Bibliography E-Highlights. 29 Sept 2010 . Travel and Tourism In Dubai. 29 Sept 2010 . …… Read More