Business

Name:

Course:

Lecturer:

Date:

Local Business Interview

Sloan’s dry cleaner is a local business for laundry services. It provides services to the clients through the customer service and the cleaning departments. The customer service is responsible for providing clients with direct services such as responding to their inquiries, complains and timely delivering of customers’ clothes. On the other hand, the “plant” is equipped with the facility that ensures the clothes are cleaned, pressed and any alterations done there should be a need.

Sloan’s dry cleaner partially integrated e-commerce in the building of the business. They own a website that provides a direct opportunity for marketing their services and offers to the vast population of potential clients. The manager of Sloan’s dry cleaner grew to the top management through excellence in performance and experience. Incorporating the concept of e-business was also instrumental in achieving their marketing goals. Effective marketing provides base for a successful business as it creates awareness for the service or product to the potential customers. In addition, efficiency in operation is very important for the growth of a business as the manager claims that his excellence in performing his duties was the major factor that led to his promotions.

The economy had an impact on the business through the kind of people termed as the potential clients and the physical location of the business. These two aspects influence the decision taken by the management in order to have advantage over the competitor. This may bring in the consideration of offers through special discounts to attract and retain a market share. For businesses located in the central business district, the growth of the economy may necessitate the management to invest more on marketing to be able to enjoy the benefits of the economic growth.

In order to thrive in the growing economy, the business should concentrate on the needs of the consumers rather than focus on sales promotions. This can be done through providing high quality services at reasonable prices and giving special price cuts to exceptionally loyal clients. The workers are equally important as they facilitate the provision of the required services to the clients. Therefore, they also need to be motivated to increase efficiency so that the business can meet the growing demand. This will be a certain way of maximizing profits and protecting the business market share from the possible emergence of competitors.

Government increment on the utilities has affected local businesses, as the rates have been too high for the businesses to flourish. This has generally increased the cost of business operation especially those that are in the middle of the cities. More permits have been introduced in the recent past and this has made the process of setting up a local business even more complex and bureaucratic. The costs of these numerous permits are also eating into the profits of the local businesses, as they are expensive and unplanned for. Some business laws such as machinery directives governing the use of machine are also impractical and uneconomical. For example, regulation directing a dry cleaning machine to be used only for a few years then discarded is highly uneconomical.

Teamwork contributes significantly to the success of local businesses. The members of different departments share duties and responsibilities hence achieving the departmental goal and the ultimate goal of the business. Teamwork should start right from the management to the junior workers. In such a business, problem solving and decision-making is participatory and this results to solving problems more effective because workers’ co-operations are involved to address the issue from its core.

The manager of Sloan’s dry cleaner has structured the business in two parts; customer services and the cleaning services and by so doing, he was promoting teamwork that translated to the success of his local dry cleaning business. Putting workers in departmental faction was a way of ensuring all the activities are running smoothly and as planned. There is a group working in the customer services department who ensure all inquiries and complains have been successfully responded to while others in the same department are concerned with deliveries of clients’ clothes. These activities run parallel with cleaning, pressing and alterations that are done by other set of workers in the cleaning department. It would have been otherwise difficult for the workers to achieve their business objective if they were working randomly in different divisions. Teamwork therefore is a more sure way of accomplishing the ultimate goal with relative ease.

The Sloan’s dry cleaner has a code of ethics in place to govern the relationship between the people working in the dry cleaner and the outsiders who are the client and competitors. The manager is keen to ensure that his business is on the right side of the law even though it might be at the expense of a few extra coins. He obtains all the legal documents required to avoid the harsh consequence negligence. Being ethical in business ensures professionalism as it describes what is right and wrong and ensures that people working in the business have mutual respect and trust for one another.

Sloan’s dry cleaner has also put efforts to demonstrate its concern for the environment and the community at large. They recycle the plastic bags and hangers used for packaging and extend excusive discounts to the customers who recycle, motivating the community to join this practice. This local business has also gone an extra mile to prove its social responsibility by giving clothes to the Salvation Army on an annual basis. When local businesses participate in such social responsibilities and initiatives, the environment is conserved and communities enhanced leading to a sustainable development.