Business Environment: Essay Questions
Businesses take many different forms, and understanding the different faces of businesses and their ownership can help us understand the businesses that make up our community. In Southern California, we pride ourselves on being open to entrepreneurial businesses and new ideas, and founding communities that are welcoming to new businesses with different approaches to the traditional business model. In this article, two local businesses will be examined; they are Dirty Dogs, which proclaims itself to be the “earth-friendly pet product store and spa,” and Jimbo’s, which is a local health food grocery store (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa,” “Jimbo’sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). These businesses are very successful and well-respected in the community, and this article will examine the main reasons why these businesses have achieved the success that they enjoy today.
Dirty Dogs is a pet store and spa that exists in two locations in Southern California. The Dirty Dogs website describes the experience: “Dirty Dogs is a one-stop-shop for all your pets’ needs. We provide healthy nutritional foods, cage-free grooming, self-serve washing facilities, and many accessory products. At Dirty Dogs, we have based our company values on what’s best for your four-legged friends” (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa”). The store is owned and run by a single family, with a partnership existing between the family members old enough to be partners in the business (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa”). This family controls the day-to-day work in the business, but also controls the financing and structural supports of the business. At the Dirty Dogs business, an individual can purchase all kinds of excellent products that are healthy and safe for his or her dog or cat. In addition, the pet owner can schedule a grooming appointment with the groomers at the store, or even wash their pet themselves in the special bathtubs that exist within the store. Essentially, Dirty Dogs has positioned itself as a one-stop-shop for pet owners that have a tendency to spoil their dogs, cats, or other pets.
Jimbo’s Naturally! (henceforth “Jimbo’s”), on the other hand, is a different kind of business. Where Dirty Dogs sells products and services, Jimbo’s sells products-- mainly health food and related health products (“Jimbo'sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). Jimbo’s sells both groceries and fresh foods, and attempts to cater to the portion of the market that is focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Founded in Southern California, Jimbo’s is owned and run by a sole proprietor; the titular “Jimbo” himself (“Jimbo'sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). According to the Jimbo’s website, Jimbo’s is focused on giving back to the community: “Jimbo is a staunch supporter of the local school system and he takes the time to coach his sons’ sports teams It is also evident in the Jimbo’s ‘It’s in the Bag’ Recycling Program and Kids Club Program” (“Jimbo'sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). This is a business that is very focused on giving back to the community that it is a part of.
Both Dirty Dogs and Jimbo’s serve a relatively upscale clientele. They are both situated in upper-middle-class suburban areas, and focus on providing upscale goods and services to individuals with disposable income. The stakeholders of the organizations are the owner or owners, the employees, the suppliers, and the clientele of the businesses. The owners of these businesses, as they are participating in the community, seem to be invested in making the communities that their businesses are in better. For instance, Dirty Dogs is currently in the process of remodeling the local dog park; Jimbo’s funds local sports teams (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa,” “Jimbo’sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”).
Customers of these businesses want two things from the businesses: they want good deals and excellent service. For Dirty Dogs, this means excellent care for their pets for the money that they are spending, and for Jimbo’s this means good deals on healthy foods. In addition, customers as stakeholders in the business want to be certain that the business is providing them with good service for their money. Owners of each business desire to make a profit, while the suppliers similarly want to make a profit from selling their goods to the businesses. Employees as stakeholders, on the other hand, require a living wage and a stable, safe business environment to be happy and healthy in the company (Freeman, Reed and Reed).
P-2- Similar businesses in different worlds
In this section, discussion with center around how businesses are organized and what the structures of Dirty Dogs and Jimbo’s look like. In addition, the discussion will take into account the style of the organization, their strategic planning, the influencing factors and the different aims necessary for fulfilling these purposes within the organizations.
Dirty Dogs is a family owned and operated business. This organization is made up of a family unit, all of whom are responsible for overseeing a different portion of the business. This model of business may not be successful for all businesses, as families are notoriously bad at working with each other, but as it is, the Btesh family (the family that owns the business) has separated the business into distinct sections for each family member to be responsible for (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa”). According to the information available, one family member is responsible for oversight of the business; he is the general manager at both locations. Another family member is a local real estate mogul, and has bankrolled the entire project, while still another orders supplies and does research on the best products available for pets (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa”).
Jimbo’s, on the other hand, is a much larger operation. While the titular “Jimbo” still owns the name and the copyright for the grocery chain, he is no longer in charge of the many different locations of the store (“Jimbo’sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). Today, Jimbo’s is a sole proprietorship, with one store that has been sold to a different owner (“Jimbo’sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). According to the company description, Jimbo’s is focused on providing a good working environment for its employees, offering them an open forum to communicate to upper-level management about any concerns they have regarding the state of the business, their employment, and the business’ actions in the community (“Jimbo’sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”).
Strategic planning generally has a few key components: first, the company must identify the values that it maintains as important. For Dirty Dogs, the values that are important revolve around treating pets humanely and providing a comfortable, safe space for dogs and cats to be groomed (“Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa”). In addition, Dirty Dogs is focused on providing good care and excellent products for pets. Jimbo’s, on the other hand, is focused on providing healthy foods and other health-related products to the community; in addition, Jimbo’s is focused on helping build a better, more healthy community overall (“Jimbo’sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer”). The mission of both of these businesses, the second important characteristic of strategic planning, is to carry out these values in such a way that provides both businesses with a profit and general betterment for the community within which they are situated.
Finally, the companies had to design and implement a plan insofar as these mission statements and values were concerned. For both companies, the strategy was different, although similar in some key ways. Dirty Dogs, in its attempt to find a niche market within an upscale suburb, focused on the attention that people pay their pets; they developed a business plan that focused on their ability to tap into the market of people who are very attached to their pets, and willing to pay extra to ensure that their pets are well-cared-for. Jimbo’s, alternatively, has a very community-oriented system of business. Structurally, Jimbo’s is similar to other small businesses and grocery chains, but has carved out a niche for itself in the health foods market. In addition, Jimbo’s has integrated well into the community, supporting local schools and local sports teams in the hope of promoting a healthy lifestyle within the community itself.
Each of these businesses carefully implemented a strategic plan when designing and starting their business, and each has filled the niche that was left in the market nicely. Jimbo’s has successfully grown into a large, well-established grocery chain, while Dirty Dogs remains a more boutique-style business with two family owned and operated stores.
Works cited
Cooper, Arnold C and William C Dunkelberg. "Entrepreneurship and paths to business ownership."Strategic management journal, 7. 1 (1986): 53--68. Online.
Freeman RE, RE Reed and DL Reed. "Stockholders and stakeholders: A new perspective in corporate governance." California management review, 25. (1983): 88--106. Online.
Starkey, Ken and Paula Madan. "Bridging the relevance gap: aligning stakeholders in the future of management research." British Journal of Management, 12. s1 (2001): 3--26. Online.
Unknown. "Dirty Dogs: Earth Friendly Pet Product Store & Spa." Dirtydogsandmeow.com, 2014. Web. 3 Jan 2014. <http://www.dirtydogsandmeow.com/>.
Unknown. "Jimbo'sNaturally: Natural Foods Grocer." Jimbos.com, 2014. Web. 3 Jan 2014. <http://jimbos.com/>.
Ward, Peter T, Rebecca Duray, G Keong Leong and Chee-Chuong Sum. "Business environment, operations strategy, and performance: an empirical study of Singapore manufacturers." Journal of operations Management, 13. 2 (1995): 99--115. Online.
Assignment 2: Similar Businesses in Different Worlds
Today, it is difficult for a company to become largely successful unless it morphs from a national company into a multinational company or multinational corporation. Without an international component, many companies fail to reach the same potential that companies that compete on a multinational scale do. However, with this globalization and integration into the global marketplace comes a number of problems. The problems that are faced by multinational corporations are multifaceted and complex, and are also very important to understand for the businessperson. Managing groups of people from different countries or cultures can be incredibly difficult, and this difficulty can easily be compounded if the manager or employer does not understand the complexity of conducting his or her business on an international or global scale (Kristensen and Zeitlin).
BP Oil is one of the many firms that operate on an international stage. BP has a center of operations in the United States, but it is based primarily out of London, England. Much of the company’s work is done in London, but the company does much of its drilling for oil in various other parts of the world, like Egypt. According to BP, the company produces approximately 15% of Egypt’s national oil and more than 40% of its natural gas on any given year (“BP Global”). According to Siddall, Willey et al., BP Oil has faced significant changes in recent years: “At BP Oil, the £24bn downstream refining and marketing arm, this led to a high level change process called the International Management Project. The task was both to reduce overhead costs and to develop an effective framework through which the recently-expanded business could be managed The essential elements of this process are: the achievement of consensus on roles and accountabilities; commitment to information sharing; and the switch from formal meetings to flexible networks. The resulting structure carries commitment in the organization because it was formulated, and understood in detail, by the managers who now use it. At BP Oil, the top level organizational structure has been radically altered, improving the speed and quality of decision making and substantially reducing the burden of bureaucracy” (Siddall, Willey et al.). In short, BP has had to analyze and structure its company carefully due to the political nature of oil drilling and production, and the potentially unstable locations where BP frequently drills for oil.
The United Kingdom office of BP Oil is, according to BP, the center of operations and the home of the country. BP drills for oil in the North Sea and, because the United Kingdom is the home of BP Oil, has a very large base of workers in the country. According to BP, “We are planning on investing £10 billion over the next five years in major North Sea projects to boost oil and gas supplies We are investing in alternative energy too. In Hull, we’re building a multi-million pound biofuels plant with our partners. It’s the largest plant of its kind in the UK and we expect it to be capable of producing 420m litres of bio-ethanol a year, an emissions saving equivalent to taking 100,000 cars off the road” (BP Global). In the United Kingdom, BP is focused on integrating with the public and remaining a well-known and well-respected company-- especially in light of the recent oil spill that remains problematic for the oceans around the world. In Britain, BP invests heavily in arts and culture, making attempts to support the British community in a bid to retain public support. This is because the population of Britain has the power, if they so choose, to oust the company from the community; by investing in the community, alternative energy projects, and so on, BP attempts to make itself indispensable to the community as a whole.
BP Oil’s tactics in Egypt are vastly different than its tactics in the United Kingdom. Because Egypt is a very different country with a very different culture, the issue of working on Egyptian soil is approached very differently by the company. Egypt is much less politically-stable than Britain, and much more corrupt; indeed, Egypt has recently undergone coup and regime change during the Arab Spring.
However, BP Oil does have a very real reason to be involved in Egypt, even if the political and legal situation there is more unstable and more tenuous than in Britain. BP Oil’s Egypt branch describes its operations in Egypt by saying: “BP has a long and successful track record in Egypt stretching back 50 years. In Egypt our business is primarily in exploration and production. BP currently produces almost 15% of Egypt’s entire oil production and more than 30% of Egypt’s gas production with its partners. BP is working to meet Egypt’s domestic market growth by actively exploring in the Nile Delta and investing to add production from existing discoveries” (BP Global). The legal and political cooperation between oil companies and the Egyptian government has long been fraught with problems and tension, and BP Oil’s approach to working in Egypt is one of relative appeasement. That is, BP Oil has to make serious concessions to keep the Egyptian government and the Egyptians as a whole happy, as there is a long history of tension between the two entities.
Although the BP United Kingdom sector and the Egyptian sector are two sides of the same company, the company presents vastly different faces in these two locations. This is due to a number of political and social factors that drive the BP Oil Company to make decisions regarding their approach to operations; in the United Kingdom, where tides have turned towards alternative energy sources and the company has a stable base of operations for research and development, the company’s website and description focuses on its developments in those areas. However, in Egypt, the English-language website focuses on how BP Oil is focused on helping and integrating with Egyptian society, and the various charitable things that BP Oils has done regarding the Egyptian society. BP’s main focus in both locations seems to be on community engagement, and being a good steward of the community that they operate in. This may be a function of the poor public image that the company has developed as a result of the recent oil spill; BP’s image still has yet to recover from this particular mistake.
Works cited
Doz, Yves L. "Strategic management in multinational companies." Sloan Manage. Rev.;(United States), 21. 2 (1986): Online.
Govindarajan, Vijay and Anil K Gupta. "Building an effective global business team." MIT Sloan Management Review, 42. 4 (2001): 63--71. Online.
Kristensen, Peer Hull and Jonathan Zeitlin. "Local players in global games: The strategic constitution of a multinational corporation." OUP Catalogue, (2004): Online.
Siddall, Peter, Keith Willey and Jorge Tavares. "Building a transnational organization for BP Oil." Long Range Planning, 25. 1 (1992): 37--45. Online.
Unknown. "BP Global." Bp.com, 2014. Web. 3 Jan 2014. <http://www.bp.com/>.
