SMALL BUSINESS

MANAGEMENT AS2

Small Business Management

Duplava Natalia

LON190102002
Table of Contents
1 - INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................2

COMPANY OVERVIEW...........................................................................................2

2 - FIRST FOOD MACHINERY AS A SMALL BUSINESS..........................................3

3 - GAPS AND GROWTH POTENTIAL ANALYSIS....................................................4

FINANCIAL PLANNING............................................................................................4

GROWTH STRATEGIES..........................................................................................4

OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT..............................................................................5

LEADERSHIP AND TEAMS.....................................................................................6

4 - RECOMMENDATIONS...........................................................................................8

5 - CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................10

6 - PEER REFLECTION.............................................................................................11

REFERENCE..............................................................................................................12

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1 - INTRODUCTION
Small businesses are privately owned corporations, sole proprietorships, or
partnerships with few employees and less than the total revenue of 10 million GBP.
The report is made in the perception of First Food Machinery which provides
packaging and food processing machinery. The report will justify why First Food
Machinery is categorised as a small business in the United Kingdom and
characteristics that make the business successful. Furthermore, the company
discusses the gaps and growth potential analysis.

COMPANY OVERVIEW
First Food Machinery

The company is an independent family-owned business, with expertise in service,

repair and supply of packaging and food processing machinery. It was established in
the year 2013, headquartered in The Hayes Trading Estate. It employs around 1-20
employees. The company is the main agent of a well-known German manufacturer
synonymous with Vacuum packing, tray sealing machinery and the thermoforming
company called WEBOMATIC which is well-reputed for manufacturing reliable,
robust, and high-quality machines. The company offers tray sealers, thermoformed,
vacuum packers, vacuum food sealers, metal detectors, dryers, and other food
processing machinery. Its scope is to supply a wide range of products and services
to satisfy the needs of its customers (First Food Machinery, 2022).

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2 - FIRST FOOD MACHINERY AS A SMALL BUSINESS
The First Food Machinery is a private limited company with 1-20 employees. Most of
the employees are an engineer who is responsible and trustworthy player of the first
food industry. These employees are self-motivated employees working to satisfy the
need of the customers. Engineers employed by the First Food Industry are
experienced and have expertise in packaging and food processing machinery. Its
turnover is below 5 million GBP. The company has a small staff of employees which
makes the company adapt to changes in the market efficiently. A smaller circle of
staff facilitates the company to take advantage of changing trends, new events and
changes in technology. Small teams are corporative and coordinate quickly as
compared to a large group of employees. The flow of communication and passing
information to employees are a lot easier as there is a limited number of people who
interact with each other on daily basis. The employees of the First Food Machinery
interact more directly with the customer that’s how employees are able to meet the
needs of the customer with efficiency. Due to the smaller size of their teams the
company is more flexible and simpler structured which provides a greater ability to
adopt changes. The decision process of decision making and taking actions is quick.
As few in the number of employees, the employee daily interaction with each other
which builds a relationship and help achieve company objectives. With limited staff, it
would be difficult for First Food Machinery to reach a large number of customers.
Being a small-sized enterprise, the company holds low bargaining power with
customers and suppliers. Also, due to financial reasons, the company will face
difficulty in adapting to technology (First Food Machinery, 2022; Gov, 2022).

The company's vision is to be the leader and to provide services to fulfil the needs of
customers and its mission is to be the first and last for the customer food machinery.
The company has a team of engineers working with the passion to deliver service
and products to consumers effectively and let them know the problem faced by them
while using machinery. The first food industry has a small staff of employees which
makes it easier to adopt changes. The experienced employees in the field of
maintaining and manufacturing machines and providing services have made them
gain skills that facilitate smooth working. The company has targeted food retailers in
the United Kingdom. Also, the company is the main agent of WEBOMATIC. The

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company is promoting its product through websites, social media, web publishing,
content publishing, journals, and billboards (Zoom info, 2022).

3 - GAPS AND GROWTH POTENTIAL ANALYSIS

https://padlet.com/nataliaduplava16/xyye9t36tiifptzz

FINANCIAL PLANNING
Financial planning is the procedure of predicting capital requirements and
determining the competition. It is a document that comprises the current situation
and tactics to attain long term goals. Financial planning assists the company to
achieve long term goals through tactics. It manages the money by helping in
controlling expenses, investments, and income of the company. It reviews assets,
inventories, revenue, capital, turnover, and everything that concerns the company's
financial affairs. The financial planning process summarises the long-term financial
goal for the future (Gogol et.al., 2019). As being a small business in the United
Kingdom, it is important for First Food Machinery to have a clear vision of the current
financial health. These financial situations will let know the company, what are the
available resources, areas for improvement and areas for growth. Financial planning
is one of the best ways to identify an area for improvement for growth and how the
money should be spent. A financial consultant taking care of the money will help the
company to focus on the business by spending less time running your business.
Employing a financial consultant will save time, money and evaluate market trends.
Financial Planning comprises financial statements like the income statement,
balance sheet, statement of cash flow. A balance sheet shows the company’s
assets, equity, and liability. It determines the value of the company assets by
combining liability with equity. A healthy cash flow statement is the significance of
the success of the business and keeps track of in and out of cash of the company.
First food Machinery has total assets of 321.5k GBP, Net assets of 158.79k GBP
and a total debt ratio of 50.61% (Snider and Davies, 2018; Endole, 2022).

GROWTH STRATEGIES
It is important for a company to develop strategies to grow, the growth strategies can
be classified into 4 types of Market penetration, market development, diversification,
and product development. Market penetration focuses on improving sales of the
products and services that exist in the market. Hence increasing market share. In

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order to expand the market, share of the company, the First Food Machinery can
lower the cost of the products and services offered by them. This will let the
company attracts buyers not only from the market but from the competitors as well.
The company can also increase the promotion of the products and services and
adapt the new latest technologies. The shift of company to sell their existing product
in the new market. In some cases, the competitors have captured a huge share in
the market. If the company does not shift to the new market, it may not be able to
increase sales. In Market development strategy the company gets the opportunity
to step into the new unexplored market. In Product development strategy motive is
to introduce new products and services in the existing market. The company can
implement its innovative ideas and new features to improve sales in the existing
market (Ali et.al., 2020). Diversification can be described as introducing or
launching new products and services in a new market. The strategy is high risked
strategy; the company need to carefully think about a diversified growth strategy.
The diversified growth strategy can be classified into further categories, Vertical
diversification, Horizontal diversification, conglomerate diversification, and concentric
diversification. Horizontal diversification of growth strategy comprises offering fresh
and unrelated product and services to the existing customers whereas vertical
diversification of growth strategy is where the company take control over one or
more stages in the product distribution or distribution of the product. Conglomerate
diversification comprises launching a product or service which are significantly
unrelated without commercial and technological similarities. At last, concentric
diversification is the growth strategy that seeks to develop and grow through
introducing the product in its existing product lines to uplift the customer engagement
with the product (Zakiyyah and Fadah, 2020).

OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Operation manager is the area of management focusing on controlling and designing
in the perception of manufacturing, provision and production of services. The
operation manager plays a major role in the management team and monitors high
priority HR duties like setting up hiring procedures and training standards and
attracting talent. The operation manager works to enhance quality, efficiency,
productivity, and study and improve the organisational processes. In other words,
operation management is a systematic design, control and direct the process

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(Zhang, 2019). Operation management needs operation planning to be associated
with the financial planning and strategic planning functions. The primary objective of
operational management is to increase efficiency and satisfy the needs of the
customer through producing products and services. An operation manager makes
both short term and long-term decisions for the company. A good operational
decision is essential for the organisation because that is what positive impact the
organisation later. Operations among the three strategic functions of the company.
Operation Manager undertakes both strategic and tactical decisions. Strategic
operations include facility location decisions, determining how equipment and labour
are organised, the technologies company going to use and how much long-term
capacity the company will offer to fulfil consumer demand. The tactical decision
involves managing inventories, workforce scheduling, contracting the vendors and
establishing quality guarantee procedures. Operation managers make decisions that
have long term consequences and include a deal of resource and expense
commitments are known as strategic decisions. The decision that includes less
commitment of resources, have a short to medium-term impact on the company and
change more easily than strategic decisions are Tactical operation decision. The
operation management converts inputs such as capital, labour, land, equipment, and
materials into an output like goods and services that will enhance customer
experience (Wolniak, 2020).

LEADERSHIP AND TEAMS

Leadership in small medium-sized businesses are quite a trick as it needs to play the
leader and the boss at the same time. Leadership is an important part of the
organisation as his capabilities will let know the success of the company. Leaders in
the First Food Machinery identify and set long terms goals of the organisation. Being
a leader among a small number of employees, the leader has to play the boss role
as well. The leader must maintain a balance between these two roles in order to
smooth the functioning and effectiveness of the company (Howard et.al., 2019). A
leader sees the future and assure that company remains agile, sustainable and
relevant in long term. The leader not only just make the plan but also share it with
the teammates. Teammates having an idea about the goals and objectives of the
firm will let them experience the core of the business process. The leadership has a
flexible and fluid approach to work policies and processes. A leader must encourage

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their teammates to push themselves to surpass their limits and reach their potential.
The leader ensures the organisation that its employees are contributing their best to
serve the company. It is the leader who takes the accountability of the performance
of employees and offers achieved group goals to the company. A leader’s every
action and decision are towards the employee's growth, development of skill and
knowledge (Chitpin, 2019). Leaders communicate with their employees on the
regular basis and keeping the communication transparent with the employees will
build a bond and trust among them. Listening is one of the qualities of the leader, a
leader must be a good listener who listens to their teammates and understand what
is it that they want to add or what are the difficulties they are facing. The feedback is
what the review the teammate's points about the decision being made or strategy
applied. This dual way of communication will help the leader to work effectively and
in less time. On the basis of the performance of teammates, the teammates get
rewards, and their work is getting acknowledged. The rewards can be in any form
transactional form, incentives, or gift vouchers. The acknowledgement of better work
and reward for it encourages employees to keep up the good work. These leaders
also delegate work to lower management which will come as an outcome as work
experience skill and develop skills. A leader is a trustworthy person holding
responsibilities on his shoulder and loyal to the company (Homan et. al., 2020).

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4 - RECOMMENDATIONS
First food machinery is a medium-sized enterprise that offers packaging and food
processing machinery. The company must do their best to keep a good financial
report. Hiring a financial consultant will lessen the risk and work of the upper level of
management in the company which will help them to focus on the growth of the
company. A financial consultant develops strategies and plans the insights to
maintain a good cash flow statement, income statement and balance sheet. The
financial advisor will help the employer to save time, cost and evaluates the market
trend. The cash flow statement, income statement and balance sheet convey the
current position of the company, hence needed to be maintained (Snider and Davies,
2018).

The company must develop various strategies if the company wants to grow and
survive in the market. There are growth strategies such as market penetration,
market development, diversification, and product development. The company can
use a pricing war strategy in order to penetrate the market. Selling goods and
services at a lower price than the competitors will definitely attract the customer and
enhance the sale of the products. The market development strategy is in which the
company get the opportunity to step into the unexplored market. The motive behind
the product development is to launch new services in the existing market.
Diversification refers to the launching of new products and services in the market
(Purnomo et. al., 2018).

Operational management's primary objective is to increase efficiency and fulfil the

needs of the customers through producing goods and services. The operation
manager is the essential part of the organisation that makes both long terms as well
as short term business decisions. The manager undertakes both strategic and
tactical decisions. Strategic operations include facility location decisions, determining
how equipment and labour are organised, the technologies company going to use
and how much long-term capacity the company will offer to fulfil consumer demand.
Tactical decisions consist of managing inventories, workforce scheduling, contracting
the vendors and establishing quality guarantee procedures (Wolniak, 2019).

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Effective leadership determines the success of the company. An effective leader
leads the valuable resource that is employees of the company that help the company
to achieve goals and objectives. The leader ensures smooth work and a better
working environment for the employees. Also, encourage and guide employees that
contribute to job satisfaction. The leader is a good listener that listens to their team
like what are the things affecting the work or what change can be provided by the
organisation for creating a better working environment. Keeping the conversation
open-minded, builds trust and help better understand the employee conflict.
Furthermore, employees providing feedback will let the leader what are the things
affecting the work (Gandolfi and Stone, 2018).

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5 - CONCLUSION
In conclusion, First Food Machinery is a privately owned business offering food
processing machinery. The report discusses the small business criteria that how
First Food Machinery is a small business in the UK with a turnover of less than 10
million GBP and 1-20 employees in the company. The report identifies the gaps and
potential such as financial planning, operations management, growth strategies and
leadership and teams. At last, the report will provide recommendations based on
these gaps and growth potential.

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6 - PEER REFLECTION
The report contains an analysis of a small business operating in London. We were
asked to discuss the relevance of the selected company in the market. It can be
seen that Sticky Fingers Food Limited has been operating since 2010 and it is
steered by a chef. The employees are reputed chefs who can create any dish
according to the specifications of the customers. The business has potential in the
long run and can take helo from investors to fund its business operations. However,
one person thinks that it is incompetent in terms of delivering quality service. It has
no clear intention of expanding as well. After dissecting the growth potential of the
company, we agreed unanimously that the business deserves the opportunity to be
established in the market. After careful consideration, an investor can provide capital
so that the business can scale higher.

LON181203010 Ioana Ramona Nistor

LON190102008 Natalia Adam

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of intangible skills in new product development and sustainable business
performance; strategies for marketing managers. PloS One, 15(9), e0238743.

Chitpin, S. (2019). Decision making, distributed leadership and the objective

knowledge growth framework. International Journal of Educational Management.

Endole. (2022). First Food Machinery. (Online) suite.endole.co.uk. Available at:

https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/08747923-first-food-machinery-limited
[Last accessed 19th March 2022]

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Howard, T., Ulferts, G. and Hannon, J. (2019). Leadership styles of small business
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