BM561 Business Consulting CW1 Assignment Sample

• Type Assignment
• Downloads570
• Pages8
• Words2050

Introduction

In today's dynamic and competitive business environment, almost all business organisations are experiencing business-related problems. In this situation, companies often seek help from consultancy teams to overcome these issues, much like students turn to a trusted assignment writing service in UK for polished academic support. This report is based on Ellis's, a family-owned business in Burnley, which offers high-quality milkshakes to cater to the needs of health-conscious customers. Thus, the current report will shed light on Ellis's target customers and market attractiveness, while also exploring factors that significantly impact the business operations.

BM561 Business Consulting CW1 Assignment Sample

Liked This Sample? Hire Me Now

Sarah Davis 7 Years | MA

Main Body

Ellis's operates in a highly dynamic and competitive food service environment, and its day-to-day business activities reflect the challenges and opportunities common within the hospitality sector. The restaurant focuses on delivering high-quality food and beverages while maintaining strong relationships with the local community. However, the business still requires more structured strategic planning, particularly in areas such as branding, customer targeting, financial management and operational efficiency. These aspects are essential for ensuring sustainable growth, and many small businesses like Ellis's benefit from professional insights and guidance to develop clearer long-term business goals.

Details of client along with help seeking from consultancy teams

Ellis's is a client which is a family-run firm in the Burnley, originally a milkshake bar which has been around for over a years. In the year 2024, Kyle moved their business to 13 St. James Row that is a central location within Burnley's hospitality scene (Ellis's Burnley, 2024). This strategic approach provided lots of new opportunities to the business but they have maintained their values and strong bonds with the community. The business still pays attention on excellent products and friendly as well as welcoming vibe. The restaurant offers a wide variety of food products such as; burger, pizza, fries, cocktails, milkshakes, juices and many more.

Ellis's is facing problems in marketing area which impact the business growth and sales. Ellis's is confident regarding their social media marketing (SMM) approaches but is less self-assured with other related strategic framework. Research reveals that now customers are highly active on social sites such as Facebook, Instagram, You-Tube etc. By placing advertisement on social media sites Ellis can persuade large number of the existing and potential customers about the products & services offered by it. Through evaluation, it has found that firm's social media marketing is not effective & strong and requires improvements to be on a larger scale (Yusuf and Matiin, 2022). Ellis's is also facing the finance related problem. Due to the lack of having proper records and financial management firm is facing difficulty in maintaining all the dues on time. Consulting teams helped the company to find the issues so that they can take considerable steps to solve the issues.

Critical Analysis of Problem

Ellis's is highly committed to their values and ethics and offers excellent products but is also facing issues. The overall problem can be broken down through analysing and highlighting areas of importance to Ellis's. Key aspects include:

• Limited marketing reach: Poor social media presence and digital marketing strategies restrict customer awareness and brand growth.
• Financial management challenges: Lack of proper record-keeping and structured financial planning impacts timely payments and overall business stability.
• Operational inefficiencies: Some internal processes are not streamlined, affecting service quality and resource utilisation.
• Evolving customer preferences: Changing demands and expectations make it difficult for the business to cater to all target segments effectively.
• Increasing competition: Competitors with stronger marketing and pricing strategies threaten market share and customer retention.
• External market trends: Economic fluctuations and changing consumer behaviour create additional challenges for sustaining profitability.

A critical analysis of these factors helps Ellis's identify internal weaknesses and external threats, enabling the business to prioritise areas for improvement and develop targeted strategic solutions.

Competitors

In Burnley, Ellis's is facing stiff competition with the lots of local as well as chain restaurants. Though, the company has identified a gap within the marketplace and tried to fulfil this gap by their products and services. Now, for building and sustaining competitive position companies lay more focus on innovative offerings (Koob, 2021). Thus, Ellis's is a contemporary restaurant that has street food style menu. The restaurant also has juice bar and games zone that easily attracts the customers. The combination of all these components provides a USP (unique selling point) and makes it separate from the other local businesses. However, the lack of marketing efforts and poor social media presence created problems for the company. Ellis's is facing the tough competition from their rivals such as; McDonald's, Billy Bob's and Big Buns Burgers, and Business Consulting evaluations suggest that stronger positioning strategies may help reduce the impact of such competition.

Target customers market

Ellis's has a wide consumer base and due to their new additions in food menu the business has been successful in attracting the wide demographics through blending the social factors and family-friendly facilities. The restaurant has positioned itself as different and unique dining destination within the Burnley area. It has fruitfully brought the ‘city vibe' to Burnley with its refreshing environment, high-quality food and innovative beverages. However, lots of people do not aware about the restaurant and it's unique and friendly food products and services. Currently, customers do online assessment while making selection of any restaurant. Therefore, it becomes vital for the organization to develop and implement competent social media marketing strategies for enhancing the customer awareness (Lessmann et al, 2021). The restaurant is facing the problem because of their poor social media marketing. In survey, it has been identified that lots of people do not know about this restaurant. Although, Ellis's highly focuses on customer service and quality of food but poor marketing efforts prevent the company from reaching to the wider audience and make large base of loyal customers. The food products of the restaurant are non-halal and people found this restaurant is not budget-friendly.

Influencing factors from external environment

By using SWOT analysis, it has identified that Ellis's has successfully distinguished themselves from their competitors. The uniqueness and excellence helps the restaurant to appeal to the wider audience. Conversely, as a small and independent restaurant, the reach of Ellis's is limited which recognized as the major weakness and heavily affect the business operations. The relocation of restaurant may disturb the business activities and influences the loyalty of consumer. Although, there are several opportunities for the Ellis's such as; expansion possibilities and increasing trend of street style food (Cheraghalizadeh, Olya and Tumer, 2021). Nevertheless, competition and economic factors are major threat for the company. The current inflation rate will highly affect the operations cots as well as spending of customers. It can affect the overall sales, revenue and growth of the business. Further, compliance with the sustainability and employment related legislation also poses significant challenges where Business Consulting experts often assist businesses in maintaining compliance.

Top three issues faced by client with rationale

The top three issues facing by the Ellis's are described below:

Limited market reach

By analysing the internal and external factors, it has been identified that limited market reach is the major issue that facing by the Ellis's. The marketing strategies and efforts of the restaurant are poor. They do not focus on the wide range of digital marketing methods which limits the reach of the restaurant. The company has to make their social media marketing strategies strong to increase the awareness regarding the brand and its products and services. Poor marketing strategies are one of the major problems of Ellis's. The reason behind choosing this problem is that SMM becomes popular digital marketing method. There are many restaurants in the Burnley that built strong presence in the market because of their social media marketing (Dwivedi et al, 2021). Therefore, ineffective social media marketing strategies and poor presence on the different social media platforms act as major drawbacks for the restaurant. Various social media channels such as; Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X (Twitter) plays the most important role in enhancing the reach of the business. Nowadays, most of the people spend their time on social media channels on daily basis. If the Ellis's pays attention on their marketing efforts then it will help in increasing the restaurant's awareness. By this approach lots of people will be able to know about the restaurant which helps in increasing their sales.

Increasing competition

Constant increasing competition among restaurants within the marketplace is also a major issue that experiencing by the restaurant. Ellis's is located in the Burnley and there are many other famous and well-established local eateries & food chains. These local food restaurants offer alternative products with the exceptional services which could reduce the customer base of the Ellis's. McDonald's, Big Buns Burgers and Billy Bobs are some top restaurant that offers similar food and beverages at reasonable prices that highly attract the customers (Sun and Lee, 2021). Moreover, all these brands have excellent marketing strategies that enhance the level of customer engagement towards the restaurants and choose particular brand over others. This strategy enables competitor firms to enhance their competitive advantage. Ellis's is an independent business and it is quite challenging for the restaurant to achieve higher level of competitive advantage in the market. Moreover, there are numerous local and food chain that have excellent management team and workforce. They use their expertise, knowledge and experience to carry out business. Compared to competitors, Ellis's has limited experience that prevents them to achieve a competitive edge. So, it is most important for the Ellis's to review their strategies to increase competitive advantage.

Ever-changing demand of customers

Over the time, customers have changed their preferences and demands and choose brand accordingly. Ever-changing demand of consumers is another top issue facing by the Ellis's. The restaurant charges the high prices for the food products and beverages that affect the customer base. Inflation rate is regularly increasing that heavily impact the customers spending. It reduced the disposable income of people and they started to cut down their expenses (Helal, 2023). In such situation, customers often choose the affordable products over expensive one. Thus, this is the reason customers choose other affordable restaurants over Ellis's. Moreover, the restaurant is not halal and also currently Ellis's is not targeting the halal customers which is major issue for the restaurant. Due to this issue, Ellis's loose a major percentage of the consumers. Further, the restaurant is only offering the family deals which prevent the other people to choose Ellis's. Overall, the company has to pay attention on their existing strategies whether it is related to the product offerings, pricing strategies and other things. By focusing on issues, the restaurant can achieve higher competitive edge in Burnley.

Conclusion

By summing up this report, it has been articulated that Ellis's experienced the problems regarding marketing, finance, customer base etc. It has been identified that the restaurant operates their business ethically and puts full efforts to make connection with the community. The consulting team has identified that Ellis's faced many problems regarding marketing, competition, accounting overdue, non-halal food, overpriced and economic factors. However, limited market reach, high competition and changing demands of customers are three major challenges experiencing by the Ellis's. The restaurant needs to focus on their marketing efforts as well as pricing strategies so that they can reduce problems.

References

Books and Journals

• Cheraghalizadeh, R., Olya, H. and Tumer, M., 2021. The effects of external and internal factors on competitive advantage—moderation of market dynamism and mediation of customer relationship building.Sustainability,13(7), p.4066.
• Dwivedi, Y.K., Ismagilova, E., Hughes, D.L., Carlson, J., Filieri, R., Jacobson, J., Jain, V., Karjaluoto, H., Kefi, H., Krishen, A.S. and Kumar, V., 2021. Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions.International journal of information management,59, p.102168.
• Helal, M.Y.I., 2023. The role of customer orientation in creating customer value in fast-food restaurants.Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights,6(5), pp.2359-2381.
• Koob, C., 2021. Determinants of content marketing effectiveness: Conceptual framework and empirical findings from a managerial perspective.PloS one,16(4), p.e0249457.
• Lessmann, S., Haupt, J., Coussement, K. and De Bock, K.W., 2021. Targeting customers for profit: An ensemble learning framework to support marketing decision-making.Information Sciences,557, pp.286-301.
• Sun, K.A. and Lee, S., 2021. How does franchising alter competition in the restaurant industry? Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management,46, pp.468-475.
• Yusuf, M. and Matiin, N., 2022. Analysis of the Effect of the Marketing Mix on Purchasing Decisions.International Journal of Economics and Management Research,1(3), pp.177-182.
• Ellis's Burnley, 2024. Home. [Online] Available through < https://www.ellissburnley.com/contact >