Benefits of the Idea in Solving the Problem
Discuss about the Business Longitudinal Survey Data Management.
Every business at some point of time faces problems in increasing its sales or number of clients and customers. There are saturation points when old strategies do not work and there needs to be new strategies put into practice after much brainstorming and innovation (Sahut & Peris-Ortiz, 2014).
R.M Williams is one of the most famous shoe makers in Australia which produces quality shoes and is considered one of the branded shoes of the Australian region. Australia is famous for luxury items and most businesses that deal with luxury items are successful in this region (Selvanathan, Selvanathan & Keller, 2016). The company was established by RM Williams himself learnt the art of leather work and during the year 1932, considering his son’s illness he started making and selling leather products and soon had a factory running in the backyard of his father’s house in Adelaide (Rmwilliams.com.au., 2018).
The company became immense successful over the years and apart from making boots they also started making hats and clothing’s. Footwear however remains the top product preference of the company till date. Though the company is one of the most preferred shoe brands in Australia there have been certain problems in regards to its business activities. There are many new brands that are coming to the industry and posing competitive threats to the company. Also the other companies are providing alternative and innovative products such as shoes needed for people with certain problems in their feet.
The company in order to remain in the competition and maintain its position in the top brands of Australian shoe makers needs to bring innovation in its business model to resolve the various problems it is facing in maintaining its business activities.
Shoe industry has various categories and there are companies dedicated to producing different kinds of shoes. There are leather shoes, shoes for rainy season, rubber shoes, and shoes like crocks which are of multipurpose and different kind of other shoes. RM Williams deals with shoes which are mostly of formal or party wear category and which are costly and high end. The design of the shoe is of boot category. The company enjoys a high reputation in the scenario, and the products which are produced are of high demand in the Australian Market.
However there are a number of shoe companies that are a number of companies like Christian Kimber, Wootten, Bared Footware, Eve & Kane, Roberts & Hassett among others that engage in tough competition in the Shoe industry of Australia. Each of these shoe makers have their own forte of shoe making. Other than their own signature products there are various other kinds of shoe making in which they endeavour in excelling. For example Wootten apart from designing the signature Bespoke shoes which are customised and especially designed, they also make formal and casual shoes for their customers. Eva & Kane was mainly known for the driving shoes they made which was their specialisation, however presently they have increased their product range to a number of other kind of shoes including stylish party shoes and other accessories. The problem of the company is they are losing customers to other brands and even loyal customers are moving to new brands to experiment.
Business Model: Osterwalder and Pigneur
Business problems that arise in the company has to be dealt with innovative solutions. The highest body of the management is dedicated to brainstorm ideas that will help in resolving the problems, increase revenue and expand business (Qian & Haynes, 2014). The first idea that can be implemented in the case of R.M Williams is increase the range of products. The company is mainly dedicated to the manufacturing of leather boots. There are various collections of leather boots that the company offers. However people have requirement of various kinds of footwear in various circumstances. The company should push the R&D department to experiment on various other categories of shoe making and also expand on the style.
One of the fastest growing section of shoe industry is shoes with health benefits. Shoes of this category is often called Reflexology shoes (Dougans, 2016). They have several health benefits that makes them attractive among customers. The shoes helps the athletes from recovering from injuries. Problems like headaches, depression, Insomnia, Stress and anxiety disorder can be treated by usage of these shoes. Therefore the company may consider combining the stylish boot design of its own to the health benefits of the reflexology shoes. This might be a complicated process, but hiring experts and including high profile shoe makers along with health professionals may ultimately help the company in being successful in making such shoes. The innovation will be immensely popular as both the aspects of style and health benefits is included in this plan.
Considering the scale of the company and its past records it is not a big deal for the company to include many experts from both the fields of health and design to work together in the R&D department to make the proposed shoes. The company has financial stability which will help the company in investing the required amount of money to make the shoes. Therefore the shoes are feasible to make.
Not just making the shoes by implementing the innovation, the new model of shoes needs to be marketed very cleverly so that it becomes very popular and the potential customers who are planning to buy party shoes or other categories of stylish footwear, may buy shoes from the company considering the health benefits related to it, because Australian customers are very sensitive to marketing campaigns and they do not sway very easily (Bhattacharya, 2014). The marketing plan will include the advertisement campaigns in social media, TV and newspapers. The new products must create a hype in the market hence big posters are also necessary. The company has enough funds to spend for the marketing campaign, so the plan us feasible.
Conclusion
The proposed business innovation and company activity is understood by applying the Osterwalder and Pigneur model (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). . The Key Partners of this business are the designers and the shoe makers, apart from the external suppliers. In the new model the partners who are planned to be included are health professionals. Key activities of the business include production of shoes (mainly boots) and other accessories. Value proposition of the company lies in the fact that the company produces best quality leather boots which are most stylish and very durable. The company has maintained a high degree of customer relationship by establishing dedicated helpline and a fast exchange policy. The customer segmentation include the people who are targeting to by costly stylish shoes, they do not mind to spend considerable amount of money for good product. Key resources of the company are its expert shoe makers, high quality raw materials and goodwill in the market. Channels which are used by the company include social media sites like facebook, twitter, and instagram, television, newspapers and hoardings (Dijkmans, Kerkhof & Beukeboom, 2015). The areas where the company has to spend is buying the raw materials for making the shoes, the payment and wages to the employees, and the marketing and advertisement campaigns. The revenue stream comes from the selling of the shoes. (Refer to Appendix Table 1)
Critical success factors are the factors without the presence of which the possibility of the business model innovation is not possible. The first critical success factor for this case would include the proper implementation of the combination of health benefits of the reflexology shoes along with the style factor of the boots that is produced by the company. This combination must be done perfectly with ease so that people find the products both attractive and comfortable. Another critical success factor is keeping the price low.
Conclusion
Therefore it can be safely concluded that the new innovative idea of launching the new product which combines health benefits with style will be successful if everything is done rightly. What is very necessary is to take the managerial and decision making steps very carefully so that the pricing, designing and marketing is done properly and perfectly.
Reference:
Bhattacharya, M. (2014). Business growth, size and age: Evidence from the Business Longitudinal Survey (BLS) data in Australia. Australian Economic Papers, 53(3-4), 129-138.
Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P., & Beukeboom, C. J. (2015). A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47, 58-67.
Dougans, I. (2016). Reflexology: An introductory guide to foot massage for total health. Pavilion Books.
Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons.
Qian, H., & Haynes, K. E. (2014). Beyond innovation: the Small Business Innovation Research program as entrepreneurship policy. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 39(4), 524-543.
Rmwilliams.com.au. (2018). Handcrafted Leather Boots, Clothing & Belts – R.M.Williams. Retrieved from https://www.rmwilliams.com.au/
Sahut, J. M., & Peris-Ortiz, M. (2014). Small business, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 42(4), 663-668.
Selvanathan, E. A., Selvanathan, S., & Keller, G. (2016). Business Statistics: Australia New Zealand with Student Resource Access for 12 Months. Cengage AU.
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