Introduction to the report
Write about the Relationship Between Sales and Production for Heavenly Chocolates.
Heavenly Chocolates is a popular company in Sydney, Australia, which has served the customers with rich quality dark chocolate pralines for the last 20 years. The company was running their business quite well until they started their online business by developing a website 10 years ago. The online business was opened to the international market 2 years ago, which resulted in the loss of sale by the company. With the increase in the size of their target market, they faced difficulty in coping with the rising demand of the customers. Because of the increasing demand, the company found it difficult to serve the customers with the right products. Therefore, the company will conduct a research to find out the gap between the production and sale of their products and come to a possible solution for the problem. The problem statement will be mentioned to recognize the management decisions of Heavenly Chocolates. Specific research objectives are outlined in the course of this proposal, which will be considered by the researcher in carrying out the research in an efficient manner. The following sections of the proposal will consider the ways by which data will be collected for the purpose of this specific research. Both advantages and disadvantages of collecting primary and secondary data will be discussed below to come to an appropriate recommendation.
The research problem statement would be ‘How are sales and production related to each other?’ As per the case study of Heavenly Chocolates, the company has efficiently manufactured and sold premium quality chocolates. To keep their sale high in the market, the company started online business to cater to the needs of the local and international customers. The problem arose when the company could not meet the customer demands with their chocolate production. The sale from the company website went beyond their expectation and therefore, they could not supply the customer with the sufficient quantity. In order to focus on this problem and find probable solutions, the research proposal is intended to consider the strategies, which might help the management in making effective decisions. The company is facing the outcome in the form of loss in their online sale due to insufficient production. The customers have raised complaints regarding the out of stock products, which has compelled them to shift to rival companies.
Management decisions to be made by management of Heavenly Chocolate
Heavenly Chocolate has manufacturing facilities in Sydney and used to cater to the Australian market. The firm has started catering to overseas customers using its online website. The firm however, did not expand its production facilities, which limited its capacity to cater to increasing demand of the consumers for its chocolate and confectionary products. The case study presents a situation where the firm is required to expand its manufacturing facilities outside Australia to cater to the growing demand from overseas customers. This would enable company to cater to more number of overseas customers and prevent other confectionary companies from poaching its customers. The following are the objectives, which the management of Heavenly Chocolate should consider while forming strategies to set up the new manufacturing facilities overseas:
- Expansion of manufacturing facilities of M/s Heavenly Chocolate into a new overseas market namely, the United Kingdom
- Expansion of its ecommerce facilities to meet the demands of its expanding customer base overseas
Following are the objectives, which M/s Heavenly Chocolate has already recognized (in the case study):
Objective 1- to evaluate the effectiveness of the website in advertising products offered
Objective 2- to find out if internet sales are related to location
Objective 3- to identify if a distribution partnership is appropriate for overseas market
Objective 4- to seek for the most suitable location for building up second store
The secondary sources of data are collected from the works done by the previous researchers. These kinds of data are stored in journal articles, newspapers and company data such as shareholder reports, government census and other such documents. Secondary data are easily available and takes much less time than primary data. For collecting information about Heavenly Chocolates, secondary data will be collected from the sources of online sales reports, their annual revenue, company shareholder reports, profit reports and the recent documents about company production and sale. The information that will be collected from these sources will be helpful in finding out about the production of the company and the sales that they have faced initially. These data will be compared with reports of sale and production of chocolate from 10 years ago when they have started their online business. The recent reports will be collected to find out the increase or decrease in sale when the online business was opened to international customers two years ago. These reports will be compared with the recent reports of production and sales when the company started facing loss in sale due to insufficient production of chocolates.
Moreover, the secondary data will be collected from the sources of rival company reports. Heavenly Chocolates will find out about the strategies used by other companies who are carrying out successful online businesses, not only locally but also in the global market. The management of the company turned towards Connoisseur Consulting to gather information about the problem that they are facing in order to find out some probable solution for the problem. Connoisseur Consulting will collect information from the organization Heavenly Chocolates and evaluate their reports in order to find out what went wrong with their online business. They will gather information about the strategies used by the company while starting the online business and find out if they were appropriate or not. Other company reports will be gathered to find out the management strategies used by them while operating their online business.
Main research objectives
However, there are both advantages and disadvantages of using the secondary sources mentioned in this case study. The advantages of the secondary sources are given above, but the disadvantages need to be considered too. If the Heavenly Chocolates along with Connoisseur Consulting use the company reports to find out the perfect data, then there is a possibility that they might collect invalid data. Collecting information from the works of previous researches might not always provide the researcher with authentic data. There is lack of control over data quality and Heavenly Chocolates will not understand if the data collected is appropriate for solving their problem. There is no guarantee that the data collected by the researcher for previous works will be valid and authentic. The disadvantages of collecting secondary data are that the researcher is not always sure that the information that he is collecting is relevant to the area of research. It might happen that the data was collected long time back and therefore it has lost its value in the current days. As Heavenly Chocolates is trying to find out a solution for the improvement of their online sale therefore it is required to be careful while conducting the research and collecting data from secondary sources. The company must consider the research objectives while collecting data, analyze if the information is relevant, and up-to- date with the current topic so that they can come to a feasible solution.
Primary data is a raw form of first- hand information, which is collected by the researcher for serving the purpose of his own study. It is not collected from the works of the previous researchers. Rather, it is totally original and precise to the problem of the particular research. In this particular report, the problem statement is based on the production and sale of chocolates in Heavenly Chocolates Company of Sydney, Australia. The company has conducted initial researches and then took help from Connoisseur Consulting due to urgent requirement for a quick remedy to their problem of insufficient production. For the purpose of this research, primary data will be collected by the researcher using the methods of interview, questionnaire and focus group.
Interview method will be helpful in collecting verbal information from the employees and the customers of the company. It is a widely used form of collecting data from the primary sources either face- to- face or via telephone. In this case, the employees and customers of the company will be interviewed face- to- face and in rarest case, telephonic interview will be conducted. If the sample size is large, then it will not be possible to reach out to every interviewee on a personal level. In such a situation, surveys will be conducted using questionnaire method consisting of mostly close- ended questions. This will be an easier way of collecting data from a diversified population of Sydney and other parts of Australia. The questionnaire will be mailed to the customers who cannot be reached physically. These methods were used for collecting data from the primary sources because they will provide valid, authentic and original information relevant to the research. Due to its originality, it will give accurate solution to the research problem. Moreover, the primary data, which will be collected through surveys and interview, will consist of relevant information aimed at the specific research problem. The strong advantage of using data from primary sources is that the researcher collects the data himself and therefore, he collects them by keeping the objectives in mind. He can have full control on the quality of data that he is collecting from the respondents and no need for requesting any use of proprietary information.
Sources of secondary data
However, there are certain disadvantages of using the data from primary sources. As the data is collected on an original basis, therefore it is highly expensive. It is not possible for the researcher to collect data single- handedly, therefore, people are hired for short- term employment or outsourced to help in the research process. It is also time- consuming because collecting information from all the respondents cannot be done within a week. It involves observation, collection and verification of the information to come to a feasible conclusion. A major disadvantage of primary data is that the participant might be biased while responding to the questions. They might not disclose the fact out of force or fear, which will result in the collection of falsified information. Moreover, the outcome of the interview might not be relevant to the hypothesis generated by the researcher in the beginning of the interview and that will lead to an ineffective research process.
It can be suggested from the report that as the research will be based on the collection of both primary and secondary data therefore the researcher will have to consider the disadvantages at first. While collecting the information he will need to align the questions along with the research objectives to come to accurate conclusion for the research. This research is aimed at finding a solution to the problem of insufficient production at the Heavenly Chocolates Company. The company has started their online business through Heavenly Chocolate website 10 years ago and opened it in the global market 2 years ago. However, they failed to increase their production of chocolates as per the customer demand. The customers complained of out- of- stock products and it led them to switch to other companies.
In this case, it can be recommended that the company should plan properly before working on a new venture. They lacked effective management strategies, which could boost up their online business. As they have suffered a loss in their sale therefore they can make a comeback with some new product offerings for attractive the old and new customers. The approach initiated by the company to collect both primary and secondary data for the purpose of research will help them to learn about the strategies used by other companies, which they can implement on their own. On the other hand, Connoisseur Consulting will also be able to recommend solutions to the management of Heavenly Chocolates about the effective strategies for solving their problems. They will have to recall the strategies, which went wrong during the initiation of their online business and cautiously remove them from their planning report. As they will get original information from the customers through interview and survey, they will be able to know about the needs & wants of the customers, and amend their production process in a similar manner. In this way, they will be able to stock the raw materials properly as per the customer demand, which will help them to cope up with insufficient production. By collecting responses from the customers abroad, they will get to know the change in their taste and preference of chocolates and bring latest modifications. It will be helpful in attracting the potential customers and loyal customers. The response of the employees will help them to gain knowledge about the issues they are facing in the production process and the improvement that they need to work better. The information from the secondary sources will help them to monitor the quantitative data and change their practices and processes accordingly to increase their online sale. Both primary and secondary sources of data will help in bridging the gap of production and sale in Heavenly Chocolates company of Sydney, Australia. The company is suggested to mend the loopholes properly by stopping the online sale for the time being. It will help them to create proper strategies for further improvement in their e-commerce and keep the customers loyal to the company. They will get competitive advantage in this manner to make firm base in the market.
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