Managing Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Assignment

MANAGING SMALL AND
MEDIUM SIZED
ENTERPRISES

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Start up process............................................................................................................................2
Business concept to make money................................................................................................3
Sources of competitive advantage...............................................................................................3
Demand........................................................................................................................................4
competitive environment.............................................................................................................4
Growth and development of business..........................................................................................4
Challenges....................................................................................................................................5
Growth and development strategy...............................................................................................6
Government supportive measures................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report will discuss about a small business unit in UK which is operating on small
scale. Ovation unit is considered as small medium enterprise. Reason behind a small scale
business is to put a position in market and to have profitability. Challenges will be discussed in
this report which come in between to achieve business objectives. Whole process of starting up
business will be discussed. Government measures will be analyzed which makes profitable to
company to increase their market share. Some business tactics are applied in company which
will be beneficial to gain competitive advantage. A conclusion is made which will discuss the
summary of report.
INTRODUCTION
Small medium enterprise (SMEs) refers to a small sized company which has less than
250 employees. Its has turn over less than 50 million euro. SMEs are very important for country
in the role of employment. Present study lay emphasis on Ovation system limited. It is a small
company which has role in manufacturing and designing of video surveillance products for
various departments like police, military and in other government sectors. Richard Gregory is
managing director of ovation system limited. It was founded in 1987. It has headquartered in
Oxforshire, England. This report is to analyze the business development growth for Ovation
system for both past years and future years as well.
MAIN BODY
Ovation system limited is the manufacture of electronic components which includes
design and production of electronic sub-assemblies. The one of the type of business of Ovation
system limited is Video Surveillance Equipment and Systems for the Police and Military. They
are specialized in the design and manufacture of precipitous, high performance video
surveillance products for the police, military and other government law enforcement agencies.
Over the past 20 years company have gained an excellent reputation in the law enforcement
market (Zhang, 2019). They also manufacture number of supporting products such as
microphone and low light miniature cameras. The nature of the company is dedicated to ensure
the highest possible product quality and reliability. The production and design processes of this
organization is certified to ISO 9001 quality management standards.
People behind this business unit is a small family which has desire to open a small
business unit which has involvement in security system. therefore they took a step to introduce
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this company which kept products like video and audio recorder. Richard Gregory is one of the
owner of ovation system limited who took the step of implementing manufacturing process and
marketing process.
It is the organization which is characterized by intentional structure of roles and
responsibilities coordinated towards achievement of common goals. The other nature of this
organization is applying professional ethics that examines ethical problems and principles that
arise in a business environment. The nature of business ethics includes code of conduct, based on
social and moral values, gives protection to social groups, provides basic framework, requires
education and guidance. Ovation follows this nature of business to attain long-term growth, cost
and risk reduction etc. Scope of business ethics include ethic in finance, marketing, compliance
and production. Following these ethics any company can gain investor loyalty, attracting talents
and customer satisfaction.
Start up process
The company is a small start up company having team of 24 members. Employees are
promoted by their involvement and communication by the company and also encourage
employees for ideas and suggestions. The communication between all staff and directors at
Ovation works well. As a start-up the company aim is to continual advances in technologies for
the media and communications industries and apply this innovative products for the security and
surveillance system (Reis, 2016. It is based near Oxford, Ovation Systems is privately owned
company which have started their business in 1987 as an electronic design consultancy which
further concentrated on high-speed digital electronic design projects. In 1990, there was a drastic
change applied by the company which was a risk taking start up also, they started developing its
own product range and changed their direction completely from consultancy to manufacturing.
As starting their business earlier in manufacturing can cause a great risk as a start up but
confidence and curiosity led them o become a successful in this industry. Since 1990, Ovation
System has grown into a highly successful and profitable electronic design and manufacturing
organization, specializing in advanced video surveillance products and systems for high-end
CCTV, police and military applications. Their technology is growing and changing so rapidly
and have a clear focus on customer needs. Their vision as a start-up is always about technology
and people. As a start up they focus on employees more than they put their time, skills and
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energy in return for salary, bonus, career progressions and learning. They test their products
efficiently to check any problems which can lower their value in marketplace.
Business concept to make money
To have more profitability, one important factor is to win competition. Ovation system
has also some competitors like Oxalis, compound security system companies. Ovation system
uses following concepts to make money and to win competition:
Discount:
This strategy is used by Ovation system company on their products like CCTV. To make
their products more popular, Ovation system make a strategy to provide products at discounted
price. Money matters to everyone so this concept will be beneficial to make more money and
more customers. If at once, company gets popular then it is beneficial for future purpose to have
more market share than other favorable companies (Johnson, 2015).
Advertisement
This concept is used by Ovation system to aware public about their products and offers.
Social media marketing is used by Ovation system managers to aware public. Offers are also
published on social media sites. Advertising brings more customers which will directly increase
profitability of company.
Sources of competitive advantage
Varieties:
This concept is to win competition trust towards the products. Customer demand are
changing constantly. So, to make money, Ovation company designs varieties of video
surveillance products. It manufactures products like evident video recorder, video compressor,
digital video recorder, cables. To have varieties of products in company, a customer do not
required to struggle to search for desired product in any other company. It is a competition
winning strategy.
Quality:
To increase trust of customers, it is necessary to maintain quality of products. Designing
varieties of products is not a big thing but to maintain quality at limited cost becomes
challenging task for Ovation. It designs and manufacture products at two level one at high
quality at high cost and medium quality at low cost. Products are sold as per demand and need of
customers.
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Demand
Customers demand from companies to have qualitative product at low cost. They also
demand quantitative products in less time. It becomes a typical task for them to meet demands
before any other brand makes profit. Current demand is to have both audio and video feature in a
single device (Lee, and Wong, 2015). This demand need a good research and development team
to deign a device in such a way that have both features.
Segmentation of customer is done to have profit in less time. Segmentation is process of
dividing customers on the basis of age, lifestyle, occupation, industries, income, opinions,
attitude and all. Ovation system limited uses firmographic segmentation method for marketing.
They divide the customers on the basis of their occupation. Like people who have occupation
industries are targeted because thy are aware about the need of security system and they are
familiar with them. Business to business deal also happened in this segmentation process.
Security system is very essential need of a business unit. So, ovation limited company focuses on
different industries to have more profit by selling of number of products to them. Industries has
requirement of products in bulk. It will be more profitable for Ovation system limited company.
competitive environment
Again a need arises in front of ovation company is to aware public about the developed products
as per demands of customers. This step can profit to other company too if they promote their
products before than ovation company. This competitive environment makes ovation company in
challenging environment. Earning profit is not an easy task in competitive environment. Many
strategies are involved during manufacturing, researching, marketing.
Growth and development of business
TIME ACHIEVEMENT DETAILS
2018 Designing
Afterburner-4
Ovation company deigns a video surveillance recorder
especially for gathering of police evidence. This unit
can records to Blu-ray optical discs or to any other hard
drive which is removable (Zhou, 2016). It has a new
feature of full HD input and RTSP straming to VMS. It
also includes features like SHA256 hash coding and
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AES encryption.
2016 ISO 9001 : 2015 Ovation system limited gets a achievement of quality
standard i.e., ISO 9001 : 2015. This is not only for
process of production but also for maintaining quality
of products.
2019 Security & policy With this achievement, ovation system get a chance to
exhibit security system for UK government. It prepares
a showcase of equipment for security purpose of
government which have a venture with Home office.
They get an order to place security system at
Farnborough in a time of 5 march to 9 march.
2017 OEM PCBs Ovation system provide products at PCBs. It stands for
printed circuit board. It helps them to mount products at
both mechanically and electrically. Together interfacing
will help engineer to drive the mechanism and for
installing.
2018 New range of covert
audio recorders
To have a competitive advantage, ovation system
designs a new range of audio recorder which have high
performance than other devices. They are ultra-
miniature covert audio recorders used in industries and
government organizations (Turner and Ledwith, 2018).
Challenges
Time Event Challenge details
1990 Promotion This challenge is to aware public and organisation
about Ovation company and its products. People do not
aware about the security system and need of these
security devices. They start promoting through
advertisement either through social media. They
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contact industries to have more market share and more
popularity.
2017 New technologies This challenges especially occurred for winning
competitive environment. Skilled employees are needed
who have creative thinking skills to bring new
technologies for product. People and industries and
other government sectors need adoption of new
technologies to have high security system for these
sectors. Maintaining quality at low cost is a task for
ovation company engineers to adopt technology at
limited cost only.
Time Daily challenge Details
2010 Making customers This is a common challenge that every company faces.
But at that time, ovation company has a big loss in
selling its products. It becomes challenging task for
them to sell products that they cross profit margin.
Interacting with customers will also become a
challenge for ovation company because they do not
have employees who have good communication skills.
2014 Time management This challenge is to manage time for employees so that
they can achieve business objectives on time.
Supervisors have the responsibility to guide their team
to have high work performance. To make employees
punctual and interested towards work is also a
challenge for Ovation company (Karadag, 2015).
2005 Skilled employees For designing high performance equipment. Well
talented and skilled engineers are needed for
manufacturing such devices. Research and development
team is needed for bringing more products to win
competition. It becomes a challenging task for Ovation
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company to hire skilled engineers.
Growth and development strategy
Time Target Details
0-1 years Communication skills Ovation system targets to increase communication level
of employees so that they can interact with customers
efficiently. Ovation system plans to provide training of
interaction by professional trainers. It will indirectly
lead to more profitability and more productivity. Good
communication skills make customer satisfied with
service and especially helps them to solve their queries
related to products (North, and Varvakis, 2016).
1-5 years More varieties of
products
Ovation system stands in a competitive environment.
So, to win competition it targets to produce more
variety of products in video recording and audio
recording. Army and military sectors needs a device in
compatible size which has both audio and video
recording features. This is like a challenging target for
ovation tom produce such type of products to have
competitive advantage.
5-10 years Expanding marketing
network globally
Ovation system limited company has a target to convert
its type from SMEs to a global company. This will
make its presence all over the world and will lead to
more market share. Globally expanded network will
make ovation company to be best brand in security
system provider. Every people and every company get
to know about the ovation system. It will be a big
achievement for ovation system limited.
1-5 years Step into other
products
Apart from video and audio recording equipment,
Ovation system targets to take a step to design other
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electronic devices which work on basis of sensors. It
also helps them in security system (Sharkey-Scott,
Reilly and Andersson, 2016). It makes Ovation
company a big security system provider which has all
varieties of equipment uses for security purpose.
Government supportive measures
There is a big role of government in making ovation system company a successful
company. Ovation system especially design and manufacture audio and video surveillance for
government sector only. Security system is needed in every sector. Government sector like
electric department, police department, public department, banking sector, tax department need
security system in major scenario. So they give tenders to ovation system for installing security
system to have videos and audio recording of departments of every moment (Končar and
Leković, 2016).
Ovation system also installs its security system products for both army and military
sector too. Army sectors has a need of video recording at borders to get aware about any fault
situations and they can get ready in advance, Ovation system try to provide high quality
performance equipment to army and military sectors. Ovation system limited is ISO authorized
in maintaining quality. That's why army and military trust on them and give responsibility to
Ovation managers to install equipment both mechanically and electrically.
Government measures to ovation system lead to financial benefits too. It helps in
expansion of company on large scale. It helps them to make more revenue to sell more number
of audio and video recorders. It increase their market share value which helps company to stand
at a position in competitive environment.
CONCLUSION
This report is concluding the business and working of the Ovation System limited. The
products are designed, manufactured and their marketing is explained in the report. This report is
concluding the ways to manage the small and medium organization. Daily and event challenges
are introduced in this report. Promotion, new technologies are categorized under event
challenges. Skilled employees, time management are categorized under daily challenges. The
different type of business strategies used by the Ovation system limited. Establishing process of
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the business and their challenges are concluded in the study. The ways and ideas used by the
organization to make money are explained in study. The competition of the business is analyzed
to know the opportunities of the business. The business development plan is developed in which
they focus on improving communication skills, producing more variety of products, step to other
sectors and expanding marketing network. It has been evaluated the effectiveness and directing
time for improving the growth and development of the business. This report is concluding the
business growth and development plan for the Ovation System Limited.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It has been recommended for Ovation system to design other varieties of products for
security system purpose. Security system is highly risky one so to install equipment in efficient
way is necessary. To design equipment which sense any faulty situations in advance only so that
happening of fault can be stopped (Lee and Wong, 2015). It is also recommended that size of
devices for video and recording should be small so that other people can not identify them and
their happening of stealing or doing any other fault can be recorded. In this, it will be beneficial
for organisation or any government sector to record video and faulty one will not be aware about
it. It is also recommended that products should be manufactured at low cost and high quality
level to win competition from other favorable companies.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Zhang, B., 2019, January. Control of cascade superheated air temperature model based on
Ovation control system. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 2066, No. 1, p. 020039).
AIP Publishing.
Reis, P.E.O., 2016. Endovascular treatment of infrarenal aortic aneurism with ovation abdominal
stent graft system. J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 1(4).
Johnson, M.P., 2015. Sustainability management and small and medium‐sized enterprises:
Managers' awareness and implementation of innovative tools. Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management. 22(5). pp.271-285.
Lee, C.S. and Wong, K.Y., 2015. Development and validation of knowledge management
performance measurement constructs for small and medium enterprises. Journal of
Knowledge Management. 19(4). pp.711-734.
Zhou, B., 2016. Lean principles, practices, and impacts: a study on small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs). Annals of Operations Research. 241(1-2). pp.457-474.
Turner, R. and Ledwith, A., 2018. Project Management in Small to Medium‐Sized Enterprises:
Fitting the Practices to the Needs of the Firm to Deliver Benefit. Journal of Small Business
Management. 56(3). pp.475-493.
Karadag, H., 2015. Financial management challenges in small and medium-sized enterprises: A
strategic management approach. EMAJ: Emerging Markets Journal. 5(1). pp.26-40.
North, K. and Varvakis, G., 2016. Competitive strategies for small and medium
enterprises. Increasing Crisis Resilience, Agility and Innovation in Turbulent Times.
Cham: Springer.
Sharkey-Scott, P., Reilly, M. and Andersson, U., 2016. Strategic Initiatives: Entrepreneurship
and Strategy Development Working Together. In European International Business
Academy (EIBA) conference in Vienna, 2016..
Končar, J. and Leković, S., 2016. The role of retail strategy in the development and efficiency of
business on the global electronic market. Strategic Management. 21(4). pp.22-28.
Online
Ovation's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and Acquisitions. 2019.
[Online] Available through : <https://www.owler.com/company/ovation#top>
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