Cash Flow Problems and Solutions for Robert's Small Business

The assignment content revolves around the case study of Robert, who owns two stores that require him to manage his liabilities, expenses, and gains effectively. He faces cash flow problems such as bad debt, missing stock, and emergency employees. The solutions proposed include reviewing client credit, providing terms for good creditors, maintaining inventory levels, and using an online banking system or hiring a professional accountant to pay rent on time.

CASE STUDY
CONTEMPORARY THEME
ASSIGNMENT

Table of Contents
CASE STUDY 1..............................................................................................................................3
Case study of Debenhams...........................................................................................................3
CASE STUDY 2..............................................................................................................................5
SWOT analysis of Facebook.......................................................................................................5
CASE STUDY 3..............................................................................................................................6
Streets Ahead estate agency: David’s problems with Motivation and Leadership.....................6
CASE STUDY 4 ............................................................................................................................7
How Budgens can learn from Tesco in terms of equality and diversity.....................................7
CASE STUDY 5..............................................................................................................................7
Cash flow case study: Assets, liabilities, expenses and gains.....................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

CASE STUDY 1
Case study of Debenhams
The first case study which is based on the case of the Debenhams, it is one of the biggest
group in line of departmental stores. They deals with all types of products and the brands, and is
doing very good in the market for their existing customers. For increasing their market share and
to be more famous among the customers it is being suggested to the Debenhams that they should
grow their market in the field of women's casual wear. Women's are very much conscious
towards the fashion and they always want to have new and innovative things in the fashion. If the
company will increase their business in such field then it will help in increasing the market share
of the company and will also have large amount of sales, which will eventually increase their
profit and the number of customers will get attract more. For the new venture in their company
which is related to the women's casual wear , Debenhams should make the proper market
research for the effective implementation of the plan. For this the quantitative research will be
helpful, that will support in determining the size of the market. They can start their business both
in retail sector and also in online, by this many customers who are not able to come to the shop
will do the online shopping and by this company will be able increase the revenues.
Questionnaire
1. How regularly you do shopping at Debenhams ?
 Once in a week
 Once in a month
 Once in every 3 months
 Occasionally
2. What is your priority ?
 Price
 Quality
 None
3. How much do you spend in the store ?
 50-70
 less than 50
 more than 100
4. Does Debenhams is good in providing good quality products and services ?

 Yes
 No
Debenhams can also invest some time in the secondary research by analysing the various
case studies.
CASE STUDY 2
SWOT analysis of Facebook
Today's time, Facebook is the most popular social networking site through which people
interact with each other. With the help of this ,people can talk with their friends in the whole
world. Facebook 'SWOT [ Strength ,Weakness ,Opportunities ,Threats] analysis is as follows -
Today everyone has the smart phones in which everyone use the social networking sites
like Facebook. Facebook has many strengths like it have 850 or more user that use it on a
regular basis and has good brand name and value through out the world. No other sites have so
much information except Google and Facebook. It exactly know what are the exactly
requirements of the customers and then accordingly it serves to them. It introduces new
innovative features for remain competitive in the market and generate high revenue (Lu, 2010).
It's weaknesses is that it's revenue is only depend on the advertising and no other option
of revenue. It has to face many problems or challenges for remaining competitive and get the
competitive advantages and it mostly depend on the few key employees means it have no too
much employees and it does not diversified it's business which maximizes the market risk .
Facebook has imitable products or services means any other competitors can easily copy the
products or services.
It has many opportunities like there are increasing no. of people day by day who are
using Facebook. The main source of revenue to the Facebook is online advertising but currently
there are increasing no. of customers so Facebook can generate revenue form other sources.
Currently Facebook has expanded their business in China because of ease of government
regulation. It has formulated strategic alliance that increase the market share of it. New product
development that increases the loyal customers (Schroeder, Minocha and Schneider, 2010).
It has also many threats like there are other online advertising company Google etc. And
some companies prefers to do advertising in newspaper ,magazines etc. So it the biggest threats

for Facebook because it is the only source of income for Facebook. Many hackers and cracker
hacks the personal information of the user from the Facebook. Its result is that it decreases the
user or brand value of it. There is also threats that in developing countries ,it can be banned by
the government. There are threats of new entrance . Currently new entrance are coming for
giving competition ,it is also a threats.
CASE STUDY 3
Streets Ahead estate agency: David’s problems with Motivation and Leadership
This case study is based on the topic of the employee motivation, which on the case of
'Streets Ahead', an estate agency. David who is the employee of the company joined it in June
2016 in London. He previously worked with the PDL property in Essex and wants to get in the
central London for the better career prospects. Owner of the Street Ahead is Tom and Alice
Fairbairn, and it have twenty employees. As the employee of the company, David had problems
with the leadership and motivations (Eyal and Roth, 2011). There is the issue regarding staff,
which is like that the people make use of the social media during the work hours by which there
is a negative effect on productivity. Policies of the company are also not clear which causes such
issues.
There is the lack of managers support and the guidance to their staff, managers usually
ignore their teams by which they cannot realise their potential. Managers should consult the
members of the team which will help them to motivate and grow. If the managers will provide
some bonus then the staff will be able to work harder and eventually it will helps to make staff
satisfied and happy. This will also help in the motivation of the staff. A new task should be set
up by the managers everyday for the members of the team, so that they will be exciting to do
new work everyday (Grant, 2016). There should be a proper leadership practices in the company.
Employers should be aware of their duties and responsibilities. By analysing the David's
situation according to the case, it is said that he wants to develop learning of the many things
which he does not get from his previous job, but he is not able to do this as nobody helps him.
He has the very good idea regarding the mobile app, but his managers are not at all interested in
listening. The administration team of the company should more staff meeting so as to make
everyone aware about the rules and regulations, by which they will be able to see what

employees think about the company and can take many suggestions from the employees to
increase leadership and motivation (Northouse, 2012).
CASE STUDY 4
How Budgens can learn from Tesco in terms of equality and diversity
This case study is based on the case of Tesco, which is one of the largest and the fastest
growing retail chain in the UK. The journey of the Tesco get started in the 1919 in the east end in
London. It is necessary for the company to manage the diversity which means maximizing the
potential benefit of the diversity like great awareness of culture and the wide language skills. It is
done by the minimization of the potential barriers like bias and prejudices that can define the
performance of the company. An equality and the diversity policy should be adopted by the
budgens which is similar to the Tesco regarding various reasons (Bretherton and Pleace, 2011).
Different types of organisations in the UK have implemented different types of initiatives so as
to deal with the diversity. Budgens, like Tesco should ensure that the there should be the
encouragement of people from diverse background so as to make more representative staff. They
should also make sure that there should be a equality regarding the race and gender, and the
talent should be given first priority. Diversity is there to recognise and respect the differences of
the people for realising their potential by promoting the culture for all the staff.
In order to make sure the sexual and the gender preference equality in the administration,
budgens can follow the examples of the Tesco by starting various schemes like Out at Tesco,
which presents the 1000 LGBT members and the events are also hosted for the employees to
share different experiences and it also for the women in business, which help in raising the
women's profile and also give them support for the development of their career by proper career
and training. Tesco also have many interesting schemes that Budgens can use for inspiring their
initiatives like Tesco Asian Network (Özbilgin and Syed, 2015).
CASE STUDY 5
Cash flow case study: Assets, liabilities, expenses and gains
Assets of the Robert is his corner shop, his cash register, his existing stock and all the
other things which he owns in his shop, and his liabilities are the things which he owes like the
rent which he has to pay for both the stores and the stock which he buys for filling it shelves. His
expenses are the things he owns which he claims as expenses and get a return for it like

merchandise, equipments which are essential for the shop, and finally his gains are all the things
which gives him profit.
Cash flow problems and solutions
There are various problems regarding the flow of cash in the case study. Many small
businesses have the problem regarding the cash flow at one time or another. Most of the cash
flow problems can be solved with the bit of preparations and the appropriate strategies. One of
the problem in this case study is the bad debt. The solution of this problem can be done by
reviewing the client's commercial credit, also by providing the terms to the clients who have
good credits and solid record of payment. Products which are evolved should be based on the
needs of the customers (Hilli, Koivu and Pennanen, 2011). Robert can have benefit by observing
such customers, with the help of their buying pattern and can make adjustments to his orders
accordingly.
The another problem is related with the missing stock and to buy the emergency
employees at the real prices. Solution regarding this to maintain the level of inventory carefully.
Not mentioning the key products in the stock will make the company loose various clients.
Another problem is that the if the store is small then the shop is being used as the room for
keeping stock. To pay advance rent is also a problem and to solve this online banking system can
be used for paying the rent. A professional accountant can also be hired rather than bookkeeping
(Maravas and Pantouvakis, 2012).

REFERENCES
Book and Journals
Bretherton, J. and Pleace, N., 2011. A difficult mix: Issues in achieving socioeconomic diversity
in deprived UK neighbourhoods. Urban Studies. 48(16). pp.3433-3447.
Eyal, O. and Roth, G., 2011. Principals' leadership and teachers' motivation: Self-determination
theory analysis. Journal of Educational Administration. 49(3), pp.256-275.
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Hilli, P., Koivu, M. and Pennanen, T., 2011. Cash-flow based valuation of pension liabilities.
European Actuarial Journal. 1(2). p.329.
Lu, W., 2010. Improved SWOT approach for conducting strategic planning in the construction
industry. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 136(12). pp.1317-
1328.
Maravas, A. and Pantouvakis, J.P., 2012. Project cash flow analysis in the presence of
uncertainty in activity duration and cost. International Journal of Project Management.
30(3). pp.374-384.
Northouse, P.G., 2012. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage.
Özbilgin, M. and Syed, J., 2015. Future of diversity management. Managing Diversity and
Inclusion: An International Perspective, p.336.
Schroeder, A., Minocha, S. and Schneider, C., 2010. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats of using social software in higher and further education teaching and
learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 26(3). pp.159-174.