Managing Small Business and Enterprises: A Case Study of Verdant Leisure

This report explores the nature of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through a case study of Verdant Leisure, a UK-based holiday parks operator. It covers the SME start-up process, competitive advantages, growth strategies, challenges, and government support for small businesses. The report also discusses the social and sustainability goals of the business.

MANAGING SMALL
BUISNESS AND
ENTERPRISES

Table of Contents
MANAGING SMALL BUISNESS AND ENTERPRISES.................................................................1
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.......................................................................................................................................3
Nature of the entrepreneur behind the venture.....................................................................................3
SME start -up processes.......................................................................................................................3
Business Concept and Competitive advantage ...............................................................................4
Porters five forces analysis..............................................................................................................4
Growth and development till date....................................................................................................5
Challenges of managing a business.................................................................................................5
Ansoffs growth analysis............................................................................................................6
Government support to overcome the challenge faced....................................................................6
Social and sustainability goals of the business.........................................................................7
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................7
RERFERENCES..................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
SMEs are the firms which have less employees than a large firm. Their employees varies
from 10-200 from company to company. Small firms have less than 50 employees whereas mid
sized firms have more than 50 employees. They all are privately owned. The company chosen for
this report is VERDANT LEISURE,established in 1990. It is a holiday parks operator and provides
options to customers to buy or rent holiday home. This report states the SME start up
process,Porters five forces for competitive environment,Ansoffs growth plan,government measures
to support SMEs. It also studies the CSR goals of business.
MAIN BODY
Nature of the entrepreneur behind the venture
Verdant Leisure was started as a holiday parks provider to families in beautiful locations
and ownership of holiday homes to people. It was started as scalable start-up who's aim was to grow
with the time and turn into profitable company.
Scalable start-up- This type of start -up requires external investors as the capital required to
create demand and to expand company is very high(Osuagwu, L., 2022.)
. The risk is also high in this start up. The founders must have a solid business plan to get
investment.
Verdant Leisure was founded in 1990 but holiday business was started in 2010 by buying Pease
Bay and Thurston Mantor Leisure parks through management buy in.. It was backed up by Palatine
Private Equity in April 2016 and after that it has acquired many parks to grow into large company.
The founders have scaled it to make it big company.
SME start -up processes
To start a business there are so many formalities these are some factors to be considered by a
entrepreneur to establish a firm.
Verdant Leisure must have followed this process-
 Market research- To start any business research is required to know whether business has
potential or not Verdant leisure did research and many surveys and found out no holiday
parks earlier in U.K. was providing owner ship of holiday homes to customers.
 Business plan- The company should make a business plan stating what kind of services will
they offer,what target audience will they target,their short and long term goals and
objectives. Verdant is offering their services to mainly families who want to spend quality
time and they have target to acquire more than 50 holiday parks in next 5 years.

 Funds – The business can get funds from banks or investors. Verdant was funded by
management buy in and then received funds from equity firm.
 Location – The firms business must be located in a place where it can attract more
customers(Vlasov, M., 2021). Verdant business it holiday parks which needs more space
hence they located their businesses in outer area of the city.
 Business structure- Every business has its own requirements and they choose the structure
according to it. Verdant is a private owned company whose full ownership is with its
investors and founders.
 Name of the business – The name is very important as becomes the image of the business
and for legal formalities. Verdant Leisure opted name for making image in between
customers.
 Registration of the business- It is very important part of the process as company has to file
documents of the company and get a unique number. VERDANT also registered and got its
identification number.
 Taxes- All the firms have to pay taxes to avoid penalty and Verdant has to pay taxes on time
and get the auditing done.
Business Concept and Competitive advantage
Verdant Leisure a U.k. based medium sized company,founded in year 1990 with the aim of
providing various services to the customers. Company mainly focuses on providing holiday services
to families. Customers can rent or buy caravan and holiday homes in specific places. Companies
main USP is providing innovative holiday packages and offering great services to give customers
satisfaction. Verdant Leisure main competitive advantage
is services which they offer to the customers which no one is offering in the market currently,that is
renting caravan houses and opportunity to buy the holiday houses wherever they want. No other
firm in current market is offering these kind of services(Pouw, N., 2019. ). Verdant also commits to
promote sustainable tourism and protect natural environment, this makes them different from other
holiday homes and gives them competitive advantage. Company believes customer is supreme and
all its marketing strategies revolve around them like packages for families which varies from season
to season,loyalty points and many more which makes them different.
Porters five forces analysis
It is a framework to analyse the forces affecting companies competitive environment(Tsatsoula, E.,

2018.).
Competitive rivalry- There is low competition in this industry due to less numbers of leisure parks
and huge customer base so Verdant Leisure have no need to worry about this force.
Bargaining power of buyers- Customers are more than service providers but still they cannot
affect the market because every holiday home provides some differentiated services and only for
some extent they can affect the company,so this force is moderate for the company.
Power of suppliers- Firms need variety of resources and raw materials but they have numerous
suppliers for it so,power of suppliers is very low in the industry.
Threats of substitutes- In this industry every holiday home has some speciality in their offering,it
is hard to copy due to setup cost. So,threat is low for this force in the industry .
Threats of new entrants- Entry of new firms is less in this field due to huge initial investment and
infrastructure. So the threat of new entry is low for the industry.
To sum up this industry is less affected by external forces and has huge potential to grow.
Growth and development till date
Verdant leisure was incorporated in 1990,then it was providing various services to
customers and in year 2010 it started to form into a holiday home provider company. It has acquired
more than 10 park since its starting. It started with fewer employees but today has more than 336
employees in UK and are increasing 7% every year. Company had turnover of 14 million ponds
while profits are 9 million pounds,in compare to last year revenue has increased by 2.49% .
Company has grow a lot after Palantine equity firm has buyed with valuation of 40 million. Verdant
now operates more than 3000 lodges ,private homes,holiday homes.
Challenges of managing a business
 Increasing customers – Even big enterprises face issues while increasing their customer
base they keep working to attract them. Small business have more problems while bringing
customers as they are not a big brand(Gurcaylilar-Yenidogan, T. and Aksoy, S., 2018. ).
Though Verdant is a well known name in UK,still it must promote and work on marketing
strategies.
 Human resources- They are very important as the are the one are faces of the firm,small
business have less resources and they cant hire professionals. Verdant must hire skilled
people, train them and motivate them to achieve firms goals.
 Finances- Small business have less financial support so they have less sources to fund their
business,Verdant has back of private equity firm so there is no problem of funds.

 Scalability- Small enterprises have less chance of scaling as non availability of required
resources. Verdant is a scaleable venture and can grow into a large company.
Ansoffs growth analysis
It is the tool which tell what strategy a business must adopt to grow.
 Market Penetration- This strategy suggests to increase sale of current services,Verdant can
increase it revenue by promoting its services between customers as there is less competition
and customer base is huge(Gancarczyk, M., Freiling, J. and Gancarczyk, J., 2020.). Firm can
promote through advertising and giving discounts on group bookings.
 Product Development- In this strategy firm expands its services and products. Verdant can
increase its services for its customers like adventure and theme parks,which will help them
to increase revenue.
 Market Development- Companies sells its current product in new markets. Verdant
leisure can enter into new emerging markets and provide its existing services to them and
make profits.
 Diversification- Strategy which tells to enter into new market with new markets. Verdant
cannot diversify as setup cost is high and there is less scope for diversification.
Recommendation- Company should use market development as its main strategy as it can
get new customer base and become a global brand.
Government support to overcome the challenge faced
 Access to investment- No investor is interested in small business due to their
uncertainty ,government can back the venture capital firms and ask them to fund potential
start-ups,Verdant is backed by a private equity firm.
 Employment schemes- Government can run training programmes for youths and train them
in various skills this will get them employment and small businesses will get skilled
workers. Verdant hires trained employees from government training programmes.
 Promoting demand – Government backed business are more likely to be successful,they
should promote them so consumers can believe the brand which results in more demand.
UK Govt. promote tourism and encourages to tourists to visit various famous places of
their country which includes Verdant leisure also.
 Scaling of the business- Government can encourage small business to grow by providing
them necessary resources.(Morris, M.H. and Kuratko, D.F., 2020. ) Verdant receives various
grants and space on lease to establish holiday parks.
All of these steps by government will help small business to grow and establish themselves in the
market and increase the countries GDP as they will give taxes and provide employment.

Social and sustainability goals of the business
Verdant leisure is promoting sustainable tourism and natural environment. They aim is to
reduce the use of materials which harm the mother earth. All of its holiday parks are members of
Green Tourism scheme and have won the Bronze Award. They encourage all the visitors and
owners of holiday homes to recycle and reuse the materials whenever possible(Rendtorff, J.D.,
2019.). This initiative tells there commitment to people and planet. By conserving local
communities they are helping to reduce global warming. They even have recycling facilities on all
their parks.
Opportunities for the business-
 Affordable and clean energy - Verdant can take initiative of using clean energy in their
parks by opting for solar plants in their holiday homes.
 Equality – They can promote equality in their business by providing equal opportunities to
men and women.
 Quality education- Verdant can provide education to their employees children as part of
their corporate social responsibility.
 Healthcare facilities- They can arrange health camps for all the visitors coming to their
parks,and help them to stay healthy.
 Clean water- Verdant can install clean water plants in local areas so that people can drink
clean water.
All of these can help to achieve the sustainability and social goals of the business.
CONCLUSION
This study has been done on Verdant leisure and its growth strategies,nature of the business.
What is SME start up process and competitive advantages. Porters five forces analysis and Ansoffs
growth matrix for understanding the environment. Challenges faced by small business and their
solutions. Growth of Verdant was studied and government measures to support small business and
what are social responsibilities of business. Verdant has scope to grow into a large company by
adopting various measures discussed above which will help the firm to build a brand name in the
industry.

RERFERENCES
Gancarczyk, M., Freiling, J. and Gancarczyk, J., 2020. The dynamics of SME growth processes and
the role of enabling constraints: An evidence-based theoretical framework. Journal of
Organizational Change Management.
Gurcaylilar-Yenidogan, T. and Aksoy, S., 2018. Applying Ansoff’s growth strategy matrix to
innovation classification. International Journal of Innovation Management, 22(04),
p.1850039.
Morris, M.H. and Kuratko, D.F., 2020. What do entrepreneurs create?: Understanding four types of
ventures. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Osuagwu, L., 2022. Entrepreneurial Orientation in Small Business Enterprises: Conceptualizations,
Instrumentation and Research Guide. International Journal of Business Studies, 6(1),
pp.85-100.
Pouw, N., 2019. Editorial overview: Inclusive business for sustainability Nicky Pouw, Simon Bush
and Ellen Mangnus. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 41, pp.A1-A4.
Rendtorff, J.D., 2019. Philosophy of management and sustainability: Rethinking business ethics
and social responsibility in sustainable development. Emerald Group Publishing.
Tsatsoula, E., 2018. Application of Ansoff's Matrix-Methodology: Marketing Growth Strategies For
Products.
Vlasov, M., 2021. In Transition Toward the Ecocentric Entrepreneurship Nexus: How Nature Helps
Entrepreneurs Make Ventures More Regenerative Over Time. Organization &
Environment, 34(4), pp.559-580.