Business Expansion Strategy: Little Desert Shop Partnership Essay

This essay examines a partnership business, focusing on the 'Little Desert Shop' in Birmingham. It delves into the dynamics of a partnership between Mary and Sue, exploring opportunities for business expansion. The essay analyzes the partnership structure, highlighting the importance of a partnership agreement and legal compliance. It applies Porter's five forces model to assess the competitive landscape, considering factors like supplier power, buyer power, threats from substitutes and new entrants, and existing rivalry. The essay also evaluates macro environmental factors, including social, technological, and environmental influences, and their impact on the business. The conclusion provides recommendations for Mary and Sue to effectively manage and grow their partnership. References include books and journals related to partnership, business models, and environmental factors.

Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
Partnership..............................................................................................................................3
Porter’s five force model........................................................................................................4
Macro environmental factors.................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Partnership business refers to a business that have two or more people who are owning the
business and also working together in order to achieve certain goals and objectives (Vigo and
et. al., 2019). The below mentioned essay is conducted upon a partnership between Mary and
Sue who on a shop in Birmingham city mall known as the little desert shop. Merry and so
wish to expand their business and the essay consist of various ways in which they can take
advantage of opportunities available and expand the business.
MAIN BODY
Partnership
Partnership is a business that has two or more people who are owning and operating it
together. It is different from various other business structures as there are a number of
different partnerships that can be effectively established for a business. While considering a
partnership a partnership agreement is also created in which the relationship between
partners, the ownership types between partners and duties of every partner is specifically
outlined. This usually depends on the amount of participation of different partners into the
partnership firm on the basis of which they will be liable for the business debts.
Mary and Sue’s ‘Little Desert shop’ is a partnership as it has two personas that are Mary and
Sue. Both of them are pulling the resources together in order to start a partnership business.
Also it is required to form an agreement which helps in acting as a contract between two
people known as partnership agreement.. The contract can be written or oral or implied. In
this way Marie and Sue are getting into an agreement of partnership as both of them invest
equally in the little desert shop (Tkachenko and et. al., 2019).
It is also necessary for a partnership to take in the business which is legally correct.
Any business that is illegal activity being carried on through partners does not get any legal
sanction. The partnership business in the little desert shop is a lawful business. There is also
an act of partnership under which most of the firms are registered in order to earn different
legal benefits. When a partnership firm is not registered they cannot take any action in court
of law against any party for the settlement of claims. Also any dispute between partners has
to be settled by their own and they cannot go to court of law to settle those disputes. The little
desert shop is a registered partnership organisation. Therefore they enjoy all the benefits of

being registered under the act. Also when considering the profit sharing ratio, it is necessary
in agreement to specify the sharing of profit and losses between different partners. As stated
in the case study Mary and Sue have invested equally in the partnership firm, so the profit
and losses are also divided between them equally. However a partnership business does not
have a personality of their own like any other company. The business of partnership can be
terminated in any case of bankruptcy, death or lunacy of one of the partners.
There are a number of different types of partnership such as general partnership
Limited partnership, Limited liability partnership and LLC partnership. When considering the
current case of little desert shop Marie and Sue are general partners. They do not have any
personal liability protection and anyone of them could have formed this partnership due to
which it stands to be a general partnership.
Porter’s five force model
Porters five forces framework refers to a method that analyses the competition of a
business effectively. There are five different factors which are to be analysed under this
model. Below mentioned are these five forces applied upon the little desert shop:
Bargaining power of suppliers: The power of suppliers for the little desert shop is
very low. As there are a number of different suppliers available for them in the market. They
are also looking for changing their suppliers and buying organic products rather than normal
products in bulk quantity. This shows that they can easily change their suppliers without
adding any extra cost in operations. This is a great method for company to make sure that the
bargaining power with suppliers are less and they do not have to fear about suppliers.
Bargaining power of buyers: The bargaining power present with buyers for the little
desert shop is high. This is because the desert shop is situated in such a position where buyers
can easily go to any other place rather than coming here (Julita, 2019). This makes it cost-
effective way for the buyers to change their service they were. Therefore the little desert shop
has to pay much attention to its customers as they can go to any other desert shop whenever
they want to.
Threat from substitute products: when considering substitute products for the little
desert shop. There are a number of different substitutes available in the place where the cafe
situated.The Birmingham city Centre has a number of other shops that provide fast food in
different cuisines for the customers. All of this food work as substitute products for the food
provided at the little desert shop.

Threat of new entrants: The state of new entrants for little desert shop is very low.
This is because a lot of investment is required for starting a desert shop specially in a location
like Birmingham city Centre. Both married and so have highly invested in their business in
the beginning which was £30,000 each. It is difficult for new entrants to work on a strategy
and effectively open up a business like the little desert shop.
Rivalry among existing competitors: Rivalry among competitors existing in
Birmingham city centre is very high. When looking at the little desert shop there are a
number of shops which are immediately set up after the shop. And other than this there are
also a number of different venues for food present. Each of the business wants to sell more
and more of their food to the shoppers. This makes it difficult for the little desert shop to
effectively set up their business in Birmingham city centre.
There are a number of factors such as using organic products, changing the product range,
using digital media to advertise and so on that can be used by Mary and Sur in order to
effectively set up their business and face competitive environment.
Macro environmental factors
There are a number of external factors that are affecting businesses every day. The
macro environmental factors refers to all the external factors that are social, legal,
technological, economic, political and so on. There are a number of macro environmental
factors that can help Marie and Sue in improving their business. Below mentioned are three
such factors:
Social factors: People in society are moving towards healthy food and living. It is a
great opportunity for Mary and Sue to produce food in their cafe that is healthy for such
people. This change will help them to effectively attract a number of new customers towards
their business. They can also look into production of some of the organic products on their
own. This will help them to save cost of buying raw materials from their suppliers and also
influence people towards the business.
Technological factors: Technological advancement taking place around the world are
affecting a number of businesses differently. It has now became as initial for each and every
business to make sure that they are effectively considering the technological changes in their
sector and bringing in their business in order to attract more and more customers. The little
desert shop has still not made use of social media platforms in order to promote their products
and services (Sinha, 2020). It is a great way that is used by number of its competitors and can
also bring benefits for them. Using different social media platforms and sharing customer

experiences on those platforms can help the little desert shop to influence more customers
towards the services they are providing and enhance their brand image as well.
Environmental factors: Environmental factors are a set of important factors that are
to be followed by every organisation as they are working in a community. It is necessary for
businesses to make sure that they are taking care of the surrounding in which they’re working
and from where they are getting all the resources for their business. The little desert shop can
take advantage of environmental factors in order to bring profit for them. They can
effectively promote themselves as being a green Cafe serving organic food and also avoiding
use of plastics in their servings. In this way the organisation can effectively take advantage of
micro environmental factors and bring benefits for them.
CONCLUSION
With the help of the above discussion it can be concluded that there are a number of
steps that can be taken by Mary and Sue in order to make sure that they are effectively
managing their partnership business. Both of them can apply their own ideas and thoughts
into business in order to expand business and face competition in business. This will help the
business to effectively achieve all their objectives and goals in stipulated time period.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Vigo, D.V. and et. al., 2019. A partnership for transforming mental health globally. The
Lancet Psychiatry, 6(4), pp.350-356.
Tkachenko, S. and et. al., 2019. Social partnership of services sector professionals in the
entrepreneurship education. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 22(4), pp.1-
6.
Julita Julita, S.E., 2019. PORTER’S FIVE FORCE MODEL FOR SUPERIORITY OF
MICRO SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SME’s) IN FACE THE
ASEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNIY (MEA). KUMPULAN JURNAL DOSEN
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH SUMATERA UTARA, 10(3).
Sinha, V.C., 2020. Business environment. SBPD Publishing House.