Small Business Enterprise: Cocofina Ltd Analysis and Expansion

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Cocofina Ltd, a small business enterprise specializing in coconut-based products. It identifies the company's strengths and weaknesses, compares its performance with The Coconut Company, and recommends actions to overcome shortcomings, particularly in marketing and workforce limitations. The report suggests strategies for maintaining and strengthening existing performance through adapting to market changes, competitor analysis, customer relationship management, and employee training. It also explores new areas for business expansion, such as increasing retail outlets, diversifying product lines, enhancing online presence, and leveraging customer feedback. Furthermore, the report assesses existing business objectives, suggests changes to business plans, and prepares an action plan for implementation, considering the impact on the business and personnel. Finally, it evaluates the company's performance over the past two years, highlighting key financial metrics and improvements.

SMALL BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Produce a profile of your selected business from the Dragons Den series.......................2
1.2. Compare the performance of your selected business with one of the following..................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Recommend with justification, appropriate actions to overcome the weaknesses................5
2.2 Analyze ways in which the existing performance could be maintained and strengthened....7
2.3 Suggest new areas in which the business could expand with reasonable justification..........9
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
3.1 Assessment on existing business objectives and plans........................................................10
3.2. Review business plans and suggest areas where changes can be made..............................12
3.3 Prepare an action plan to implement the changes................................................................13
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................15
4.1 Impact on the proposed changes on the business and personnel.........................................15
4.2 plan for how changes can be managed in business..............................................................16
4.3 The improvements in the performance of the business over the past two years.................17
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................20
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................21
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Weaknesses of Cocofina..................................................................................................6
Figure 2: Turnover of last two years..............................................................................................18
Figure 3: Profits of last two years..................................................................................................18
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INTRODUCTION
Small Business Enterprise relies on various business management strategies for its growth and
development. The report therefore considers Cocofina ltd as SBE which specializes in providing
coconut based products. It operates through large number of healthy and speciality outlets in UK
across different countries in the world.
Report helps in identifying the strength and weaknesses of Cocofina. In this report, its
performance is compared with other organization with similar industry. Various strategies are
identified to overcome the weaknesses and ways are analysed to maintain its performance.
Report also focuses on development of strategies to expand the business of Cocofina. Business
plans are developed in the report to implement the changes in businesses for its growth. Report
Analyse the impacts of changes on business and lastly various recordings of data is evaluated for
measuring the performance of business in past years.
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TASK 1
1.1 Produce a profile of your selected business from the Dragons Den series
The Name of the business
The current task and report will focus on detailed study of Cocofina Ltd from Dragon Den
Series.
Owner Structure
Cocofina is a single owner structure organization which was founded by Jacob Thundil. It
operates as a leader in food industry and provides product related to coconut. After the
establishment of business, Jacob started working with Nick Jenkins and Sarah Willingham
(Anonymous, 2017).
History/ Background
Cocofina was founded in 2005 and accepted an offer jointly with Nick Jenkins and Sarah
Willingham of approx £75,000 for equity of 20%. Jacob Thundil after 11 years makes a
partnership with Manisha Solanki to complete the investment of £75,000 as well as to enter the
Dragon’s Business (Amy, 2016).
It’s Activity
Cocofina Ltd relates to the food industry specialising in providing coconut based food products
such as coconut water, ingredients related to baking, coconut snacks and many more. The brand
Cocofina displays its products in various retail outlets across the UK. For increasing the sales of
an organization, it also focuses on featuring the festive gift boxes and marketing strategies are
developed to sell its products worldwide. It also various other products such as flour, nectar,
milk, snack bars and many other variety of products.
Business Location
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Cocofina Ltd is headquartered in London with various locations across the world. Cocofina sell
its products in approximately 3000 outlets in UK and other stores in 28 countries across the
world (
Julai, 2017). It is currently focusing on expanding its business in Thailand and is launching its
products on QVC.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Strength of Cocofina ltd is that it offers healthy and quality of products and services to its
customers. It enhances its brand by providing coconut products with no hidden additives,
preservatives, and additives. It also offers its products through various online sources.
Cocofina is weak somewhere in marketing of its products and therefore, people are less aware of
the brand in UK market.
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1.2. Compare the performance of your selected business with one of the following
Comparison between Cocofina Ltd and The Coconut Company
Cocofina offers quality of coconut based products such as gluten free coconut flour, soya free
amino, butter, creamed coconut, toasted chips and many more. The Coconut Company on other
side provides products ranging from coconut oil, coconut nectar, fermented vinegars, etc.
Both the organizations can be compared on the basis of various elements such as:
Production: Both the organizations focus on providing healthy and organic coconut based
products. The Coconut Company ensures the production goes through minimum of processing
steps which helps in providing essential contents of coconut to its customers and on the other
hand Cocofina focus on providing low calories products which are approved by UK Soil
Association of UK.
Marketing: The Coconut Company relies on retailers and distributors to market its products to
large number o customers (Chaston, 2014). It has its marketing offices in Hong Kong, UK and
USA. Cocofina focus on website marketing, emails and newsletters to promote its products. The
biggest weakness of Cocofina is that it lacks in online marketing which is the basic need in the
era of globalization.
Human Resources: HR managers and executives of The Coconut Company are responsible for
supporting the core values of an organization and on the other side Cocofina focuses on HR
Policies for utilization of resources and also for staffing and recruiting of employees.
Use of Technology: Cocofina implements various advancement in technologies for keeping the
products fresh for a longer time period. It uses nitrogen in oils for avoiding oxidation of coconut
oil. It also focuses on implementing the technologies which helps in reducing the bacterial and
fungal attacks on its products. On the hand The Coconut Company implements technology to
assure that valuable nutrients of raw coconut are maintained along with the flavours and taste. It
uses technology to maintain the quality of the product.
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TASK 2
2.1 Recommend with justification, appropriate actions to overcome the weaknesses.
Cocofina is expanding its business at high rate by developing various strategies for effective
running of its business but still it faces various hindrances in the competitive market related to
food industry. There exists large number of competitors in the market who provides various
types of coconut products of superior quality. Therefore, Cocofina must focus on overcome the
shortcomings by implementing the appropriate actions which are explained below:
Lack of marketing
Cocofina lacks in marketing its products to large number of customers because of its weak online
presence. It mostly focuses on marketing of its products through its own website. It utilises
personal data of customers and send emails and newsletters to consumers to make aware of new
products launched by an organization. But in the era of globalization, most of the consumers
search for products and its details on social media platforms. Therefore, Cocofina must focus on
online marketing techniques to make aware of its brand on large scale.
Limited Workforce
Cocofina lacks in gaining goals and objectives in the business environment due to less number of
employees and resources (Burns, 2016). The current employee strength is less than 50
employees. It becomes more challenging for an organization to meet the demands of customers
on time because of less availability of resources. The production facilities also suffer a lot due to
limited workforces. Resource limitation also reduces the efficiency of performance as well as
quality of products and services also get affected. Therefore, to generate the output according to
the expectations, it is important for Cocofina to hire more number of employees in an
organization.
Perception about Brand Image
Cocofina sometimes is in state of overconfidence about its brand image which proves to be its
weakness and results into failure in achieving business targets. Dragon Den is a big brand name
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and operating business under such a brand makes owners of Cocofina sometimes overconfident
which fails to develop efficient strategies for scaling up the businesses. Owners of the
organization are unaware of the competition in the market and therefore to overcome this
weakness it is important to maintain healthy relationship with other organizations in the market.
Figure 1: Weaknesses of Cocofina
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2.2 Analyze ways in which the existing performance could be maintained and strengthened.
Cocofina must implement various measures to improve and maintain the efficiency of its
performance such as:
Adapting the changes
Cocofina must focus on developing various strategies to gain the competitive advantage in the
market. It is important for an organization to adapt changes according to the current market trend
and the needs of customers. Consumers are more into social media now days therefore; Cocofina
must focus on digital and social media marketing to increase the reach of its customers. Various
mobile applications must be utilized for buying and selling of products.
Competitors Strategies: Cocofina must focus on various strategies of competitors so that
various decisions related to businesses can be improved. It can add more products with different
variants to stand ahead in the market as compared to its competitors. Cocofina must focus on
adding uniqueness and differentiation in their products (Nguyen, 2017).
Various measures can be implemented to strengthen the above mentioned factors such as:
Customer relationship
Cocofina must conduct market research to identify the needs of customers on regular basis. It
must focus on taking feedbacks and reviews about its products so that various strategies can be
implemented to improve the quality of products. Customers are the main stakeholders for the
businesses and therefore it is most important to maintain the healthy customer relationship.
Training Programs
Goals and objectives are dependent on employees’ performance and therefore Cocofina must
focus on organizing training programs for employees. Training sessions helps to enhance the
skills and abilities of its employees which help to accomplish the objectives of an organization.
Training must focuses on strengths and weaknesses of the employee.
Utilization of Workforce
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Current workforce of Cocofina is less as compared to the demand of consumers (Case, 2017).
This affects the performance of employees and quality of products as well. Therefore, an
organization must focus on hiring more number of employees so that Cocofina meets the need of
customers on time.
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2.3 Suggest new areas in which the business could expand with reasonable justification
In the world of globalisation, it is important to expand the business into new areas. Therefore, it
is important to identify the new areas in which the business can grow and various steps must be
taken by the organization for the expansion of business. Below are some suggestions:
 Cocofina must focus on expanding the business by increasing the retail outlets
worldwide. Opening of retail stores will help to attract more number of customers (Saeidi
et.a.2015). This will also make aware the customers about its new products and services.
 Cocofina can also expand the business by adding more variety of products to its product
line. This can be done by observing the competitors product line which would help
Cocofina to gain competitive advantage. Maximizing the product portfolio helps to
maximise the interest of customers as well as business opportunities.
 New facilities such as online availability of products also help to increase the customer
base (Armstrong et.al.2015). Reducing the prices for the time being increases the sales of
an organization and attracts more number of customers because customers are more into
getting the quality of services at affordable prices.
 Feedbacks from customers and development of strategies according to those feedbacks
help in expanding the business of Cocofina. Cocofina must create a separate section on
its website so that customers can send their feedback without standing in a queue at retail
stores. Feedback forms are best option to facilitate the customers for putting the queries.
High level of customer service helps to expand the business.
 Sending of emails and newsletters more frequently helps customers to know about the
new products and services (Sahni et.al.2018). It helps to increase the interest of customers
and sales of the product increases. Therefore, Cocofina must implement various
promotional and communication techniques to make aware of its products to consumers.
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