Comprehensive Report: Small Business Management of Ella's Kitchen

This report examines the small business management practices of Ella's Kitchen, a UK-based organic baby food company. It begins with an introduction to the company, its operations, and its classification as a small business based on employee count and revenue. The report then delves into the co...Read More

Small Business
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Why it is a Small Business.....................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
Financial Planning..................................................................................................................2
Marketing of small business...................................................................................................4
Growth Strategies:..................................................................................................................6
RECOMENDATIONS....................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Managing of business is very important as it help companies to see the proper utilization
of its resources and increase its efficiency (Alford and Page, 2015). In small businesses it plays a
very important role as it gives a complete overview of business and how it should be managed in
order to a gain competitive advantage over its competitors. To understand the concept of
business management a small business Ella's Kitchen is used. It is a UK based Company
headquarter in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom founded by Paul Lindley,
deals in toddler and organic baby food. They sell their products through various channels which
include company's website, their products are sold in international supermarkets in UK, china,
Norway, Finland, Norway and many other countries. This report contains a detailed information
about the portfolio of a company and how a company uses various management techniques to
manage their business.
TASK 1
Why it is a Small Business
Small Business: A small business is a business which is operated and owned privately, it
has a few employees with a less annual turnover (Arend 2013). Business are defined as small
business if it follows a given guidelines of a country's government. Different countries have
different guidelines fro this purpose, whereas in UK if a company has less 250 employees it will
be covered under a small business and in terms of annual turnover if a company has an annual
turnover of less than 10 Billion in an financial year is considered as a small business.
Overview of Company
Ella's kitchen is a UK based organic and toddler food manufactures for babies. It was
founded by Paul Lindley in 2006 headquartered in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, United
Kingdom. Currently company has its presence in sixteen countries, they deal in Organic baby
and toddler food and at present it employs around 62 employees qualifying it as a small business.
In term of revenue generation company current revenue generation is reordered at 51.2 million
which qualifies it as a small business in terms of both revenue generation and total employment
generation. Company's mission statement says that they want to build up a healthy relationship
between children and foods. It is a various product line providing product for the small children
of age group of 4 months to 3+ years. It currently provide 216 products which is suitable for
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babies lying in that age group, including toddler and baby foods, snacks and many more other
products. Ella's kitchen was first brand which introduced a new concept of pouches in baby
foods market. The products which are produced by them does not contain any added sugar, salt
or water. They even does not add any additives, GM products or E numbers in their product, they
focus only on organic food which is good and healthy for babies. They also started a new
initiative of recycling the used pouches of baby foods for which they set up pouch collection
points in public areas including shops and nurseries, where consumers can drop their used
pouches. To support their initiative they launched a program named as EllaCycle pouch
recycling program. The main objective of this program was to teach parents that how they can
recycle and reuse different products offered by Ella's kitchen.
TASK 2
Company Portfolio: Company portfolio is a detailed information of a business's goal
which includes the information regarding Company's current and previous years details such as
location of business, number of employees, company's awards and achievements which they
won after its establishment (Bajo and et.al., 2012). It also includes company's affiliation with the
industry organisations. It show a detailed information of projects which are successfully
completed by company.
Ella's Kitchen's Portfolio: Ella's kitchen is a organic baby and toddler foods producer
established in United Kingdom in 2006 by Paul Lindley. A chartered accountant and former
employer of KPMG a big four audit firms. Headquarter of Ella's Kitchen is situated in Henley-
on-Thames, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. Before starting its own company Paul was working
with Nickelodeon for 9 years as deputy managing director. In 2013 February, founder and CEO
of company launched a campaign which focused on the childhood nutrition named as Adverting
A Recipe For Disaster. Later in 2015 it went into partnership with leading children's charity Save
the Children to sell a limited edition pouch names as Jingle Belly Christmas Dinner pouch, and
30p from every sale was donated to a program known as Save the Children's FAST (Families
and Schools Together). The portfolio also contains the following topics:
Financial Planning
It is a process which is used by company's managers to determine an estimate
requirement of capital and its competition. This process involves in the formulating of financial
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policies which are related to the investment, administration and procurement of fund for an
organisation to increase its efficiency in order to achieve its organisational goal (Blackburn, Hart
and Wainwright, 2013). The main objective which is related to financial planing is to determine
the capital requirement, capital can be required for any purpose as it is very essential for any
business organisation. The requirement of capital can depend upon various factors such as cost
of fixed and current assets, expenses related to promotional activities of company and planning
for a long term and expansion of business to international market. Financial planing is also used
by management to frame their financial policies which can help it to increase its market share
and performance resulting in the improvement of its financial positions. Following are the
various objective and importance of financial planning which help companies to take necessary
decisions:
Objectives of financial planing:
 the main objective of financial planing is to insure that financial resources which are
scarce in nature are utilized to its maximum potential in a best manner possible and to
ensure this planing of financial resources is very important (Burns and Dewhurst, 2016).
 Second main objective of financial planing is to determine a capital structure required by
a company in the composition of its capital which includes relative proportion and kind
of capital which is required by a business. It also includes the necessary decisions
regarding debt equity ratio in both long term and short term.
 One of the objective of this is forming a polices which are directly related to the
financial problems of a business which includes cash control, borrowing, lending etc.
Importance of Financial Planing:
 It is important for a business to plan for its finance in order to ensure that company have
adequate funds in their reserves for some difficult situation which is foreseen in a near
future.
 It helps the mangers to keep a reasonable balance of inflows and outflow of funds from a
company to maintain a balance between them so that company does not face a shortage
of funds. As it gives a clear picture of the sources through which a company can raise
finances and areas where company will loose is funds.
 It also ensure that supplier of fund such as share holders, debenture holders are easily
investing in company's operations that can help exercise in financial planing.
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 Financial planing help managers to develop plan and policies which will be beneficial for
a company's growth and expansion program in order to survive in long run (Dahmen and
Rodríguez, 2014).
As in the above given Company Ella's Kitchen also uses the method of financial planing
in order to achieve and capture market by analysing the utilization of funds and sources which
can help it to raise its funds and increase the efficiency of its business operations. With the help
of financial planing company make an estimate for its capital requirements which involved in the
procurement of new plant for a technology for launching its new plan the reuse and recycle of
pouches of baby products.
Marketing of small business
Marketing refers to a activities which is initiated by a company to promote selling or
buying of a service or product. It includes various activities such as selling, advertising and
delivering of a product to other businesses or customers in order to improve the market growth
and performance of a company (Goss, 2015). Marketing is similar to subject area which involves
various other functions and actions which a company undertake to attract more customer to use
their products and maintain relationship with all those customers. It is very important for any
business to focus its resources on marketing and especially for a small business as it will help
companies to grow and achieve maximum share in market. There are mainly two types of
marketing technique traditional marketing and digital marketing and in order to market business
companies uses various strategies in these types of marketing techniques as follows:
Traditional Marketing: Traditional Marketing which is also known as old media and is
used by companies for mass communication, marketing and advertising (Hess and Cottrell Jr,
2016). This technique of marketing was used before the era of digitalisation, this technique
includes various methods of marketing such as print advertisement which includes billboards,
flyers, newsletters and newspaper print ads. Various strategies which are commonly used by
business in traditional marketing are as follows:
 Conduct market research: Market research is considered as a key part for developing a
strategy to market their product and services. It includes collection of information which
provides a insight of the target customers thinking, location and buying pattern. It can
also help managers to assist them in undertaking an initial sales forecast, and monitor
their market trends.
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 Identify your unique selling preposition: A unique selling preposition is a unique feature
in company's product or services which attracts customer to use its product or services
(Sampaio, Thomas and Font, 2012). It a unique reason due to which customers buy
product from the company who is providing that uniqueness in heir product rather than
buying same goods with out a unique feature from its competitors.
 Develop your business brand: a business regardless to its size whether small or big
require a brand in order to get the recognition in the minds of their customers. A brand is
a not just a logo, tag line or colour it is more than these thing it is a well articulated brand
that emotionally connects the target customers to company an tell them that what they are
and what do they stand for and what can be deliver.
Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is a process of marketing techniques which uses
internet, mobile devices, search engines, social media and various other channels in order to
increase its reach to the customers (Shaw, 2014). It is considered as a subset of traditional
marketing which goes beyond Short Message Services (SMS), Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) Simple Notification Service (SNS), interactive or electronic billboards and various other
online ads in order to promote their products or services. There are various strategies which are
used by companies for advertisements:
 Email Marketing: Email marketing is considered as a effective way in which companies
try to interact with customers. The one of the most common type of email marketing is a
electronic new letter, it also includes sending emails to targeted customer about various
product and offers in order to keep them engaged with company's business. Generally
email marketing requires a data base of the customers email addresses. It is very
important for a company while collecting information and addresses form its potential
customers and existing customers that they agree to the terms and conditions of a
company to send them various promotional emails and emails related to product.
 Social Media Marketing: It is a techniques involved in a digital marketing process which
gives an access to companies to directly contact their potential and existing customers.
These social media marketing techniques has helped both customers and companies to
reach to its target customers there are many social media platforms through which a
company can advertise their products and services by posting their photos, videos, images
and many other things. This also helps companies to directly get feedback for their
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product or services as customers post their reviews and suggestions on companies social
media pages.
As in Ella's Kitchen they uses both traditional and digital marketing techniques in order
to increase their market share. They used traditional methods to start an initiative of reusing and
recycling used dinner pouches. In addition during Christmas time they launched a limited edition
Jingle Belly Christmas Dinner pouches and contributed some amount of profit to a charitable
trust. To increase the sale they used various visual ads posting them to its social media channels
in order to create an awareness of a new initiative.
Growth Strategies:
A growth strategy is a plan which is planned under the guidance of management in order
to advance and increase the reach of its product in various other markets and increase company's
revenue and market position (Storey, 2016). As companies grow in a dynamic environment the
risk also follows them, a growth strategy is used to plan a specific and accurate strategies in
order to overcome those risk and convert those risk into opportunities and take maximum benefit
out of it. In order to grow companies uses various types and techniques as discussed below:
 Monitoring and reviewing : Is considered as one of the most important part for a
company to regularly monitor and review their marketing strategies and activities which
help managers of a company to determine that are they able to achieve their desired
outcomes which includes enhancements of sales resulting in the growth of a company
and improving its financial position and statements. Monitoring activities usually
includes reviewing of company's sale s figure on a regular basis or to monitor customers
activity during companies advertisement campaigns and compare it with the previous
campaigns to analyse the growth of a company.
 Search Engine Optimisation: Search engine optimisation is a process which help
companies to get their webpage listed on the first page of various major search engines
such as google, Yahoo!, and bing. The main objective of search engine is to provide
relevant information which is asked by a person by ranking most trusted, fictional,
informative and useable sites on the first page. It is critical for a company's online success
and it is need to be planned. It involves on page and off page optimisation techniques as
well as in finding a perfect key word for the company's website content.
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 Market penetration strategy: Small companies usually uses this type of strategy when
they decide to market their products which are already existing in a market (Yee-Loong
Chong and et.al., 2014.). They uses this type of strategy to grow using existing product in
a existing market to increase the market share of their company.
 Acquisition of Other Companies: in order to grow the reach of its products and services
to new market companies uses a strategy of acquiring other companies. Generally small
businesses uses this strategy of acquiring other companies to improve and increase its
production and reduce the cost of production, it also uses this strategy to enter into new
market.
RECOMENDATIONS
From the analysis of above given information about Ella's Kitchen it can be
recommended that in order to improve its competitiveness it should focus more on its target
customer. In case of this company its target customers are young age mothers as they deal in
baby and toddler foods made with organic raw material giving it a high nutritional value in
childhood foods. Company should target their social media advertisements techniques to engage
more customers and take the competitive advantages over other. It should also think about
expanding its business to new and international market which will increase in the sales of
company's product giving it a competitive edge over its competitors. Company should take it
business to international level and expand globally as they are into production of organic baby
foods and this is essential for every parents to think for their children, in order to do so company
should move up their value chain and implement new and a smart supply chain management
system in their organisation and they should also think about a globally competitive value
preposition and exploit the market for as long as they can. To improve it financial health the
company should expand its business and in order to expand it need funds which can be raised
through various sources such as raising equity share capital, debenture and they also raise funds
through short term bank loan and private financial institution.
CONCLUSION
From the above file it can be concluded that management is a important part for any
business. In small business,management gives a overview of complete business. This report
contains he business portfolio and other ways through which a company can improve its
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competitiveness. This report tells the importance of financial planing and how it can help
companies to improve its position it also contains the analysis of various growth strategies and
how they help in increase in companies competitiveness. This report also focuses on various
marketing techniques generally used by companies to gain its market share and expand its
business.
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REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Alford, P. and Page, S. J., 2015. Marketing technology for adoption by small business. The
Service Industries Journal. 35(11-12). pp.655-669.
Arend, R. J., 2013. Ethics-focused dynamic capabilities: a small business perspective. Small
Business Economics. 41(1). pp.1-24.
Bajo, J., and et.al., 2012. A multi-agent system for web-based risk management in small and
medium business. Expert Systems with Applications. 39(8). pp.6921-6931.
Blackburn, R. A., Hart, M. and Wainwright, T., 2013. Small business performance: business,
strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise
development. 20(1). pp.8-27.
Burns, P. and Dewhurst, J. eds., 2016. Small business and entrepreneurship. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Dahmen, P. and Rodríguez, E., 2014. Financial literacy and the success of small businesses: An
observation from a small business development center. Numeracy. 7(1). p.3.
Goss, D., 2015. Small Business and Society (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.
Hess, M. F. and Cottrell Jr, J. H., 2016. Fraud risk management: A small business
perspective. Business Horizons. 59(1). pp.13-18.
Sampaio, A. R., Thomas, R. and Font, X., 2012. Small business management and environmental
engagement. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 20(2). pp.179-193.
Shaw, G., 2014. Entrepreneurial cultures and small business enterprises in tourism. The Wiley
Blackwell companion to tourism. pp.120-131.
Storey, D. J., 2016. Understanding the small business sector. Routledge.
Yee-Loong Chong, A., and et.al., 2014. Can e-business adoption be influenced by knowledge
management? An empirical analysis of Malaysian SMEs. Journal of Knowledge
Management. 18(1). pp.121-136.
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