Hunter Adams: Small Business Enterprise Report and Strategic Plan

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Hunter Adams, a UK-based consultancy firm specializing in human resource and management services. The report begins with an overview of Hunter Adams, highlighting its strengths such as a strong client base and specialization in HR services, while also identifying weaknesses like limited financial resources and lack of IT sector expertise. It then evaluates Hunter Adams' performance using comparative measures against a competitor, Austin Fraser, focusing on financial and non-financial aspects. The report further explores strategies to overcome weaknesses, maintain existing performance levels, and expand the business, including the application of Ansoff's Matrix. The current business objectives and plans are assessed, along with revisions to the business plan and an action plan for implementing changes. Finally, the report considers the impacts of proposed changes on the business and its employees, planning for change management and monitoring business performance improvements.

Small Business Enterprise

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Overview of Hunter Adams and its strengths and weaknesses.............................................1
1.2 Evaluation of the Hunter Adams using comparative measures of performance...................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Appropriate processes to overcome the weaknesses of Hunter Adams................................4
2.2 Ways in which the existing performance can be maintained................................................5
2.3 Areas in which Hunter Adams can expand their business....................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
3.1 Assessment of current business objectives and plans...........................................................6
3.2 Revision of business plan to bring appropriate changes.......................................................7
3.3 Action plan to implement the changes..................................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
4.1 Impacts of proposed changes on business and its employees...............................................1
4.2 Planning how changes will be managed in the business.......................................................1
4.3 Monitoring of the improvement in the performance of the business....................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERNECES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Small Business enterprises are considered as the backbone of any economy because it
gives freedom to entrepreneur to implement his ideas and innovation in a business. Small scale
business employs a small number of workers and does not have a high volume of sales.
Generally these start-ups are privately owned and operated sole proprietorships, corporations or
partnerships (Bridge and O'Neill, 2012). The definition of small businesses may vary according
to the industry and country because everywhere there is different conditions. In UK there exists
lots of these companies and plays a crucial role in providing employment to the citizens of the
country. This all report is all about small enterprises and its various aspects in the economy of
UK. To better understand this sector we will be considering a consultancy firm “Hunter Adams”
which is a small enterprise.
TASK 1
1.1 Overview of Hunter Adams and its strengths and weaknesses.
Small businesses are economy booster for an nation because in a open economy people
are free to execute their uniqueness in the form of a business. It does not require much
investment and labour so the risk involved is minimum which brings benefits to the people.
According to the report of British parliament there are approx. 5.5 million business in UK and
out of which 99 percent are small and medium sized businesses (Monk and Wagner, 2012).
Business births are more than business deaths in this sector so through this we could get an idea
how it is impacting the country.
Hunter Adams Limited is a consultancy firm operating its business in England. It was
started in year 2011 by Dean Hunter who is currently the Director of the company. They are
focused on human resource and management consultancy to various organisations from different
fields (Acevedo and Tan 2011). With the revenue of £400,000 in their first 100 days made him
one of top successful small scale enterprises. They don't have much employees and has been
restricted to just 8 people.
Strengths of Hunter Adams:
 Clients number up to 300 in various sectors;
 Most of their clients are energy, marine and other professional related companies;
 Gives various services which are concerned with Human Resources;
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 Specialization in integration and hiring of the staff for the clients;
 All the services are focused on various needs of clients;
 Believes in customer satisfaction;
 Brings a layout plan after analysing the demands and requirements;
 In less period of time they have successful in expanding their business;
 Four offices in North, Mid and South UK;
 Strong customer relationship;
 Not only restricted to some services but also gives training, organise events and
workshops.
Weaknesses:
 Organisations are creating a new HR department in their industry;
 It does not deliver its services to IT companies;
 Less knowledge on some sector;
 Limited financial resources;
 Less number of employees.
1.2 Evaluation of the Hunter Adams using comparative measures of performance.
Performance management process is the best way to analyse the status of the company
and in this a comparison is made between the competitors who is trading in the same field. There
can be two types of performance evaluation i.e., financial and non financial. In the financial
quantity and numbers are considered whereas in other quality is graded. There will be
comparison with Austin Fraser, which is also a consultancy firm (Burns, 2010). When
considering the financial report of both the we get a clear picture that who is leading in the
market. There can be analysis of two years i.e., 2015 and 2016. Hunter Adams saw a rise of 16%
in the fixed asset from 2015 but at the end of 2016 it had £1.2m. Austin Fraser is leading with £6
million and had net worth of £574k in 2016. Hunter Adams net worth was £792k with due to
increase of 0.7% from the past year (Malhotra and Temponi, 2010). When talking about the
liabilities of the companies Austin Fraser had £6 million and with increase of 36% Hunter
Adams liabilities went up to to £439 k. Hunter Adams saw increase of 3.9% in turnover in 2016
and currently Hunter Adams has 5.5 million turnover. Employees number of Hunter Adams are
less than Austin Fraser. Both the companies are traded according type the sizes and availability
of the resources to them.
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When compared on the basis of non financial resources their can be analyses on quality
of the services offered by them and the satisfaction level of the clients. Hunter Adams has more
than 300 clients which shows that in the short span of time how much the company has grown.
All the clients are happy from their services as they outline HR strategy for them so that right
candidates cam be hired (Altman, Sabato and Wilson, 2010). They make sure that all the demand
of the clients are met and when compared to its competitor it sets new bench mark. It has
specialisation in HR and if any company wants services related to it they will prefer Hunter
Adams. But they are unable to deliver their service to the IT companies as they don't have much
knowledge about it. If they want to know that how they are performing in the market a client
feedback can be taken which will give them better insight about their status.
TASK 2
2.1 Appropriate processes to overcome the weaknesses of Hunter Adams.
It is not necessary that any weaknesses posses by the company cannot be improved but if
they take certain actions things will be far more better and will yield better results. This does not
mean that the current weaknesses should be overlooked because it could lead them to trouble if
ignored or that problem last longer. It is observed that the small business does not lasts longer
because they are not managed properly or due to some affecting factors if shuts down. The
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weaknesses of the Hunter Adam is that they don't gives their services to the organisation who are
related to IT. The reason behind this is that they don't have much knowledge about this sector
and what kind of employees should be recruited for them. This thing is affecting their market and
if focused they can get lot of clients because in UK there exists lots of IT firms. They need that
they hire some experts who are well about this sector and can work for them to admit IT
employees for the clients (Jones and Iredale, 2010). A market research should be done so that
they can get an idea about the sector where they can start their services.
2.2 Ways in which the existing performance can be maintained.
Through the data released by the parliament of UK it gives insight that human resource
consulting firms contribute 10% in the total business of consulting companies. So it can be seen
that there are lot of growth opportunities in this sector. Hunter Adams has made its mark in the
human resource consultancy field and has set a future strategy so that they can growth in the
newer markets (Brinckmann, Grichnik and Kapsa, 2010). To compete with the competitors it is
necessary that they should bring new strategy and modify the current one because with business
environment changes regularly. They will be expanding their business in the foreign nations and
will give services according to the demand of the clients of those areas. They can update their
working style, culture, employment benefits, policies and motivation of the employees. Hunter
Adams needs to make sure that all the demand of the clients are met and in the end customers
becomes satisfied.
2.3 Areas in which Hunter Adams can expand their business.
Every small scale enterprise aims at expanding their business at higher level. For that it
takes time and it is necessary that a constant growth is maintained. Hunter Adams gives it
services in HR consultancy but now they have to improve their performance and expand their
business into new sector. They know what strategy have to adopt in order to strategy the clients.
To grow the market they can adopt various strategies but they have to analyse their market and
need to understand the strategy which will be useful for them (Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart,
2010). They can adopt Ansoff's Matrix and Inorganic growth strategy. Ansoff Matrix is a
planning technique which assistant executives, senior managers and marketers so that they can
growth the organisation they are working in. This growth strategies revolves around product and
its market. According to this model there can be four growth strategies i.e., market penetration,
market development, product development and diversification.
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 Market penetration: Through this Hunter Adams will try to expand their business using
current products and services and they will increase the market share. They will try to
improve and expand their market in whatever they are doing. Like if they are giving their
services in HR consultancy so they will increase their market share in current scenario
(.McGrath, 2010). Hunter Adams will try to attract to clients who are looking for the HR
consultancy and for that they discounts to the clients who are coming second time with
them. They can also undertake the activity of acquisition of their rival who are trading in
the same market.
 Market Development: In this they will try to expand their market in new geographical
areas and countries. Currently, they are just restricted to UK but now they know that they
are settled well and can grow their business (Fayolle and Liñán, 2014). For this they
could conduct market research and can expand their services in countries near Britain.
TASK 3
3.1 Assessment of current business objectives and plans.
They have a business plan and according to it they produce targets and strategies.
Business plan is a document which briefs various aspects of business. It includes objectives,
strategies, sales, marketing and financial estimation. Through this all the important tasks can be
identified. If the business plan will be unique and dynamic the firm will experience better results.
Currently, Hunter Adams business is focused to HR consultancy only and the business concept
focuses on clients satisfaction (DaSilva and Trkman, 2014). They are just emphasizing on UK
market and generally the small scale companies. Through the concept of minimum intake of the
employees and maximum output from them they believes in reducing the cost of their operations.
With the specific goals and objectives they will be clear that what they want to achieve in the
future or from the current business plan. Hunter Adams wants to serve the companies who are
small enterprise. With the help of SMART objectives they can gain competitive advantage.
Hunter Adams are just focusing on specific goals and wants to serve to the companies who wants
consultancy on HR related services (Belleflamme, Lambert and Schwienbacher, 2014). They will
try to measure the current progress through analysing the new clients which came in this
financial year. To make sure that the current clients are happy from the services Hunter Adams
will ask them for referrals by developing a social media campaign. This will come in attainable.
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They will try to add new clients to the business and this will expand the business and will
increase the revenue of Hunter Adams. All the operations should be completed in time and for
that time should be decided. They should decide till what timings they will complete the
recruiting process for their clients.
3.2 Revision of business plan to bring appropriate changes.
What changes has to be done and at what time modification has to be done because no
one knows the how the business environment will perform to the changes. All the changes
should be based on the research and through a survey they can find out what areas are lagging
behind (Botha and Robertson, 2014). They can also take help from the clients to whom they have
served in past because they will give them better insight. What changes the clients has
experienced after taking their services. They should improve their weakness because this will
develop a better image in the mind of clients. They will try to expand their business in various of
IT and will assist IT companies in recruiting and training new employees (Stark, 2015). They
will invest in the new countries and try to put more money in the advertising and promotion
activities.
3.3 Action plan to implement the changes.
In the first objective they have to expand into new areas like IT and other includes putting
more money into the promotional and advertisement area for the company.
Actions Priority Benefits Materials Timescale Responsib
ility
Success
Factors
Monitor
Strategy
Do market
research
and recruit
IT experts
Important Will bring
more
clients
from the
IT sector
Money,
research
and
One
month
Human
resource
and R&D
departmen
t
Proper
study and
Trends in
IT sector.
Through
brining the
IT
profession
als how
much the
plan was
successful.
Giving
more Ads
Urgent More
companies
Money,
Media and
1 Month Marketing
and PR
Better
understand
Through
social
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in media
and
organising
corporate
campaigns
will get to
know
about
Hunter
Adams
which will
bring new
customers
in the
existing
business.
PR. team ing of the
media that
which
media
platform
will be
appropriat
e for the
advertisem
ent.
media and
TRP they
can know
the
effectiven
ess of the
action.
TASK 4
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4.1 Impacts of proposed changes on business and its employees If Hunter Adams
introduces new changes in the company then it influences the business activities and
resources. There are various resources which are affected by proposed changes which are
given below-
 Human resource- If organisation will adopt new changes then some employees resist
to adopt it because they only want to work in their comfort zone (Rosemann and vom
Brocke, 2015). If this modification comes into picture then it increases employee
turnover which reduces capability of company. So for introducing changes
successfully, manager should provide training to the workers so that they can easily
adopt it.
 Organisational capability- If proposed changes are unique in nature and has ability to
attain desired result then it increases the capability of organisation because by
introducing these modifications, company will be able to achieve its desired result or
outcome.
 Financial resources- For introducing new changes, Hunter adams will require some
amount so that it can carry out its activities in an effective and efficient manner. So
organisation should have proper amount of financial resources so that changes can be
launched successfully.
 Technological sources- This factor is more important aspect because without having
latest technology, company will not be able to attain its desired result. If organisation
wants to propose changes at work place then it should also adopt latest technology so
that modification can be done with out any interruption or disturbance and it will get
success in the market.
4.2 Planning how changes will be managed in the business.
There are certain changes which are proposed by company management as achieve a higher
level of growth in future. They need to manage it in a proper manner and ensure that changes
are adopted as well as integrated in the core business process (Teece, 2010). Basically, change
management refers to the collective term that used for various approaches that are employed
for preparing and supporting people, teams and whole company as to adopt change and
integrate them in business process.

All the proposed changes will be managed with the aid of Kotter 8 step change model that
states about how change can be properly adopted and integrated in business process.
Company is currently proposing two changes which are to diversify into IT sector and
Investing into promotional activities. The steps are:
 Create Urgency: There is need to develop a urgency within organisation so that all the
task can be prioritised and completed as per their priority.
 Form a powerful coalition: The managers will make teams as to ensure that proposed
changes are properly implemented with organisation.
 Create a vision for change: Top management has to showcase various benefits of the
change that has been proposed It will assist lower level employees in getting motivated
towards achievement of goals and objectives.
 Communicate the vision: All the plans and strategies will be communicated with the
vision, which will state about, why change is being adopted and what will be achieved.
 Remove obstacles: All the hurdles will be removed as per their occurrence.
 Create short term wins: Making short term objectives will assist in measurement and
boost employee morale.
 build on the changes: The achievement will used as a way to integrate changes in
system.
 Anchor the changes in corporate culture: All the changes will be adopted into the
organisation culture.
4.3 Monitoring of the improvement in the performance of the business.
Performance of the company has shown a increase through these changes. But to what extent
things has changed and this can be observed through Balance Score model. This is a strategy
which is used to measure the performance. This is a management tool which is a semi
structured report. It emphases on the strategies of the company and after that there is selection
of the small number of data to monitor. These data can be financial as well as non financial.
They will look at the finance, processes and customers. It is seen that the company has
experienced a growth of 12% percent in their market share and through the expansion in the
IT sector they have received a request from the clients which are from the IT sector. They are
ready with the new policies and has recruited more staff (McKenzie, 2015). To make sure that
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