Report: Leading and Managing a Team for an Apparel Brand

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This report examines the leadership and management of a team within an Australian apparel brand, focusing on strategies to adapt to market challenges and leverage e-commerce opportunities. The report details the company's value proposition, target market, and steps for developing an e-commerce venture, including market research, competitor analysis, and the importance of branding. It further discusses team meetings, achieved and unachieved goals, and addresses issues like employee motivation. The report provides insights into various departments, consultation processes, and the benefits of an e-commerce presence, along with an analysis of performance plans and challenges related to social media influencers and supplier management. The analysis also includes recommendations for improvement and addresses the significance of continuous improvement within the organization.
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RUNNING HEAD: LEADING AND MANAGING A TEAM OF AN APPAREL BRAND.
Leading and Managing a Team

Name of the Student

Name of the University

Author Note
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1Leading and Managing a Team
Table of Contents

Introduction
................................................................................................................................ 3
Discussion
.................................................................................................................................. 3
Value Proposition
...................................................................................................................3
Target Market
.........................................................................................................................4
Gathering necessary information
........................................................................................... 5
Consultation and Networking
................................................................................................6
Steps to develop an E-Commerce venture
............................................................................. 7
Determining the benefit of Apparel Brands
...........................................................................7
Assessment 2
.............................................................................................................................. 9
Preparing a Team Meeting
..................................................................................................... 9
Achieved Team Goals
........................................................................................................ 9
Unachieved Team Goals
....................................................................................................9
Participating in the team meeting
.........................................................................................11
Assessment 3
............................................................................................................................ 12
Meeting with the assessor
.................................................................................................... 12
Report to the manager
..........................................................................................................12
Conclusion
................................................................................................................................14
References
................................................................................................................................ 15
Appendix 1:
.............................................................................................................................. 16
Performance Plan
.............................................................................................................16
Appendix 2:
.............................................................................................................................. 17
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2Leading and Managing a Team
Third Party Report
............................................................................................................17
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3Leading and Managing a Team
Introduction

In 1901, Apparel Brands was born in Australia. It is a distributor and manufacturer of

generic footwear and clothing based in Australia. They receive orders from the retailers and

supplies them clothing products that have already been manufactured by specification of the

retailers. These products of clothing are then sold in the market to customers, under various

brands of the retailers. Recently, it has been found that Apparel Brands has found shares of its

market going in decline for a strong Australian dollar because of increasing competitions

overseas. Additionally, cost of labors are eating the profit margins as well. The trends going

inside textile industry of Australia suggest that the company might have a strong position as of

now financially but here is a probability that it might struggle in making profits in the coming

two years. To make sure that scenario does not occur, Apparel Brands have come up with two

new strategies that says: Developing their own brand and range of products for selling it

directly to the customers and leveraging opportunities of e-commerce in order to decrease

distribution of costs and increase margins of profit. The vision of this company in next five

years is to establish an exciting and innovative range of a clothing brand online and contribute

in securing a future for the manufacturing of Australian clothing.

Discussion

Value Proposition

Establishment of the considered brand here produces custom made t-shirts that are

unisex. This new range of clothing give a privilege to its customers for selecting designs on

which they can get custom made prints on their t-shirts in various forms of prints that are

available. There are mainly three types t-shirt prints that are available widely into the market

(Haider et al,2019). They are:

Direct-to-Garment Printing,
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4Leading and Managing a Team
Dye-Sublimation Printing, and
Silk-Screen Printing.
These various kinds of t-shirt prints are highly dependent upon the type of fabric and textures of

the t-shirts with various advantages and disadvantages based on typology of the fabric.

Source: http.saltycustoms.com

Target Market

Target market for this venture is the University and School going youth. Amongst the

different sort of apparels, the most comfortable ones are the t-shirts and it can be worn

frequently and regularly. University goers and School goers use this as a daily basis. Therefore,

the more number of consumers, better it is for the company. The added special feature of

allowing customers to send in their individual custom made designs makes it more stand out.

This featured can be availed by any customer for few extra dollars (Thao & Duong, 2019).

Along with custom made t-shirts, the brand hosts handcrafted and custom made stationaries

such as note books, pens, cotton bags, pencils, jute bags, wallets, flip flops, scarves, stylish
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5Leading and Managing a Team
pouches for hard drives, camera bags, stationary pouches and so on. Printing designs of similar

kind for men and women will decrease the cost of printing when done in a larger scale that

increases the profit margin.

Source:
http.saltycustoms.com
Gathering necessary information

The root for setting up a business is knowing the market thoroughly. Therefore, the research

for market includes some strategies:

Identifying similar emerging e-commerce brands that are potential rivals.
Seizing opportunities to merge with bigger platforms is a chance that should be
considered eventually.

Deriving data or statistical records from market and observing the trends of business
trends keeping beside the presences of consumers.

Availability of help in promoting it specifically and locally, among the circle of target
audience.
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6Leading and Managing a Team
Directly connecting with the buyers on social media platforms and websites for taking
their feedbacks that can be adapted further in the production chain and supply of

business.

Allowing some promotional offers in a positive way along with discounts to lure and
gain customers. This allow to build loyalty and trust for the longer run.

Consultation and Networking

There are various types of department in a business that deals with clothing. They are:

Marketing and Brand Management.
Internet Marketing Coordinator.
E-Commerce Catalog Manager.
Brand Manager.
Big Data Analyst.
E-Commerce Analyst Specialist.
Community Manager.
Digital Media Planner.
The best department to consult for getting proper expertise in this will be Marketing and Brand

Management and E-Commerce Analyst. The marketing department researches and gets know

who the potential audience are and what do they demand so that the company can meet them.

As this is an online business, analyzing the e-commerce market is major factor here because the

people of this department will be able to give out information based on which suitable measures

can be taken.
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7Leading and Managing a Team
Steps to develop an E-Commerce venture

Any e-commerce business should undergo some major steps to set up their brand and

promote it in the market. They are:

Creating a digital Strategy.
Making a brand logo that can be identified easily among the target customer’s group.
Developing some business pages on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and so on for
displaying their products.

Creating a particular web page for grouping various products in different categories and
organize them in a fashion that the customers feel easy to find.

A page shall be their which describes the brand value.
A blog where the company values and products are discussed.
Establishing search engine presence.
Collaborating with notable events (Mao, Cao &Wu, 2018).
Determining the benefit of Apparel Brands

Brands that focus on having an e-commerce presence, tend to have more growth

opportunities in today’s date where everything is shifting to digital platform. Constructive

branding succor in gaining more consumers. It also helps in building up a relationship with

them. Some of the benefits determined for apparel brand are as follows:

Better prices can be introduced so that the customers find it easier to differentiate
among the other prices easily.

The customers are spoiled with more variety in choices.
Convenience is to be considered. The customers find it comfortable to shop from their
homes.
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8Leading and Managing a Team
No crowds are faced by the customers especially during the time of special occasions.
This makes it lot easier to shop. There is also no rush in an e-commerce platform.

Having a store online makes it easier for both the customers and suppliers to conduct
what they want.

Allowing to be open 24 hours.
Things that are done digitally helps in expanding of a business more in lesser time. The

reduction of cost is checked by reducing the number of workers and implementing the cost

in every areas very strategically. That includes training the labor in a way they can produce

more than what they do in general, producing the raw materials themselves if possible,

dividing the labors in a way they can do varied sort of tasks, and so on. It is time consuming

and difficult to get orders in a manual way (Loertscher & Riordan, 2019). The increased

productivity in an e-commerce makes it possible to take orders digitally and process it

digitally as well. Also, there is track kept side by side with the logistics department. This

makes the management easier and efficient. The customers get the current status of the

order until it gets shipped and the internal management get updated too alongside. In an e-

commerce business, the cost is regulated by finding how much demand is created in the

market for its product. More a demand, more the supply. It is actually the demand that

decides the price of products and regulation of internal cost of an organization as well. The

reduction of cost can be manageable depending on the product range and sales (Tronarp, et

al, 2018).
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9Leading and Managing a Team
Assessment 2

Preparing a Team Meeting

Achieved Team Goals

The labors have gone through a special training process where they learnt how to be
more productive.

Each department have shown more productivity than the previous month. All of them
have shown immense dedication towards work.

Reduction of ongoing business expenses.
Increase of traffic on blogs and websites.
Introducing new products such as handcrafted stationary and stylish accessories.
Starting of using social media marketing.
Improving the financial health of organization.
Going paperless as much as possible by the organization.
Introducing a facility where order updates are kept on track with the logistics. The
customers and internal management gets it alongside (Mir, Tunio & Husnain, 2017).

Unachieved Team Goals

Opening a second manufacturing location.
Lack of employee motivation during the peak seasons.
Reaching out to social media influencers.
Doing a proper SWOT analysis with the new policies to use it as a guideline.
Creating a new employee incentive program.
Scheduling breaks especially long vacation breaks for the employees.
Building a tighter work culture.
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One issue has been identified that have identified in the work place that has to be addressed.

The issue of lack of motivation in the employees have be observed quite frequently. It is found

especially after the implement of new policies. The concern here is if the employees do not feel

motivated or encouraged enough to work then the there is a chance that the company might face

a loss. The employees are the one who run the company in a sense that they produce the goods.

If they stop doing that the company shuts down the very next day. The lack of interest in

working will result in the production process. Even after introducing the training program for

them, it will be of no use if the employees do no work with motivation.

This issue has been addressed and some new measures are being introduced in order to motivate

the employee for working. A concept of ‘Fun Friday’ have been introduced where on each

Friday, a thirty minutes break will be provided to the entire office where games will be played.

During this time all the departments come together and participate in this. Games like passing

the ball, musical chairs, bursting the balloons, singing and so on have been introduced. It is

mandatory for every employee to participate. This will add up to a score and the department that

scores the most at the end of month, they get some special opportunities for a day like

complimentary offs, three short breaks or half days in a month instead of two and grace of

fifteen minutes if they are late to come (Aguenza & Som, 2013).

According to the performance plan, several actions have been divided amongst individuals in

every department who will carry the performance stated in the plan. Now, there are issues

founds in the activities of action plan that needs to be addressed immediately by the team

members and work on it so that it does not happen in future. It has been observed that reaching

out to social media influencers are getting hectic because not all of them agree to take the offers

and vouchers provided to them and ask more sum of money. Also, the famous bloggers and

bloggers demand the company to provide camera person. This can be resolved by negotiating

about the camera and rest the more amount of money can be considered but no vouchers will be
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11Leading and Managing a Team
provided for their personal use. Other issue is the cross checking and keeping a track with the

suppliers and manufacturers. Now, where there is a lack of motivation among the employees, it

is very expecting that they will either skip cross checking or not do that in a proper manner. For

resolving the issue related to new measures for employee motivations have been already

introduced. The concept of Fun Friday will make the employees have fun and keep them

motivated too in order to get the privileges they come with.

Participating in the team meeting

Whenever the organization conducts any meeting, it is mandatory for every department

to participate with all the team members present there. In the team meeting, achieved and

unachieved goals are discussed. The encountered issues of employee motivation is highlighted

and the resolution has been offered by introducing new measures in the company. Hopefully,

the concept of ‘Fun Friday’ will keep the employee engaged with the work culture and they will

produce better and effective outcomes. A feedback will also be given to individual employees

highlighting on which areas they have performed well and on which areas they have to improve.

A confession of team will also be asked where questions will be asked to fellow employees

about an individual and vice versa to highlight areas they need to improve (Lehmann-

Willenbrock et al, 2015).

After asking the questions and confessions it is important to provide the cures too. The first and

foremost thing to be done is sharing the organization’s vision with every employee. Issues of

communication, encouragement, conflict, decision-making by the employees, and

opportunities for individuals have been pointed out (Mason et al, 2018). To ensure all of it,

communication with the staffs individually can be done on a weekly basis per department wise.

This way all the departments get covered in a month. Conflicts between the employees are to be

resolved with prior warning and if that gets escalated then strict actions will be taken like

deduction in the salary. Decision-making of the employees comes with encouragement and if
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12Leading and Managing a Team
anything serious occurs then counselling will be provided. Any issues happening inside the

group to be solved then and there only. The goal of the groups are to prosper with time that

prospers the organization too in a broader way.

Assessment 3

Meeting with the assessor

Considering the performance plan in assessment 2, it has come to notice that the team

performance gets affected because of lack of motivation and intra conflicts among the team

members. Diversity in personal interest has resulted in clashing of opinions or rather

recommendations in the departments. The employees are also unable take the work load after

new policies have been introduced in the organization. Taking this into consideration some

solutions are introduced. A concept of ‘Fun Friday’ have been introduced in the company

where games will be arranged for the employees. The winning team at the end of the month

with get rewards consisting three leaves in a month instead of two and fifteen minutes grace in a

month if somebody is late. According to (Gerasimov & Gerasimov, 2015) this will encourage

the employee to get more dedicate towards the work. For resolving inner conflicts amongst the

employees, a warning will be given at first and then proper counselling will be provided. After

hearing this, the assessor suggests some more measures to resolve that includes producing a gift

as a token of appreciating per month as a best employee of the month award and holding an

office party twice a year after every six months.

Report to the manager

It is to bring in notice that after the discussions, a meeting was immediately conducted with the

team members to discuss the company policies for employee empowerment. If any coach or

team members need help then it will be provided by the higher management. Each points were

be addressed to the employees one by one and if anyone opposes then immediate measures will
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13Leading and Managing a Team
be taken to resolve that. After that, the employees agreed to the policies and whatever the

conflicts occurred, they were related to personal conflicts. That got addressed by a warning and

if in future further things arrive then again appropriate measures will be taken.

An open communication is maintained between the team members and manager by passing on

the information thoroughly in presence of every team members. It was instructed to the team

coaches for passing the information to the absentees. The meeting went on for one hour, every

distraction that occurs during work were addressed and measures were provided too for

eliminating it. Active listening and participation of every employee was noted too.

As per (Bakker, 2017) to build a cohesive behavior in the team, a mission was established at

first that made it very clear at the beginning why the meeting is being held. There was a search

for diversity in the team to form collaborative skills for better and advanced work. Basic

teamwork motivation was provided and it was made sure that every individual has utilized their

strength. Effective communication was ensured with providing feedbacks. Measures like office

party and employee of the month are introduced as well for celebrating success. For supporting

the team members and mentoring those clear goals have been devised and the management has

assured of any sort of help if needed. Framing feedbacks in a positive manner and emphasizing

on effort any day over ability. It also focused on listening more and understanding it with rather

than speaking. Modeling of good behavior is to be kept in check when strategizing a mentoring

a team. The word ‘good’ itself denotes value. Approaching any issue with a positive approach

results in resolving the issue quicker rather than whining about it. Taking risk when required

was initiated along with solving problems in a creative manner. Periodic conflicts are very

common in an organization and to resolve that warnings and counselling will be given. There

are few strategies coined for resolving a conflict. They are avoiding, competing,

accommodating, collaborating and compromising at last if nothing happens (Theiss

&Haverfield, 2016).
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14Leading and Managing a Team
Conclusion

Therefore, it is concluded from the above discussion that Apparel Brands are going to

introduce their e-commerce venture that sells custom made t-shirts. They also provide the

freedom of sending in their own designs to the consumers. The target market is basically the

school and university going students. T-shits are very comfortable garments and are worn by

people on a daily basis. The idea is to open an online shop for this venture because almost

majority of the world is shifting to the digital platform. Going online will help in sell and

expand more in shorter span of time comparatively. They are opening their own brand instead

of sending in their products to retailers. The company aims to expand its revenues in coming

five years and be secure as well because the increase competition overseas might affect their

business. In this above discussion a proper case study is provided along how the organization is

structuring itself for the same.
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15Leading and Managing a Team
References

Aguenza, B. B., & Som, A. P. M. (2018). Motivational factors of employee retention and engagement in

organizations.
IJAME.
Bakker, A. B. (2017). Strategic and proactive approaches to work engagement.
Organizational Dynamics, 46(2),
67-75.

Gerasimov, B. N., & Gerasimov, K. B. (2015). Modeling the development of organization management system.
A
sian Social Science
, 11(20), 82.
Haider, A. A., Zafar, A., Khalid, A., Majid, A., Abdullah, M. A., & Sarwar, M. B. (2019). Marketing Management.

Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Meinecke, A. L., Rowold, J., & Kauffeld, S. (2015). How transformational leadership

works during team interactions: A behavioral process analysis.
The Leadership Quarterly, 26(6), 1017-
1033.

Loertscher, S., & Riordan, M. H. (2019). Make and Buy: Outsourcing, Vertical Integration, and Cost

Reduction.
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 11(1), 105-23.
Mao, G., Cao, S., & Wu, Z. (2018). Research on E-commerce Entrepreneurship Environment in Wuhan.

Mason, T. H., Pollard, C. R., Chimalakonda, D., Guerrero, A. M., Kerr‐Smith, C., Milheiras, S. A., ... &

Bunnefeld, N. (2018). Wicked conflict: Using wicked problem thinking for holistic management of

conservation conflict.
Conservation letters, 11(6), e12460.
Mir, M. M., Tunio, M., & Husnain, F. (2017). To Evaluate the Important Factor for Achieving Team Effectiveness

in the Small Projects: An Analytical Hierarchical Process Approach.
KASBIT Business Journals (KBJ),
10
, 81-100.
Thao, N. X., & Duong, T. T. T. (2019). Selecting target market by similar measures in interval intuitionistic fuzzy

set.
Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 1-17.
Theiss, J. A., & Haverfield, M. C. (2016). Conflict Resolution.
Encyclopedia of Family Studies, 1-4.
Tronarp, R., Nyberg, A., Hedlund, M., Häger, C. K., McDonough, S., & Björklund, M. (2018). Office-cycling: a

promising way to raise pain thresholds and increase metabolism with minimal compromising of work

performance.
BioMed research international, 2018.
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16Leading and Managing a Team
Appendix 1:

Performance Plan

Action 1
Action 2 Action 3
Description
Cross checking with
suppliers and

manufacturers.

Active participation

in social media and

branding.

Doing

endorsements with

influencers and

bloggers.

Dependencies
In- house
manufacturers.

Platforms like

Instagram, Facebook

and so on.

Social media

influencers.

Timeline
Office hours. Peak hours where
there is most

engagement in social

media.

2-3 days.

Responsibility
Checking with the
manufacturers and

keeping a note on

what is happening.

Going live and at

least posting twice

daily.

Asking them to

promote in their

social media.

Resources
Manufacturing the
raw materials

Internet
Social media
handles of the

influencers.

Review dates
Starting from 1st
August.

Starting from 1
st
August.

Starting from 1
st
August.
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17Leading and Managing a Team
Measurement:

KPI; Outcome

25 %
37% 37%
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18Leading and Managing a Team
Appendix 2:

Third Party Report

Assessment 1 – Third-party report for candidate:

Did the candidate propose and agree on strategies for ensuring

participation of team members?

Y / N

Yes.

The candidate came up with branding ideas.

Did the candidate help develop policy and procedures to ensure team

members take responsibility for own work?

Y / N

No.

They have been offered with new policies to be proactive.

Did the candidate work with group to determine common

understanding of organisational requirements and team goals?

Y / N

Yes.

Frequent team meetings were held to address every issue.
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Did the candidate work with group to determine and agree on specific

duties to support team members with assigned responsibilities?

Y / N

Yes.

Candidate is helpful and agreed with policies of the organization in supporting

the team members.

Did the candidate demonstrate knowledge of group behaviour and

how to gain consensus and work within groups to enhance team

effectiveness?

Y / N

Yes.

There were problems but the candidate has come up with a solution quickly and

resolves the issues so that it does not affect the production and work.

Team member/observer’s name:
Signature and date:
Candidate’s name:
Signature and date:
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