Report: Leading and Managing a Team for an Apparel Brand

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Added on 2022/10/19

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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.

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

2Leading and Managing a Team
Third Party Report............................................................................................................17

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

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.

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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 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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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

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