BA30591E Introduction to Business: Little Dessert Shop Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Little Dessert Shop, a partnership between Mary Jones and Sue Jackson. It begins by evaluating the partnership structure, highlighting its advantages and the equal profit-sharing arrangement. The report then applies Porter's Five Forces framework to assess the competitive landscape, advising on strategies for achieving competitive advantage. The analysis considers factors such as competition, new entrants, supplier and customer power, and the threat of substitution. Furthermore, the report examines three key macro-environmental factors—economic, social, and technological—and discusses their impact on the business, particularly in the context of the UK market and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and reinforces the importance of adapting to market dynamics and leveraging external factors to enhance business performance. References to academic sources are included.

INTRODUCTION TO
BUSINESS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Evaluate a partnership as a type of business organisation with reference to Mary and Sue’s
‘Little Dessert Shop’...................................................................................................................1
Use the Porters 5 Forces framework to analyse ‘Little Dessert Shop’ business and advise on
how Mary and Sue can achieve competitive advantage by managing the relationships with
these forces..................................................................................................................................2
Clearly discuss any three of the macro environmental factors with particular reference to how
they can help improve the business.............................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Business referred to a significant term that includes several segments in which several
working practices are to be included in different fields. Within business innovative aims are to be
developed in which different resources are to be needed to get the high success and capturing
opportunities for long term sustainability. This project is based on case study of Little Desserts
shop that is partnership by Mary Jones and Sue Jackson. It is a firm that reflects the positive
results in terms of gaining revenues and profits. This report includes the study of partnership that
is a type of business with the use of Little Dessert shop to advertise their offerings in efficient
way to attain competitive advantage. Further it explains porters five forced model in order to
promote their business within industry to taking the advantage within competitive market. At last
it involves the macro environment factors that are useful to improve the business activities
within Little Dessert shop (Van Tulder, Verbeke and Piscitello, 2018).
MAIN BODY
Evaluate a partnership as a type of business organisation with reference to Mary and Sue’s ‘Little
Dessert Shop’
Partnership refer to formal agreement between two or more than two person who manage
and operate the business for sharing profits and loss. Within partnership partners are reflected as
business partners who work systematically for attaining goals and objectives in specified period
of time. In this every partners share profits and losses as per the agreement. It also include tax
benefits as compared to corporation.
According to the case study Mary Jones and Sue Jackson are two individual person who
are experts in doing a business within hospitality sector. Due to this they can take the initiative to
open their own business outlet with a name of Little Desserts Shop that is located in Bullring
shopping centre of Birmingham. In this the major partner of a firm is head chef in famous
restaurant chain of Birmingham On the other hand the another partner is an experienced holder
within hospitality firm that is present in local market. Both the partners are agreed to open a
business named as Little Dessert Shop with the profit sharing of 1:1 ratio and according to this
both invest £30,000 within organisation (Dumas and et. al., 2018).
The Little Dessert shop is a partnership firm that exist within marketplace in which
owners are to be defines as per their size and structure. In this both the partners that are Sue and
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Mary holding equal share of profits that means holding 50% of partnership in profits and losses.
Partnership deed are known as an agreement between the partners that is to be prepared at initial
stage of business when several elements are to be decided to run a business enterprise that are
rights, capital, profits, expenses etc. In this partnership deed several rules and regulations are to
be included which are useful to perform functions. IN this both partners are decided to
introduced a capital of £30,000 as per equal sharing. Partnership is to developed by the mutual
understanding of the partners as it is effective for attaining goals and objectives. In terms of
Little Dessert Shop both partners are experts in hospitality sector because of getting experience
from reputed company. But getting high experience both are operating their business with low
investment to provide the best quality food to the people at low cost so that large base of
customers are to be attracted.
Use the Porters 5 Forces framework to analyse ‘Little Dessert Shop’ business and advise on how
Mary and Sue can achieve competitive advantage by managing the relationships with these
forces
Porter's five Forces Analysis of Little Dessert Shop:
Porter's Five forces is a model of studying the competition of a business. The model
recognises and studies five competitive forces that form every industry and help in ascertaining
the industry's weaknesses and strengths. This analysis is mostly used to recognise an industry's
layout to ascertain a strategy. Porter's five forces was introduced by Michael E. Porter in 1979. In
simple words, porter's five forces is a powerful tool which is used to study the competitive
environment outside the business. There are five competitive forces involved in this analysis:
 Competition in the industry: First competitive force used by Porter is Competition in
the market. The competitors has an ability to sabotage a company. More number of
competitors means means more number of equivalent goods and services in the market
which results in less power in the market. Due to this COVID-19 crisis, there are closed
shops in the market which has reduced the level of competition for the 'Little Dessert
Shop' (Thomas and Mulder, 2016).
 Potential of new comers in the industry: Company is affected by the force of new
comers in the market. The position of the company can be affected by the entry of a new
company in the market. This is dependent on the barriers on the entry like government
intervention, restrictions, etc. As 'Little Dessert Shop' is a new entrant itself so it won't be
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that affected by the entry of new entrants but will still be a competition for the
organisation.
 Power of suppliers: Suppliers are the main source of raw materials for a company.
Suppliers are considered to be one of the five competitive forces of Porter as they can
increase their prices easily. This will increase their cost and reduce the profit. According
to the case study, it is very much clear that Mary and Sue has enough funds to pay the
suppliers so this won't affect “Little Dessert shop”.
 Power of customers: Customers have the ability to drive prices lower. It is affected by
the bargaining power of the customers, this might reduce the profit. As per the case study,
the prices are much lower than that of the competitors so this will attract many customers
to buy their products so this won't affect the “Little Dessert Shop”.
 Threat of substitution: Threat of substitute goods or services is one of the competitive
forces on which the price is dependent on. If the price of the company is increased
customers might shift on the shift towards the substitute goods. After the COVID-19
crisis, there is less competition which means less number of substitutes but as the prices
of the products are lower there is a less threat of substitute goods to “Little Dessert Shop”
(Boone, Kurtz and Berston, 2019).
Clearly discuss any three of the macro environmental factors with particular reference to how
they can help improve the business
Macro environment refer to the surroundings in which a business organisation is to be
function and get impacted by facing the challenges in indirect and direct manner. It is regarded
as external factors that impacts the operation directly and also helps in improving. It includes
several factors which impacted Little Dessert shop to stay competitive that are presented below:
 Economic- This factor is essential as it affect the organisation. In case of UK economy is
highly strong and sound where government show their supports to micro and macro
business so that firm will perform their task effectively. Due to impact of COVID 19
economy crises are to be occur which impacted negatively on Little Desserts Shop
sustainability and proficiency. In this company needs to adjust their activities as per
current economic situation so that targets are attained on time (Novak and Janeš, 2019).
 Social- It includes the people perception, values, customs within society related to
particular business or brand. In UK people are very active to accept the changes due to
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this Little Dessert Shop can capture the opportunity to attracts large base of customers
with their products and services. This helps in developing loyal base of customers that
support in gaining competitive advantage within business industry.
 Technology- In case of Little Desserts Shop manager can focus on investing in
promotional activities. But due to low economy market does not have funds to invest that
will create issues in arranging the funds. But on the other hand Little Desserts shop is
adopting several digital channel to promote their products for enhancing productivity and
proficiency within marketplace (Urbach and Röglinger, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From above explained report it is concluded that business is a prominent term for a
person to enhance their living standard. There are several types of business that are depend on
structure and size of an organisation. In this partnership is to be regarded as essential type of
business for Little Desserts Shop. Partnership includes achievement of aims and objectives so
that productive results are to be enjoyed by companies. In this Porters five forces models helps in
understanding the competition that are present within market so that strategies are to be
developed effectively.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Boone, L.E., Kurtz, D.L. and Berston, S., 2019. Contemporary business. John Wiley & Sons.
Dumas, M. and et. al., 2018. Introduction to business process management. In Fundamentals of
Business Process Management (pp. 1-33). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Novak, R. and Janeš, A., 2019. Business process orientation in the Slovenian power
supply. Business process management journal.
Thomas, M.J. and Mulder, C.H., 2016. Partnership patterns and homeownership: a cross-country
comparison of Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Housing Studies.
31(8). pp.935-963.
Urbach, N. and Röglinger, M., 2019. Introduction to digitalization cases: how organizations
rethink their business for the digital age. In Digitalization Cases (pp. 1-12). Springer,
Cham.
Van Tulder, R., Verbeke, A. and Piscitello, L., 2018. Introduction: international business in the
information and digital age–an overview of themes and challenges. International
Business in the Information and Digital Age, pp.1-13.
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