Analysis of Little Dessert Shop: Partnership and Market Position

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Little Dessert Shop, a partnership business owned by Mary Jones and Sue Jackson. It begins by defining business and explores the partnership structure of the dessert shop, highlighting the equal rights, responsibilities, and shared experience of the partners. The report then applies Porter's Five Forces framework to assess the competitive landscape, considering factors like existing rivals, supplier and customer power, and the threat of new entrants and substitutes, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, it examines three key macro-environmental factors—economic conditions, social trends, and technological advancements—and how they can be leveraged to improve the business and achieve a competitive edge in the market. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and implications for Little Dessert Shop's strategic direction.

Introduction to
Business
(Assessment - 1)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
Partnership as a type of business organisation with reference to Little Dessert Shop...........3
Porters 5 Forces framework to analyse ‘Little Dessert Shop’ and advise how Mary and Sue
can achieve competitive advantage........................................................................................4
Three macro environmental factors with particular reference to how they can help improve the
business...................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business can be said to be a system whereby exchange of goods and services takes place
in exchange of money or money consideration. The economy of a nation is composed of large
number of businesses of different sizes, niches, domains, specialisations and scales. However,
what is common between all the businesses are that they seek to attain an edge over the rival
firms prevailing within the same industry. This drives the operations of the businesses in such a
way that the entity is able to achieve success in the global market place (Choi, Wallace and
Wang, 2018).
The following project is conducted on the analysis of the case study based on Little
Desserts Shop. This is known to be a partnership firm initiated by the partners named Mary
Jones and Sue Jackson. This organisation is demonstrating strong market position by illustrating
its high revenues and profit margins. The report includes evaluation of partnership as a business
organisation in relation to Little Desserts Shop. In addition to this, Porter Five Force model is
applied to make analysis of the given organisation and identify the ways by which competitive
advantage can be gained. At last, three factors are taken into consideration for external
environment screening of the business.
Partnership as a type of business organisation with reference to Little Dessert Shop
Partnership is a form of business organisation whereby two or more individuals agree to
share the profits and losses in an agreed ratio (generally written in the partnership deed but also
implied sometimes). In this form of business setup, the partners are jointly and severely liable for
the losses borne by the firm (Gölzer and Fritzsche, 2017).
Mary Jones and Sue Jackson have together come under one umbrella to form a
partnership named Little Desserts Shop. Both of these individuals are professionals who carry
sufficient experience within the bounds of the hospitality industry. One out of the two partners
worked as a head chef in a large catering restaurant chain of Birmingham while the other one
operated as a hospitality manager in one of the local hotels. Both of them have given the
agreement to form a partnership agreement to create the firm with 1:1 ratio and have invested the
capital in the same proportion. Being equal partners, both of the partners have equal rights,
decision making powers, liability and so forth. The firm opened by them will flourish as both the
partners hold prior professional experience in the same sector (Guha and Kumar, 2018). The

main objective of this firm is to exercise low cost and serve the customer base with fondness and
love.
Porters 5 Forces framework to analyse ‘Little Dessert Shop’ and advise how Mary and Sue can
achieve competitive advantage
Each and every business sector within which any business operates is hyper competitive.
The aim of every business sector along with the companies operating within it is to achieve a
higher market share and thereby attain growth and development for a considerably longer period
of time in future context. In this relation, it has been analysed that many of the businesses are
wary of their current conditions amidst the hyper competitive business environment and thus
make use of models and frameworks to analyse their market standing (Choi, Chan and Yue,
2016). In this relation, Porter 5 Forces Model is an effective and widely used framework that
provides the organisations with knowledge about the key market players within any industry
along with the strategies adopted by them. In this regard, this strategic management model is
used in context of Little Desserts Shop to analyse the standing of this entity relative to the other
firms in market place. The shop was closed for a period of 3 months whereby the revenues of the
firm were nil. This has made it all the more important for the respective firm to utilise Porter 5
Forces framework. Thus, the application of this model in context of the business has been
presented below:-
Existing Rivals
Due to COVID-19 market was closed for number of months which resulted in closure of
number of dessert shops in the area but those who survived the crises are now aggressively
operating. Thus, Little Desserts Shop have to induce their promotional activities and spread
awareness in the market for developing new competitive position (Bharara, Sabitha and Bansal,
2017).
Bargaining power of Suppliers
The bargaining power of suppliers is moderate as due to closure of imports and exports,
the suppliers are short of supplies and business. Hence, the existing and new suppliers to whom
Little Desserts Shop is willing to do business with will be up for negotiation and holds lower
power.
Bargaining Power of Customers

Their power is high in context of Little Desserts Shop. The owners have to make sure to
increase marketing for attracting increased customer base and the buyers needs to be made sure
of their safety. Therefore, the firm needs to put up with all the regulations and security guidelines
for rendering safe and healthy environment to all the customers visiting the shop (Heizer, 2016).
Threat of New Entrants
The new entrant threat is moderate, the reason is many business have closed. People have
lost their jobs and now with their extra cash they are setting up new businesses form scratch.
This leads to threat as the entry barrier in the field of food & beverage of hospitality is low and
profitability is high that leads to new players entering the market (Chahal and et. al, 2020).
Threat of Substitutes
The threat of substitutes is low as the substitutes are already present in the marketplace
but their sale depends upon customers preferences and availability of products. Thus, threat is
low but Little Desserts Shop can innovate which can bring higher competitive edge to the firm
with new creative items.
Three macro environmental factors with particular reference to how they can help improve the
business
External scanning is essential for every business as it allows the organisation to identify
the potential opportunities and/or threats. In this relation, the top management of Little Desserts
Shop has carried out the analysis of some of the external factors, as follows:-
Economic- The economic condition of United Kingdom is strong. Even amidst the
situation of coronavirus outspread across the globe, the nation is politically thus allowing the
businesses operating in the national territory to attain growth and success. In this way, Little
Desserts Shop can continue to attain prosperity in the global market place irrespective of the
hyper-competition (Reid and Sanders, 2019).
Social- The population of United Kingdom is aware of the latest trends in market place.
This tends to present an opportunity in front of the management of Little Desserts Shop to
leverage the latest and emergent market trends, and thereby gain growth in global marketplace,
even amidst the coronavirus (Matthias, 2017).
Technology- The efflux of time leads to the evolution of technology and techniques used
within a particular business industry. In this relation, it has been identified that coronavirus has
led to the dampening of financial performance of almost each and every business. This has

opened opportunity for Little Desserts Shop to leverage the trend of digital marketing to reach
out to a large number of customers and still continue to prosper in the condition of restricted
business operations (due to COVID-19).
CONCLUSION
On the basis of discussion carried out above, it can be comprehensively stated that a
business is a commercial setup whereby a relationship is created between the company with its
base of customers. In addition to this, it has been inferred that partnership is a form of business
organisation whereby the profits and losses are shared in profit sharing ration as mentioned in the
partnership deed. However, the partners are jointly and severely liable for the losses borne by the
firm. Apart from this, it can be analysed that Porter Five Force model depicts the positioning of a
firm in comparison to the other players within the same business sector. Based on this model, a
firm can gain knowledge of the way through which a competitive advantage can be gained in
marketplace.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Choi, T.M., Wallace, S.W. and Wang, Y., 2018. Big data analytics in operations
management. Production and Operations Management, 27(10), pp.1868-1883.
Gölzer, P. and Fritzsche, A., 2017. Data-driven operations management: organisational
implications of the digital transformation in industrial practice. Production Planning &
Control, 28(16), pp.1332-1343.
Guha, S. and Kumar, S., 2018. Emergence of big data research in operations management,
information systems, and healthcare: Past contributions and future roadmap. Production
and Operations Management, 27(9), pp.1724-1735.
Choi, T.M., Chan, H.K. and Yue, X., 2016. Recent development in big data analytics for
business operations and risk management. IEEE transactions on cybernetics, 47(1),
pp.81-92.
Bharara, S., Sabitha, A.S. and Bansal, A., 2017, January. A review on knowledge extraction for
business operations using data mining. In 2017 7th International Conference on Cloud
Computing, Data Science & Engineering-Confluence (pp. 512-518). IEEE.
Heizer, J., 2016. Operations management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.
Chahal, H., Gupta, M., Bhan, N. and Cheng, T.C.E., 2020. Operations management research
grounded in the resource-based view: A meta-analysis. International Journal of
Production Economics, p.107805.
Reid, R.D. and Sanders, N.R., 2019. Operations management: an integrated approach. John
Wiley & Sons.
Matthias, O., Fouweather, I., Gregory, I. and Vernon, A., 2017. Making sense of Big Data–can it
transform operations management?. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management.