Business Report: Mainstage Travel Ltd Performance Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of Mainstage Travel Ltd, a small business enterprise featured on Dragon's Den. It begins with an introduction to small business enterprises and then delves into Mainstage Travel's business profile, including its incorporation details, key personnel, and nature of business. The report identifies the company's strengths, such as beneficial deals with airlines and a variety of services, and weaknesses, including a limited number of employees and the threat of changing travel trends. It compares Mainstage Travel's performance with another company using financial data over a five-year period, highlighting improvements and trends. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of small businesses in economic development and the effectiveness of Mainstage Travel's current business plan, while also suggesting areas for potential modifications and their impacts on the business and its personnel. References to books, journals, and online resources are included.

SMALL BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
AC1.1 Profile details of Mainstage travel...................................................................................1
AC1.2 Comparison of performance with another company.......................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
AC2.1 Weaknesses and appropriate actions to overcome weaknesses.......................................4
AC2.2 Ways to maintain and strengthen existing performance..................................................5
AC2.3 New expansion areas for business...................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
AC3.1 Existing objectives and plans of business........................................................................6
AC3.2 Areas where modifications can be made in existing business plan.................................7
AC3.3 Modified action plan to implement changes....................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
AC4.1 Impacts of changes to business and personnels...............................................................8
AC4.2 Plan to manage changes in the business..........................................................................9
AC4.3 Improvement in performance over the past two years..................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Small business enterprises are businesses where sales volume and number of employees
are not high. Generally form of business organisational structure of theses business is either sole
proprietorship of partnership and are privately owned organisations. Such kind of business can
be seen in any country rather than large and medium scale enterprises. The present report is
based on such a small business enterprise. A company taken from the success stories of Dragon
Den. The report focuses on the business profile and performance of Mainstage travel. The
company is a privately owned company that was incorporated in year 2016. It was an outcome of
new and creative ideas pitched by entrepreneurs in Dragon Den, a reality television show which
broadcast's on BBC. The report discusses present weaknesses and strengths of business along
with measures to overcome weaknesses and to maintain current performance of the company.
New expansion areas and areas where changes can be made is also a part of this discussion.
Further the report also includes impacts of changes to the business and its personnels along with
the improvement in performance of the company in past two years.
TASK 1
AC1.1 Profile details of Mainstage travel
Mainstage Travel Ltd is an active company that was incorporated in October 2011. The
figures of the company were pitched in Dragon Den series 11 in 2014, however, figures are now
above then those that were pitched in the program (About Mainstage Travel Ltd., 2017). Below is
the profile details of the company:
Name : Mainstage travel Ltd.
Registered office: 103 Gaunt Street, London, United Kingdom, SE1 6DP
Company status: Active
Incorporation date: 6th October 2011
Company type: Private Limited company
Nature of business: Tour operator activities
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Phone Number: 44 84 3289
44 84 6728
Company official website: mainstagetravel.co.uk
Key Personnels:
 Mr. Rob Tominey (Co founder and managing director)
 Mr. Aden Levin (Co founder)
Number of employees: Less than 10 employees
Turnover : under £2 million
offers: travel and tourism services to clubbing destinations and ski resorts
Confirmation statement:
 Last statement dated 21 November 2016
 Next statement date 21 November 2017 due by 5 December 2017
Accounts:
 Last accounts made up to 31 October 2016
 Next accounts made up to 31 October 2017 due by 31 July 2018
Strengths:
 Travel companies make beneficial deals with airlines that give them benefit of low
booking prices.
 Variety of services offered from which customers can chose what they want (Blackburn,
Hart and Wainwright, 2013).
 Launched a new application for hotels i.e. Hotel2020.
 It provides incredible tours and experiences for holidays and festivals like Snowboxx
which is a second biggest winter festival of Europe.
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Weaknesses:
 Very less number of employees so it is hard to maintain at the time of season when there
are large number of bookings.
 Threat of change in travel trends and the company also does not have an ability to quickly
adopt changes in habits and patterns (Horner and Swarbrooke, 2016).
 Government intervention.
 Number of rivals and different online services available to distract customers.
 Lack of information available online that does not meet the expectations and requirement
of customers.
 Lack of professional and trained individuals that can provide further help to the
customers in choosing the best holiday plan.
AC1.2 Comparison of performance with another company
Performance of any company is useless unless it can be compared by the performance of
another company (O’Neill, Sohal and Teng, 2016). Below is the comparison of performance of
Mainstage travel Ltd with ABC using their financial data from past five years.
Mainstage Travel Ltd. ABC
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Sales 120 135 145 139 158 122 120 134 140 139
profit 24 26 30 28 34 26 25 27 29 28
Current
assets
12 13 11 16 16 10 12 13 15 13
Current
liabiliti
es
10 12 9 17 11 9 11 14 16 11
Current 1.2 1.08 1.22 0.94 1.45 1.11 1.09 0.86 0.94 1.18
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ratio
bookin
gs
12 13.5 14.5 13.9 15.8 12.2 12 13.4 14 13.9
Interpretation: from the above data it is clearly visible that main stage has managed to
maintain its position in travel and tourism industry. Sales of Mainstage has started increasing
from 2012, though I the year 2015 it shown a downturn but the company managed and through
its strong efforts and innovative ideas, revenue of the company were again increased in 2016.
Same is the trend in profits of the business. Bookings are also increasing every year.
On the comparison with ABC it can be seen that, the figures of ABC is less than that of
Mainstage. Reasons behind this could be better action plans of Mainstage, effective
management, effective approach to customers, better offerings, etc. However, both the
companies have shown downturn in year 2015, maybe it is because of the change in travel trends
or due to political factors.
Current ratio has also been calculated of both the companies, according to which, it can
be interpreted that, as per the ideal ratio that is 2:1, current ratio of Mainsatge is not according to
the benchmark (Bull, and et.al., 2016). This means either current assets of the company are low
or current liabilities of the company are high. Same is the situation in the case of ABC. However,
in year 2016, there is an improvement in the current ratio of company. This means the company
is aware about its financial position and its ability to pay off its short term liabilities and is also
taking actions for the improvement.
TASK 2
AC2.1 Weaknesses and appropriate actions to overcome weaknesses
The company belongs from travel and tourism industry where there are number of
weaknesses and threats that are associated with the company. Some weaknesses of Mainstage
travel Ltd has been discussed above. In order to increase its performance and profit earning
capacity, management of the company need to look after the weaknesses and must take
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corrective measures to overcome these weaknesses (Schaper, Volery, Weber and Gibson, 2014).
Following are the recommended actions that can be taken by management to overcome its
weaknesses:
 Firstly, company need to recruit more employees in order to manage work at the time of
number of bookings. Also, new employee's means new ideas and talent which will help
company in improving its performance.
 Company need to hire a professional website developer, so that improvements can be
done in the information provided in website along with offering of new and improved
services like booking of conveyance facility, detailed information about the packages
available, choices to customers from the new range of services, etc.
 In the website it can also include the service where offers and deals provided by other
competitors can be compared with offers and deals that are provided by Mainstage. This
will show loyalty of the company towards its customers.
 New app that is launched by the company for booking of hotels, must include real
photographs of different services that are available in hotel so that it would be easy for
customers to evaluate services (Zhang, 2017).
AC2.2 Ways to maintain and strengthen existing performance
In order to maintain and increase the current performance, management had to take
various innovative steps. For this it is important to look from the viewpoint of customers, their
demands and expectations. This will enable the management to identify areas where changes are
required or areas where there is more scope of improvements. Following are the suggested ways
through which company can maintain and strengthen its performance:
 Making customer's their priority, by providing customer incentives programmes, by
providing quality services like all the booking related services at one place so that it
would be feasible for customer to plan a holiday.
 Further, company can make more strategies to maintain its performance at the time of
downturn in an economy.
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 By providing better monitory incentives, company can attract fresh and talented
employees.
 Packages can be made by identifying the current travel trends like, identifying places
where there is an increase in tourists can be travel trend, offering reasonable packages
will attract more customers.
 Developing innovative practices like providing free services such as first night stay free,
complimentary breakfast, free tickets of an attraction, etc.
AC2.3 New expansion areas for business
In order to get the best expansion plans, company need to hire professional travel
consultant, who by examining the current areas and scope of business can further provide ideas
for expansion that would be beneficial for the organisation. Along with this below are some ideas
that could help company in the expansion of its business:
 The company currently is providing packages only within Europe. Therefore, it has a
wide scope to expand its business by providing packages of other countries as well
(Storey, 2016).
 By hiring a consultant would help customers to chose the best destinations as per their
needs and desires.
 Each type of group of customers have different leisure requirements, therefore, by
providing a wide range of leisure services, suitable for different group of peoples would
help company in increasing its market share.
 Other than holiday and festival tours, there is also a scope of providing business tours.
 By making ESTA (electronic system for travel authorisation) agreement, company can
ease its business tours.
Being a travel and tourism company, scope of business to expand its services is wide.
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TASK 3
AC3.1 Existing objectives and plans of business
Following are the current objectives of Mainstage travel Ltd:
 To deliver incredible and unforgettable experiences of holiday to their customers.
 To make an ultimate holiday for the destinations.
 To make holidays of each group of people whether 18 year old or 50 year old an
incredible holiday (MAINSTAGE TRAVEL LTD, 2017).
The company is offering number of plans to attract more customers, below are some plans that
are offered by the company:
 The business is mainly focused for the youth and student market.
 It provides bulk discounts and incredibly low rates for almost all aspects of the
experiences including festival tickets, flight and accommodation bookings etc.
 To attain a profitable growth by providing 2 s which are services and satisfaction.
 It includes services like booking for flight tickets, hotel accommodations, cabs to take
customers from airport to the resort and resorts for adventurous services.
AC3.2 Areas where modifications can be made in existing business plan
The existing business plan of Mainstage travel Ltd. Is quite impressive and the company
is also showing growth in each successive year. However, few modifications can be made in
existing business plan that will be more suitable for the company and will help in growing its
business and market share.
 Company's objective to attain profitable growth by providing services and satisfaction is
not enough. Services that are to be provided should be quality services like comfortable
rooms in hotels, easy travelling facility from resort to the attraction, etc.
 Other than quality services and satisfaction, safety of customers should be equally
important for the company (Storey, 2016).
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 To implement safety, company can include travel insurance in its packages and can also
keep safety measures at all the resorts and other destinations.
 It need to provide a working environment for employees so that the efficiency of
employees can be improved, new and better ideas can be developed to attract more
customers.
AC3.3 Modified action plan to implement changes
Mainstage Travel Ltd is a small scale travel company. Objective of this company is to
grow at a large scale company. In order to seek growth, the changes that are discussed above
need to be implemented by the company. In order to implement these changes. Company is
required to :
 Make a contract with an insurance company so that travel insurance service can be
provided to the customers.
 In order to provide quality services, company need to purchase cabs that can be used to
facilitate customers to reach their desired attraction.
 This will increase the cost of the year along with assets of the company which in turn will
show a strong financial position.
 Further, to improve working environment of the employees, company can offer monetary
incentives on the accomplishment of a target, this will motivate the employees to work
harder and understand the needs of the customers so that they can sell more packages.
TASK 4
AC4.1 Impacts of changes to business and personnels
Changes in any business whether internal changes or external changes have a significant
impact on the business operations and its key personnels and stakeholders as well (Zhang, 2017).
Changes that are required by the company and those which are discussed above will have a
following impact on the business and its personnels:
 This will increase the productivity of the company which in turn will increase its profit
earning capacity.
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 Better working environment within the organisation helps in improving the workforce
attitude and increases their efficiency along with creating transparency within the
organisation.
 More customers will be attracted to the company as its travel insurance service will
portray its loyal and caring image towards the employees.
 Increase in assets will improve the financial stability of the organisation.
 All these positive impacts will motivate the key personnels of the company to expand
their business more.
 These changes will help in improving customer relationship as well as employer –
employee relationship.
 Key personnels of the company will get more share of profits and thus, living standards
will be improved.
 More development means more employment opportunities that can be produced by the
company and hence it will indirectly help in improving the economy.
AC4.2 Plan to manage changes in the business
Economy and need of the people are changing continuously. Therefore, it is a challenge
for businesses to cope up with the changing environment and changing technology. Changes that
have been discussed above which are required by Mainstage Travel Ltd. need to be managed by
the management and company. Below is the plan through which company can manage the
changes in business:
1. Identify the actual areas where change is needed.
2. Involve each layer of employees to provide their ideas and suggestions to implement
changes.
3. Delegate duties and responsibilities of different tasks to different employees. For example
delegate responsibility to identify and filter the best travel insurance policies that are
provided by different insurance companies.
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4. Implement the process of communication within the organisation so the changes can be
communicated properly.
5. Attract investors in order to raise more capital to purchase cab's and other required assets.
6. Make modifications in the official website of the company by stating clearly the
availability of travel insurance for the customers.
7. Take feedbacks from the customers and employees about the impacts of the changes
made and scope for further changes.
8. Review the plan and take corrective measures where required.
AC4.3 Improvement in performance over the past two years
In order to review the impacts of changes that have occurred in business, comparison
evaluation of performance is essential (Xiang, Magnini and Fesenmaier, 2015). There are various
ways through which performance of the company can be measured and compared. Here, on the
basis of above data, improvement in the performance is measured using graphical presentation.
Mainstage Travel Ltd. (£'000)
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Sales 120 135 145 139 158
profit 24 26 30 28 34
10