Analyzing Social Media's Impact on Small Business: Oak Cash & Carry

This research project investigates the impact of social media on the growth and productivity of small business enterprises (SBEs), using Oak Cash & Carry as a case study. The project begins with an overview, background, significance, aims, objectives, research questions, and a Gantt chart. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive literature review on the significance of social media within organizations, its impact on company growth and productivity, the relationship between social media and customer satisfaction, and the implications of social media on small business enterprises. Chapter 3 details the research methodology, including the type of research, design, data sampling, data collection methods, and ethical considerations. The project then moves to data analysis in Chapter 4 and concludes with findings, recommendations, and reflections in Chapter 5. The research aims to determine how digital technology influences SBE growth and how social media can be leveraged to maximize profits and connect with customers. The project also explores how companies can utilize social media to build a strong brand image and improve customer satisfaction.

Research Project

Table of Contents
TITLE:.............................................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................3
1.1 Overview..........................................................................................................................3
1.2 Background.......................................................................................................................3
1.3 Significance of research...................................................................................................4
1.4 Aims and objectives.........................................................................................................4
1.5 Research questions...........................................................................................................4
1.6 Gantt chart........................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................7
Significance of social media within an organisation..............................................................7
Identify the impact of social media on company growth and its productivity.......................8
The relationship between social media and customer satisfaction.........................................9
The implication of social media on small business enterprise...............................................9
CHAPTER 3: RESERACH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................10
3.1 Type of research.............................................................................................................10
3.2 Research design..............................................................................................................11
3.3 Data sampling.................................................................................................................12
3.4 Methods of data collection.............................................................................................12
3.5 Ethical consideration......................................................................................................13
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS................................................................................................17
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION ..........................................................24
5.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................24
5.2 Recommendation............................................................................................................24
5.3 Reflection.......................................................................................................................24
5.4 Alternative research methodology..................................................................................25
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................26

TITLE:
“To analyse the impact of social media in the growth of Small Business Enterprise”: A
case study on Oak cash and carry organisation.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview
In today's era, every organisation is performing research and various surveys in order to
develop better strategies and can achieve success by satisfying customers. Research helps in
collecting crucial information and data related to important factors that can impact on the
profitability and productivity of business. In the case of small business, it become more
necessary to carry out effective research on markets and customers in order to run a successful
venture in future. As they are running their business at small scale, with research information
they can manage their business operations and efficiently expand their business. Small business
can also identify the impact of digital technology and social media on their business activities.
As online media is the largest platform for an organisation to offer their products and services to
millions of customers (Cascio, 2018). As Oak Cash and Carry company provides cash and carry
services. They mainly offers wide variety and ranges of products in bulk for retailer, caters,
offices, off licences, newsagents and to other local businesses. It operates its business mainly in
United Kingdom. This company is basically a wholesale company and for them use of social
media can be a boon for their company. From this they can maximise their profits and revenues
and connect to different business people and clients. They can use social media platform to
display their products or can make their own websites and advertise via banners on various
search engines and social media websites. With online services, they can know about latest
trends of customers and markets and make those products available for them. This will attract
businessmen and clients who can purchase their products from company in bulk.
1.2 Background
Generally research is used in order to collect relevant data and convert it into business
profits. This helps in knowing about latest trends, markets and customers. Increase of social
media has facilitated company to expand their business and maximise their profits so that they
can establish a good image in the market (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Sited company can use
social media in order to shift their business on online platform. Managers of company can use
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different software and techniques that will help in connecting with numerous clients and
companies who can buy products from company and with this they can maximise their products.
For effective and smooth functioning of enterprise, it requires implementation of latest
technologies such as digital technologies and should make aware to employees that are involved
in selling and contacting with clients, etc.
1.3 Significance of research
The main objective of this research is to know about those areas where social media can
be used in the business for maximising profits (Berman and et. al., 2012). Another, company can
also implement latest digital technologies which can facilitate their business and help them to
connect with large number of clients and other businesses.
1.4 Aims and objectives
Aim: “To determine the implication of digital technology on the growth of small business
enterprise”: A case study on Oak cash and carry organisation.
 To determine the significance of social media within an organisation.
 To identify the impact of social media on company growth and its productivity.
 To assess the relationship between social media and customer satisfaction.
 To analyse the implication of social media on small business enterprise.
1.5 Research questions
 What is the significance of social media within an organisation?
 How to identify the impact of social media on company growth and its productivity?
 What is the relationship between social media and customer satisfaction?
 Evaluate the implication of social media on small business enterprise?
1.6 Gantt chart
This is a graphical horizontal presentation which is used to schedule task for effective
progress and management. Gantt chart basically uses as planning tool that represent time
duration from the beginning to finish (Bratton and Gold, 2017). It is simply done in a specific
format by using presentation or spreadsheet format. This is basically assist in managing things
and task in accurate way to complete each activity at desired time. For this, manager needs to
analyse skills and capabilities of their employees in order to distribute responsibilities to them
properly. These activities and procedures are helps to manage functional and operational
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approaches so the management run smoothly. This is a most beneficial approach of a business
firm that used to manage organisational activities in a effective manner (Boxall and Purcell,
2011). On the basis of this an organisation can easily make positive changes and modifications in
their working approaches. The benefits of Gantt chart are - Build Coordination – This procedure basically assist to build coordination between
employees. Through this, a business firm can face several challenges in the basis of team
work and work allocation procedure. Coordination between employees helps to resolve
issues and conflicts in order to build positive environment for workers. Manager of Oak
cash and carry needs to implement such activities in their business firm to manage task
properly and reduce work load from any individual. Manage time and task - Gantt chart is a graphical representation that helps to manage
organisational approaches on the basis of time duration. Manager of a business firm
analyse skills and abilities of their employees to provide proper task to them (Guest,
2011). These are the most beneficial formulation that reduce works load from an
individual. Through this management of firm can easily manage time and task to getting
maximum benefits and desirable outcomes.
 Enhance communication – In a business organisation, it is required that employees are
working together in order to accomplish task and future objectives. For this, manager
needs to distribute responsibilities and work in different divisions to create sentiments in
workforce for work as well as others employees. In this procedure, communication play a
most important role to build a positive relation between each employees. Through this
they can easily resolve organisational and their own issues as well as conflicts. All these
activities assist to complete task on proper timing by their mutual understanding.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Significance of social media within an organisation
According to Joseph Pickett, (2013) for a business organisation, it is required to use
different tools to promote their products and services positively in target market. For this, they
can use online as well as offline techniques in order to spread awareness for customers. These
tools are distinguish to each others (Jiang and et. al., 2012). Offline procedure can be going
through paper media, advertisement and on the basis of some electronic media while as online
tool consider internet medium and social media networking. Main objective of these are to
capture consumer's attention toward organisation and its services. There are some other
significance of social media are determine below as -
Create personal relation with customers – By implementing such tools in working
procedure, oak cash and carry can easily build personal relation with direct customers. These are
the most effective as well as beneficial tool that helps to getting long term benefits and growth.
Customers are the last buyer of products who purchase organisational services on the basis of its
quality and their own desire. For this, it is require to build positive connection with direct user
for analysing their requirement and need fore specific product. In this procedure, social media
assist to create direct connection with customers for a long term period.
Assist to resolve issues and queries – Main objective of social media is to resolve issues
and problems of customers after analysing their needs. Now a days, individual are more likely to
find out their products and services in target market by using different online channels. In this
process social media tools provide them higher satisfaction by providing proper information of
different services at a common platform (Crook, and et. al., 2011). In this process, employees
and assistant of Oak cash and carry can easily analyse customer's demand and their issues to
resolve them by their beneficial services. Through this, they can suggest them to purchase
products of their organisation.
Represent a positive image of Brand – For a business organisation, it is require to
represent their positive image in market to getting maximum profit as well as growth. In this
process, social media provide them a way to represent their ideas in order to capture customer's
attention toward their services. These activities are used to build a positive relation with user for
getting higher benefits and advantages. Positive image of brand is based on customer's review as
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well as feedback. Through this, they can invite other customers to buy products as well as
services of their firm.
Real time update – For oak cash and carry, it is require to implement digital promotional
tool in their business procedure to maximise their growth as well as sales. In this process, social
media tools provide them higher benefits (Anitha, 2014). For this, it is required to update
organisational services on timely basis in order to capture consumer's attention toward their
products. These activities are used to create direct and positive relations with user by providing
exact services to them on the basis of their requirement and need. Real time updates are based on
different organisational approaches in which employees make changes in their services by
analysing users needs as well as demand.
Identify the impact of social media on company growth and its productivity
As per the views of Manuel D'souza, (2017) social media is a most effective tool that
used to make positive alteration in organisational culture and business productivity. All these
activities are helpful for Oak cash and carry to get desirable outcomes of their future objectives.
Social media has power to build direct connection with target users. For management and
manager of firm, these techniques align organisational objectives with engagement of
employees. Through this, employees of firm can easily analyse requirement of customer's to
provide them exact services easily (Renwick, Redman and Maguire, 2013). This process directly
impacts on the productivity of workforce. For this they needs to work properly as well as
consistently to build proper relation with target users. It is mandatory for a small scale to get
engaged on such online tools for analysing market condition and user's view to make positive
changes according to this. These activities are update them from new procedure and trends for
making modification. Through this, Oak cash and carry can easily get desirable outcomes and
profitability by enhancing approaches of their employees. These activities create transparency in
organisation that would be beneficial for management as well as customers. Employees of firm
needs to analyse their day to day activity in order to make desirable changes to enhance them on
the basis of future requirement. These factors affect internal approach of a business firm, so for
this management of Oak cash and carry needs to adopt such tools in their business formulation.
Internet and online procedure make a desire between employees to relay messages properly in
order to serve quality services for future development. Through this, employees of Oak cash and
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carry can reduce undesirable thing in their business process to manage activities in effective
manner.
The relationship between social media and customer satisfaction
As per the views of Mary Beth Pinto, (2015) social media is a most effective tool that
uses to build direct connection with target customers. There is a positive relation between user's
satisfaction as well as social media. For a business organisation, it is required to implement
online activities and promotional events in their business procedure to spread awareness of their
services in market (Kehoe and Wright, 2013). These activities are more beneficial for firm as
well as customer's in order to get corrective information on the basis of their requirement as well
as need. Now a days, consumers are more likely to grab information and details of their desirable
things on social media. Through this, they can easily resolve issues that can be arise in
purchasing procedure. These tools has direct connection with customer satisfaction process
because employees of firm show their presence on such tools to to resolve customer's issues and
problems. Oak cash and carry need to implement such tools and techniques in their business
procedure to build direct connection with target users and customers. These tools assist to
provide proper information to customer's on the basis of their requirement. Different
organisations are create their own page on social media to update proper information on them
about their new services, organisation's offers and furthers scheme that can be beneficial for
consumers (Akanbi and Adeyeye, 2011). Through this, consumers can easily grab proper data as
well as information for specific products. These activities assist in maximise organisational sales
and profitability. Organisation also provide support to resolve barriers and provide proper
information to customers of their products. Social media helps to build positive relation between
firm and user to provide higher satisfaction to them. This process include customer desire
analysis, resolve issues and providing proper delivery to them at proper time for future success
and growth. Major relationship between customer satisfaction and social media practices are
that, through this customers can get proper information through web search practices that assist
in determining reviews on specific product as well as some other aspects that can affect
consumers buying behaviour.
The implication of social media on small business enterprise
As per the words of Wael Basri, (2016) social media is a most beneficial tool that has
positive impact on small as well as large scale organisation. Each and every business
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organisation needs to implement different promotional tools in their business procedure in order
to spread awareness in target market for their product as well as services. Small scale
organisation needs to manage their funds and productivity properly to manage such techniques in
their business firm (Shankar and et al, 2011). For them, these activities will be beneficial to
introduce their services in target market properly. Small scale organisation needs to implement
these activities in their business firm to promote their present services easily. Now a days, online
promotion and social media inactivities are become an essential part for business growth and
success. Internet surfing is also a important part of individual's life that assist in providing
information related to customer's demand, shopping behaviour and current trends (Messersmith
and et. al., 2011). For a small scale organisation as Oak cash and carry, it is required to spread
proper information related to their products and services in market as well as in front of target
customers. Through this they can easily build direct relation with them on the basis of their
quality approaches and terms. Social media activities required proper analysis of customer's
requirement to represent quality service in front if them. For Oak cash and carry, it will be very
beneficial to grab maximum opportunities from target market by selling their products and
services on social media platform. These channels can be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and so
on. Through this, they can easily build direct connection with target customers and users by
analysing their need and providing similar services. These business approaches are beneficial for
a small scale organisation in order to maximise sales, growth and profitability of business firm.
Social media tools can affect customer's buying behaviours as well as furthermore things as
decision making practices, influencing approaches and many more. Through this, an organisation
can easily promote their services in front of target customers. Advertisement through social
media is a time saving and cost effective practices that provide beneficial outcomes to services
users as well as new customers.
CHAPTER 3: RESERACH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Type of research
In this section, learner will address different techniques and tools that are used to carry
out research and investigation in order to accurate and precise data and information. This
information are crucial for researcher to accomplish their set targets and goals in right and
efficient manner (Keller and Fay, 2012). That is why it is crucial for organisation to implement
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and use best methods of research methodology so that they can reach to their point of research.
There are mainly two types of research methods, that is quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative research - Quantitative research are concerned with numerical figures,
numbers and statistics. It involves quantification of attitudes, opinions, behaviours and other
variables and conclude outcomes form a large sample of population. It measures the data in order
to formulate facts and figures in research. Quantitative methods are more structured research
methods as compared to qualitative data collection method. This research include online surveys,
paper surveys, mobile and kiosk survey, fact to face interviews, telephonic interview, website
interception, online polls, systematic observation, etc. In order to conducting these kind of
research, organisation needs to hire experienced and capable candidate who assist in managing
numerical information in effective manner. Quantitative research are based on facts and figures
that denoted effective information wit appropriate conclusions.
Qualitative research - Qualitative research method is used to identify and understand
about different factors, reasons, opinions and motivation. It is also referred to as primarily
exploratory research. This research methods helps in uncovering trends in thoughts and opinions
and run deeper surveys related to problem (Hinterhuber and Liozu, 2014). Various methods that
are involved in this are individual interview, participation, observation, group discussions, etc. In
this research, the sample size is small and respondents are selected to accomplish certain quota.
These kind of research are based on theoretical information which are easy to manage in long run
period. Main component of these research are distinguish on the basis of age, name, customers
requirement and need as well.
3.2 Research design
Organisation develop a proper research design which provide right direction and proper
guidance to researcher and other people which are involved in research. Research design are set
of methods and procedures that are used in order to collect and analyse measures of the variables
specified in the problem of research (Okyere, Agyapong and Nyarku, 2011). The design defines
the study types, whether it is descriptive, correlation, semi – experimental, experimental, review,
etc. and sub types, that is descriptive – longitudinal case study. Others are research problem,
hypothesis, independent and dependent variables. It is basically a framework that is made in
order to find answers of research problems. There are different types of research design which
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depend on the problem and objective of study. They are exploratory, descriptive, diagnostic and
experimental research design.
Exploratory research is based on imagination and opinions of researcher which is relates
to something. He is mainly interested in exploring those areas which are yet to be discovered and
has not been explored till recent times. Descriptive research describes a particular phenomena
under the study. It mainly covers characteristic of people, materials, socio- economic
characteristics such as education, age, income, etc.
In diagnostic, the researchers is curious about to know the root cause of problem. It is
mainly concerned with problem solving research which includes emergence, diagnosis, solution
and suggestion for the problem (Bao and Chang, 2014). Experimental research design is
basically used in natural sciences that is different from social sciences. Here, one groups is
subjected to experiment which is known as independent variable and other is considered as
control groups which is known as dependent variables. Comparison between the groups gives out
the outcome.
3.3 Data sampling
It is an analysis that utilize statistics and data which is used to analyse, select and
manipulate data and information that is related to project. This method is used by researcher in
order to collect information and data related to research (Baron and Tang, 2011). There are two
methods that are used to facilitate data sampling and they are probability and non probability
sampling.
Probability sampling represents that chosen sample is correct and the survey conducted
on them is logical. It is an effective way to find out whether the researcher is carrying out their
research in right direction or not. Some methods are used in probability sampling and they are
simple random, stratified, cluster, multistage, systematic random.
Non probability sampling methods does not allow estimate the extent to which sample
statistics are likely to vary from population parameters (Kotler, 2011). They are convenient and
cost effective method and involve two methods such as, voluntary ad convenience sample.
3.4 Methods of data collection
Data collection is referred to the collection of all relevant data and information from right
sources related to targeted sample. It is necessary for researcher to gather right and accurate
information and facts in order to maintain the integrity of research. This facilitate formulation of
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