Business Analysis: Issues Faced by Stone Point Ltd and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Stone Point Ltd, a business-to-business company operating in sectors like banking, retail, and education, focusing on the challenges it faces, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report details the organization's structure, services, and market presence, highlighting issues such as decreased customer demand, remote work impacts, and employee shortages. It employs the BCG matrix to assess the company's service portfolio, categorizing services as Dogs, Cash Cows, Stars, and Question Marks to inform strategic decisions. Recommendations include enhancing goodwill, offering flexible work arrangements to address employee shortages, and investing in digital technologies to improve customer engagement and operational efficiency. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting to the changing business environment and leveraging technology to sustain and improve business practices. The report also highlights the importance of strategic planning, including the use of the BCG matrix, and the need for adapting to challenges to ensure business growth and overcome potential obstacles.

Business in Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
About the organization...........................................................................................................3
Analysis of current issues faced by Stone Point Ltd..............................................................3
Recommendations using appropriate frameworks.................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
There are number of activities and task performed by business in order to attain more profits
and growth. Earning more and more profits is consider as the ultimate goal of business. It is
crucial for company to successfully and effectively conduct business practices with the motive of
attaining more profits (Fernández, Valle and Pérez-Bustamante, 2020). This report is based on
Stone point Ltd. This organisation was developed in 2003 year. In 2009 this organisation has
accepted a buyout proposal as well as acquisition from new management team. This organisation
is conducting business activities in business to business level. It is offering its services to
different industry sectors. Headquarter of this organisation is located in Bedfordshire. This report
will include different issues and problems that is faced by this company. In this different
recommendation has been determined that will help in overcoming with the issues as well as
successfully conducting business practices.
MAIN BODY
About the organization
Stone point Ltd is a successfully business which is providing its products and services for
many years. This company has approx. two and a half to three million of business every year.
Stone point Ltd is conducting its business operations in different sectors such as commercial,
retail, medical, education, finance and government. This company is providing better and
effective services in order to meet with the needs and wants of customers or clients. It is
conducting different task and practices with the motive of providing better quality services to
customers as well as developing strong relationship with potential customers. This organisation
is dealing in business to business market area. It is directly dealing with other organisation rather
than direct public customers (Buppert, 2020). In recent time Stone Point Ltd is dealing in three
major sector that is banking sector, retail sector as well as education sector. All of these are
major sector that are significant for earning more profits along with enhancing business.
Analysis of current issues faced by Stone Point Ltd
There are number of issues and problems faced by respective company due to COVID 19
and it will lead to directly impact on business operations. This company is not directly dealing

with public but it is providing its services to organisations of different sector. Due to COVID 19
working style and day to day activities of organisation has been affected. This can be consider as
one of the issues which is affecting Stone point Ltd as potential customers demand is decreased
due to COVID 19 pandemic. This issue of COVID 19 has affected different business along with
their practices. Because of this issue the clients of Stone Point Ltd is not able to perform their
organisational operation which will directly affect the functioning of respective company. This
lead to create the issues of uncertainty and negatively impact over the business. Clients of
respective company is performing business operation remotely or online which reduces the
demand of Stone Point Ltd services. Because of the negative impact of COVID 19 the different
business has faced the issues of loss and due to lockdown business activities were affected. Due
to this profitability and revenues of organisation has been affected and client of Stone Point Ltd
is not able to bear the cost of accruing services. Stone point Ltd is majorly dealing in three sector
such as retail banking, retail or education (Atiemo and et.al., 2020). All of these sectors are
affected due to COVID 19. In retail banking sector the major clients of Stone Point Ltd are
HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and many more. In retail industry there are high end
retailers which is based in London market area. In the education industry respective organisation
is working with University of Kent, University of Beds form various years.
Stone point Ltd organisation has approx. eight to nine employees which are conducting
business activities significantly. The employees of respective hold position such as project
manager, operational manager, delivery manager, employees for quantity surveying and so on.
Due to the lack of employees within respective organisation the overall performance is affected.
This will lead to have significant impact on capability of business to generate new idea and
strategies for successfully performing business task as well as over the issues faced. Stone point
Ltd is focusing on developing strong relationship with customers because of the outbreak of
virus. The operations of Stone Point Ltd are extended and it will negatively impact on business
practices. Because of the issues of uncertainty in the business environment the functioning of
business is influenced (Beugelsdijk, Ambos and Nell, 2020). It will lead to hamper the
performance and productivity of organisation and create issues in smooth functioning of
organisation. As most of the organisation functioning is affected in different sector it will reduce
the opportunities and demand of its services in market area. These are the main issues which is
directly or indirectly affecting the functioning of business along with its profitability.

Recommendations using appropriate frameworks
BCG matrix
This is known as a model which is an important tool within business planning. In context
of stone point company which is a construction company and refurbishment company of UK.
Main objective of this organisation is to increase sales. It was not possible as delivering of
services was not in regular manner because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The BCG matrix is also
known as growth-share matrix which is known as a corporate planning tool. This is used for
managing the portfolio of company and enhancing the market growth. There are several
recommendations made for Stone point which helps it to enhance the market share. There is
following model/framework provided for this company to manage the services which will help in
making profits -
 Relative market share – This is known as dimension of this matrix which is used for
evaluating the business portfolio in context of market share. When the market share is
high, it results in higher cash returns. Reason behind this is that this firm produces more
and it provides benefits from economies of scale.
 Market growth rate – When there is high growth rate, there are high earnings and
profits. This requires cash and investment. There are different business units needed for
stimulating the future growth of company.
Basically, there are four quadrants within this model and in context of Stone point organisation,
they are mentioned below -
Dogs - These are the factors which hold low market share than other competitors. These
products of the company are not worth for investing. It is seen that for stone point organisation,
at the time of COVID-19, all the outdoor services can be considered as dogs. Refurbishing
services are not used by people during lockdown.
Cash Cows – These are known as most profitable brands and they help company to meet
the benchmark for attaining profits. There is need to control and manage the services which are
helpful in making profits and money for the company. In context of stonepoint company, cash
cows are the products of education which are making money for this company even in the time
of COVID-19. Video classes are provided to students and this helped the company to motivate
itself for the management of profit earning business.

Stars - These are the products which operate within market share and these help in
maintaining high market share. These are both cash users and cash generators. These are known
as primary units and in this, there is need to invest money so that business expansion can be done
easily. For stone point organisation, all online services comes under the category of stars.
Question mark – These are the services which are termed as question mark. These
companies are not able to make profits for the company. In the case of stone point company, it is
seen that question mark are the offline retail services as at the time of COVID-19 they are in
loss,. Company will not be able to make profits and money by investing in it.
It has been analysed that Stone Point Ltd company is faced various issues and problem due
to COVID 19 and it is essential for respective company to take correct and accurate steps in
order to overcome the issues (Brennan, Canning and McDowell, 2020). There are various
recommendations for respective company that will support in successfully and effectively
performing business practices. It is essential for Stone Point Ltd company to focus on developing
and enhancing its goodwill. It is recommended to respective company carry out different
function and task that will lead to develop and enhance goodwill of respective company.
Furthermore, as shortage of employees is another main issue that currently faced by Stone
Point Ltd., where in this pandemic attack hiring of more people raise threat on existing
workforce. Therefore, to overcome from this possible, it is recommended to management of
respective company to offer job as freelancing, or work from home facilities. This would help in
getting better efforts and commitment of workforce in meeting its organisational objectives. But
offering work from home facilities may also arise issues in terms of feeling of isolation, less
abilities for communication with team members and more. Therefore, to combat such feelings
which decrease employee morale, management of Stone Ltd. requires to encourage morale and a
sense of inclusion among remote workers by leveraging technologies with purpose to simulate
physical working environment. For an instance, promoting visual interactions on regular basis
via video conferencing tools as well as actively managing and introducing new projects using
collaboration online platforms cohesively, will help in employee engagement to meet business
objectives in this pandemic period to respective firm.
Along with this, as not interacting personally with public leads to decrease customer base
of Stone Ltd., which further impacts highly on profitability ratio as well. Therefore, it is
suggested to this firm to make some investment in digital technologies, because evolving

capabilities of such techniques will help in growing customer base with expectation of new
business standards of excellence and higher performance. In this period of pandemic attack,
where handling operational activities manually arise more complexities in front of management,
therefore, bringing new technologies in business like virtual reality, big data, chatbots facilities,
cloud computing, live video connectivity and more, will help in redefining the manner in which
organisation connect with its customers. With this assistance, Stone Ltd. will gain advantage in
terms of staying on top in trends and developments. This will also aid in mastering the new
innovations and utilising new techniques in communicating with potential customers, engaging
employees and giving them facilities to work from anywhere instead to come office. Therefore,
increase willingness to embrace creativity offered by technology as well as go beyond the ‘norm’
will help Stone Ltd., in standing out from its major competitors and provide new and richer
customer experience to its clients.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that it is crucial for organisation to analyse and
evaluate different issues and problems which will lead to impact on business practices as well as
affect its performance. There are various problems faced by company due to COVID 19 as it has
affected the day to day business practices. Analysis of business problems will support in
determine strategies and action –plan which will lead to enhance business practices. It is
important for company to determine internal and external environment for developing most
effective strategies and enhance business practices. Along with this, making investment in new
digital technologies will also help organisations in operating their businesses successfully during
this pandemic period.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Amankwah-Amoah, J., Khan, Z. and Wood, G., 2020. COVID-19 and business failures: The
paradoxes of experience, scale, and scope for theory and practice. European
Management Journal.
Atiemo, H. and et.al., 2020. Business and Practice Readiness of Early Career Urologists: an
Unmet Need. Urology Practice. 7(2). pp.109-114.
Beugelsdijk, S., Ambos, B. and Nell, P.C., 2020. Conceptualizing and measuring distance in
international business research: Recurring questions and best practice guidelines.
In Research methods in international business (pp. 449-498). Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham.
Brennan, R., Canning, L. and McDowell, R., 2020. Business-to-business marketing. SAGE
Publications Limited.
Buppert, C., 2020. Nurse practitioner's business practice and legal guide. Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
Fernández, E., Valle, S. and Pérez-Bustamante, G., 2020. Business excellence practice:
efficiency wages versus individual economic incentives. Total Quality Management &
Business Excellence, pp.1-16.
Vos, L. and Page, S. J., 2020. Marketization, Performative Environments, and the Impact of
Organizational Climate on Teaching Practice in Business Schools. Academy of
Management Learning & Education. 19(1). pp.59-80.