Report on Managing Small and Medium Enterprises: Case Study

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of Trusted Housesitters, a UK-based SME specializing in pet-sitting services. The report delves into the entrepreneurial vision of the company, founded in 2010, which connects pet owners with trustworthy sitters, enabling them to travel worry-free. It explores the startup process, highlighting the company's bootstrapping approach and its competitive advantage in the market. The report examines the current market demand, the company's growth and development, and the challenges it has faced, particularly in relation to technological aspects. Furthermore, it outlines the development and growth strategies implemented by Trusted Housesitters, including localization, advanced subscription models, and SEO improvements. The report also discusses the potential for government assistance to help the venture overcome its challenges and provides recommendations for future growth, such as recruiting skilled employees and enhancing the technical interface. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of entrepreneurial qualities and strategic planning for SMEs, highlighting the significant evolution of Trusted Housesitters over the past decade and its potential for continued success.

Managing Small and
Medium Enterprises

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................................3
The nature and the entrepreneurial vision behind the venture. ............................................................4
The start up process of the SME..............................................................................................................4
The conception of the business as well as the competitive advantage in the market.............................5
The current level of demand in the market environment.......................................................................5
The relative growth and development of the business...........................................................................6
The challenges associated with the managing and running the venture.................................................6
The development and growth strategy of the SME.................................................................................6
The government assistance to help in overcoming the challenges faced by the venture.......................7
RECOMMENDATION ...................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................9
APPENDICES.........................................................................................................................................11-26

INTRODUCTION
The SMEs tends to play a significant role in the functioning of the economy of a nation.
They help in the contribution towards the generation of employment, global economic
development and the promotion of novel and eccentric ideas that are in accordance to the needs
and the requirements of the society. This report will tend to explicate the comprehensive nature,
the process, growth and developmental conceptions and varied dimensions associated with the
functioning of the SME (Anjum, Ming and Puig, 2022). The assistance that can be gathered
through the support of the higher authorities will also be highlighted in the study. The SME
chosen for the scrutiny is Trusted Housesitters, specifically designed and established for the
promotion of the services associated with the pet sitters, so that the owners of these cute little
creatures can enjoy their vacations in a care free manner.

MAIN BODY
The nature and the entrepreneurial vision behind the venture.
Trusted Housesitters was founded in the year 2010, with a vision to connect the proud
pet parents with the eligible and the trustworthy pet sitters. This would enable the paw-parents to
have an unworried time throughout their vacation. This community works in the manner, by
which they tend to offer the unlimited services of pets and house care in exchange for a free
place to stay for the sitters who tend to travel and enjoy the company of these cute and adorable
creatures. This is thereby a win-win situation for both the parties. Trusted Housesitters, by now
have facilitated more than 4 million nights of pet sitting with its operations in more than 130
countries (Bansal and et. al., 2022). The reviews revived by now is influential and has
contributed towards the success ratio of the company in an impinging manner.
The founder of this venture is Andy Peck, who got encountered with a near to death
experience with an accident in the year 2010. While recovering and pet sitting Dave the dog, in
the beautiful Spanish countryside, Andy’s life was transformed with the apprehension that pet
sitting was the eventual way for pet lovers to travel while safekeeping their endearing pets happy
at home. This inspired him to establish this SME and create a viable plan of action fort the
provision of pet care solutions. The pets are always happy at their homes and through the
adoption of this approach, the pets, travelers and the owners can get the maximum number of
benefits (Ray and Sharma, 2022). ( See Appendix 1)
The start up process of the SME.
Trusted Housesitters works as an introductory platform for the pet loving community.
The offering of an annual subscription can provide the community to have an unlimited access to
the site. Andy captured the opportunity to create a niche in the market though the provision of
credible services in a deliberative manner. In the initial period of 2 years, the community rose to
the determined heights through the effective promotional schemes. For building an influential
business model, Andy bootstrapped the venture, with an exclusion of any form of external
funding, which resulted in the enhancement in the efficacy level of Trusted Housesitters. The
implications adopted by Andy has helped the brand to reduce the external influence involved and
have a significant control over the functioning of the business (Bitala and et. al., 2022). The SME
has grabbed the viability and importance of the opportunity in the market and thereby the venture

is efficaciously trying the enhance in terms of the services and the additional benefits that are
provide to the customers. ( See Appendix 2)
The conception of the business as well as the competitive advantage in the market.
The basic ideology behind the whole initiative was to cater towards the problems of the
pet animals being left all alone or in the hostels, which troubled the paw-parents in regards to the
safety and well being of the pets. Through a comprehensive external analysis, Trusted
Housesitter, tried to take the advantage of this pertaining situation and formulated the action
plan of providing the idealistic solution of the issue (Sahoo and Thakur, 2022). Andy, though this
SME, scrutinizes the reliable source of pet-sitters, who are capable enough to take care of the
beloved pets and also are responsible enough to house-keep, in the absence of the owners. The
venture has been able to gain the competitive advantage in the field, through the effectual
provision of the determined services with an inculcation of 24/7 vet consultation. The robust in
the demand thereby has compelled Trusted Housesitters to bring modifications in the managerial
composition and also to bring additional provisions to furthermore build an exclusive orientation
in the marketplace (Borah and et. al., 2022). The efficacy in the functioning of the venture will
assist in the enhancement of the brand recognition, expansionary vision and the promotion of the
pet security's idea in the external environment.
The current level of demand in the market environment.
Despite the contemplation of the presence of COVID, the company's revenue is twice the
pre-pandemic levels. The further acquisition of the market in US, is the expansionary goal of
Trusted Housesitters. The minimal subscription of £99 per year, has convinced the paw-parents
to access the site in a deliberative manner thereby helps in the promotion of the brand's name all
across the regions (Salamzadeh and Dana, 2022). Since, the lifting up of the cross border
restrictions, people have started to travel once again and the need of the services provided by
Trusted Housesitters is increased which automatically has upraised the level of demand in the
market. The investments of USD 10 millions has moreover helped the company to grow and
expand for the futuristic course of development.

The relative growth and development of the business.
Trusted Housesitters is a successful SME of UK, established through the modes of online
mechanisms. The business has been able to acquire potential users from more than 140 countries
by now and has been able to grew the team to 60+ completely involved associates. Trusted
Housesitters is an award winning global business which has promoted the conventional
conception of pet sitters in exchange of a free of cost place to stay (Chouki and et. al., 2022). The
ambitious planning of Andy and the entire team of Trusted Housesitters has enable the growth of
the business. Through the comprehensive forecasting of the policies in terms of the implications
that can affect the business. This has proven to be beneficial for the company in order to sustain
and retain in the functional market. The international scaling of the business had also assisted in
the situation of pandemic which enabled the operations of the company to take place in an
effective and a viable manner.
The challenges associated with the managing and running the venture.
The significant issues that were faced by the team of Trusted Housesitters was its relation
with the technological aspects. The web application reached its capacity which made it
ineffective and difficult enough to maintain. The contemplations made it impossible to scale up
furthermore, in terms of the growing traffic and the inclusion of the additive features. The poor
development of the structural programming made it even worse which contributed towards
making it significantly expensive. The scope of up-gradation was required by the management
for coping up with the rising acceleration of the traffic on the site. The estimated amount of the
debt in regards to the technical dimension was high, which made it nearly impossible for the
conduction of alterations in the the site (Gupta and Singh, 2022).
The development and growth strategy of the SME.
The solutions in regards to the challenges faced by Trusted Housesitters, was managed
through the formulation of an all-encompassing application that is fully equipped with the
additive features and major improvements. The strategy included in the localization of the
mechanisms in terms of the currency selection, email corresponding and other related spheres of
the construct. The management of the advanced subscription modes in regards to the recurring
payments, promo codes and the multi-currency support has even helped the company to grow
furthermore (Yap and et. al., 2022). The improvisation in the SEO strategy through the
optimization of the structure of the site, effective landing of the pages and the digital marketing

performance, were incorporated in the plan of action of the company (Islam and et. al., 2022).
The expansionary vision of Trusted Housesitters in the US is deterministically ascertained for
the futuristic growth of the company which will help in the establishment of a global connection.
The government assistance to help in overcoming the challenges faced by the venture.
The provision of significant financial support from the governing bodies of the nation can
prove to an influential aide in overcoming the technical and other related difficulties by Trusted
Housesitters. The varied forms of loans and assistance provided by the government in terms of
the schemes, can help the SME to flourish and grow significantly. In addition, the government
can offer business promulgations which
will help the business to get the better of the barriers that are clogging the pathway designed for
the development and
moreover preventing them from reaching their full growth potentiality. (See Appendix 3 & 4)
RECOMMENDATION
The advices that can be given to Trusted Housesitters can be in terms of the recruitment
of skilled employees who can take care of the verification purposes of the travelers and make
sure that the pets as well as the house are in the hands of dependable and reliable humans. This
will help in the acceleration towards the growth and success of the company (Kondo, Oosterwyk
and Van Belle, 2022). The customer loyalty will only be maintained when the services provided
by the venture would be in accordance to the determined nature of the work. The additive feature
of the provision of pet training facilities can also be included in the functioning of Trusted
Housesitters. This would help in the positioning of the brand in the market place through its
unique nature of “care to train”. Also, the designing of the technical interface by the company
can help in the strengthening of the online interface of the company which will give a boost
towards the operations and the functions of Trusted Housesitters. The contemplation in regards
to the CSR must also be fulfilled by the company which will enable the firm to comprehend
towards the social and moral obligations.

CONCLUSION
An inference can thus be made that the epochal qualities of an entrepreneur can help in
the enumeration of varied dimensions in the external market that can be taken into consideration
by these budding entrepreneurs in regards to the opportunities that are available in abundance.
The risk taking ability of a venture can help in the attainment of the desired position in the
marketplace. Thereby, the entrepreneur must try to formulate a viable plan of action for the
strengthening of the positioning of the brand along with the comprehensive analysis of the
challenges, scope of opportunities and the assistance of support from the government authorities
which could help the flourishing SMEs to cop up with the state of affairs. Trusted Housesitters
has evolved significantly in the past 10 years and with the right strategical plan, in the coming
future, they have to competency to achieve even higher standards in an impinging manner.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Anjum, A., Ming, X. and Puig, L.C.M., 2022. Analysis of strategic human resource management
practices in small and medium enterprises of South Asia. In Research Anthology on
Human Resource Practices for the Modern Workforce (pp. 1021-1039). IGI Global.
Bansal, S., and et. al., 2022. Improving the performance/competency of small and medium
enterprises through intellectual capital. Journal of Intellectual Capital, (ahead-of-print).
Bitala, W., and et. al., 2022. Predictive Analysis Towards Integration of Urban Planning and GIS
to Manage Health Care Organization. International Journal of Science and Advanced
Technology, 36(2022), pp.81-87.
Borah, S., and et. al., 2022. Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Small-and Medium-Sized
Enterprises (SMEs). In Cognitive Informatics and Soft Computing (pp. 717-726).
Springer, Singapore.
Chouki, M., and et. al., 2022. Barriers to information technology adoption within small and
medium enterprises: A systematic literature review. Emerging Issues And Trends In
Innovation And Technology Management, pp.369-412.
Gupta, A. and Singh, R.K., 2022. Managing resilience of micro, small and medium enterprises
(MSMEs) during COVID-19: analysis of barriers. Benchmarking: An International
Journal, (ahead-of-print).
Islam, M.A., and et. al., 2022. Green human resource management practices and millennial
employees' retention in small and medium enterprises: The moderating impact of
creativity climate from a developing country perspective. Business Strategy &
Development.
Kondo, N., Oosterwyk, G. and Van Belle, J.P., 2022. Factors Influencing the Adoption of
Infrastructure as a Service by South African Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. In
World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (pp. 253-262). Springer,
Cham.
Koppel, T. and Tšernikova, O., 2022. Managing Crisis in SMEs. In Crisis Management for
Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) (pp. 47-58). Springer, Cham.
Larisa, M., Eugenia, B. and Liliana, S., 2022. The Credit Market for Small and Medium
Enterprises in the Republic of Moldova. In Managing Risk and Decision Making in
Times of Economic Distress, Part B. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Lee, J., and et. al., 2022. Customer shopping experience in a South Korea’s Government-run
home shopping channel for small and medium enterprises based on critical incident
technique and unsupervised machine learning analysis. Telematics and Informatics, 68,
p.101777.
Mathivathanan, D., and et. al., 2022. Drivers of circular economy for small and medium
enterprises: Case study on the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Journal of Business
Research, 149, pp.997-1015.

Mishra, R., Singh, R.K. and Govindan, K., 2022. Barriers to the adoption of circular economy
practices in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: Instrument development,
measurement and validation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 351, p.131389.
Rahlin, N.A., Awang, Z. and Fauzi, S.N.M., 2022. A Mediation Model of Safety Performance in
Small and Medium Enterprises: A Structural Equation Modelling. In International
Conference on Business and Technology (pp. 856-866). Springer, Cham.
Ray, R.S. and Sharma, T., 2022. Towards Cluster-Based Sustainability and CSR Framework in
Indian Small and Medium Enterprises—A Case Study on Garment Industry. In
Emerging Economic Models for Sustainable Businesses (pp. 67-81). Springer,
Singapore.
Sahoo, P.B.B. and Thakur, V., 2022. Enhancing the performance of Indian micro, small and
medium enterprises by implementing supply chain finance: challenges emerging from
COVID-19 pandemic. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Salamzadeh, A. and Dana, L.P., 2022. A systematic literature review of crisis management in
and by small and medium-sized enterprises. Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and
the COVID-19 Response, pp.38-61.
Yap, W.M., and et. al., 2022. Empowering Millennials Working in Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs)’Affective Wellbeing: Role of Volition, Justice and Meaning at
Work. In Singapore Conference of Applied Psychology (pp. 163-177). Springer,
Singapore.

APPENDICES
The following additive supplements can prove to be an aid for the implicit knowledge in
regards to the definition, external analysis, support, investment schemes and the reflection that
can be gained through the examination of the report (Koppel and Tšernikova, 2022).
Appendix 1
Defining the SME
The defining of the SMEs can be in terms of the enumeration of the relative size of the business.
The turnover of the commercial ventures determines the scope of the headcount that must be
incorporated in the management team of an enterprise. In regards to this, the ventures are
distinguished in Micro, Small and Medium-sized arrangement. Trusted Housesitters can thereby
be classified as a medium sized venture with more than 60+ associates (Larisa, Eugenia and
Liliana, 2022).
Illustration 1: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications.

Appendix 2
SWOT and PEST analysis of Trusted Housesitters.
Strengths: The significant strength of Trusted Housesitters is the built of a connection between
the paw-parents and the pet-sitters. This helps in the integration of a channel that assists in the
pertaining problems of unavailability of the presence of a reliable source with their beloved pets.
This particular trait of the business proves to be an aid for the company to stand out in the
market.
Opportunities: The inculcation of varied dimensions involved and related to the services of the
house and pet care can be grabbed by Trusted Housesitters, as viably recommended prior in this
report. The provision of the facilities of training that can be given to the pets can be included in
the action plan of the company (Lee and et. al., 2022).
Weaknesses: The inability to technical perform is one of the areas, where Trusted Housesitters
are required to improvise. The establishment of the configured application by the company must
incorporate all the significant spheres of the trade, to effectually carry on with the functioning.
Illustration 2: SWOT analysis.