The Growth and Development of Aussie Pooch Mobile - Case Study Example

Aussie Pooch Mobile’ Case Study Name Institution Date Aussie Pooch Mobile’ Case Study Introduction Aussie Pooch Mobile is the biggest mobile dog wash and care firm in Australia and its serviced are offered at the homes of the customers. For the company to expand domestically and internationally, the time and the location of the expansion should be considered. This implies the products and services necessary for the company to maintain its success. Increasing competition can affect several decisions of the company and thus the company should know the demand and other potentials within different regions, before expansion (Frazer & Chow, 2003). This paper will analyze the growth and development of Aussie Pooch Mobile from the time it was established up to present. In addition, various recommendations regarding the domestic and international growth strategies, attracting and recruiting franchisees in Australia, Achieving competitive advantage in the pet grooming industry for Aussie Pooch Mobile will be provided. The Growth and Development of Aussie Pooch Mobile Aussie Pooch Mobile was established in 1991 and has been growing constantly since then. Franchising of the company resulted to increased profits and the company continued following the effective franchise strategy. The company’s image within the market is extremely good mostly due to its mobile services and its additional free services to the customers which include, providing the customers with the diet of the dogs, health care as well as handling dog’s skin problems. The company uses a special hydro bath machine to wash the dogs and this ensures there is through cleanliness as compared to general dog cleaning at home. The special bath helps in reducing and eliminating fleas and ticks on the dogs and also improves the dogs’ skin condition in addition to cleaning its coat and alienating smell. This has been the key competitive advantage of Aussie Pooch Mobile over its competitors (Frazer & Chow, 2003). The key goal of Aussie Pooch Mobile is to niche the dog washing industry and expand internationally. The Australian population is relatively high and most households own a dog. The company aims at attracting new customers and retaining the existing customer as well. Aussie Pooch Mobile utilizes a brightly colored trailer that has assisted in promoting the service severally (Vaughan, 2008). The key competitors for Aussie Pooch Mobile include Jim's Dogwash and Hydrodog. Strategy of Jim’s Dogwash includes creating smaller territories and working with comparatively cheaper charges when recruiting new franchisees. However, these competitors do not offers additional services offered by Aussie Pooch Mobile, apart from Hydrogod selling food products to its customers. Therefore, Aussie Pooch Mobile utilizes an outstanding strategy through offering numerous master franchisees that enables it to attain a lager territory and sell franchises in the territory. For the company to maximize its profitability it should operate as effectively as possible and reduce the time that is spent with non-profit-generating activities (Frazer, & Weaven, 2007). If not, Aussie Pooch Mobile should expand its marketing and promotional activities to become more extensive in the minds of the customers. The company also needs to support its marketing efforts through newsletters, telephone hotline service for professional advice, yellow pages, web-site, dispensing public relations, information articles as well as sympathy card. As a result, the company will be a strong and triumphant company among its competitors. Moreover, Aussie Pooch Mobile’s insight is on the quality of its services and not the size and the company is ensuring that the franchisees are successful (Vaughan, 2008). The strategies and practices that Aussie Pooch Mobile has been using improve productivity which has resulted to the company’s profitability. The company focuses on ensuring that its franchisees are developed within a strongly defined territory and this improves efficiency; this is because operators are can only make money when they are washing dogs and therefore this reduces driving distance and thus increases time productivity to downtime ratio. Franchising gives a company an opportunity to expand without investing its own money (Frazer, & Weaven, 2007). In franchising, Aussie Pooch Mobile licenses the usage of its service concept, procedures as well as its brand name to independent business people; these people in turn pay an upfront purchase price prior to starting the business (Frazer & Chow, 2003). The main strengths of Aussie Pooch Mobile include its mobile services, where the customers are offered the services at home; the company’s charges are relatively lower as compared to its competitors; they offer additional services to during dog washing which include aromatherapy and blow drying; they provide extra information, for example regarding the diet of the pets, skin care and grooming advices; they are experienced in pet caring business since they have been there for approximately 21 years; they have a friendly business atmosphere; and lastly their decision making process is flexible and their business structure if flat and this is due to its franchise structure (Vaughan, 2008). Aussie Pooch Mobile’s business opportunities include increasing demand for dog washing service and that service industry is growing fast and this is demonstrated in the case study that even though most of people owning dogs used to clean their animals on their own, there is a growing trend of people paying third parties to have their dogs washed. Another opportunity is the changing household model, where most working families lack time to wash their dogs and thus this presents more opportunities to Aussie Pooch Mobile in dog washing business. In addition, there is an increasing number of people keeping dogs and since there are few barriers of entry, this is an opportunity for Aussie Pooch Mobile. However, Aussie Pooch Mobile has its weaknesses which include controlling problems and this is due to its wide recruitment process as well as the company having problems in controlling its master franchisees. In addition, the threats that the company is facing include, growing competition, for example Jim's Dogwash, which is one of the Australia’s best known locally developed franchise and also from Hydrodog, which is another franchised dog washing operation that is located on the Gold Coast within Queensland. Another threat is recruitment problems within other markets and this is a problem that Jim's Dogwash experienced within the American market. The other possible problem is that there is indefinite potential of international markets because there is no adequate information regarding dog washing business in international markets. Recommendations Attracting and Recruiting Franchisees in Australia In order for the Aussie Pooch Mobile to attract and recruit franchisees in Australia, the company should keep franchisees engaged via strategies like; ensuring that there is a constant improvement in service processes and product elements, the company should involve franchise advisory boards, the company should facilitate sale some parts of an existing territory, promote successful franchisees to buy more territories and assign managers to run stores within those regions, and also develop openings for master franchising, which will enable all successful franchisees to manage a number of stores, hand over daily operations within the stores to recruited managers, and also Aussie Pooch Mobile should ensure it has the responsibility of recruiting and supervising franchises in a big geographic area in return for a fraction of latter’s’ royalties. Additionally, Aussie Pooch Mobile should consider expanding its franchise in order to attract and recruit more franchisees. However, the company faces the challenge of maintaining balance between the lure of moving into remote regions and making anticipatory strike against potential competitions versus further penetration of existing markets (Frazer, & Winzar, 2005). Since it will be difficult and more expensive to supervise the distant franchises from the head office, Aussie Pooch Mobile should put in regional managers or master franchisees. Achieving Competitive Advantage in the Pet Grooming Industry To achieve competitive advantage in the pet grooming industry, Aussie Pooch Mobile should develop a quality control program for its services. The company should ensure that all its franchisers deliver quality services and on time. The company cannot afford low qualities by its franchisers because it heavily depends on its selective franchisers (Frazer & Chow, 2003). Lastly, Aussie Pooch Mobile should make sure its financial resources are sufficient to implement a high quality strategy. Domestic and International Growth Strategies When expanding domestically and internationally, Christine Taylor should consider following the already successful strategy, franchising. As the Christine Taylor mentioned in the case study, franchising of the company resulted to higher profitability of the company. Aussie Pooch Mobile should take into account the aspects with Australia and then decide about expanding plan and franchising. However, Christine should decide whether franchisees are required or not. For franchisees, it is simpler to begin the business within a franchise system instead when alone (Frazer, & Winzar, 2005). In this regard, the franchisees can obtain some financial aid from Aussie Pooch Mobile at the start. Additionally, the company should offer the franchisees with free training on dog treatment, washing and extra information afterward on how to be successful. This will help the franchisees in reducing the risk of encountering big financial losses in case the business does not become successful. This strategy is advantageous because Taylor already knows the domestic market expectations and demand and cultural variations can be overcome easily within nations that are near Australia (Falbe, et al, 2006). Aussie Pooch Mobile’s management is supposed to decide if it will expand internationally only within countries where it is already operating or also begin operations within other countries. If Aussie Pooch Mobile makes a decision of expanding only in countries where it has already started its operations, the company should focus on advertising and promoting the business as this will enable it to gain more and more clients. The company should evaluate the areas where its services are most profitable and on higher demand and thus the large cities and more affluent parts of those cities within international market due to the cost of the dog washing and caring services that Aussie Pooch Mobile offers (Brian, 2006). From the case study, within UK, most individuals clean their dogs mostly by themselves and rarely; and thus this is not the most advantageous target for Aussie Pooch Mobile. However, after the people tried the company’s services, they were normally satisfied and sought Aussie Pooch Mobile’s frequently. Therefore, United Kingdom can be a good choice for Aussie Pooch Mobile to expand its business if it provides the first service at reduced charges or even freely in order to acquire more customers (Brian, 2006). Furthermore, Aussie Pooch Mobile can expand its business to United States. The market of dog washing in US is comparable to the Australian market in regard to its size, but US has a better market than Australia because the population in the country is higher and thus the number of potential customers in US is higher. More importantly, the number of households that own a dog in US is high and statistics show that the expenses within the pet industry have been increasing gradually (Brian, 2006). On the other hand, Aussie Pooch Mobile should cautiously evaluate the US market because Jim's Dogwash, which is the company’s biggest competitor, failed when it tried expanding it business in US. To get into US market, Aussie Pooch Mobile should establish a franchise within a cautiously selected region, such as within Los Angeles or California, where the population is high and thus has many potential customers. Additionally, Los Angeles can be a good option due to its favorable weather conditions and also because people are concentrated within a given region, and thus this will reduce travelling costs. In case the franchise is successful, Aussie Pooch Mobile can establish more master franchises within America and consequently these franchises can establish more franchises (David, et al, 2011). At the commencement, Aussie Pooch Mobile may also offer small gifts to the customers, for example a free aromatherapy for the dog in case the customer utilizes the service regularly. In conclusion, the recommendation here is to expand internationally since there is increasing competition within Australia in pet industry and also because there is saturation with the Australian market and thus if Aussie Pooch Mobile wants to grow, it should seek other markets internationally. As mentioned before, the company should consider making international markets in areas bordering Australia because there is a likelihood of having similar market segments and similar cultural practices and thus setting up the business will be much simpler. References Brian, K. (2006). Private, Issue 1. New York: Simon and Schuster. David, K. et al. (2011). Antecedents and Consequences of Franchising: Past Accomplishments and Future Challenges. Journal of Management. Vol. 37/1. Frazer, L, & Winzar, H. (2005). Exits and expectations: why disappointed franchisees leave. Journal of Business Research. Vol. 58/11. Falbe, M, et al. (2006). An Examination of International Retail Franchising in Emerging Markets. Journal of Small Business Management. Vol.44/1. Frazer, L, & Weaven, S. (2007). Mature franchise systems use multiple units franchising to leverage learning economies and sustain system wide growth. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics. Vol. 19/2. Frazer, L, & Chow, L. (2003). "Servicing customers directly: Mobile franchising arrangements in Australia". European Journal of Marketing. Vol. 37/3/4. Vaughan, C. (2008). How to Start a Home-Based Pet-Sitting and Dog-Walking Business. Sydney: Sage. Read More