Amalgamated Holdings Limited - Case Study Example

Amalgamated Holdings Limited By Student’s Name Code+ course name Instructor’s Name University Name City, State Table of Contents Strategic Analysis 4 Employees as a factor of success for large companies 5 Competitive analysis 7 Environment analysis 8 Target Markets 10 IMPLEMENTATION 11 Product 11 PRICING 12 PROMOTION 13 Website: 13 Advertising: 13 Public Relations: 14 Promotions: 14 Branding: 15 Competitive advantage 15 Conclusion 17 Reference list 18 Introduction Business sector has helped in the growth economy the country. Amalgamated Holdings Limited is one of such kind of business. It is a business that operates with Leisure, Entertainment, Hospitality and Technology. Australia is headed for a cut of 33,000 jobs within the public sector. The large businesses play a significant role in the employment sector as they are set to create 32,000 jobs in the near future. This may serve to fill the gap in employment within the economy as a result of lying off workers by the public sector. The Sainbury’s, for instance, has projected the creation of 20,000 jobs within a period of three years. This is an indication of the contribution these businesses have on the performance of the economy. The business sector is a sector that has survived many turbulent as a result of market failure. Other businesses within the economy and especially the small businesses were forced to close down due to factors such as the financial crisis. Investors always seek to invest in businesses where certainty of success is assured. Businesses have survived the economic downturns, thus, proving to be a more secure investment. Having survived the weathering storm, business have proved to be low risk investments and hence preferred by most investors. Despite the inflation trend that has been observed within the economy, businesses have experienced growth. This has been due to increases in the market share and also in the improvement of the values of their products and services. This company has market-leading products and brands, which include Event Cinemas, Thredbo, Greater Union and Birch Carroll & Coyle Cinemas, Edge Digital Technology & Production, Rydges Hotels and Resorts, Film lab, a Sydney's majestic State Theatre and a Feather dale Wildlife Park. This shows the company’s aim of diversifying their products. It also owns and manages different businesses in other countries’ territories including London, Germany, Fiji, and New Zealand as well as across Australia. This is a dynamic organization that employs thousands of people in Australia improving the economy significantly and also internationally. The company celebrated 100 years of operation in 2010 since its inception in 1910. Strategic Analysis Amalgamated Holdings Limited chain of business is a good example of the business in the Australia that we can use as an example and also as a point of reference in our arguments. Amalgamated Holdings Limited business was introduced into the Australia market some years back and hence has experience in the market. This is through subsidiary Corinth services limited. Currently, the business has a large market share and has come from scratch since it was founded. This is a business that retails and deals with Leisure, Entertainment, Hospitality and Technology. It is also involved in some financial services that it operates for its customers. Through this, the company has diversified different types of business reduce risk of loss. This is in their quest to shake off competition and increase their competitive advantage over the other business and other competitors. Amalgamated Holdings Limited business in their proper service to the employees and in their quest to improve the welfare of the employees signed up to an initiative known as Ethical Trading Initiative. Through this, the business has shown a great respect to the worker’s rights. This initiative is a way to improve the freedom of the workers in their associations and also a good living wage. Implementation of this initiative is very difficult however, since living wages varies with the difference in the countries, and the buying using a strategy of being a major importer like Amalgamated Holdings Limited. This is due to the fact that large importers affects the national minimum wages indirectly by obliging the governments so that they can set them low in order to stop the business from closing down or even going to other countries. Employees as a factor of success for large companies Amalgamated Holdings Limited has many stores nationwide and hence has a great need to employ people to their company to help them achieve their mission. Amalgamated Holdings Limited has employed very many employees in their stores according to their website. A report focusing on a single store, the Amalgamated Holdings Limited store in Australia shows that the store has been running since its inception some years back. Employees in a business are mostly stationed at the checkout point and others are in charge of stock control and replenishment. Some Amalgamated Holdings Limited business operates on 24 hour schedule from Monday to Friday and hence a need to motivate their workers to work extra hard. Amalgamated Holdings Limited business takes motivation of employees very seriously. One of the ways that is a major motivation to the workers is assigning the workers to where they are specialized and where they are best at. Most companies and specifically Amalgamated Holdings Limited business have experienced situations where employees shift from one employment to the other. This indicates a situation where the employees feel dissatisfied and often move to places where they will derive satisfaction. Therefore, the issue of employee retention is also critical as it adds to the performance of a business. The level and rate of employee retention portray the performance of the management in the given company. Individuals will always tend to be attached to organizations that have the tendency of retaining their employees (Kotler 1986). Such companies reflect better performance and often incur employee satisfaction. This reason made Amalgamated Holdings Limited business to embark in motivating employees so that they can improve their customer service. Motivated employees will always tend to deliver better services that will make their customers satisfied. Service provision is vital as it reflects the value of a company within the society. Employees who are motivated will offer valuable services to the community and hence improve the image of the company to the society. Management role is the key in the provision of such services since their strategies and an approach to work determines the level of employee engagement. In all these aspects, satisfaction of employees is a prime factor that determines the performance of an organization. Satisfaction of employees is made possible by the actions of the management. This may be highly achieved through motivational factors. It is the role of the top management of a company to apply the human resource strategies to ensure that the employees are well motivated to undertake their duties. This paper, thus, focuses on the motivational factors of the general level of employee within large business in the Australia and more specifically Amalgamated Holdings Limited business, which is the second largest business in the Australia. The role of employee is vital in the success of all industries within the economy regardless of their size. The performance of the retail industry will be of critical attention in this paper. The paper will, therefore, seek to analyze the loyalty in retail business and also analyze the effectiveness in their operations. Large business within Australia offer retail services to their customers. This is necessitated by the need to meet all the needs of the different customers who prefer to buy at retail. The retail business earns the greatest revenue in these businesses. The retailing business covers a wide range of operations and hence requires a lot of manpower to effect the operations. In this regard, it is necessary to ensure that employees give their best for continued performance of the businesses. Competitive analysis The company has also embarked on vibrant customer satisfaction. It must be noted that customer satisfaction is a very fundamental factor that must be considered in as far as improvement of customer loyalty and improvement of the company’s growth is concerned. Customer loyalty ensures that there is high customer retention. It must be noted satisfaction of the needs of the customers that a company has ensures that the customer’s realizes full utility for their money. Utility is therefore a very significant parameter to be considered while dealing with customers. Amalgamated Holdings Limited has embarked on ensuring that there is very close follow-up and appropriate after sale services. Amalgamated Holdings Limited also provides warranty for its customers. Better delivery system has been noted as strength for this company. The company has ensured that there is strong and a reliable shipment of its products. It must be observed that Amalgamated Holdings Limited has much organised shipment criteria of goods and their entertainment services between different towns of the country so as to accelerate faster delivery of goods and services to its customers. As far as technological industry challenges are concerned, two main topics dominate in this issue. These are costly research and development and high dependency on skilled practitioners. Starting with high investments for research and development is apparent that these companies, Amalgamated Holdings Limited included, are pressurized to continuously invent. Some researchers admit that, Heavy hitters are Amalgamated Holdings Limited Competitors like Transcend who spend 15% of its annual revenue on research and development initiatives. This paralysing investment funds is a big hit to all companies, big or small. Environment analysis Burstein and Suzanne (2012) explain that, the other problem is the industry dependency on practitioners and business or consumer spending patterns. This has led to Updated and upgrading push offs and hence purchasing is delayed. Information technology, leisure and entertainment expenditure is vulnerable to company’s budget constraints. It is a challenging situation when demand becomes higher than the amount that the industry can supply to the market. This is where dependency on practitioners comes in. According to different researchers, it is frustrating to find that the rate of tech product obsolesce is higher as compared to the rate of its invention and manufacture (Bangs & Halliday 1997). Consumers demand higher tech devices faster than the industry can make them. Amalgamated Holdings Limited is exposed to this market phenomenon. 18 Months is a short time as far as product life cycle is concerned. Within these 18 months a company must have innovated, introduced to the market made super normal profits during expansion phase, and gone back to initial stage of another better product that is produced by the company for that matter. As Russell (2011) puts it, 18months may seem short for a product life cycle, but that is not all. There is issue of global competition. The world has become a global village. Better devices and products are being produced day and night at all corners of the earth. Various ways of outreaching the consumers are emerging at the same rate too. One must stand out to survive. Marketing and value propositioning to consumers must be made paramount for survival in this industry. Entertainment sector and especially leisure with technology to research in the Australian market is the most famous product of Australia named Amalgamated Holdings Limited. Amalgamated Holdings Limited, its production it is also made by Australia and this has made it to become one of the iconic and most selling products in Australia since it was first introduced to the consumers. Since then, popularity of Amalgamated Holdings Limited has never reduced in the market, and almost all of Australians are obsessed of the unique features of Amalgamated Holdings Limited as compared to other entertainment companies in the market. According to the statistics of different researchers, nearly 80 per cent of households in Australia have Amalgamated Holdings Limited as their preferred service provider. Amalgamated Holdings Limited has established branches in different countries and is part of the larger Europe/South Pacific geographical division of Amalgamated Holdings Limited in US that is the main company. This report will focus on Amalgamated Holdings Limited, a part of Amalgamated Holdings Limited entertainment and leisure products that retail in Australia. Leisure and entertainment is viewed from the business point of view and also from the medical point, a very well established and known business. It has four main market segments which are economic segment, medicinal sensitivity, taste and cosmetic as well as beauty conscious. Amalgamated Holdings Limited in Australia is the market leader, and is followed but not closely by other entertainment companies. The competitive environment of this market is an oligopoly, with fast moving new products and new brands being introduced. Introductions and innovations, mostly driven by beneficial needs in the market are the products being introduced. Amalgamated Holdings Limited is a product that uses a reactive pricing strategy and which is applicable for this market of Australia. The competitive advantage is that it has established distributional channels. The researcher feels that the medicinal segment of the product could be in a little bit narrower, to give a larger room for the introduction of more innovative products into the market, such as Amalgamated Holdings Limited leisure sector and to establish a very new segment into the market, Environmental (Pride & Ferrell 2008). Amalgamated Holdings Limited as a company spends more money on the marketing segment than any of their closest competitor; however, the researcher feels that they could redirect some of the revenues and enhance their branding of the products to a higher level, as well as to introduce the digital branding engagement. There are consumers that base their purchases decision on the environmental factors that are in the country for the product and that are growing. A recent on-line survey showed that 91% believed that pro-environmental behaviors make a difference. The hotel and leisure segment of the company on the other hand we fell could be a bit wider, and cater for young people, men as well as women. Target Markets A significant trend in Australia and abroad is that people are taking a more proactive interest in nutrition. People have also developed new interests for variety of foods. This is exemplified by the increase in the number of restaurants in Australia. People are therefore developing more interests in restaurants that are well managed in terms of sanitation, variety, and quality of foods. The age factor is a very fundamental aspect that guides the targeting of the Australia market. The restaurant is going to target all the age brackets in terms of the nature and types of foods that it serves. For instance, it will majorly target the adult customers. This is because this age group composes majorly of people who are financially stable. While the local sights and destination provide the reason to visit the area the aim is to make the visitor remember the uniqueness of the property first when they recall their visit. Part of the strategy is to provide the guests with a seamless arrangement of being able to blend their needs to visit and use other parts of the regions facilities such as wineries, restaurants, nature walks etc with the provision of a home base at the B&B. This will be achieved by the development of strong relationships with other service providers and delivering information and assistance to the tourist to help them with their planning of their day. IMPLEMENTATION Product Amalgamated Holdings Limited has two major product offerings. First is to provide 4-star guest accommodation. The facility has four deluxe double rooms; each is furnished in a classical contemporary style that utilises Australian timers and soft comfortable tones. Each room has its own private bathroom and toilet facility which has been recently refurbished. There is a light and airy feel to each room as double doors take the guest onto a large balcony overlooking a private section of the rose garden. In addition, guests have access to a large well-appointed lounge with an open fire for winter warmth and atmosphere, along with an extensive selection of books about the local area and rose gardening. It is fundamental to highlight that a selection of wines from the local wineries is available for purchase and consumption by guests in the surrounding garden. Breakfast is served in the dining room, which is set for eight people and consists of cereals, fruits, breads, and an extensive hot selection including choice of eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms etc. These are all sourced from local suppliers and will vary depending on session. Another product offered by the restaurant is to provide a garden setting and facility that can be either viewed or hired out for special functions. The garden facility has all weather paths, several undercover sitting areas, and a central lawn section where a small marquee can be erected. While no large kitchen facility is available there is an electric BBQ facility with hot water and sink for day visitors who wish to bring a picnic. Toilet facilities are available for these guests. It is also fundamental to note that the garden does have sufficient off-street parking for 80 vehicles, which is separate to the parking for guests of the house. PRICING Prices for accommodation have been set at the higher end of the market as the client base is seen as in the mid to higher socioeconomic sector. Pricing scheme is based on a room rate per night, which includes breakfast. Where the guest is a single a discount of 9% is offered to offset the provision of breakfast. Prices for weekends are deemed to be 19% higher than weekdays, and when a guest stays three nights or more a discount of 17% will be applied. As there is not a high level of seasonality for visitors coming to the region prices are set the same year round except for special events (Easter, Melbourne Cup and Christmas / New Year) when a 10% surcharge is applied. Prices for events held in the garden at price on application (POA). These will depend on the number of persons and the usage of the B&B facilities as part of the package. PROMOTION Promotion for the products offered by the restaurants will be done using different aspects of media. Promotion is seen as a fundamental factor whose major role will be to improve the revenue of the restaurant through increased volume of sales. Promotion will also increase the competitive ability of the restaurant in the market. It is therefore fundamental to highlight that the following media will be used to promote the products of the restaurants. Website: The use of the internet is essential in providing information and access to Amalgamated Holdings Limited. A fully functioning site will be developed that will enable perspective clients to see what accommodation is available as well as allow them to book online. The site will have a virtual tour facility and links to the other attractions in the region. The internet site will also inform the consumers more about the foods offered. Appropriate search engines will also be developed to make the consumers’ work of searching for the products offered by the restaurant very easy. To maximise the discoverability of the website Amalgamated Holdings Limited restaurants will arrange for links with the key internet search engine sites. Advertising: Advertisements will be placed in the local press highlighting special deals for local customers wishing to visit the facility. Advertisement that is deemed to be used here will be very vibrant so as to capture a large percentage of the market. Advertisement will also be placed in the restaurant’s magazine with an offer of a 10% discount for members showing their card. Paid advertorial will also be placed in this magazine highlighting the garden as a place to visit when touring the region. The local newspapers in Australia will be efficient in the advertisement of the restaurant’s products. For instance, the restaurant will effectively promote its products like the foods and services. This will also involve showing some of the photographs of different types of foods offered at Amalgamated Holdings Limited restaurants. Public Relations: The week prior to opening, the major travel editors are to be invited for an overnight stay and a chance to see and assess the new facilities. This is done on a free of charge basis. Local restaurants are to be invited to participate by inviting guests for dinner where Amalgamated Holdings Limited restaurants will provide the wines for the evening. Music and a viewing of the improved facilities will be available. The cost is a gold coin that will be donated to the local school for improvements to the library. The gardens are to be offered for the use of local community groups for functions on a no cost basis for charity fundraising. Promotions: A high quality multi-folded brochure is to be promoted and distributed to all tourist information centres within 50 km of the restaurant. In addition this is to be provided to all other tourist facilities within the region, and in return for having them made available the restaurant will carry the brochures of these facilities and actively direct clients to these locations for a visit. A discount of 9% is offered to those who mention this cross-promotional arrangement. In conjunction with the large accommodation sites, 50 packages of ‘two nights for the cost of one’ weekday deals will be offered in the first three months as well as 10 ‘three nights for two’ weekend packages. Branding: All documents and information placed into the public hands are to have a consistent look and feel that highlights the superior accommodation and beautiful setting of the restaurant. The branding should leave the impression of indulgence and pampering. This branding is to carry over to the provision of monogrammed uniforms for the staff, linen ware on tables, glasses, and bedding used on site. These items will also be available for sale at the restaurant. Competitive advantage Existence if many customers that reflect to a very big market structure is another strength that this company enjoys significantly. The company has occupied Australian market almost to its dominance. It must also be highlighted that this company has also expanded to other regions outside the country. This shows how big the market for this company is. It has also been noted that Amalgamated Holdings Limited deals in highly elastic products. The technology part of the company enables it to continue and improve day by day due the innovativeness of the company. Moreover, according to Amalgamated Holdings Limited, Amalgamated Holdings Limited has focused on strategic nationwide programmes for growth enhancement and sustainability of its competitive advantage and outstanding corporate leadership figure. With these outstanding features and addition of goodwill from both local and international partners, the organization draws financial support, as well as non financial resources for its operations. The organization is, therefore, able to discharge its duties within the differentiated product base. Human resource is the strength for this company. It must be noted that Amalgamated Holdings Limited has very many employees. The company is determined in employing very competent employees so as to realize quality in their service delivery. Good human resource is always a fundamental recipe for better performance of any business enterprise. Corporate social responsibility is another strength that Amalgamated Holdings Limited Inc enjoys as a manufacturing company. This company has ensured constant observance of environmental laws in its processing activities. This aspect of corporate social responsibility has resulted in to reduction of fines on the side of the company. The company has also embarked on several community services. These community services are aimed at enticing the community to adopt activities that tend to reduce environmental degradation. It must also be observed that the products manufactured by the company are always seen to be eco-friendly. In 2008, thanks to the dedicated and skilled workforce that saw Amalgamated Holdings Limited received a major IT award. Undeniably, the performance management tool introduced will improve the capacity and accomplishment of the organization. Despite the numerous opportunities available for Amalgamated Holdings Limited, the external environment also poses threats to the efficient performance of the organization's operations. Amalgamated Holdings Limited indicates that, one significant threat to the survival of the current products in the market of the country is the invasion of illegal human activities like replication of the brand due to availability of illegal groups that has the knowhow. The situation aggravated by availability of illegal markets for memory modules products in the outside country and internationally. Conflict between human resource and the management has led to massive employee turnover. Conclusion This section has tried to capture in a nut shell some of the issues discussed above. It is salient to state that Amalgamated Holdings Limited is the most growing company in the entertainment sector. This has been majorly contributed by the ability of the company to capture a bigger market than the competitors and also diversify their products to increase the market share. There are several macroeconomic factors that have affected the company, however due to good management the company has stood its ground. This has ensured that the company only moves its manufacturing to countries where the opportunity cost is very low. This is important since the firm is always aiming majorly on maximization of profits at the lowest cost possible. The company has also been experiencing a positive deviation in their profit margins. The fiscal and monetary policies have affected the company’s ability to outsource and offshore for cheap labor in other countries. Countries with poor monetary and fiscal policies especially in the developing countries have always shown a steady rise in the rate of inflation. This has adversely discouraged the company’s investment in those particular countries. It must also be registered that variations in the exchange rates observed in many countries have also played a role the globalization of the company. This has seen the company mainly exporting to countries with better exchange rates so as to register high levels of net profit. Reference list Pride, W. M., & Ferrell, O. C. 2008 Marketing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Kotler, P. 1986 Principles of marketing. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. Bangs, D. H., & Halliday, M. I. 1997 The Australian market planning guide: Creating a plan to successfully market your business, product or service. Mona Vale, N.S.W: Woodslane. Read More