small business

Small Business Consulting Report

I. INTRODUCTION In this small consulting report, we will be analyzing the company WOSH to determine its strengths, weaknesses and possible solutions to all of its operational problems which can be addressed from a consulting perspective. We will provide an in depth report which will outline the approach we feel should be deemed best for the company to follow to gain success in their industry. In this report we will not present a financial analysis of the company due to the fact that the company’s owner has decided the information is too confidential to share with anyone, but himself and his personal financial team at this moment. We will instead focus on the other aspects of the business which can be fully analyzed and possibly improved upon. In our report we will be looking directly into many aspects of the company’s current operations. We will begin by analyzing the company’s background. We will look briefly at when and where it was founded, who founded it, what their mission statement is, what their ultimate goal is in terms of expansion and what are their primary products or services they offer. We will then take a brief look at what the company’s structure is like. We will do this in order to try to later determine where all decisions are made and by who and which level in the company has the most influence on how effectively the company is run. This can be very important when analyzing how a firm conducts day-to day operations. We will then take a look at all aspects of the company separately to try to find problems in the company’s operations. We will first take a look at the company’s current management approach, which refers to the way current management is handling all assets and employees which can be either loosely or closely managed. We will try to determine if all assets are being put to the best use possible with their approach or if a different approach is needed. We will also be looking into the company’s current marketing strategy and we will try to determine why they have chosen that specific strategy. In addition, we will determine whether or not this chosen strategy is the best fit for the company or if a different strategy approach may serve the company better and more effectively. Next we will look at the company’s current target market and we will determine if it is in fact the current target market the company is attracting. If it is not, then we will try to analyze why this is happening or even try to evaluate if they are even reaching those who they want and need to reach. Additionally, we will also take a look at how regular customers and businesses customers feel about the company. Talking to regular customers and business customers will help us determine their level of satisfaction and also to determine whether the company has any competitive advantages which helps distinguish it from competition. We will then evaluate if these advantages could possibly can be expanded upon. Having this conversation with customers will also give us an insight into any operational or managerial problems. Also, customers usually have much to say regarding their experience and how pricing affects their level of satisfaction or of retention. This will help us understand how the current pricing model affects regular and business customer’s attitudes towards doing business with this company.

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Next we will use what we learned to go on to the next section which is a prescription for the problem. All of this information will provide us with a clear picture of what type of problems this company may be encountering. By understanding this information, we can then formulate a plan of action or a prescription to try, to the best of our abilities, to remedy the problems and or improve upon aspects of the business. This will be our prescription and remedy that we recommend this company to implement. Finally, in our conclusion we will restate how we identified the company’s daily operational problems, restate the approaches we took in order to solve the problems and lastly we will reassert the prescription we provided to the company. In it we will again provide a suggestion on how we feel the current problems the company is facing can be remedied. We hope that this report shows a complete and thorough picture of the operational capabilities of this company. And with this information we hope to make the correct adjustments to improve all of the aspects we are about to touch on in the following sections. Next we will explore the company’s background along with its internal structure.

II. COMPANY BACKGROUND WOSH was established in 2014 with one vision, to offer carwashes, also known as “car woshes” which is where the company’s name WOSH derived from, as eco-friendly as possible. This innovative company mission statement states that they will like “to bring the car wash into the 21st century and save two of the most precious resources known to man: time and water.” The company is located in Los Angeles, California with entrepreneur Logan Voxx leading as the CEO. This eco-friendly company uses no water to wash cars instead they make good use of their primary company product called the “Eco Smart Solution”. As any business starts up, times are difficult and creating a reliable team is considered the primary key to success. The first year, the WOSH team worked day and night in collecting contracts with business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) clients around the downtown area in Los Angeles. What mainly supported the company and lead to it’s success up until this day was Mr. Voxx’s dedication to secure investors in order to help the growth of this business. The idea of an eco-friendly car wash company encouraged many investors to invest their money into this company, which enable WOSH to raise funds. As an overview of how this company functions, the company uses waterless solution based from plants with embedded wax compounds to clean each and every car. This process of washing a car saves around 40 gallons of water per vehicle. Being under such strict restrictions and regulations of the proper water use in California, this company highly encourages the less use of water. Making a huge impact within California’s water supply as the state is still consider to be in a drought crisis. WOSH primarily serves different properties around the downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood areas. There are different packages offered from a small car wash to a full detail with extra optional add ons. The company motivates and promotes the message which reads “We are a carwash that comes to you. When you want it and where you want it.” Overall, WOSH’s vision is for people to be able to continue their daily lives, but with a more reserved and proper use of water. With all the misuse of water, WOSH hopes to start making a

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difference by providing alternate ways for people to save water, yet continue their normal routines. By providing a daily carwash service, WOSH intent of this is to make an impact and help prevent further serious drought crisis. Along with these goals and plans, WOSH ambitiously aims for a better eco-friendly future for our planet.

III. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEMS In this section we analyze several aspects of the company and the problems we found with each. These aspects include the following: current management approach, product effectiveness, customer satisfaction level, and marketing approach. I. Inconsistency One of the problems the company is currently having is great heterogeneity in their service of water-less carwashes. There may be many reasons why this may be happening, but we found that two main factors are probably at most fault. The first factor relates to employees being really under supervised during their service calls and the second factor has to do with employee motivation. First we look at the factor of under supervised employees. The current way the company manages its employees is in a very liberal way. The company receives orders for their waterless-carwashes and managers assign individual orders to associates who actually provide the service. The associate then receives the order, has to travel to the customer's location, provide the service and do it in a timely fashion to be efficient. From our perspective we feel that workers are not being held directly responsible for the quality and timeliness of the service they are providing. According to reviews and complaints we have analyzed from sources including company review sites and direct customer conversations we have found this to be widespread in the company. The other factor that affects heterogeneity is employee motivation. According to our employee interviews we have found that many are not satisfied with their pay for the amount of physical work they have to do. This leads to employees not performing to their best abilities because they just feel they are not being compensated for the amount of work they are doing. This is a common problem for many start-ups. Although the company would like to increase compensation to their employees it cannot be easily done because during start-up cash is especially important for the company to remain a viable venture. The problem is that if they cannot find a way to increase employee motivation without increasing pay, they will continue to have heterogeneity in their service from their employees and low customer satisfaction.

II. Defect with “Eco Smart Solution” The second problem that we as business consultants have pinpointed is the defect with WOSH’s primary product which is the “Eco Smart Solution”. As part of the car wash process, the use of the eco smart solution needs to be mixed with water in order for it to clean the exterior part of the car well. If the eco smart solution is not mixed well enough, it will leave streaks on the car after washing. This poses a serious problem because the streaks are hard to get rid of which makes it harder to satisfy the customer.

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On the other hand, if we analyze the product defect from a customer perspective, no customer would want to see streaks on their car after believing what the product promoter said about such highly value eco-friendly product. As a customer, it is expected to obtain the good results that the product and service promoters market to people. Even though some customers might understand how WOSH is a car wash company that saves water, they expect to see no use of water during the process of washing their car, but with same results as if their car was wash using water the old tradition way. In addition, since the customer’s word of mouth is another way for the product and service to self-promote, it is important to give a first good impression of the product and service being provided to them. Customers have the tendency to have expectations of every product and service they obtain from companies like WOSH. Overall, having such a product defect could both on the short and long run affect the company’s profit or number of customers they have on a daily basis. Having analyzed both a business and a customer’s perspective, the outcomes on the defect of the eco smart solution is unsatisfactory, but could be resolved. III. Battling Condensation The third problem that we found had to do with condensation affecting the time it takes to complete a wash. In order for the eco smart solution to work, cars have to be completely dry for the solution to work effectively. Cars that are left out at night build condensation in the morning which means that they have to be wiped dry before the eco smart solution can be applied and the waterless car wash process can begin. This extra step can greatly increase the amount of time it takes to complete the wash and it can cause the washer employees to fall behind on schedule and leave some of the orders incomplete in the day. We found that this condensation problem makes it really difficult for employees to meet their goals, in terms of number of washes completed. Also, it forces the washers to rush through the process possibly hurting the level of professionalism and service the company is striving to achieve. This problem comes from management's failure to think more precisely about the timing of scheduling the washes. Starting early may mean that the company may complete more orders in a day but it may also result in a less cost effective system where it’s taking too much time to finish a wash for the cost of the employees and product. IV. Marketing Approach Being a business that is available to many people of all ethnicities and ages varying from 16 to 100 years old, it is important to analyze, based upon their marketing effectiveness, which current market is WOSH targeting. It is essential to take into account what income base customers is this company attracting. For instance, if WOSH sets its carwash prices too high then it only attracts people with high income who could afford to pay some to wash their car. If the company is setting the prices too low, then it’s not giving of the impression of a fairly good valuable company. The price needs to be set at an average price compared to its competitors. In addition, we also need to examine if WOSH is only attracting single people or married couples. This will help us pinpoint whether WOSH should make their service more family oriented or individually

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oriented. Based upon these analyses we could identify what marketing approach WOSH is currently conducting. Within the last few year, we have analyzed that the targeted market WOSH attracts customers who would like a fast, convenient car wash at a reasonable price. Most of the company’s car wash locations are in high end estates. Time is the essence to these customers as they simply do not have time to go out of their way to wash their cars so in return, WOSH sets up shop at these locations. Companies also need cars cleaned but creating a facility or internally hiring employees to wash cars can be costly. So they hire mobile company like WOSH to do the bidding for them. Offering waterless cleaning to businesses gives them a short, quick, and convenient solution.

IV. WHAT WE DID To begin our consulting report, we first took a look at the company background and looked at how they had set up their operations. We found information on the internet from their website, from their Facebook profile, and from reviews on their company from sites like Yelp. Next we talked with our partner Lawrence, who is actually a manager in the company and gained a lot more insight into how the company actually works. He educated us on what the company was about, how the ran day-to-day operations, and what their internal structure looks like. He also provided information about how the company was started and how they managed to get funding by leveraging the green concept in their idea of waterless car washes to gain interest from investors. After we gathered as much information as we possibly could, we planned a day to meet with the director of operations, Jelani Bee, and asked him a few questions about his operations and if we could arrange a ride along to see how a full car WOSH is executed. While on the ride along we talked to the employee that were on the job and asked as many questions as possible regarding what they thought was right and wrong about their service process. We also engaged some customers to gain insight into how they viewed the service and why they chose to do business here rather than at a regular car wash. We learned that the first year, the struggle of keeping a start-up company afloat was ever so challenging. With a limited amount of employees, everyone had to put in their part. They had to work both business-to business and business -to-customers parts of the company every single day to keep the company rolling. Members often found themselves working 18 hour shifts at a time leaving them sleep deprived the next day. After an entire year passed by, the company was able to start hiring new employees to split the work. This enabled the company to show its true potential in the car washing business.

V. PRESCRIPTION In this section we describe the solutions we have determined are the best path towards helping this business solve the primary problems it is facing. These solutions are based on our observations, conversations with employees and customers and on our experience in finding solutions for small business operational problems.

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I. Solving Inconsistency Like we described in the prior section, this firm is facing a problem of service inconsistency. By this we mean that many employees are not providing a professional wash service and they are leaving jobs unfinished. Or they are providing very sloppy service. The problem is that the employees are not being well managed and are not being held accountable for their service level. Also adding to this problem is low employee motivation. Together they provide a formula for very low customer service and the consequence is inconsistency in service. We feel that a practical way to hold employees accountable for their service, is to perform regular customer surveys. What we mean by this, is that the firm continuously ask customers to rate the level of service which in turn would reflect how professional a job each employee is doing. This would help the firm identify possible problem employees or learn about new problems the firm may not be aware it’s having. Another way we feel the firm can hold employees accountable for their service and in turn decrease their inconsistency, is by having employees take before and after pictures of the service. This will provide some insight into the level of service they are giving. By providing pictures, employees will feel personal accountability for their work and they will feel more pressure to do the kind of work that is expected from them. To solve the problem of low employee motivation we feel the firm should do a better job of screening the type of employees that are willing and able to do this physically demanding job. From our observations and conversations with employees we found that many are not a good fit for the position because of many reasons. Some have never had experience working in this type of demanding environment, some are overqualified and expected to be doing other kinds of work which is why they now have low motivation, and some just are not self-motivated themselves and somehow managed to slipped through the screening process.

II. Fixing “Eco Smart Solution” Analyzing this product’s defect from a business point of view, there’s a fairly high level risk of not obtaining the products good results if not knowing how mix well enough the eco smart solution. As a small business, having a high level of risk of not attaining good product results, should be minimize or fix as soon as possible. In this case, WOSH has two options of possibly fixing this problem. Option one includes considering to reevaluate the product performance and come up with a better non streak product. This will allow the company to promote a better product along with its service, attracting more customers to its business. There are many products on the market the company is able to try. Many vendors offer free samples to customers to try their product. Option two includes to better train its employee as to how the eco smart solution should be mix. The CEO, Logan Voxx, could make a video demonstrating the process of only the process of mixing the solution well enough. The video could include such information as to how much water do you need to mix into the eco smart solution, how much eco smart solution do you need to pour and for how long should the solution be mix with the water in order to obtain good results. It is such options like these that looking at it from a business level could be taken into consideration to solve this problem.

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III. Getting rid of Condensation As stated in the previous section, inconsistency is a huge problem and condensation is one of the biggest issues this company faces. This mainly affects WOSH’s business to business operations as all cars are cleaned at night. The fact is there is no way to counter this problem, it is inevitable. But there are many measures the company can take to adapt to these issues. First suggestion, the operations manager needs to work closely with its partners to come up with a better time and location to clean the cars. Cars left in the middle of a parking lot have a higher chance of condensation build up than cars parked in a multi-story parking garage. The allocated time to clean the cars also has an effect. The moisture content in the air varies from place to place. Cars closer to the coastal area tend to build up condensation earlier on then cars located in the Inland Empire. So scheduling these cars earlier can make a difference in the quality behind each wash. Another suggestion the company can use to counter the condensation issue is by changing up the supplies used to clean the cars. Instead of using microfiber towels all around to dry and polish each car, maybe use a shamwow to dry the vehicle first. Instead of using the towels to clean the windows, use a squeegee. This will not only help improve the time spent on each car but also counter the streaks commonly found the next day.

VI. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION As an overview, we have analyzed and examined the company WOSH. We first provided some of WOSH’s background company information along with a small description of the company structure. We unfortunately were not able to provide any financial information or projections because of the owner's privacy decisions. Once having introduced the company’s background information, we then identified and analyzed some of the problems WOSH has been encountering. For each of the problems we identified, we provided a description. Following this, we explained what actions we took in order to try to figure out ways that the company could change in order to solve their problems. Lastly we made our prescriptions based upon our analysis of the different problems along with some suggestions we strongly recommend WOSH to make. I. Conclusion Starting of with the company’s background information, we briefly explained how WOSH came to be the company it is today. It was mentioned under this section how the company operates, what their mission statement states, and how is WOSH positively affecting communities near by Los Angeles. After this we highlighted some of the difficulties that WOSH faced towards the beginning of this company's journey. Lastly we went in depth as to how the company functions and how it makes use of its products. After the company’s background information, we described some of the WOSH’s problems. We identified four problems of which they include the following: inconsistency with its customer service, defect with the “eco smart solution”, battling condensation and lasting their marketing approach. For the first problem we identified which was WOSH inconsistency, we examine and

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explained how WOSH employees do not provide the same customer service and satisfaction to each customer. As for the second problem which was a defect with the “eco smart solution”, we mentioned how WOSH’s product, if not mixed well enough with water, could leave behind unwanted results in the form of streaks after the carwash. In the third problem identified, battling condensation, we studied how condensation affects the completion time of a car wash. Lastly as part of our problem analysis, as consultants, we analyzed what targeted market WOSH was aiming at for the past two years since the first year the business opened. These were the problems that we were able to pinpoint with the WOSH company. As for our third section, after looking at the company’s background information and problems, we then moved onto explaining what we did in order to obtain some possible solutions to WOSH’s problems. As a group we planned a day to meet up with the manager of the company and asked a few question regarding how the company works and what problems they could perceive in their operations. We asked where he thought the root of each of the problems came from and what were some of their current actions being taken in order to combat and solve these problems. The following section in our report consisted of prescribing some solutions to WOSH’s problems. We format this section by first talking about ways to solve inconsistency, secondly fixing the “eco smart solution”, and third getting rid of condensation. To solve for inconsistency, we recommend WOSH to provide its customers with surveys, where each customers could express its opinion on the company’s customer service and product. For the product malfunctioning we recommended WOSH to provide its employees with an instructional video where it elaborates in detail how and for how long to mix the “eco smart solution” in the water and how much of the solution to pour. Lastly we suggested a solution as to how to get rid of condensation. We provide a few options of which some of them included for the manager to close watch its employees to make sure they're doing the job right and to provide better car wash accessories like microfiber towels to prevent condensation. As mentioned in this paragraph, these are some of the solutions we believe that could help the company WOSH resolved their problems. Overall, with all these analyses that was conducted, WOSH is a good company that encourages the less use of water since California is currently going through a drought crisis. This ecofriendly company has become an example to follow for many other car wash companies. They provide and encourage the sustainability needed to help the state of California with the drought problem. Just like any other company, WOSH has some business problems that we have identified in prior sections within this small business consulting report. As entrepreneurs, we have invested our time and effort into analyzing the problems of this company with the consultant’s best knowledge we provide possible and most reachable solutions to WOSH’s problems. II. Suggestions Based upon the small business analysis on the company, WOSH, we suggest the company to further continue expanding their business into different cities and locations. Being such an eco

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friendly company, it has opened its business at a right time. Especially since we are in a time where most companies are trying to become as eco-friendly as possible whether it’s recycling or preserving water like WOSH, every act counts. Also, we would like to suggest that they take full and immediate action against these operational problems they are having which include inconsistency, defect with the “Eco Smart Solution” and the problem with condensation. Regarding the problems that we found within the company WOSH, we have suggested some approach solutions for WOSH to accomplish in a short period of time. For the first problem of inconsistency we suggested for WOSH to simply improve their customer service by providing surveys to customers where they could rate the employee’s performance. The problem we found regarding the product, “Eco Smart Solution” we suggested WOSH to reevaluate the product because of its defects and consider either designing or adopting a different product with better and improved results. This will not only improve the image of the company, but also the quality of the product that will make them stand out from their competitors. Lastly, for their third problem of battling condensation, we suggested for WOSH to book early appointments for those clients that live near the coast line. This will make it less probable for condensation to build up through the day. These suggestions that we have included in our report are meant to help the company WOSH meet and accomplish its objective. WOSH’s objective is for the company itself to grow with partners by offering a reliable eco-friendly service. As we outlined in our analysis there are multiple issues in the company ranging from product to service to management to marketing issues. They all have practical solutions which can be solved, but only if action is taken. Overall we feel this company has great potential and is in a good product and service niche. If the company manages to overcome these problems, we expect to see much more of them in the coming future.

Resources Citations

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Ø Katz, Jerome A., and Richard P. Green. Entrepreneurial Small Business. Boston: McGrawHill/Irwin, 2014. Print.

Ø "Facebook." Security Check Required. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2016. <https://www.facebook.com/GETaWOSH/>.

Ø D., Irwin, Bobby R., and Craig A. "Wosh - Hollywood - Los Angeles, CA." Yelp. N.p., 07 June 2016. Web. 15 Aug. 2016. <https://www.yelp.com/biz/wosh-los-angeles-11>.

Ø "GET A WOSH." WOSH. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2016. <http://getawosh.com/>.