Need paper for "Principle of Management class"

Instructions

You just bought a fashion boutique in downtown Kearney (or your hometown—you pick) thats been around since 2012.

Financials

the basic financials are as follows:

· 2016 gross sales: $630,000

· 2017 gross sales: $750,000

· 2018 gross sales: $670,000

· 2019 gross sales: $650,000

· 2020 projected gross sales: $620,000

Over that time, your store has also averaged the following:

· Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) has averaged about half of gross sales (50%). So COGS was about $315,000 in 2016, for instance.

· Payroll has held steady at about $180,000 per year. The previous owner took a modest $30,000 salary (but was also entitled to all the profit as the sole owner of the company).

· The owner retired and no longer works for the company. There are two other full-time employees who are each paid $35,000 per year (no commission). One has been there 5 years and one has been there 1 year. There are also 6 part-time employees—mostly college students. They have each worked at the store an average of 9 months.

· The profit margin has held steady at about 6% per year of gross sales. Example: the profit in 2019 was 650,000 x 0.06 = $39,000.

· You paid $116,000 for the business, along with an additional $103,000 to purchase the unsold inventory and equipment in the building. You put 1/3 of your personal savings down ($73,000) and borrowed the remaining amount from the bank at 5% interest on a 10-year loan.

· You rent the 1,500 square foot building for $1,200 per month. You have 12 months left on the existing lease; the lease period has renewed every 5 years.

Pros & cons

Before deciding to purchase the business, you made a list of pros and cons, but you know this list is not comprehensive.

Notes that you took prior to purchasing the business:

· The business is consistently making money, but you’d like to increase your profit margin.

· Gross sales have been trending downward.

· You have a small pocket of loyal customers, but you suspect most customers are infrequent visitors to your store. You don’t currently have data to support this.

· The business did very little marketing (including promotion) prior to your ownership. The previous owner spent maybe $2,000 a year on un-itemized “advertising” expenses. Maybe that’s okay?

· The location is okay. Nothing great. The building is old, but doesn’t have a lot of problems. The business has never been in another location.

· One full-time employee is very experienced, but not very “nice.” The other full-timer is nice, but not experienced. Your impression of the part-timers is that 2 of them do nothing, 2 of them are rising stars (but are likely only sticking around until they graduate, or until summer comes), and 2 of them are somewhere in between.

· The previous owner wasn’t around much. She was the only person with the “manager” title. The other experienced full-timer would step in and boss people around as needed. The managerial hierarchy is relatively flat.

· The business really hasn’t adjusted its strategy or done anything new in the last 5 years.

· For the most part, the culture is hard to pin down from your limited interaction with the employees. They seem to get along okay. They get the job done, but they don’t seem to go above and beyond, with the exception of a couple employees. You wonder why they lack motivation. The more experienced, more senior employee belittles the younger employees when they “work too hard.”

· You’d like to learn more about the sense of direction, communication, mission, and leadership within the organization. When you spoke with employees about their job duties, the answers were mixed, or you got a, “I dunno, I do a little of whatever, I guess.”

· Nothing spectacular about the business immediately stands out, but you assume that it must be doing something right to still be in business and making a profit.

· You believe that competition comes in various forms, both locally and online.

Requirements

· Write in APA format

· 4-5 pages approx.. in length

· You should cite the textbook approximately 10 times in each milestone. Also incorporate at least one additional reference (ideally a scholarly journal article), in addition to the Williams textbook in each milestone. Use citations appropriately and according to the APA style. You MUST incorporate outside sources in order to have your paper be considered for an “A.” In addition, good papers will cite the Williams textbook over and over again, demonstrating that you have a good understanding of the textbook content and that you know how to apply it in a practical way to your business.

· Include at least one new figure, chart, or graph with each milestone. It is best if you create your own. Here are just a few ideas: charts showing anticipated sales data, market trends, confidence indices, census data, marketing pieces, your proposed management hierarchy, financial statements, a calendar timeline, SWOT (required). Feel free to incorporate your own ideas.

This paper has 4 milestones. The instruction for Milestone 1 is as follows:

Milestone #1

1. For this Milestone, you must have your paper formatted correctly according to APA or Chicago style, including title page, running head, bibliography section, etc. Remember to use headings and sub-headings frequently. Table of Contents and abstract is not required.

2. Look back on the history of management (Chapter 2). What specific lessons can be learned from other historical leaders in management and how will you apply these lessons to your new business?

3. What will be your managerial role in the new business and will there be other managers? What types of managers will each of you be? (team leader, top manager, etc.; Chapter 1). Based on your own self-evaluations and self-reflection conducted throughout the semester, what do you think your strengths and weaknesses will be as a manager? Where might you need to hire help to make up for your weaknesses?

4. Discuss the general and specific environment for your type of business. Reference Chapter 3. Remember the PESTEL analysis we discussed? Utilize outside sources specific to your industry as well as the general economy, such as online industry reports, consumer confidence indices for the state and other business confidence indices. Here is just one other example for evaluating your environment (come up with your own): is your industry made up of a lot of small stores with high competition and low margins, for instance? What does it look like locally? Are you highly regulated? What role do suppliers have in your business that might affect the way you manage? Etc. Etc. Again, these are just examples. Reference Chapter 3 for more ideas about what to analyze in the “environment” and consider searching for information about a PESTEL analysis to make this process easier for yourself.

5. Also from Chapter 3 . . . what problems and opportunities do you see with your business’s culture and what do you plan to do about them?

6. Describe the specific policies and procedures you plan to put into place to ensure your business lives up to your ethical expectations (Chapter 4).

Sample Template (Milestone 1)

You will want to include some sort of introduction here. You don’t need an abstract. You also do not need a table of contents. However, you may include either or both of these if you want. The introduction doesn’t need to be longer or complicated. Anywhere from a paragraph to a half page would be fine. As a general rule of thumb, each of the milestones for this assignment should probably be approximately four to five pages in length and should try to include some kind of visual like a chart, graph, or figure. It is preferred that you create your own charts and graphs using a program like Excel. If you use someone else’s, be sure to properly cite the source. I won’t grade you so much based on what specific decisions you make for your business. Managers can be successful doing things differently from one another. I will, however, grade you based on how well you backup your decisions with theories from the book. What I want to see more than anything in your paper are lots of citations that reference our textbook. For instance, if you decide to reorganize your business structure, I want to know why you decided that, and I want to see you reference specific pages in our textbook to back up that decision. Lots of citations is what interests me. You can use a format similar to this for citations (Williams, 2018, 2-2c). Notice how I cited the section of the text rather than the page number? This is because many of you are using the digital version of the book and the page numbers are not obvious.

Late papers will not be graded. They will receive a zero. You may show me rough drafts of your paper at least a few days in advance of the due date and I will offer some feedback to you if you choose to do that.

Incorporating lessons from the history of management

You can break this up further by using subheads, if you want

Chapter 2 introduces many historical leaders in management. For instance, Taylor introduced many modern management practices that we still use today. Fayol was a great people person who could effectively manage at the top. The Gilbreths were innovative with technology. Gantt charts are still around, everywhere, today. Incorporate ideas from Chapter 2 into your paper. Get specific with your decisions and with citations to the book. I don’t want to see something like “the Gilbreths used technology and so will I.” That kind of statement doesn’t show me that you are learning how to apply management concepts from the book in a practical way in your business.

Managerial roles

My managing role

Chapter 1 talks about the different types of managers and the different skills required by each. I have also put some self-assessments up on Canvas that you should take. As you look at your own strengths and weaknesses, decide where you would best fit into your business. Decide if you need other managers and what types of managers they should be. Again, be specific with listing your reasoning and citing specific concepts from the book and from the self-assessments.

Other management positions

Decide if you need other managers and what types of managers they should be. Again, be specific with listing your reasoning and citing specific concepts from the book.

PESTEL Analysis

Economy

Our book doesn’t use the term PESTEL analysis, but that is basically what Chapter 3 is covering. You will probably want to look up examples of PESTEL analyses online as you complete your own.

Sociocultural

Don’t forget to incorporate at least one visual for each milestone. Here is an example made by a past student.

Environmental

Our book doesn’t use the term PESTEL analysis, but that is basically what Chapter 3 is covering. You will probably want to look up examples of PESTEL analyses online as you complete your own.

Political/Legal

Our book doesn’t use the term PESTEL analysis, but that is basically what Chapter 3 is covering. You will probably want to look up examples of PESTEL analyses online as you complete your own.

Technological

Our book doesn’t use the term PESTEL analysis, but that is basically what Chapter 3 is covering. You will probably want to look up examples of PESTEL analyses online as you complete your own.

Specific environment and organizational culture

Problems and opportunities

This is more from Chapter 2. This is where you analyze your competitors, suppliers, industry trends, etc. Please look to external resources to get a feel for this. For instance, there are websites that provide industry reports. You are encouraged to go visit downtown to get a first-hand feel for local threats and opportunities. Write about them.

Be sure to also discuss organizational culture and your plan for creating and maintaining your culture. What problems and opportunities do you see with your business’s culture and what do you plan to do about them? Again, these items are discussed in Chapter 2.

Ethics

Chapter 4 deals with Ethics. Describe the specific policies and procedures you plan to put into place to ensure your business lives up to your ethical expectations.

Races in Kearney, Nebraska

Race in Kearney, Nebraska White Black or African American American Indian and Alaska Native Asian Hispanic 86.9 1.7 0.2 1.8 8.4