Summative Assignment Final Project

Running head: WEEK ONE - ASSIGNMENT 1

WEEK ONE - ASSIGNMENT 2

Week One - Assignment

Kristina Jackson

February 22, 2021

Kingdom Consulting, LLC is a small business consulting firm that seeks to assist entrepreneurs start or expand their businesses. Our goal is to help business owners across various industries make their businesses operate more efficiently and identify and reach their target markets. At Kingdom Consulting, we seamlessly combine our business consulting skills with precision implementation. We create plans and strategies that ignite results. Through in-depth analysis your current financial statements, employee structure, and review of the day-to-day operations we will design and execute a detailed branding and marketing strategy customized to fit your business. We will offer your organization fresh insight into your market and provide a specific, targeted growth strategy. For new entrepreneurs, we assist the small business owner to identify their target market, define their marketing strategy, calculate funding needs, identify and connect with capital funding sources, and write their business plan when needed. It is our goal to work with the entrepreneurs to gather information about their businesses and provide solutions and valuable analyses that will help them to meet their business goals. What originally began as a volunteer effort at a local church in Eatonville, Florida five years ago has now transformed into a consulting firm that has connections to more than 150 local small businesses. We envision reaching many more in the years to come. Our purpose is to assist new entrepreneurs with writing business plans, assisting with locating funding sources, and connecting them with other established entrepreneurs in the local market through our entrepreneurial mentoring program, Kingdom Konnections. We seek to assist entrepreneurs build and expand their brand and connect with others in their industry to share best practices and create strategic alliances.

Our mission is to help your company answer these key questions:

1. What unmet need has been identified in the market?

2. Is additional information or business intelligence needed to fully exploit the opportunity presented by this unmet need?

3. Is my organization properly positioned?

4. Does my organization fully understand the market and competitive environment?

5. Have we created reasonable an measurable goals?

6. Do we have a clear, organized strategy to optimize this business opportunity?

7. Does our existing business structure and internal capabilities align with what is needed to undertake this initiative?

If you are unable to answer these questions on your own within your organization, Kingdom Consulting is here.

Kingdom Consulting is a multi-disciplined, multi-dimensional business consulting organization consisting of a diverse group of highly talented, highly experienced professionals committed to providing customized business solutions to meet your business needs. We help you launch and grow your business in a manner that ensures a sustainable future and continuous growth opportunities. Our leadership team and employees consist of professional spanning a diverse range of disciplines and business knowledge. This knowledge coupled with our entrepreneurship program offer significant added value to our services for our clients. This, partnered with our technical and marketing experts, provide the firm the ability to service clients with businesses in almost any business industry.

Hierarchical structure is defined as the different chains of command within and organization, from senior leadership to administrative and technical support to general employees. For Kingdom Consulting, we have determined the best structure for our organization is a sole leader (owner-operator) with department heads (finance, marketing, tech support, etc.) with a group of subordinates that are under them. Our organization currently employees 75 individuals consisting of the CEO, leadership team (12 members), a team of four executive assistants, and the remaining support staff. All employees report to their specific managers with the information from employees compiled from the leadership team and presented to the CEO on a weekly basis with additional off-cycle communication as needed. The organizational hierarchy creates and establishes the flow of information within an organization from leadership down to general workers and vice versa (Bilson & Aitchison, 2016).

Hierarchy within an organization assists employees with understand the proper chain of command when escalating issues or presenting process or service gaps within an organization. Unfortunately, a weakness of a hierarchical structure is that it can prove at times to be a hindrance to innovation and creativity. Without the proper flow of information from employees to leadership, or alternate channels to submit issues or new ideas, innovative ideas or other concerns can be caught in a communication logjam if management fails to share the information. Within Kingdom Consulting, we have created the Send Us Feedback tool which allows employees to submit new ideas, suggestions, complaints, or identify process gaps. Input from this tool is reviewed bi-monthly by leadership with all submitters receiving a direct response. In cases were issues have been identified that affect the entire organization, leadership analyzes the issue to create a solution which is then communicated throughout the organization via company email with follow up with additional training if needed. This tool has boosted job satisfaction as well as employee morale as employees feel that their input is valued by leadership and they are included in leading and managing change within the organization.

Social entrepreneurship can be challenging to define, in large part because the concept has been evolving rapidly in recent years and increasingly blurs the lines of the traditional business, government and non-profit sectors. Social Enterprise Alliance defines social entrepreneurship entities as “organizations that address a basic unmet need or solve a social or environmental problem through a market-driven approach (Social Enterprise Alliance, 2019).” Kingdom Consulting will offer our clients an advantage that few other firms can, Kingdom Konnections. Kingdom Konnections is our premier entrepreneur networking system that connects new entrepreneurs to mature business owners (in business and operating successfully for at least five years) in the same or similar industries to share best practices and create strategic alliances. Current research shows that entrepreneurs with access to mentorship have a higher success rate than those that do not have the same access (Association for Enterprise Opportunity, 2017). We currently operate in an underserved community of underserved African American and Hispanic families. It is the goal of our firm to assist these families with building generational wealth through business ownership. This can start a cycle within the family as research shows that individuals with early exposure to entrepreneurship through family are 47% more successful in their entrepreneurial pursuits than those who do not have the same exposure (Fairlie & Robb, 2007). The network will also assist our entrepreneurs with connecting with entrepreneurs to outsource certain aspects of their businesses. For example, if a business owner needs to outsource its graphic design, they may be able to connect with a graphic design firm through Kingdom Konnections. Strategic alliances can be created as well. We have connected event planners with food truck owners and caterers. This alliance connects vendors that allows them to expand their brand and meet new potential customers. While the firm does not profit directly from these connections, the word-of-mouth referrals help to sustain the business and expand our network.

Currently, the organization faces an obstacle in terms of our social media strategy. While we are known in the community in which we began volunteering our services, we wish to expand our services to entrepreneurs throughout central Florida. We current have a very weak social media presence and need to create strategies to increase traffic to our pages. Through the social media platforms, the organization will be in a position to reach out to a broader audience, thereby creating the potential for a larger mentor network for our clients. We are currently considering doing short videos that can be posted to all social media platforms including YouTube, a video sharing site. Creating a unique branding strategy will be critical to setting our organization apart from other business consulting firms in the area. Consumers are aware that they have options, so we need to create a branding strategy that makes choosing our firm the obvious choice.

Kingdom Consulting – Our business is to help you start yours!

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References

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Bilson, C., & Aitchison, I. (2016). Tips for Building a Successful Design Organization. Design Management Review, 27(2), 50-53.

Fairlie, R. W. & Robb, A. M. (2007). Why Are Black‐Owned Businesses Less Successful than

White‐Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(2), 289. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.1086/510763

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