Analyse the given case study and mention your recommendations. (10 marks)

In an entrepreneurial life, every day starts and finishes with some business problems. In the morning, we start solving problems that have been defined yesterday. In the evening, we discover other business problems that will need to be solved tomorrow.

The first type is visible problems, something that can easily be seen from your side as an entrepreneur, or your team members. For example:

Our sales numbers decline because our customers continue to complain that our products have poor quality. In this case, poor quality is the problem because we have easily related declining sales numbers with customers complaints about the poor quality.

Our sales numbers decline because our sales representatives dont know how to explain and demonstrate the quality of our products. Here, the bad sales numbers are related to the competence of the sales reps and the main problem here that will require solution is to increase the sales reps competencies related to the sales process and products as well as services that they need to sell.

Our sales numbers decline because we have not designed an appropriate marketing system to bring more customers into our sales funnel. Here, we relate sales numbers with the low level of acquired customers and the biggest problem here is the poorly designed marketing system.

As you can see, when it comes to the visible problems, we are using some key performance indicators and compare them with what happened in the company to conclude that there is a specific problem related to the specific indicator that we follow.

The second type of business problems is called invisible problems. They are more dangerous for all business owners. Because if you cant discover the problem, it will continue to exist, and your business will suffer quietly but for sure. For example:

Our sales numbers decline, but we cannot relate to anything that we are doing in our company. We will locate the problem because the revenue will decline, but we cannot find out why our customers start to avoid doing business with our company. In such a situation, many times, entrepreneurs think that it is the problem because of the bad economy, or it is something that will be periodic and after some time, everything will come to its own place without taking something to solve the real problem.

Our customers arent satisfied with our products and services, but they are not complaining; simply start to avoid doing business with us. Such an invisible problem will become visible, but it will be too late to take something to bring back to the previous position.

It is important for you as an entrepreneur to try to discover all types of problems in your company, because if you do not know that they are existing, you will not take necessary action steps required to solve them.

Expected components:

Introduction: Briefly, what is this about?

Background: Why was it undertaken?

Analysis: Why is it important?

Results: What are the major findings or results?

Recommendations: What more is to be done? [or] How will these findings be applied?