Andy Turner had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and own a bookstore. He graduated from the
Question:
Andy Turner had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and own a bookstore. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor's degree in English and from McMaster University with an MBA. Andystarted Turner's Reading Room, a small bookstore that sells all types of books. The store is located in Toronto in an area called The Beaches. The Beaches is a large neighbourhood with many residents and a variety of stores. Thesestores include restaurants, gardening, clothes, decorating, and many others.
Andy had owned Turner's Reading Room for over 15 years. Itemployed seven other people, including an assistant manager and six sales clerks. Most employees hadworked for the business for over five years. Andy believed intreating her employees well and rewarding them for excellent work. He also hired a custodial service to clean the store once a week and an accountant to do the books. The store has aloyal clientele and has been very successful over the 15 years. Traditionally, profits have been over $120,000 per year. Andy finds owning the store to be a rewarding career.
However, in the past three years,profits have dropped approximately $10,000/year. Andy has just received notification from his accountant that last year profits were $92,000. The accountant expects thatprofits will continue to decrease the coming year unless Andy makes some changes. Andy is very worried about this situation. He cannot afford to have the profits decrease any more because he needs to support his family. He has three children, all of which will be attending university in the next five years.
One of the major reasons that Turner's Reading Room has lost profits is that an Indigo Bookstore has moved into The Beaches. Also, Andy hasnot advertised her business but relied on word of mouth and reputation to be successful. He is worried about the possibility of having to lay off one of her staff members. He has not told the employees about the problems but he is sure that they know something is wrong.
Andy needs help to solve his business problems. Using the steps of the decision-making process down below,provide a solution for Andy.
Decision making process:
a) Identify and define the problem
b) Generate and evaluate alternative solutions
c) choose a preferred course of action
d) implement the decision
e) evaluate the results