Question: Please help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot! We believe that through our hands and heart, marvelous and powerful pieces can be crafted. It

Please help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot! "WePlease help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot! "WePlease help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot! "WePlease help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot! "WePlease help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot! "We

Please help to solve question 1 Thanks a lot!

"We believe that through our hands and heart, marvelous and powerful pieces can be crafted." It was with this belief that Candy Ma founded the Seal Engraving Centre, offering a range of workshops in Do-It-Yourself (DIY) seal engraving in 2018. Graduated from a local university in Hong Kong, with Master Degree in Fine Arts, Candy is passionate about Chinese art, and is keen on using Chinese character to develop patterns and graphics. With this deep interest, Candy implemented her startup, and founded a teaching centre on DIY seal engraving. Seal Engraving Centre started at a 300 square feet unit located inside a industrial building at Cheung Sha Wan, within a five-minute walking distance away from the nearest MTR station. The landlord, who was a generous person with a heart to support young people in Hong Kong to start their own business, charged Seal Engraving Centre a monthly rental of HK$5,000 (a bit lower than the market rental for a similar premise), and demanded no deposit. Candy felt very fortunate to find this landlord. To further reduce her startup cost, Candy did all the renovation work and website development, by herself. As a result, she was able to keep the total startup capital at less than HK$10,000. The payback was as short as three months! In fact, the greatest investment was not financial investment but time investment. Though materials for seal carving were not expensive, it still took me a lot of time to search for suitable seal stones for teaching purposes. In addition, I had to do everything from scratch, including designing my website and choosing photos for it, myself. I also had to develop the course and all teaching materials myself," Candy recalled. At the early development stage, Candy joined some large and famous local online marketing platforms/e-tailing websites to promote the centre. "Famous online 2 marketing platforms and e-tailing websites were good in promoting the centre and in attracting new students, especially when I had limited promotion budge. But I have to provide discounts to attract them. In addition, I had to share a significant percentage of the course fees with the platform. I simply could not handle the amount of new students at the low profit margin. I therefore stopped using these platforms after two runs. Nevertheless, these platforms did help to gain publicity for the centre." Candy mentioned. Since then, she focused on online promotion through social media such as Facebook and Instagram. In addition, Candy also taught stone crafting and seal engraving at the continuing education units of three post-secondary institutions in Hong Kong on part-time basis. The part-time teaching, on one hand, provided extra income to Candy, and, on the other hand, helped Candy extend her social network and reach out for more potential customers for Seal Engraving Centre. As part of the centre's customer relationship management programme, Candy introduced a membership system: all Seal Engraving Centre students will automatically become member of the centre for one year, and will enjoy 20% off class fee, and 10% off for buying materials or engraving tools. New students referred by members can also enjoy 10% off class fee. Membership can be extended by joining Seal Engraving Centre class at original price. Currently, Seal Engraving Centre has about 600 members. The regular price for a 5-session DIY carving class is HK$350, with a normal class size of two to eight persons. "The minimum class size is two. And nearly two-thirds of my students are dating or married couples enrolling in pairs to celebrate their anniversaries or birthdays," Candy observed. "I also have some loyal corporate customers, which are mainly local branches of foreign companies offering seal engraving DIY courses to their employees for team building and motivation purposes, as well as part of their staff benefits. These companies are willing to pay higher course fees." Seal Engraving Centre has established partnership with a number of commercial firms, in offering seal engraving courses for their employees. Candy hopes that these connections will help her to maintain a stable customer base, and, if things turn out right, to further develop her business. Seal Engraving Centre has also entered the wedding market in late 2019, designing wedding seals and signets for wedding couples. This line of business has been performing well, with increasing contributions to overall revenue of the centre. While Candy started the year of 2020 with confidence and optimism, the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequential restrictive measures introduced by the Hong Kong SAR Government to fight the virus had great impact on Candy's business. Business customers were all gone, and the number of courses offered by the Seal Engraving Centre dropped by nearly 90%, with roughly same drops in number of students and fee income. Without any part-time teaching, income from the wedding market, which is just sufficient to keep the Seal Engraving Centre surviving, has become the main source of revenue in the last twelve months. Fortunately, Candy's landlord is willing to reduce the rent by 50% till 30 June 2021, with a possibility of further rent reduction extension, depending on the pandemic situation. With a passion in promoting the art of seal engraving, and the confidence that the COVID-19 vaccination programme will eventually help control the pandemic, Candy is hoping that there will be a slow recovery of the economy starting in late 2021. However, when she recently talked to a friend about the future, her friend mentioned that there will be a "New Normal" (or somebody may call it the "Next Normal") after the COVID-19 pandemic has gone. Candy is not sure what this "New Normal" means, and what impact it may have on her business. Question 1 (20 marks) With reference to the Business Model Canvas, or other business model development/ analytical tool(s) you prefer, critically comment and evaluate the business model and strategy adopted by Candy Ma in establishing the Seal Engraving Centre. Question 2 (20 marks) While people are expected the arrival of "New/Next Normal" when the COVID-19 pandemic is over, Candy Ma does not have a good understanding of what New/Next Normal" means. Based on your understanding, discuss the key aspects of "New/Next Normal" that may be relevant to Hong Kong in general, and to Candy's business in particular. And then suggest to Candy Ma business strategy (or strategies) she may adopt to further develop her business at the post-COVID-19 New/Next Normal" era

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