The business that I have chosen to study for this project is a company called Blacks. Blacks are a retail chain of shops that specialises in products for skiing, camping and travelling accessories. The shop that I will be relating the project on is Blacks which is situated in the centre of Harrows shopping centre. The reason I have chosen this company for the project is because I am an employee of Blacks and have been so for three years now.
Myself and eight other employees work their. The staffs consist of two managers, two supervisors and the remaining are sales assistants. As I have worked for quite a long period I feel I know how the relations work within each section of the workforce. Blacks are a fairly new company which started business four years ago. It originally traded under the name Air but the company went out of business. They were then taken over by a larger company called The Outdoor Group Ltd and have since traded under the name Blacks.
Blacks is still owned by The Outdoor Group Ltd but now generate high revenue every year and are very strong in the market in which they operate. There are over 80 Blacks stores around the UK and they have firmly established loyal customers and know who their potential customers are. I began working as a sales assistant at Blacks but was recently promoted to supervisor as I had worked there for quite a long period of time and of course gained an understanding of how the business environment works.
Recently there have been many changes that took place which affected both Blacks as a whole and the store at which I work. When I began working at Blacks three years ago a new manger also began working and she continued to do so until a month ago, whereby she was promoted to a bigger store situated in Ealing Broadway. This meant we had to get a new manager and we were provided with the assistant manager from Ealing. Since the new manager came we have seen there is a great difference in the way things were done with our previous manger and the new one which has caused some unrest. This will be discussed further on in the project.
Changes have been plenty recently at Blacks. A recent change which affected the whole of Blacks was a move towards their aims and objectives set at Blacks. Blacks’ aims and objectives set which can also be found on their website are the following:All of Blacks’ objectives have to be set within a time limit. They have to forecast which aims and objectives are short-term and which are long-term. Their short-term aims need to be achieved within a small period of time. An example of this is to make sure all stores are laid out in such a way that they are appealing to customers. Another example of a short-term objective is to reach the set sales targets for each week.
Blacks’ long-term aims and objectives are set at the beginning of a financial year and can last for up to 12 months or longer. An example of one of Blacks’ long-term objectives is to have low labour turnover at the end of the year and increase annual sales revenue from the previous year. Blacks recently focused on their objective of expanding but on a different level. As Blacks have generated high profits and having looked at their current financial status it was decided that Blacks would take over a company who was in financial crisis. A competitor called Outdoors was taken over by Blacks through a hostile takeover. We will look at this in more detail further on in the project.
If the relationship between the employer and employee is good, then Blacks can meet most of their long-term objectives set as workers will be happy and would want to stay. As the relationship is good also, the staff morale will be high and this of course can help Blacks reach their sales targets by providing good customer service, which is another of Blacks’ objective. Another objective set by Blacks is to reduce costs in terms of labour turnover but also health and safety. If employers start to show employees that they really do trust them and in some cases depend on them, then employees will not only have high morale levels but it will give them the courage to work harder so the number of mistakes they make will be greatly reduced.
Blacks’ main objective is to increase their market share and be viewed as big competitors against their rivals. Currently Blacks own a great proportion of the market and a due to the fact that they supply specialist equipment t could be said that they are part of a niche market. As workers have high morale, they will provide efficient services to the both the business and customers which will improve their image and increase their market share.
