Air Beat Clothing

BBS013-1 Case Study SEM 3

Alison Johnson, the founder of Air Beat Clothing (ABC), is facing significant disappointment and setbacks in their product line. The company specializes in marketing a diverse range of clothing through televised infomercials and an e-commerce platform. Alison and her team are concerned about the company's recent product failures and are seeking a more eco-friendly approach to improve their new product development activities.

ABC is a fast fashion retailer aimed at young adults aged 20-30, offering quality clothing at affordable prices. In recent months, it has struggled with declining sales and net losses of (-21%). Most products fall under casual wear categories, including t-shirts, blouses, trousers, jackets, coats, skirts, dresses, hoodies, sweatpants, jeans, sportswear, and accessories (hats, scarves, bags, belts, jewellery, gloves, etc.). The store offers collections based on seasons, festivities, occasions, and sportswear.

One of ABC's main product categories isSynthetics fabrics, such as Polyester and Nylon.Sales were lower than expected, indicating a lack of consumer demand, partially based on the current awareness around sustainability. Additionally, customer feedback highlighted issues with product functionality and durability, in particular for a synthetic polyester multi-function bag. The combination of low sales and high return rates did not justify continuing the synthetic range, production and distribution. The company designs the product but does not manufacture their own products. These are made by other companies who either already make a similar product or have the product capability to make what the company asks them to make. Usually the company sends them a rough idea of the product and then evaluate the prototypes. Once the company is satisfied with the product, they negotiate a contract based on price, volume, and quality and delivery time. Air Beat Clothing uses a wide variety of manufactures both in the UK and abroad. Many of their foreign manufactures are based in China, and the communication with these companies are often difficult because of the language barrier, communication issues and cultural differences. The manufacturer sends their products in batches to the warehouse, where only spot checks are made to check the quality. The warehouse then packs the products and sends them off to the customers.

The company is always looking for new product ideas as the essence of keeping sales moving is fast fashion trend. One product, in particular, withdrawn after three months on the website, and after televised infomercials was the multi-function synthetic bag. The bag has a number of recalls, not only because of ethical issues but due to functionality and durability. Not all products succeed, but Alison's problem is that this is the tenth recent new product failure.

Firstly, sales are for lower than expected. Boxes of the synthetic products are stacking up in the warehouse, not being sold and are taking up valuable space in the warehouse. Secondly, a large number of the synthetic products are being returned by the customers, who are complaining of the quality being less than expected, in particular the multi-function bag. Some customers also complain that some goods are damaged when they arrive. Sales are too low to justify the cost of manufacturing and the returns are too high to justify a continuation of synthetic products.

New products ideas come from an in-house team consisting of Alison Johnson, two of her directors Joey Diaz and Michael Moore, responsible for Operations and Project Management respectively. Operations is mainly involved in packing up the products, labelling and posting. The Project management division is responsible for special projects across the company and get involved in all areas where improvements are needed. They can be in operations, logistics, facilities management, sourcing of the products and other materials, transportation, etc.

Alison and her two directors are from technical backgrounds. Alison employs other managers. The HR manager runs a small group with mainly young and relatively inexperienced HR staff; the logistics and warehouse manager runs a group of mainly temporary staff recruited via employment agencies; the media manager is responsible for putting the brochure together every 3 months, and has recently set-up the website; a buyer manager handles the contracts with the companies who manufactures the products that are sold on by Air Beat Clothing; and the finance manager looks after finance and the general administration.

A small customer services team handles customer issues such as product enquires, payments, warranty, non-delivery and product complains.

The company employs a total of 40/50 people:

• In Operations 15
• In HR 5
• In logistics and warehouse 10
• The media team 3
• The buyers 2
• Finance and general admin 6
• Customer services : 2

The company only sells in the UK at the moment. Emails are sent out to existing customers who are identified through periodically analysing databases, purchased from marketing companies, on 'fast fashion". The website is maintained well, however there has been little investment in digital marketing.

Product idea generation is purely in-house and does not use focus groups. Idea generation sessions takes place on the last Friday of every month and usually results in about ten new ideas being put forward and discussed. As the major shareholder of the company Alison Johnson, takes it upon herself to select which, if any of the ideas should be taken further with a view to include them in the product portfolio. She uses her own judgement in this screening process as she feels that the growth of the company is down to her 'feel' for the market.

Once a product idea is selected, Alison and her team find someone who can make the product and it is then incorporated on the website and which product to publicise as an infomercial. She believes that the best test of a product is whether it sells or not and for this reason no market research is conducted before its inclusion in the product portfolio. Once the product is launched, a small sample of customers are contacted randomly and asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their views on this product and other company products.

Alison has called for a management meeting including the directors and managers.

Alison is seriously concerned about recent product failures and is wondering if a different and perhaps more systematic approach to developing new products might be appropriate. She is asking her staff to put a project team together and advise her what the company might be doing wrong and how it might improve its new product development activities.

Questions:

What is expected:

Present a formal report, with headings, using your reading, research, learning and journal content as a starting point. We suggest writing the report in two parts:

Part 1 - written based on your research findings so in 3^rd person

Your report should present a project plan to address the issues around product returns at Air Beat Clothing. The issues can be in the many areas of the business. It should demonstrate an understanding of business functions as well as an understanding of the key elements of the Project Life-Cycle and in particular the Business Case in the Define phase (of the 4 D's model). Your Business Case must an appreciation of the importance and role of stakeholders to the project.

Your report needs to clear focused on the case study company given and not on a generic company. It should reflect the material covered in the sessions up to week 6. There should be clear evidence of reading about the topic beyond the areas discussed in class and include both academic sources to support your use of key models and concepts as well as credible non-academic sources to support your discussion and evaluation of potential projects to address the issues facing the case study company. You must reference your sources both in-text and in a Reference List using the Harvard-UoB style (please see referencing resources on the LRWeb for further guidance if needed).

Your Report should include the following elements:

Executive summary:Describe the key points from the report, including the most important findings and recommendations.

Introduction: Explain the purpose of your report and lay out the structure of the rest of your report.

Reasons:Describe the reasons for doing the project e.g. the business problem which you are trying to solve for the Case Study company. Provide sufficient background and contextual information on the Case Study company to allow the reader to understand the rest of your report.

Business options:Describe the different options which have been considered and recommend an option. One option must always be the 'Do nothing' option. This option does not result in a project.Other options might be 'Do the minimum we can', 'Do something else' etc. You should try to provide enough information that the approvers of the business case will be able to judge which option gives the best value for money.

Expected benefits:Describe the benefits of the recommended option, in measurable terms if possible. They can be both qualitative and quantitative and supported by credible citations.

Expected dis-benefits:Describe any dis-benefits. These are actual consequences of a successful project which are negative. If possible, quantify the dis-benefits and support with credible citations.

Timescale:Describe 2 timescales: the project timescale and the timescale over which the benefits will be realised.

Costs:Describe 2 costs: the project costs, and the ongoing operations and maintenance costs which will be incurred over the benefits realisation timescale.

Conclusion: This section should draw together the main points from your investigation/analysis. It summarises what has been learnt from undertaking this research. It should evaluate the options available to The Business Case and what would impede implementation (No new information should be included in the conclusion)

Part 2 - written about yourself so 1^st person

Your personal reflection is based on your learning experience documented by your journal entries in BREO which will form part of this assessment. Therefore, journal entries added on a regular basis in weeks 1-5 MUST BE SUMMARISED WITHIN THE ASSIGNMENT to evidence how you have developed and used key skills in the initial learning in the unit and in the analysis of the business case for this assignment.

This can be achieved by completing journal entries on your self-assessment analysis, VARK, Belbin and all personal development activities that link to key employability skills.

In the reflective report you may explore key skill development in all or any of the following areas:

• Communication (both verbal and written - evidenced by classroom discussion, presentations and report writing)
• Numeracy - (evidenced by examples of use of data and statistics in your seminar activities and this submission)
• ICT (evidenced using Microsoft Office programs during the unit)
• Problem Solving (evidenced by examples of analysis and information gathering, during the unit and in the submission of the assignment)
• Working with Others (evidenced by reflecting on your experience working in teams during the unit)

The reflective report should include continued evaluation of your experience working in class and your practice week by relating where possible to models and theories like Belbin, Tuckman and Kolb. You can also include reflection on learning from feedback offered in seminars and from SEM 1 units as your development is continuous

The reflective report should conclude with an action plan using the SMART framework. So, where you identify an improvement is needed, document how you intend to do that.

Format:

• Reflective report should be written about yourself so in 1st person
• All links to key skills development must be referenced in text to entries in your journal. For Example:

"Since Semester one unit learning I have continued to develop and work on these XXXX academic skills, how to read an article and paraphrase key elements of it, reference it correctly so that it could be included in a formal submission" (JNL Week 4 (date)

• Your report should be correctly referenced in Harvard style with references in text and in a reference list at the end of your report.

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