Welcome to our third post in the series!

To build on our post last week, here’s a peek on our answer structure (Note: again, yours may look a little different, and that’s okay):

Introduction:

• proposal highlights – director push for online selling, look at points whether they pose threats or opportunities for the company

Body:

• Threat = underperforming shops possibly caused by tough competition
• Threat = closing shops may lead to loss of brand visibility (reduced physical presence)
• Opportunity = selling online may prove successful if this is what customers want
• Threat/Opportunity = customers visiting shops less will make us less customer facing and focused, but more convenient perhaps
• Opportunity = offer of e-commerce and new software will provide technological advancement and boost our competitive advantage

Conclusion:

• Perform due diligence on proposal
• Comment that it’s a good idea – tapping a potentially bigger market
• Be careful about closing shops before making sure that online selling is viable
• I think I’m all for it for now (you might not, have you noted down why?)

The most important thing to note in today’s post is that we would not be able to apply the third Well, Well informed/applied, if we do not have some background information to work with. I suppose it is time to produce a mini pre-seen material to go with our example.

Imagine the following:

“Our company is in the retail industry. We are a leading chain of clothing retailer, which have a number of stores in the country. Our product is apparel. Our clothing are reasonably priced (not cheap). The market in general is competitive. And because of this, the margins we make are small. Our financial results have been on the decline for a few years. Our brand is well-recognised, but our market position is slipping. Our operation consists of “brick and mortar” shops all over the country. We have some online presence but limited.”

And now we get on with our third Well, Well informed/applied.

With being well informed, one has to draw on what you know. You can base this information on various sources, but the two most common places to give you relevant information is from the pre-seen (above) or from real-life industry example.

Let’s plot some relevant information into our well-planned, well-constructed answer: (see in red)

Introduction:

• proposal highlights – director push for online selling, look at points whether they pose threats or opportunities for the company

Body:

• Threat = underperforming shops possibly caused by tough competition
  • market is competitive, possibly overseas imports?
• Threat = closing shops may lead to loss of brand visibility (reduced physical presence)
  • well-recognised brand, market position may slip more
• Opportunity = selling online may prove successful if this is what customers want
  • easy for customers to switch brands, there is no loyalty
• Threat/Opportunity = customers visiting shops less will make us less customer facing and focused, but more convenient perhaps
  • change in strategy, we are mainly “brick and mortar” shops
• Opportunity = offer of e-commerce and new software will provide technological advancement and boost our competitive advantage
• Threat = possible employee unrest if word got out that we are closing some shops

Conclusion:

• Perform due diligence on proposal
  • Finances are declining, can we afford this?
• Comment that it’s a good idea – tapping a potentially bigger market
• Be careful about closing shops before making sure that online selling is viable
  • Employees unrest issue
• I think I’m all for it for now (you might not, have you noted down why?)

So there you have it. Planned, constructed, applied. We will get it supported next week.

Three down, two to go.

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