A report for the owners of Scootle Limited. Case Study

A Report for the Owners of Scootle Limited
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A Report for the Owners of Scootle Limited
1.0 Introduction
Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) is an electric bike rental business that is located in Leeds City. The company was established in October 2015 by two friends, Dhruv and Luciana. The mission of the company is to provide people with an easy and fun way to explore Leeds. Initially, the business model was formulated so that it would target a big university city, thus creating a large market for the parents who were visiting their children as we as for the friends who were visiting the students at Leeds University and other universities in the surrounding areas. The surrounding universities also create a large population for the business due to the steady population of visiting academics for conferences and collaborators. Notably, many of these are interested in exploring the area during as they stay around. In such cases, one of the challenges they face is affordable means of transport and mobility around the area. As such, the business addresses the issue by providing rental electric bikes. Most people prefer electric bikes due to their ease to operate and use minimal energy. This report presents an SWOT analysis of the business, the available opportunities it can exploit, as well as the threats and weaknesses that slow down its growth and expansion.
2.0 Opportunities and threats currently facing the company
Currently, Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) faces various opportunities and threats in an equal measure. Whereas it can exploit the opportunities to promote its growth and development, the threats that the company faces slow down its growth and development (Massarelli, William, Johnson, Kies, Ferrarotto, Guo, & Haymaker, 2019). Such factors affect the company both internally (opportunities) and externally (threats), and they should be addressed if the company is to continue growing and expanding, as well as improving its profitability.
Opportunities
Among the opportunities of Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) include the following. Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) company is likely to witness expansion. Typically, this is due to the prevalence of the global warming in the entire world. The fact that most European nations are running away from the use of cars, it offers an opportunity for the company. There also exists a chance of opening a branded institution that could train people to use the cycles (Borsch, 2019). Besides, it is also possible to amalgamate with any existing school that performs the same task. In addition, due to the current increase in participation of women in cycling competitions, this offers the cycle company to enlarge its market coverage for both the bikes and the attires for women. Further, through integration in specific programs like health awareness, the cycle company can boost its sales as well as creating awareness of its brand.
Threats
Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) is liable to various threats, as discussed in this SWOT Analysis. Due to the occurrence of global slowdown, Condor faces the threat of decreasing disposable income. In the existence of better transport facilities, these can effectively act as perfect substitutes. Further, Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”)’s market share is likely to reduce due to intensive competition in the market.
It is also notable that there are various factors that can either be threats or opportunities for the company. The final outcome depends on how the business reacts to the factors and the use to which they are put. Such factors are also discussed in this section.
Mobile Mechanics and Direct Sales; depending on a particular individual’s perspective, direct sales associated with mobile mechanics like electric bikes can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. Besides, it is obvious that mobile mechanics businesses across the world are developing at a fast pace. Inside, the Velotooler, one would find such companies that provide their services as hired hands to the dealer, which could have a significant importance in busy periods (Donnelly, MacIntyre, O’Sullivan, Warrington, Harrison, Igou, & Cloak, 2016). Prior to the introduction of mobile mechanics, bike shops seemed like another expected development on online competition. Several workshop businesses that require getting organized will always exist. Besides, there is an opportunity for mobile francises that would allow them proceed with a manufacturer’s flawless service delivery to the final consumers (Mendoza, Sharmina, Gallego‐Schmid, Heyes, & Azapagic, 2017). Further, it would also enable them to up-sell accessories and do safety checks on the clients door steps as well as intercept the delivery. Since the mechanic seeks to strengthen the relationship through convenience with the customer’s read app, to retain their clients that shop mainly due to the accessibility, the bike shop must involve more creativity and innovation. Therefore, the outcome of this factor either as an opportunity or threat depends on how the company uses the information.
Decathlon, Go Outdoors and Cycle Republic; indeed, the UK business decathlon has shown effective international expansion plans since it has already established thirty stores in Britain. In the meantime, Go Outdoors which is now under JD Sports is consistently expanding as well, and has sixty branches in the United Kingdom alone (Frenken & Pelzer, 2020). These two companies have stretched their bike departments to service and sell variety of spare parts, bikes as well as accessories and other components. When it comes to Cycle Republic, Scootle left the pervasive orange for something that feels more like a traditional bike shop. The company has fifteen stores in the country as of today whereby two of them opened in March (Parker, Ntounis, Millington, Quin, & Castillo-Villar, 2017). Scootle will definitely receive a lot of competition from Go Outdoors and Decathlon for the British market. However, these competitors are not yet nearly as specialist in the several services that they can offer to esteemed clients, and that could be an advantage for the traditional bike shop.
Bike Share; in most cases, this platform has been seen as an opportunity. For instance, Scootle has identified its self in the industry by marketing its share bikes and moved across the city to seize the existing businesses. For that matter, various arguments have developed asserting that bike-share users with time become buyers. Indeed, it is true some do, but the inducements are gradually reducing, as portrayed on an enormous scale in the fur east. Notably, with on-street bikes parking at almost every corner, the motive to purchase has lessened to the extent of removing commuter bike sales. Generally, one would wonder why CI.N has extensively written about bike share despite its impact on the daily running of the bike industry. Typically, the answer can be drawn from trying to identify the scale as well as the ridership behavior emerging all over the world. In general, with schemes diving into the UK, and also breaking territory quarrels, there are significantly high possibilities for a great impact on bike sales, if no proper regulations imposed. 
3.0 Strengths and weaknesses of the company
The financial position of the company is also influenced by both strengths and weaknesses that the company faces. Further, these factors have affected the financial position of the company. The factors are presented in this section, in addition to an analysis of the financial position of the company.
Strengths
Considering the SWOT Analysis of Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) company, the information below illuminates the particular areas of interest. The analysis conducted shows that the company faces various strengths and weaknesses. Whereas the strengths have positioned the company in its current market position, the weaknesses have slowed down its further growth and expansion.
Some of the strengths that promote the business’ growth include the following; serious cyclers place a great deal of trust to the company’s brand; for all biking necessities within Leeds, the company is the suitable center where cyclers can get all the desired quality biking accessories and attires; the ability of the company to build a custom bike depending on the client’s desire helps it to address almost all needs of cyclists; the company employs extremely talented and knowledgeable workers who offer suitable assistance to clients when guiding them on the best bike that meets their needs; and the company’s value chain is vertically integrated, that is to say, it incorporates after sale services after manufacturing. Further, the growth of the business has been attributed to such factor as vertically integrated the value chain of the cycling industry from manufacturing to after sale service; and in the presence of guaranteed satisfaction, the company is assured of long-lasting loyalty of its customers. Typically, this cordial relationship between the company and its clients is as a result of the training services offered to maintain the bikes. Such factors justify the fast growth of the business as it seeks to expand its boundaries.
Weaknesses
Despite the strengths of the company, it also experiences various weaknesses. As shown in the SWOT Analysis of Scootle (Leeds) Limited (“Scootle”) company, its weaknesses include; it is difficult for clients to order for the bikes online. Typically, this is because this platform does not exist; the company produces limited products for women; and due to its geographical location, the company’s brand awareness is limited
It is notable that one of the challenges the company faces is getting skilled labor to fix its bikes. Surely, fixing of the BMX bike requires an engineer to possess some basic expertise although anything exceeding 20 bikes is more complex (Chen, van Lierop, & Ettema, 2020). For that reason, there is need for specialists to invest in both training and tooling sessions. The business should also have skilled workers who can offer such services as bike services to cyclists.
Further, dealing in bicycles as a business requires one to be vigilant. The business owner needs to embrace automation, just like other businesses. In this case, the business owner needs to analyze whether customers are getting chances of bargaining on the bicycle prices or whether there is appropriate pricing for the products (Frincu, Misso, & Repetto, 2017). Besides, there is need to consider labor to help run the business in various departments such as sales and customer care. In a nutshell, the store layout needs to get back to the front.
While dealing with clients, it is appropriate for the customer care personnel to display reasonable data that explain who the business functions. In addition, these information will be followed by some explanations that so that clients can properly understand how thing are done in a business (Ewing, 2020). However, it is necessary to value customers and charge them accordingly.
Review also shows that the Bicycle’s business is becoming more dominant that before. Undeniably, the world currently is focusing on the bike market, particularly, the e-bike business, which is the segment for growth. Primarily, the faster rise in the bike market is attributable to the “peak car,” which is a mixture of the automotive world (Ravetz, 2016). Due to that, there is much recognition of fossil fuel consumption day...