Body Shop is an International Cosmetics & Skin Care Company - Industry Report Writing Assessment Answers

Industry Report Assignment Help

Executive Summary

A summary of what is in the report. Write this last.

Methodology, Approach, and Limitations

Copy this section from your research document.

• Add details of any additional research you may have carried out for this report – particularly any ideation or research on costings etc. for new ideas

Introduction

Write an overview of the business. Consider the following:

• What does the business do?
• Values, mission, goals
• Business size, structure &, performance
• Summary of business SWOT findings
• General information from the site analysis (location of business etc.)
• Overview of any on line presence
• Has the business been “disrupted” by changes in technology and changing customer behaviours?

Discussion and Data Analysis

Discuss your research findings holistically - consider all the information from your research (site analysis, customer journeys, surveys or interviews etc.) and any information from “What’s the Future of Business” you think is relevant to your business

• Who are the customers and how do they interact with the business?
• Do they go to the store?
• Describe in detail what the business looks like, how it has been set out & any keycustomer touch points
• Do they go online?
• Describe in detail any online presence and what customers can do online and howthey do it (touch points)
• What things (values) are important to the customers? Moments of Truth?
• What is the customer’s experience with the business?
• What works well? What doesn’t work?
• How do your findings fit with the general business values, beliefs or trends?

Design for Business Assessment 3 – Industry Report Guidelines

Problems & Issues

• What issues (or problems) are evident in the business? o Why are these problems or issues happening? o Discuss any problem analysis you do (fishbone, 5 whys)
• If there are no specific problems, what areas could be improved?
• How would this improve the customer experience?
• Be specific about what is causing any problem or why the area should be improved

Recommendations & Improvements & New Ideas

• How can the business improve the customer experience?

Your recommendations could be for a specific customer and could relate to improvements / innovations for the physical (store) or online business

• What do you recommend the business do to solve any problems you identified? Think about the following:
• How do other businesses do the same thing?
• Ask How Might We questions Brainstorm different ideas using the 6 Thinking Hats
• What innovations or new ideas can you recommend?
• How would businesses implement these changes / improvements?
• Who would be affected?
• How long would it take?
• How much would it cost?

Conclusion

• Write one or two paragraphs summarizing your overall findings and your recommendations about how the business could improve the customer’s experience

Executive Summary

The Body Shop is an international cosmetics and skin care company that has enjoyed an impressive level of success since its inception in 1976. Currently, it has over 2500 retail stores operating in over 60 countries. This success can, among other things, be attributed to the enterprises’ strong stance against the testing of products on animals. This has captured the attention of the general public who stand behind The Body Shop in their fight to push for this policy to be adopted by other companies. However, the introduction of the internet changed the playing field for many businesses, The Body Shop included. There has emerged a new generation of consumers who can access information about any product at the click of a button from their personal computers, laptops or smartphones. As a result, the competition is at an all-time high because customers are exposed to a wide variety of products from many different companies, enabling them to compare and select what is best for them in terms of quality and price. Today, retaining a customer is more difficult than finding a new one. To prevent falling victim of this new generation of consumers, The Body Shop will have to improve on its creativity and innovation, as well as promoting a customer-centered approach towards business.

Introduction

The Body Shop is an international cosmetics and skin care company. Since its inception in 1976, The Body Shop has grown significantly, and currently, it has 2,500 stores in over 60 countries. The company deals in a variety of skin care and cosmetics products for men and women, ranging from face oils, to hand and foot creams, to lipsticks and eye shadow palettes, amongst others. With regards to the company’s values and mission, The Body Shop supports many community welfare and environmental campaigns, with its most recognized campaign being the Against Animal Testing campaign. The Body Shop is also an active advocator for Human Rights and has begun several initiatives in Third World Countries like Nepal with the aim of generating a self-sufficient economy. With regards to technology, The Body Shop has adopted use of the internet as a forum to display their products. The Body Shop online offers a variety of options, allowing the customer to scroll through a wide variety of products, purchase a product of their choice and negotiate the terms and location of delivery. This report will focus on a Body Shop store located in Melbourne, discussing its effectiveness in terms of the location, architecture, customer care services, product variety, online presence and what can be done to improve the business as a whole.

Research Methodology, Approach and Limitations

The research for this report was accomplished by doing the following:

• A field study of a store branch of The Body Shop enterprise located in Melbourne.
• Going online to The Body Shop website and also their Facebook page and Twitter handle
• Using consumer survey questionnaires containing the following questions:

1. 1. How did you find the quality of the products?
   2. Did you approve/ like the ingredients within the products?
   3. Did you feel you got value for the amount you paid?
   4. How did you find the staff attitude? Was it to your satisfaction?
   5. Was the location of the store easy to find and accessible?
   6. Is the online store easy to use and navigate around?
   7. In your opinion, do the products match the standards to be considered as environmentally friendly?
   8. Are you pleased with the knowledge that the products are animal-cruelty free?

The following limitations were encountered:

• The branch managers were unwilling to engage us in our questions and preferred that we go looking for answers online
• We were not allowed to take any photos as it was against the store policy.
• Some customers were unwilling to take part in the questionnaire we had formulated
• The online website did not give us information we needed about things such as the number of male workers versus female workers, the level adherence to their Against Animal Testing policy and average number of daily versus online consumers that visited the store.

Discussion and Data Analysis

The Body Shop store located at the second level of Melbourne Central enjoys a distinct location that is visible to all passers-by. This location is perfect for a cosmetics store because it is situated in a shopping centre where there are always large groups of people, all of whom could be potential customers. With regards to the architecture, the store portrays a simple design comprising of fully grazed windows allowing passers-by to see the variety of products on offer without walking in to the store. The signage; THE BODY SHOP is written in white caps over a dark green backdrop making it easily identifiable from a distance. Inside the shop, there is good lighting that is not too bright and all corners of the shop are very visible. The floor is covered with white tiles which further reflect the light improving the visibility. The products on sale are neatly positioned on shelves with acceptable distance in between the shelves allowing for a comfortable navigation in and around the store. Generally, the architecture and display of goods was satisfactory.

On the day we visited the store however, there were not as many customers as one would expect in and around the store. Of the few consumers that we met, most of them were female. The age demographic that was present at the store were those between 25-40 years old (This data is as a result of pure observation and intuition. We felt asking a person their age might be offensive). The products purchased the most were skin care creams, face oils, nail polish and hair shampoo. Since the architecture and display of goods were not in question, there was need for further exploration in to what cause for the low consumer turnout might be. We identified some possible causes for this as the following:

• • The possibility that most consumers preferred to shop online
  • The high prices of most products could cause consumers to look for cheaper alternatives
  • The lack of awareness about The Body Shop and its range of products among the younger demographic (18-24 years).
  • The stigmatization and stereotypes that prevent men from confidently walking in to stores such as The Body Shop
  • The confusing variety of products with no samples on offer or professional guidance on their usage was a likely contributing factor.
  • The limited number of male staff might have been a contributing factor to the unwillingness by male customers to shop at the store.

Problems and Issues

We identified the following problems and issues from our visit to The Body Shop store in Melbourne:

• Low demographic of male customers at the shop
• Low female demographic between the ages of 18-24
• A confusing variety of products- we were not sure what we would buy
• Intimidating and impatient staff
• Expensive products

We identified the following as the areas that needed improvement:

• Customer Care Services- the staff should be ready and willing to answer all of the customer’s questions
• There is need to introduce free samples to allow consumers to figure out those products that work best for them
• There is need to improve the store’s online presence by introducing a consumer feed-back section to their website for consumers to publicly display what they liked or did not like about a particular store, consumer service or product. This would allow the business managers to address the issues displayed and improve both the business and the consumer experience.
• There is need to introduce discounts or special offers to make shopping worthwhile.
• Probably the introduction of more male staff will make men more willing to shop at the store

Recommendations, Improvements and New Ideas

From the questionnaire that we presented to a series of random consumers of the products from The Body Shop, I was able to come up with a general consumer reaction to the products as well as the business itself. (This table can be found in the Appendix section of this report).

What can be witnessed from the tabularized data is that most consumers found The Body Shop and its products to be meet their expectations, while few felt that the store and its products surpassed their expectations. The number of consumers whose expectations were not met is also high, which is not good for business, especially in this age of information.

Goodfellow (2015) refers to the current generation of consumers as the Generation C consumers, where C stands for Connected. This simply means that in the modern day and age people are linked by the internet, which allows them to share information and experiences. This could spell trouble for a business because a single consumer with a large number of followers on social media could in a single sentence in the form of a post, destroy or promote a business for success. As Puopolo and Bradley (2012) put it, the playing field has changed and with the new set of rules available it is important that businesses such as The Body Shop adopt to the new way of doing things or make way for fresher, younger and innovative businesses to take over the industry. There is no middle ground.

The first step in ensuring business success in the 21st Century is understanding the larger demographic, their characteristics and what type of things they are attracted to. Molinsky et al., (2012) writes that the most active demographic that every business in the 21st century should try to appeal to is the generation y demographic. Generation y consists of those individuals born from the early 1980’s to the years around 2000, making them around the ages of around 16-35years old. Some characteristics about this generation that could affect the way they approach business include:

• They are energetic and diverse
• They prefer quality over quantity
• They like to be involved in revolutionary movements
• They are impressionable especially when it comes from public figures of celebrities
• They get bored easily
• They like value for money (Mossberger, et al., 2008)

Evidence confirming these characteristics can be obtained from the questionnaire responses where 6/10 consumers were thoroughly impressed by the fact that The Body Shop products were Against Animal Testing. This influenced their willingness to buy the products and was probably the reason why they chose to buy from The Body Shop, instead of its competitors, despite their (The Body Shop) relatively higher prices. This is further confirmed by Rigby (2011) who writes that the objectives for businesses in the 21st century should not be limited to growth and making profits. In this age of information, the buyers’ decisions will also be influenced by what the business supports or is against. Today’s generation wants to be part of revolutionary change, and not supporters of business practices that endanger the universe and/or deplete its resources (Martinsson, 2009).

In terms of establishing a good online presence and going out of their way to support important issues like those presented by the Against Animal Testing Campaign, The Body Shop has done a commendable job. However, although this is sufficient to capture the attention of generation y consumers, it is not enough to win their loyalty. As was mentioned in their characteristics, generation y consumers are diverse and get bored easily. For this reason, it is important for a business to also be equally diverse and creative in their thinking, (Lloyd & Payne, 2008). A store branch for The Body Shop could change its layout every three months or so to prevent consumers from getting bored with its design. A website page could be redesigned to incorporate a new look. Whatever the approach may be, changing the layout of a store or webpage to fit in with modern trends is an investment that could prove to be worthwhile in the long-term, as it will appeal to the existing demographic of consumers.

An example can be drawn from the clothes and fashion provider and distributor, Zara. What started off as a small company has grown to become an international success story through its diversity, innovation and keeping up with what is trending. In every Zara store around the world, the clothes available are only there for a limited period after which they will no longer be available. As a result, whenever there is a fashion trend going on, Zara will have the trendy fashion clothes available in their stores. However as soon as another trend takes over the market, Zara stores will re-invent their stores by introducing completely different cloth wear from what was there previously. The result is customers keep going back for the element of surprise because they are not sure what to expect, (Hansen, 2012). A similar strategy to this can be adopted by The Body Shop.

Another recommendation that can be made to The Body Shop as a way of improving their product sales has to do with the existing staff. Maechler et al., (2016) writes that success in the 21st century involves taking a customer-centric approach towards a business. If the customer is happy, they will recommend the business to their friends and family which would be good for business. However, a customer-centric business approach can only be achieved through the business staff. Finegold and Notabartolo (2010) write that competent staff are those that are able to identify and respond to a consumer’s needs as soon they walk in to a store. In line with this, The Body Shop should hire/train their staff to be lively, patient and have good social skills so as to keep customers coming back for more, (Maxwell, 2006)

Conclusion

The Body Shop is a success story of what started as a single retail store to become a global enterprise established in over 60 countries. This exponential growth can be attributed to the wide variety of products on offer, the quality of the products offered, the accessibility of the retail shops around the world and the campaigns the enterprise supports, like the Against Animal Testing campaign. When the internet was introduced to the world, The Body Shop quickly adopted and responded by establishing a webpage. Today, The Body Shop has firm establishment in social media networks like Facebook and Twitter which it uses to create awareness for existing and newly introduced products.

However, despite its praiseworthy efforts, The Body Shop still has a long way to go if it is to continue growing as an international enterprise. The Body Shop should acknowledge that there is a new demographic of consumers who are diverse, informed and connected. This means that they know where to find the best quality at the cheapest prices, they are actively comparing products from different companies and they are not loyal to those companies that do not evolve. To appeal to this demographic, The Body Shop has to be creative, diverse and customer-centric in doing business. Another characteristic of this new demographic is that they are impressionable. If a single person with a hundred thousand followers on Twitter endorses/recommends a product from The Body Shop, the sales are likely to escalate. However, if they do not approve of a certain product or staff or store, then the business is doomed. There is no middle ground.