Business Management

I am planning to open a sporting good store. There are certain things I need to do in order to properly plan, organize, direct, and control this store. I would also need differing levels of management and decide on a management style that works best for both my store and me. In this paper I would develop a plan that will cover all these things so that I may open a successful business.

I would begin the planning process by determining what recreational activities are available in the particular geographical location. I live in Alexandria, Louisiana, so this is where I would probably open my store. In this area there are numerous places to hunt and fish so I would need to cover these areas really well. There are also two bowling alleys so I would carry items such as shoes, balls, gloves, and towels. I bowled on a league here and found that no one, not even Wal-Mart, carried any of these items. I would also be sure to carry licensed items from all the local teams such as the New Orleans Saints. I would also carry items from each of the high schools in my parish so that I could cater to the younger generation in my parish. To achieve these goals, I would obtain permission from the high schools and sports associations to sell their products. I would attempt to develop partnerships with various organizations such as Bass Pro Shops, Brunswick, and the National Football League, so that I could develop my inventory and obtain officially licensed products. I would also develop a strategy for operations. I would determine what are the best hours of operation. I would invite people to request certain items or to give suggestions on how to better meet their needs and serve them the best I can.

Organizing my business is the next thing I would do. In organizing my business, I would need to establish my top, middle, and first-line managers. My top managers would be the shot callers. They would be responsible for setting up company goals and policies to ensure the business is a profitable one. My middle managers would take the goals and policies produced by my top managers and implement them or hand down the directives to the appropriate first-line managers. My first-line managers would be responsible for ensuring the employees are doing their assigned duties. My first-line managers would be required to work hand in hand with employees to ensure quality decisions are made on a customer-service level. I would develop an organizational flow chart so that employees and customers would both know who to go to with any problems that need attention. This flow chart, starting from the lowest level up, would be to report the situation to the appropriate team leader. If he or she does not resolve the issue, report it to the team leader. If the situation still is not resolved, or if the problem is with either the team leader or assistant team leader, the employee would then report it to the appropriate departmental manager. The appropriate departmental manager would be the one over the department in which the incident happened. If the incident still isn't resolved or involves the departmental manager, the employee would need to report to the store manager, vice-president, president, or the CEO, in that order. In the event the situation is still not resolved or in cases of sexual harassment, the employee would need to contact me, the owner, directly.

When leading, managers have two tools at their disposal to obtain the desired results from their employees. Managers can use positive reinforcement, rewarding desired behavior, or punishment, unpleasant consequences for undesired behaviors (Ebert, R. & Griffin, R., 2007) to get results that are good for the company. If I want positive reinforcement to work, I need to make the rewards and the goals required to meet those rewards reasonable. Offering my employees one thousand dollar rewards for working 150 hours a week with no safety violations is outlandish. First of all, no one is going to work 150 hours a week and if they did, there would most definitely be some safety violations because employees would be wore out and tired by the end of the week, both mentally and physically. Secondly, by having to pay out one thousand dollars as a reward, money is going to have to be pulled from somewhere else. I would offer $50.00 bonuses for receiving