Question

Bath Salts Online Store 1. Business Objective: Owners want to expand customer base and increase profits while still keeping a relatively low overhead. a. Expand customer base  Create online store to supplement their Etsy account b. Increase product output  buy more materials to qualify for better wholesale price 2. Business Case: Bath Salts Boutique has existed as an LLC (Limited Liability Company) for the last 5 years. To keep costs down owners Craig and Brooke have not invested in a store, rather they sell their goods through an online site for homemade/craft goods—Etsy. They also travel to local fairs/events to sell their products. Craig and Brooke have converted their garage in upstate NY into a workspace for their business. Where they store their supplies, make the products, package the products, and prepare the products for shipping. The administrative portion of the business is conducted in the family’s home office. Currently the garage is big enough to handle creation/assembly/packaging of 500 products per week but they are only filling about 50 products per week. Brooke and Craig would like to increase their customer base and increase their product output while keeping overhead costs low. They currently offer bath salts in three scents: juniper, vanilla, and lavender. Craig orders salt from a mine in Western NY, the largest producer of salt in the U.S. They place a wholesale order for 50lbs of salt every other month, which is enough to meet their current demand for products. However, the salt rate could be lower if they were to increase the amount they ordered. Concerning the packaging, Craig orders glass bottles with cork tops. The price per unit is $.50 for an order of 500 bottles. This stock lasts almost a year. Craig also orders juniper extract, vanilla extract, and lavender extract from a wholesale company in the U.S. One bottle of extract will be used to make 30 bottles of scented bath salts. He places an order every month, but the price for extract is still very high. Ideally, they would like to find another vendor, or possibly find a way to make their own extracts, but only if it would be more cost-effective and not consume too much time. Brooke agrees that she would like to experiment more with extracts and combinations for new scented bath salts, and feels that she would have more control over that is she were able to create her own extracts. From an operations standpoint, Brooke’s father Oliver is a big help. He assists with incoming shipments of goods and the assembly of the final product. Oliver donates his time; he is not a paid employee. Also, Brooke’s next-door neighbor Sally helps out with advertising and sales. She receives a small percentage of each final product she sells. Craig, Brooke, and Sally are interested in growing the business and feel that to expand their customer base, they need to setup an official website for their online store. 3. Personas: a. Craig Stillwater – Craig works as a mid-level accountant for a well-known accounting firm. He puts in a lot of hours at the office because he is trying to advance his career and is actively seeking a promotion. He is intelligent, competent, and dedicated to his work. Craig enjoys spending time with his wife Brooke and their 2 children—Andy (5) and Anne (7). He assists Brooke with her bath salts business, and handles the financial aspects of the company. He does not make the products, he handles administrative duties such as ordering supplies from vendors, budgeting overhead costs, handling incoming payments, filing tax information, etc. Craig has a limited amount of time he can dedicate to the business because he already has a full-time job and is working extra hours. b. Brooke Stillwater – Brooke has been a stay-at-home mom since Anne was born. She has always been creative and environmentally conscientious. She likes to create or buy natural alternatives to cleaning supplies and home health-care products. This interest has influenced her and has been the catalyst to start an eco-friendly business—Bath Salts Boutique. Originally, she wanted to create a number of different products to sell, but after reviewing business plans with her husband, she felt it was best to specialize in one product and offer a few variations of that product. Since then her focus has been on the creation of three distinct bath salt types: juniper, vanilla, and lavender. c. Sally Sales – Sally is also a stay-at-home mom and has been friends with Craig and Brooke since Anne was born. She is also very creative and social. She thrives in social settings and is very good at networking. Sally wants to help expand the business so that everyone can make more money. She has big ideas for printed advertisements and online marketing campaigns. However, Craig and Brooke are hesitant to invest money in advertising. Sally has purchased a Go-Daddy URL/web hosting account and has been creating a web presence for Bath Salts Boutique. She has yet to show Craig and Brooke. d. Oliver Ops – Brooke’s retired father Oliver helps with the day-to-day operations of the business. He goes through the ordered goods to make sure the incoming shipments of salt/extracts/bottles/and shipping supplies are accurate. He also helps to assemble the final product and prepare it for shipping. Oliver lives with Craig and Brooke and enjoys helping to take care of the children. He also likes to keep busy, so helping his daughter Brooke gives him satisfaction. However, he is getting older. He likes to help, but sees this business as more of a hobby. He is not interested in increasing the customer base and producing more. He feels that is his daughter would like to grow the business, then his time would be better spent tending to the children. e. Corey Comp – Corey owns a local store that specializes in natural cleaning supplies and home health-care products. His store showcases various different products that he has for resale. He often holds events to draw new customers to his store. He does not see Craig and Brooke as a real threat, but makes a point to showcase his products at local events with discounts so as to drive customers to his booth.

Engagement Deliverables

Below is a list of all the deliverables that will need to be created for this case study and a description of each deliverable. Engagement Profile Stakeholder Analysis Context Diagram Use Cases Process/Data Model(s) Root-cause- Analysis (Fish-bone diagram or 5 Why’s) Engagement Summary

Possible Business Goals

Expand customer base and revenue Improve business processes Implement hardware and/or software application to modernize business

Possible Business Obstacles

Loss of a resource Increased expenses Difficult stakeholder Scope creep External influence affects business need

Answer 1

As per guidelines, the first four sub-parts asked are answered below:

Deliverables:

1. Engagement Profile: Since we have been informed that Craig visits local festivals for selling the bath salts, that can be used as a starting point for creating the profile of the target audience that engages with the brand. It could be, thus, described as young people with above average disposable income, interested in natural products or nature centric products. Have a flair for local community events and purchase self-care products. We also know that the selling happens online, therefore we can add: Digital Savvy and online consumers to the list of descriptors.

2. Stakeholder Analysis: The stakeholders in this case have been adequately described from an organizational stand point (Case study explains personality and inputs for Brooke, Craig, Sally & Oliver) Additionally the stakeholders would be the business partners (Mining Company, Packaging Company for Corks & Bottles, the Extracts company) The involvement of Brooke & Caig is the highest in this case, followed by Sally and the business partners. Olivers involvement is least.

3. Context Diagram: The context diagram can be drafted using the 4 P model of Price, Product, Promotion & Placement. To this we shall add Production & Human Resources to show the impact of the three external parties involved (Packaging, Raw Materials & Extracts) as well as the impact of the current 3+1 team.

4. Use Cases: The use cases, as described in the case, can be built on either a Physical Purchase at a Festival or as a Digital Purchase over e-commerce. The entire customer journey funnel would be built seperately for both. In case of Festival the journey would begin with the consumer discovering the brand's participation in some festival literature, experience the brand at the kiosk, and make the purchase. For digital either the customer finds the brand on Native Ads on a Search Engine or through targetted ads on Social media, explores the website and then does the purchase.