B205B Exploring Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Kelly Lester is a wife, mother to three daughters, and entrepreneur. Lester started her first company, a business that sold decorative light switch covers, in 1996 when the Web was in its infancy. Even then, Lester saw the power and the marketing potential that the Web provided businesses, particularly small businesses that lack the massive marketing budgets that their larger rivals have. In addition to selling switch plates through retail shops and museum gift stores, she built a Web site and began, selling online. In those days, competition in e-commerce was slim; when users typed the phrase “switch plate” into a search engine, Lester’s Web site was listed first, a benefit that generated significant online sales for her company.

Lester sold the business and in 2009, with growing daughters, she was inspired to start a second company. “I’m sad when I see what a lot of kids bring to school for lunch,” she says. “I’m even sadder when i see what school districts offer our kids for ‘school lunch. All three of her daughters were in school, and Lester always packed healthy lunches for them but found herself spending too much time preparing and packing lunches. “I’m very concerned about my family’s health and nutrition, but as a busy mom, I like to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen," says Lester. “I’m all about fresh, healthy, and fast.”

She soon found that washing, filling, and packing nine separate containers (three for each girl) with food every weekday was driving her “absolutely insane.” She began searching store shelves for lunchboxes that made organizing easy but found nothing. Web searches proved no more fruitful. “That’s why I created the Easy Lunchboxes System,” she says.

She began calling plastics manufacturers in the United States, none of whom showed much interest in her idea. Finally, one manufacturer told her that his company could produce a single lid bento-style (with compartments) plastic lunchbox, but He would first have to create a mold, which would cost $75,000.

Lester formed a company, Easy Lunchboxes and began contacting plastic manufacturers in China. There she found a company that would produce the lunchbox she had designed for far less than any of the domestic companies could. “I’m a thrifty shopper,” she explains. Transactions with the foreign supplier did not always go smoothly, however. Lester had to send one of the first shipments back three times because of quality issues and failure to meet the Food and Drug Administration’s standards.

Today, Lester has an independent company test samples of every shipment to make sure they meet all safety standards. The polypropylene plastic used to manufacture the Easy Lunchboxes are BPA free, and the cooler bags that keep items in the lunchboxes cold are tested for lead. Because of the time required to ship products from China and unpredictable interruptions in the supply chain. Lester has learned to keep a large inventory of Easy Lunchboxes in a warehouse in the United States. On one occasion, the company that manufactures the lunchboxes was closed for three months. “They just shut the power grid off,” says Lester. No one knew when the power would come back on so that the factory could get finish her order. “It was very stressful,” she says.

Lester decided to use the Web as the primary marketing tool for her company. When Lester launched the Web site for Easy Lunchboxes, she quickly discovered that the world of e-commerce had changed dramatically. Her company’s Web site did not appear near the top of any of the major search engines. If you ‘re not on page one of search engines, you don’t exist. Lester, who bills herself as “Mom and CEO” on the site, is determined to generate “buzz” for her company and believes that social media is one of the best tools for accomplishing that. Her primary target customer is a busy mom with children who are in school. She also wants to build a recognizable brand for Easy Lunchboxes. The question in her mind is “How do I go about doing that?”

Develop a social media marketing plan for Easy Lunchboxes.  One which social media should Lester focuses her efforts?  Why?What specific tactics should she employ in each one of the social media that you recommend?

Social media marketing is arguably the most effective and important way for other companies of the same size to reach different prospects and customers. By engaging in a social media marketing plan, the right approach will help to manage the organization and achieve maximum success without problems or complexity. These customers interact with various brands through social media (Tafesse and Wien 2018). The most effective aspect of social media marketing is the ability to identify key success factors for the business, resulting in the creation of the most dedicated brand advocates and precise control over sales and leads. Lester is an entrepreneur who started a company called Easy Lunch Boxes System for customers. She has to create different social media profiles and interact with others. This requires an effective social media marketing plan. This not only gives these benefits, but also allows in working effectively with the business skills successfully without problems or complications. Lester has already targeted the target group. Busy mothers worrying about the unhealthy food their kids have to go to school and eat. The social media marketing plan for her business is presented in the following stages:

iii) Adequate brand awareness must be increased so that Lester can easily convince customers to choose a light lunch box and create a positive brand connection by creating a brand identity (Tafesse and Wien 2018).

LinkedIn and Instagram are Lester's most effective and recommended social media platforms for Easy Lunch Boxes. Facebook and Instagram are easily accessible from internet-connected devices such as tablets, smartphones and PCs, and as soon as users sign up, customers offer business. Facebook is a social network and online networking service that helps various companies communicate and interact with their customers more easily and efficiently. Facebook and Instagram owners are the same, so the method is the same for both social media accounts (Chen and Lin 2019). Lester needs to use a variety of tactics to effectively and efficiently use Facebook and Instagram for business purposes. For Facebook, she needs to drive her website traffic to the Facebook page and post on her page regularly so that Facebook can reach and maximum number of customers more easily access her company page (Shareef et al. 2019). Instagram also supports networking services with customers worldwide, reaching the most customers and making it easier and more efficient for organizations to conduct business operations and other important aspects. Facebook is the developer of this particular application, so it has an easy-to-use interface that allows members of all domains to focus on posts and posts, allowing users to easily browse other content and access their preferred data and information.

However, it is also to mention that Lester must use all of the above social media platforms and follow a few important and important tactics to make sure there are no issues or issues when running his Easy Lunchbox business. On Instagram, Lester needs to regularly post photos and videos so that he can reach customers easily and increase brand awareness without any hassle. As a result, customer interactions are effectively implemented. At LinkedIn, Lester should focus on sharing signatures and accurate information about the campaigns he will run to make sure customers are interested in the design.

Consider the following balance sheet, for easy lunchbox. will the company be able to pay cash to buy an asset with a cost of $200,000 knowing they have $800.000 in retained earnings?

Cash $   50,000 Accounts payable $ 100,000

Inventory 200,000 Accruals    100,000

Accounts receivable    250,000 Total CL $ 200,000

Total CA $ 500,000 Debt 200,000

Net fixed assets $ 900,000 Common stock 200,000

Retained earnings    800,000

Total assets $1,400,000 Total L & E $1,400,000

 Retained earnings do not specify the amount available to the company. It always represents the profits a company or legal entity has received from the beginning. Therefore, the solvency of a company should not be analyzed on the basis of retained earnings. A company's financial solvency can be analyzed in terms of working capital management, short-term liquidity, investments, cash and bank balances (Mammadova 2021). From the information above, it is clear that the organization has a contingent income of $800,000 and must purchase certain assets worth $200,000. As payments are made in cash, the business concerned will ultimately need to carefully consider the relevant considerations regarding subsequent working capital. It is based on the information that working capital is positive because its current assets exceed the present value of its liabilities. Therefore, the company has an efficient cash position. Organizations may also provide assistance with these contingent benefits and address these related considerations.

References:

Chen, S.C. and Lin, C.P., 2019. Understanding the effect of social media marketing activities: The mediation of social identification, perceived value, and satisfaction. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 140, pp.22-32.

Duffett, R.G., 2017. Influence of social media marketing communications on young consumers’ attitudes. Young Consumers.

Iankova, S., Davies, I., Archer-Brown, C., Marder, B. and Yau, A., 2019. A comparison of social media marketing between B2B, B2C and mixed business models. Industrial Marketing Management, 81, pp.169-179.

Mammadova, S., 2021. Interrelation of working capital management and efficiency of the company. Review of Socio-Economic Perspectives, 6(1), pp.13-22.

Shareef, M.A., Mukerji, B., Dwivedi, Y.K., Rana, N.P. and Islam, R., 2019. Social media marketing: Comparative effect of advertisement sources. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 46, pp.58-69.

Tafesse, W. and Wien, A., 2018. Implementing social media marketing strategically: An empirical assessment. Journal of Marketing Management, 34(9-10), pp.732-749.

Looking for affordable assignment help online? Need someone to offer you prices that would go easy on your pocketbook? Bothered, “Can I pay someone to do my assignment at the best industry price?” Of course, you can. MyAssignmenthelp.co.uk has the finest paper writers. They are dedicatedly available to back you up with well-knit assignment papers at the best industry price. 

Sign up for finance assignment help or management assignment help and enjoy a flat 20% off along with an additional $20 sign-up bonus. How cool is that? So, think no more and count on our expertise for affordable assignment help in the UK.