Photo credit: Vinesh George given me a lot of tools to run Sweetserland as an entrepreneur which is an excellent and real example.
Most people who have seen our cakes find them amazingly beautiful and ask us to open a cake shop. I don’ t think this is appropriate because our target customers are not the general public but specific groups such as wedding couples, corporates, and those who want fancy and tailor-made cakes. The accounting course taught me that cash flow problems is the most common“ killer” to start-up / SME’ s even though they are making profits. Therefore, I have to be prudent in investment. I did a proper NPV analysis, and found an accounting loss if we open a shop too early!
The marketing course gave me a lot of insights on how a business should be run. Compared to opening a cake shop, spending funds via social medial channels is much more useful nowadays. Brand building is the first thing we have to do because our brand is our“ face” to the potential customers. From specially designed business cards, high quality packaging, customised cake flavours and even sweetness with organic cakes, we want to tell our customers that we can offer a beautiful, delicious and healthy design cake made by their imagination. The Consumer Decision Journey reminds me how important it is to make my customers happy because when they enjoy my products and services, they will advocate for us and bond with us. For this reason, we are already having return customers and I have got a lot of enquiries from our EMBA cohort too.
The Economics course let me know the importance of product differentiation in monopolistic competition. We carefully studied Australia’ s cake market and developed new products for Australia. Currently, our main products are tailor-made cakes, cupcakes, and cookies for weddings, corporate customers and any other occasions. The cakes we produce, to better word, are something which you might not have seen before. We are introducing a brand new buttercream piping technique to Australiathe main reason Cinder was hired to teach at APA. The flowers she made are delicate, look deceivingly real. Cinder is the pioneer of this type of technique in Australia. She is also designing a series of classes in APA @ Sydney and other major cities in Australia. Apart from buttercream cakes, our novelty cakes are extraordinary as well – they can be made into nearly any shapes.
We have a unique product to make us become a monopoly in this field: flower candles. The handmade candles can be made into different shapes such as a flower basket which are carved to look real. We are proud to say that we will be the first and only supplier for this kind of product in Australia. We plan to sell them via our website, top Sunday markets, and shopping malls.
With my efforts in sales and marketing, we are getting orders from wedding couples, banks and other private companies. Her profile is also on APA’ s official website and she is teaching classes from beginner to advanced levels. I’ m happy to apply the concepts I learnt from FMS and MPO, managing my“ staff” Cinder, using my“ manager actions” to improve her“ work experience” and hence improve her performance. Now, she is not afraid of teaching students with different nationalities and all of her students enjoy her class. Teaching in APA will tremendously build reputation and brand for us. I have also got other ideas to expand our business to overseas markets as well.
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