Donald Duque Stationery Business Overview

1. Introduction

Donald Duque is a small family stationary business in Northern France, where the company focuses on delivering stationary items to the customers. Over the fifty years, the business has built the customers base where there is increasing numbers of consumers making effective purchase decision for the organisational products and services. The customer’s base of the business is such as local shops, small offices and local schools. The products that the company provides are printer cartridges, general office supplies, low cost printers, office furniture, shredders and paper based supplies and writing and drawing materials. The company is efficient to create trustworthy and reliable source of the goods where the quality of the products is maintained efficiently.

2. Analysis of Issues for Duque Papetiers Gros

2.1 An Overview of the Wholesale Stationers Market in Germany

The wholesale stationary market in a contributing sector for country’s economic growth and social development and in this regard, the stationary market is growing at a rapid rate and maximise the attention of the individuals in the society to contribute in the stationary products for further development. Across the country Germany, there is sustainable growth and the country is successful to establish their market for the stationary goods (von Wobeser, 2016). The turnover of the sector in germane is £ 14.8 billion per year which equals to individual sending of £182 annually. The country is considered second in terms of sending and the maximum sending in the stationary goods are there in the European Unions. Germany is suitable place for the stationary companies where the organisations can access the market growth for the stationary products and they have the capacity to build their business sustainably. The activities in the market and recent trend further boost the market growth and economic activities in the stationary industry.

The sales volume of the organisations in the stationary industry of Germany is also increasing over the years and during 2015, it has been increasing at a rapid rate (Mätzke, 2019). The German brands also have positive goodwill in the global platform and international markets where they can handle export of the stationary products to other international markets. Positive brand image, variety of writing and drawing instruments and other stationary items further influence the entrepreneurs to work efficiently and represent the country in the global market. There are broad ranges of the products in the stationary industry where the firms are able to manage their operations worldwide and the economic growth and GDP of the country are also affected positively due to profitability and high sales volume of the firms operating in the German stationary industry. There are more than 2200 wholesale companies recently operating in the stationary market of Germany and there B2B business intermediaries are also increasing to grab the commercial customers base and make the industry profitable in near future (Heuermann and Schmieder, 2019).

2.2 Annual Spending on Writing/Drawing Materials per Capita

As per the report, Germany is taken the second position after Switzerland in dealing with the stationary business growth where per capita is high as compared to other countries around the globe. There is €35.2 per capita income in Germany and in Switzerland, it is €35.5. France is also another country, having adequate per capita income in team of stationary industry and in this regard per capita income of the individuals in France is €28.3. This further helps the business to influence the purchasing decision of the customers and it is beneficial for the firms to create good customer base by providing high quality products with a diverse product range so that the customers can have the option to choose the right products as per their needs and preferences (Fink et al., 2019). The country has the ability to support the stationary companies and lead them efficiently to achieve future success. The companies are also operating successfully in the countries like France and Germany is order to influence the customers demand as per the recent market trend (Buckley, Enderwick and Cross, 2018). The behaviour of the customers can be examined through their purchase decision making behaviour and the firms under the stationary industry are also efficient to influence their purchase decision and retain them for long run by delivering high quality stationary goods and items.

2.3Analysis of Duque’s last three financial years of sales data (2015-2017)

The sales volume of Donald Duque can be analysed through the sales volume of the brand over the period of time 2015, 2016 and 2017. Through effective analysis by calculations and correlation coefficient, it is also possible to reduce the sales growth in 2018 and 2019, which is mandatory for the brand to strategise their business and improve the performance in long run. As per the calculations, the sales volume of printer cartridges is increasing from 2015 to 2016; however it has been decreased in 2017 due to lower demand of the customers in the market. On the other hand, the sales volume for the product office furniture is same in both the years 2015 and 2016 and it has been increased by 2000 in the next year 2017. The sales volume is hereby fluctuation for different products of Donald Duque due to changing needs and preferences of the customers in the stationary market (Kinderman, 2017).

Additionally, the sales volume for the product of general office supplies was being increased from 2015 to 2016, but it has been decreased in 2017. Low cost printer sales is increasing from 2015 to 2016 and it becomes same in the year 2017 also due to unchanged demand of the customers. The sales of shredders are increasing over the period of 2015 and 2016, but it also become unchanged in 2017. Paper based supplies have also been increased in 2016 from 2015 and it has also been unchanged in the year of 2017. The demand for the writing and drawing materials is increasing and the sales volume of this product in also increasing in both the years 2016 and 2017and hence there is adequate demand growth of the customers for the product of Donald Duque (Jens et al., 2017). The total sales volume of the company Donald Duque has been increased at a rapid rate from 2015 to 2016, but there was decrease in total sales of Donald Duque in 2017 due to decreasing demand. The correlation for the sales in the year of 2015 and 2016 was positive and on the other hand, in 2017 the correlation coefficient is less than one which indicates that there is slight decrease in the total sales volume of Donald Duque.

2.4Feasibility of Expanding to Germany & International Standards

It is necessary for the company Donald Duque to expand their business in Germany and maintain the international standard to sustain in the stationary industry across the world.

The major pros of expanding the business in Germany are such as business growth, financial stability, employment generation, high sales volume, profitability, strong customer retention and high market share. On the other hand, the cons are such as lack of market existence, poor marketing planning, lack of business growth, poor management at Donald Duque, lack of skilled workforce, low customer base and lack of business efficiency. The international standard of the business must be managed by Donald Duque in order to manage their operations across the international markets (Gürtzgen, Pohlan and van den Berg, 2018). The ethical principles, such as business documentation, licensing as well as employment rules, transparency of managing information and personnel are mandatory for Donald Duque to run their business efficiently and expand it sustainably in Germany.

2.5 Costs of a New Building

For further expansion of the company, the leader Donald must focus on improving the internal operations and it requires to improve the facilities. The highly suitable building near the market is available for sale and it would be beneficial for the company to invest in the building through interest mortgage system so that it would be possible for the leader to expand the business successfully and operate in the German market (Adekola and Sergi, 2016). The loan amount for hiring the building is £200,000 and the repayment year will be 30 years where the leader is responsible to repay the mortgage amount, the interest rate for the mortgage is 10% per annum which is suitable for the firm. If the interest rate is 10% per annum, the brand needs to bear the monthly cost of £17551. On the other hand, if the interest rate is 10% per month, which is 12 times higher than the previous one, the firm musty bear the monthly cost of £200,000 to repay the mortgage amount within effective time.

2.6 Mean Value of Orders

Donald Duque is efficient to manage their orders each month, and according to Donald, the mean value of orders is €240. As there is huge numbers of orders in each month, it is difficult and time taken practice for the brand to review each order. The leader decides to adopt the strategy of random sampling to select the orders randomly for evaluating the mean value orders. In this regard, the leader selects 50 samples randomly and identifies the mean value of the orders and at 5% significance level; the mean value of the orders according to the leader is €230 and the sample standard deviation of €43. It is fruitful for the leader to choose the random sampling technique for calculating the mean value orders as it is time taken to review each order in each month. Hence, the strategy is significant in this context to manage the orders and identify the mean values over the period of time.

2.7 Customer Satisfaction

The organisation provides online questionnaire to identify the feedback and experience of the customers. However, 5% of the customers provide the answer sheet to the organisation, which is not satisfactory for the leader. It is necessary for the organisation to increase the customer participation rate so that they would provide the answers to the questionnaire and it would be possible for the brand to acknowledge the customers need and expectations from the organisation (Peterson, Arregle and Martin, 2020). For increasing the participation rate, the clear and concise questions are mandatory and in this regard the company needs to develop short questionnaire with clear and simple information, so that the customers can choose easily from the options. Additionally, the representative of the brand must convince the customers about small timing to participate in this survey and also share the information that the survey is good for both the firm and the customers as the brand is going to develop more creative strategy to serve the customers in a better way.

On the other hand, according to the question of rating the customer service and support, quality of products and services, sales staff and prices or values, there are 20 customers whose feedback are stored efficiently. As per the calculations of mean value, the customers mean values for the service and support is 3.5 which indicates that the service and support of the brand is quiet good rather excellent, where the customers can get effective support from the sales representative of the firm. On the other hand, for the quality of products and services, the mean value is 3.15 which also indicate that it is good, where the customers can get quality stationary products. For the sales staff, the mean value is 3.45 which are also related to excellent staff and support in the organisation and it further indicates that the staff members at the company are efficient to support the customers and help them to choose the right products. As per the price and values, the mean value is 1.95 which indicates that, it is fair. This further refers that, the customers are not happy with the pricing strategy of the brand and their values are not maximised in long run. The price ration is fair, not good which indicates that the price is higher as per the expectations of the consumers.

Conclusions

The business expansion strategy for the company Donald Duque is good for the firm to strengthen their customers base and ain high competitive advantage in the stationary market, where Germany is also growing at a rapid rate with per capital income of € 35.2 and hence it would be beneficial for the company to expand the business operations in to German market and maintain the international standard to run the business successfully. As per the customer feedback, the customers are quiet hay with the quality of the products and services, efficiency of the staff and customer service and support. However, for further business expansion in Germany, the brand must focus on strategising their pricing policy for their quality products, so that the customers can make effective purchase decision and fulfil their expectations and on the other hand, this further provides a scope to the business to maximise the customer’s values in long run.

References

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