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Grade

Communication for Managers

Case Assignment No.3

Case Analysis Report on

PAMPERED PETS

Submitted by:

Name: Hardik Nahar

Roll No: 181120

Section: A

Batch: MBA-FT (2018-2020)

Institute of Management, Nirma University

Date of Submission: 5-10-2018

Page 1 of 11
Executive summary

Pampered pets owned by Rachel De Marchi is a renowned dog-walking and pet-sitting business
in Oakville, Ontario, Canada set up in 2005, initially set up to make some money during
graduation by Rachel but it proved to be rewarding and lucrative and continued to grow
unexpectedly. The business is currently facing the problem of not able to meet the demand with
the current supply. Rachel is unable to manage the current scenario as she is the only person
working and being in service industry she is not able to rely on some other person. The current
business of Rachel is time consuming and requires physical fitness, which she is finding difficult
to manage. She spends all her day in servicing the customer and then around 90 minutes to
manage database and responding to emails and other work during night. Her work life is
hampering her duties towards her social relation and developing new skills. To solve this
problem Rachael has few options with both positive and negative in them which include
neglecting the current demand and going on with the routine maximum capacity, dividing the
business into two tiers including an exclusive personalized service and the other having a van
service that take care of dogs in batches, hiring a back end worker is also an option, buying a
van, employing a full time dog walker, charging a premium from a selected few customer’s and
providing services to only them. The most appropriate options for Rachael would be to segment
the business by providing personalised services to customer by charging extra and at the same
time continuing with the normal operation. This will save time and energy both and the other
objectives of importance can also be focussed that is skill improvement and maintaining work
life balance.

Number of words: 297

Page 2 of 11
Situation Analysis

Pampered pets is an organisation started by Rachel De Marchi during her bachelor degree from
University of Western Ontario with the intention to make money. But due to lucrative and
success of business she continued it on regular basis. The business had a profit margin of about
60% or 30000$ and duties involved picking up of dogs, one hour walk and ending services like
giving a treat to dog, filling the water dish and leaving notes to owner in case of any medical
need. She charges around $25 per dog with spending time of about 101 minutes for pair of dogs.
In the current business she is earning about $225/day while working about 5 days a week with 9
dogs per day. Apart from this she also spend around 90 minutes for back end work at night.

The industry has an annual growth of about 5.2% and is performing very well due to various
factors such as anthropomorphising, attitude change of customers, and increase in pet ownership.
Due to the increasing size of the industry and reliability on the good service, Rachel is facing
heavy demand from the customers which resulted in hampering of work life balance of her.

So in order to maintain the supply demand relationship she started considering options including
hiring a part time administrative assistance that can take care of back end works with a Pay scale
of 12$/hour but she was not sure whether clients would be comfortable sharing their information
or not. Employing a full time dog walker at 14$/hour was the second option which could help her
reaching 18 dogs per day but she was concern as the new worker will have access to direct
communication with clients and may try to poach them and start his own venture. Purchasing a
van can also be one option that take dogs in batches of 6 drive them to the nearest leash less park
let them loose for one hour just like her competitors. The cost of such a van would be 36000 or
42000$ (A.C.) with annual maintenance and fuel cost of 6000$ and 1000$ respectively. This will
reduce the personalised attention to dogs but may increase dog’s social as well as physical
activities. The various profits she will be earning from the options is shown in Exhibit 1. Rachel
now needs to come up with a solution which can solve the various objective of the business
including customer relationship, skill development to ensure that her business stands out in the

competition.
Page 3 of 11
Problem Statement
Rachel is not able to manage work life balance due to time constraints and thereby demand of
customer is not met resulting from rapid business growth.

Objectives

1. Maintaining work life balance without affecting the service quality.

2. Customer satisfaction needs to be maintained by providing customer oriented services.
3. Maintaining healthy supply and demand relationship for current and future trends.
4. Learning new skills for the future growth and self development.

Options

1. Adhering to the current operation plan by ignoring the increase in demand.

2. Segmentation of business into two categories, with one providing personal attention to dog
and other include the batch system of 6 dogs through van.
3. Appointing a part- time administrative assistant.
4. Employing Full time dog-walker
5. Buying a van to accommodate and take care of dogs in batches of 6.
6. Premium charges by providing special services
7. Quitting the business to learn new skills and higher education.
Page 4 of 11
Evaluation of options

1. Adhering to the current operation plan by ignoring the increase in demand.

Current operation plan will allow the organisation to stay in business in present but the future
demand will not be able to meet as with the advent of new techniques and competition,
expectation of customer will increase and sustaining with current operating plan will become
difficult. This option would also limit the scope of expansion and Potential profits.

2. Segmentation of business into two categories, with one providing personal

attention to dog and other include the batch system of 6 dogs through
van.

By segmenting the business through providing different type of services for different customer, it
will be easy for the organisation to sustain the consumer expectation and fast growing market.
The first tire of customers can be charged a premium by providing customer oriented as well as
personalised service can help in developing long term relation where the second tire who doesn’t
mind their pets been taken on a van along with others can be charged relatively low which will
help in developing physical as well as social activities in pets.

3. Appointing a part- time administrative assistant.

Even though this would ensure that De Marchi gets more time to take care of the dogs the
security issues related like maintaining the data base of customers and personal trust gained by
Marchi would be at risk.

4. Employing Full time dog-walker

This option will help in maintain work life balance for Rachel as it will reduce the load on her
but since the competition is increasing day by day allowing others to enter the business and
providing direct communication to customer would be risky as there is always a chance that the
new employee would start his/her own venture by poaching clients of Pampered Pets.

Page 5 of 11
5. Buying a van to accommodate and take care of dogs in batches of 6.

The sense of being customer oriented for Rachel will get reduce by this option as it will
decrease personalised touch and special services to the customer. Pampered pets business work
on customer relation. So even thought this would certainly increase the profit levels up to a
certain extend but the differentiating factor of pampered pets will get reduced.

6. Premium charges by providing special services

In order for this activity to be effective brand loyalty and clear distinction of the service that the
company offered should be clearly understood by the customer. Even though charging a
premium would ensure that the current profit levels are met this would also result in eroding
some of the present customer base as the pet service is rapidly being standardized. If the
company commands enough loyalty by adopting this method would be one of the best options
available.

7. Quitting the business to learn new skills and higher education.

With the current level of demand and the customer loyalty Pampered pets commands, it would
be unwise to presently quit the business. Even though De Marchi is interested in pursuing a new
skill sets that suits her qualification quitting the business altogether is not a long term solution
rather than which finding ways that will help both the business and studies go hand in and would
be a better option.

Decision

To segment the business into two categories can be the best option for Rachel by providing
special services to premium customer and at the same time providing van batch service to
increase the social and physical activity of dogs. As can be seen from Exhibit 3 , this option will
allow Rachel to maintain work life balance, learn new skills of managing a two tier business and
at the same time customer satisfaction and demand is also met.

Page 6 of 11
Action plan
1. The first step should be to collect information and research about the customer choices
between special premium service and the van batches service.
2. A transportation van needs to be purchased with capacity of more than 6 dogs and having
basic as well as luxury amenities.
3. Word of mouth marketing need to be done about the new mode of service provided by the
organisation to the potential market.
4. Last step is to implement what is promised and collecting regular feedback from the clients.

Contingency plan

As can be referred from the exhibit 3, providing premium services to the clients can be the
backup plan because clients engaged with pampered pets are loyal customer due to the nature of
personalised services provided by Rachael. This will maintain the current satisfaction level of the
customer and thereby would increases the customer base for the organisation. Work life balance
would also be maintained as the services would be provided to loyal customer only.
Page 7 of 11
Exhibits
Exhibit 1 – Time for walking dogs.

6 minutes 3 minutes 60 3 minutes

minutes

Home Customer 1 Customer 2 Dog Walking Returning Dog

( 10
minutes
3 minutes

Returning Dog 2
10
minutes

TOTAL TIME – 101 minutes

Page 8 of 11
Exhibit 2 – Profit from different options.

OPTIONS AVERAGE AVERAGE NET PROFIT

REVENUE/MONTHL COST/MONTH ($)
Y ($) (5 Day A Week ) ($)
CURRENT 4500 270 4230
OPERATION
HIRING 4500 630 3870
ASSISTANT
FULL TIME 9000 4512 4488
EMPLOYEE
PURCHASING 9000 353.33 8646.67
A VAN

Page 9 of 11
Exhibit 3 – Option Objective Matrix

Options Current Segmenti Assista Full Purchasi Premiu Quit

Operati ng nt time ng van m
Objective Service
ng plan Employ
s
ee
Custom   
er
Satisfact
io
Demand   

Work    
life
Balance
Learnin   
g new
skills
Page 10 of 11
 UNDERTAKING

To Whom It May Concern:

I, Hardik Nahar hereby declare that this assignment is my original work and is not copied from
anyone/anywhere. If found similar to other sources, I shall take complete responsibility of the
action, taken thereof by, CFM Team.

Signature :

Name : Hardik Nahar

Roll No. : 181120

Section :A

Batch : MBA-FT (2018-2020)

Date : 5-10-2018

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