Sales Analysis Of Nostalgia Inc Assessment Answer

Sales analysis of Nostalgia INC

Abstract

The current study has focused upon the scenario of “Nostalgia Inc.”, which is a calendar manufacturing company. In recent days, a significant downturn in the organizational sales performance has been observed by the organizational management. Addressing the issue, the current study aimed to “identify the aspects which lower the sales of Nostalgia Inc.” In this context, in the first chapter, the researcher has introduced the research area, followed by the discussion about the issue found in the organization and the purpose of the study, based on which the research objectives have been developed. In the second chapter, the pre-existing literatures related to the research area have been reviewed, in order to gain significant knowledge about the research issue, i.e. sales performance and the factors affecting organizational sales performance. In the next chapter, appropriate methods for conducting the study has been selected, which included “positivism philosophy, deductive approach, descriptive design, primary quantitative and qualitative data collection method, probability and non-probability sampling technique, survey and interview strategy and statistical as well as managerial transcript analysis as data analysis method”. In the next chapter, quantitative data from 10 employees of Nostalgia Inc. and qualitative data from the manager of Nostalgic Inc. has been collected and analyzed. Finally, in the last chapter the findings were aligned with the pre-set objectives, followed by some key recommendations for improving the organizations’ sales performance.  

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.0    Introduction

The terminology “Sales analysis” helps to examine all the sales report in order to obtain about the products and services that are already sold or not. This analysis can be applied for determining the procedure to store the inventory and the procedure to calculate the efficiencies along with the effectiveness of a particular sales environment (Carvalho et al., 2015). This process also helps to fix the capacity of production as well as to obtain the performance of a particular organization towards its objectives. Basically, the procedure of sales analysis can be applied for comparing particular time duration with other time duration of the past. As example, in case of textile industry, they might wish to obtain their sales growth in the business of selling school-uniforms with the sales of last year (Dreoensji et al., 2017). 
Basically, this chapter of the research helps to depict about the entire summary of the research topic, like the way of doing this research, the process of setting the objectives along with the structure through which the research will conduct in an effective and efficient manner. In this current research, Nostalgia Inc, the calendar manufacturing organization is taken into consideration. The research is mainly focused on the various aspects on which the sales of the organization depend. This research is primarily emphasized over the massive challenges along with the problems that are faced by this organization in the present day. This specific segment of this research includes the aim, objectives, rationale, problem statements, and significance along with the background of the research.

1.1 Background

In the year of 1990, Nostalgia Inc was founded by K. Douglas in Texas. Currently, the employee of the organization is 35, which indicates that this is a very small organization with respect to other companies (Sales et al., 2015). This organization manufactures as well as sells only one basic product that is “Datebook calendar”. Basically, the printing industry is quite difficult for analyzing properly. This printing industry includes several small and large organizations and in general, they are mainly deal with the calendar printing organization like Nostalgia Inc. As most of the organization considers this printing process as their sideline business, therefore this business caused a revolution of the digital technology. Due to this reason, therefore, it is also quite difficult for the researcher to gather enough required data or information in order to make the research effective and efficient (Arcilla et al., 2016). 
The calendar industry helps to generate near about $US250 million revenue per annum across the globe. This industry can be categorized into three different subparts: Custom twisted Calendars and Stock for the trade sales to the consumers. Inside the calendar printing industry, Hallmark cards, Missouri and others can be taken into consideration as a renowned and massive organization of calendar printing as well as a rival of Nostalgia Inc. It can be observed from this annual sales report of the calendar industry that near about 25% to 35% revenue are generated in the month of November and December and it can also be identified that maximum of the consumers for this year ending time of the company are women (Johnston and Marshall, 2016). 
In the year of 1990, Ken Douglas started this business after spending his five years in the photography as a part of business. He always put his pictures together and believes that if his pictures can publish through the calendar then it will serve to his benefits through two different ways. At first, it will help to generate extra income for him and through which he can bus more equipment for his photography (Requiared et al., 2017). The second one is that it will also maximize the number of sales of his pictures through the calendar.
After implementing his dreams, he also obtained that the business of calendar is becoming more profitable than he fantasize. Therefore, in the year of 1998, he lower the sales of single photographs and kept his entire focus along with efforts for the production of datebook calendar. The main of this research is to identify the problems through which the rate of sales for this organization is getting lower and the main objectives of the organization are not achieved properly (Eapen et al., 2015). As discussed above, the main aim of this company is to increase the rate of sales along with expanding its business across the world in compare with the vision of K. Douglas. However, the research is conducted on the basis of identifying all of the aspects, which are very important to lower the rate of sales along with the growth of the company.  

1.2 Research Aim

The main aim of this research is to identify all the aspects, which are lower down the sales of the company, Nostalgia Inc. 

1.3 Research Objective

The primary objectives of this research can be described as follows:
•    To identify the problems of the organization
•    To identify different types of photography used by the company
•    To find out the main reasons behind the sales growth minimization of the company
•    To provide necessary solution to the organization in order to overcome this problem

 1.4 Research Question

The main questions of the research can be described as follows:
•    What are problems faced by the organization?
•    What are the types of photography applied by the company in calendar printing?
•    What are the main reasons behind the minimization of sales growth of the company?
•    What is the probable solution to overcome these issues?

1.5 Problem Statement

The domain of the problem for this research covered all the aspects, which are mainly responsible for lowering the growth of sales of the company as well as causing massive problem for the organizational business activities. 

1.6 Significance of the study

This entire research is based on the technical as well as field of innovation and in order to gain a proper understanding of the market along with the customer demands also provided the researcher a shed of light in order to find all the possible aspects of this calendar printing organization. This specific study is mainly based on the judgment of technical aspects along with the demands of the customers and also to identify the various aspects, which are mainly responsible for the lowering the organizational growth. As this process of calendar printing can be taken into consideration as the revolution of digitalization and therefore, the research is mainly looked forward in order to identify the process of revolution in the digital technology sa well.

1.7 Research Rationale

As depicted in the problem statement of this research, that the digital revolution of this calendar printing company is good enough to increase the revenue generation for the organization, but it creates several massive issues and challenges for this organization. The main problem is that presently most of the organizations are failed in case of adopting this revolution of digital technologies (Sales et al., 2015). Though the given study of Nostalgia Inc it can be seen that the financial condition of the company is strong enough to compete with their rivals as well as to sustain their market position. In the recent scenario, it is also a massive threat for the organizations that the numbers of rivals are increasing gradually in accordance with the customer demands and simultaneously the technologies are also developed gradually. Therefore, though Nostalgia Inc maintains and adopts all the innovation for making their product effective and efficient, but they are still facing the problem of lowering the sales growth.  
From the problem statement of the research, it can also be identified that the main problem occurred for the company is the minimization of sales growth. From the organization sales growth statistics it can be depicted that, the rate of sales growth is started to get minimized in accordance with the passing of years (2009 - 2015) (Konatu et al., 2017). However, this research is mainly focused on the massive challenges and issues faced by this company and also to identify the main reason behind this problem. Simultaneously, this research also offered several suggestion and recommendation to the company so that it can sustain its market value along with the market position by increasing its sales growth again.  

1.8 Summary

From the above discussion of this segment of the research, it can be stated that this chapter of the research helps to depict about the entire summary of the research topic, like the way of doing this research, the process of setting the objectives along with the structure through which the research will conduct in an effective and efficient manner. The process of digital revolution along with the different aspects is highlighted in this segment in order to make the research procedure smoother. Besides that, the concepts of conducting this research is also described in this research chapter sequentially, which will help the researcher to get a proper idea and purpose of the research topic.  

Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.0 Introduction

In this particular project, the researcher will conduct the entire research study based on the previous scholarly articles published in the business growth. The articles that have already highlighted the research based project works on business sales growth are the main target by the researcher to get the optimum review on the research project. However, the researcher will highlight the areas that can be improved mostly to maintain the sustainability of the project and the overall study of the project work (Konatu et al., 2017). Besides this, the researcher will highlight the gap in the literature study and the future prospects of the study depending upon which the project work can be progressed further. This literature study will help to identify the key areas of any business organization that is facing sustainable changes in the market and to fulfill the customers’ demand. 

2.1Sales as a key organizational unit

The man aim of nay business organization is to maximize their business and to retrieve the loin-share amount of profits from the business investments. Hence, to do this, the company needs to maximize their sales in the market. The products must be lucrative and the sales style or the promotion of the service should be also attractive. Hence, the organization must consider the sales process as one of the most vital issues in the business process (Kalyanam et al,, 2018). As the main aim is to sell the developed product and the services, the organization must take some initiatives to improve the overall process. Every customer must consider as a part of the sales process and suitable sales techniques must be adopted to ensure that all the customers gets equal priority in the sales process(Galiano et al., 2018). In this context, the companies can take help from the several strategies depending upon which the uniqueness of the business sales can be achieved and at the same time the growth of the organization can be maintained. The customer-company relationship is one of the important prospect in the sales perspective. Therefore, customers’ satisfaction and the customers benefits needs o be identified and must be fulfilled to maintain the overall growth in the organization. Sales process can be motivated by the help of attractive promotional events of the product and by increasing the public awareness of the product. The customers’ review about the product is useful of the company, to understand the present market condition of their products, the demands of the product in the market. 

2.2 Importance of the sales management

Sales management is a vital point that needs to be consider by the company. Sales management is the process that needs to be analyzed properly and the outcomes need to be involved in the business process. Sales management is the process depending upon which the promotion of the service and the products can be justified (Konatu et al., 2017). The companies are usually habituated to maintain a different sales department that will look after the entire process of the sales process. However, the project managers need to identify the most suitable process that can be implemented in the business sales process to promote the product in new market. The customers will always like to prefer those products that are lucrative and proportional to their budget. Therefore, the company managers need to develop the overall sales management process depending upon the customers’ monetary budget and comparing with the nearest products available in the market (Konatu et al., 2017). All this necessary consideration comes under the project sales process and the managers ought to be calculating it properly for proper budgeting of the project. Sales management also incorporate the incentives and the benefits that can be include fpr the customers’ from selling the product. Hence, the justification of completing the overall sales management is very much important in the sense of understanding the market demand and the customers need of the product.     

2.3 Importance of the sales promotion

There are several aspects in which a new product can be introduced in the new market. Firstly, the company needs to identify the suitable ways depending upon which, the innovative product and the introduced lucratively in the market. Hence, the company must develop lucrative ways of advertising the products and the services via newspaper (Konatu et al., 2017), TV advertisement and by advertising in the newspaper. The companies can make suitable strategies and can organize events that will be preferred by the customers. Sales promotion must be done suitable and by spending a reasonable amount of resources so that the overall process of sales can be justified. Most of the companies are preferring the promotion of products by organizing events and by making huge announcement of the product in the local and in domestic market. Thus, people got to know about the features and the new products delivered by the company. The companies are making suitable steps to sell the product via online trading and via offline trading process also. 
The better the promotion of the products, the customers becomes attracted to the product. Recently, the promotional events are being conducted via social media via several other types of digital media so that people are being more familiar with the product and the service offered by the company. This process has reduced the overall time and the cost involved in printing life lets, banner and the miking procedures. Though, renowned companies still prefer the promotional process via the miking and via miking process (Konatu et al., 2017). Some of the companies are directly involving third party companies to conduct the overall promotional event for the products developed. However, the attractiveness of any particular product somehow depends on the promotional events done by the company.

2.4 Role of marketing in sales enhancement

Marketing is one of the vital processes that accelerates the overall sales process for the product. Therefore, the companies need to involve expertise personnel’s in the sales process so that they can motivate and convince the customers vastly about the effectiveness of the product. The companies are making a particular strategy based on which, the products can be easily delivered to the customers and they can understand the effectiveness of the product (Subramanian and Rao, 2016). The marketing executive and the sales representatives must be aware with the entire features and the benefits of the products and they must highlight the attractive features of the product. The sales representative shave to ensure that the product will last longer times that the competitive products and the customers’ can use it easily without nay hectic process. Moreover, the uniqueness of the product and the efficiency of the product in the long run process (Subramanian and Rao, 2016). Thus, all these features are involved in the marketing process and the companies need to select the proper process of marketing depending upon which the product can be sold mostly in the market. Besides this, the suitable method of marketing sales helps o gather enough goodwill of tr company and indicate the necessary goodwill for the company. Goodwill is generated by this process and the companies that are new in the market must gather enough goodwill of themselves to make them customer friendly. Hence, the main aim of the marketing is to identify the process and the strategies depending upon which the customers satisfaction can be meet and sell the product simultaneously (Subramanian and Rao, 2016).

To be continued...