Nurturing Green, Case Study Example

External Environment

The plant and floral industry in India was an emerging opportunity for Nurturing Green to improve its visibility and sales growth. The company developed a unique business model that attracted a unique customer base who favored small plants rather than floral bouquets. This niche market was attractive to the company because it was relatively unexplored and somewhat risky, yet it provided an important base for expansion. The plant market in India was still emerging, yet it served as a breeding ground for ongoing growth and opportunity. The company sought to expand its current business model through capital investments to ensure that it could thrive for the foreseeable future. However, when the opportunity arose to secure capital for his business, it came with a rather hefty price: a 40 percent stake in the company, which the owner was unsure if he wanted to accept (Gupta and Goyal, 2012). This type of ownership stake could create challenges for the company over the long term. At the same time, the type of capital that would be secured could create many new growth opportunities for the business to continue its expansion effort, including research and development activities in addition to warehouse construction (Gupta and Goyal, 2012). These efforts required sufficient capital to secure expansion and long-term growth.

Internal Environment

The company’s strengths included the owner’s knowledge of the plant industry and what types of plants would attract consumers and repeat customers. He was confident in his ability to provide customers with the type of plants that could be used for gifts for a variety of occasions and could keep customers coming back for more. At the same time, there was a lack of understanding of many critical business practices which led to some gaps in how the company could continue and sustain its current growth spurt. Furthermore, the company did not possess the capital that was necessary to sustain its growth for a long period of time; therefore, it became difficult for continued expansion. Without a warehouse in a nearby location, it also became expensive to maintain the plant inventory. Nonetheless, the organization was in an enviable position because it catered to a niche market that was relatively unexplored, and did not have any real competition to speak of. This was an opportunity to be successful and to retain an important customer base. On the other hand, the business model was no secret and once potential competitors caught on, there could be competition for the company to deal with in the future.

Recommendations

In exploring the current state of the organization, Nurturing Green possessed an important set of alternatives to improve its growth and to continue expansion. This required the owner to make some critical decisions that could impact the business over the short and long term. If the company made the decision to accept the capital investment, this came at a big price with giving up a significant stake of ownership. Nonetheless, this option could provide the capital investment that was necessary to support long-term success and sustainability, and to reach new markets before any competitors could catch up to the trend. This led to some difficult decisions for the owner to make and required him to determine what type of sacrifices he was willing to make for the good of the business. By accepting i3 Consulting’s offer, Annu would experience a period of uncertainty regarding how much of the day-to-day operations the company would assume. This could be detrimental to the organization rather than beneficial. At the same time, not assuming the risk of the capital investment could be a serious problem. Therefore, taking i3 Consulting up on their offer was the ideal scenario and would enable the business to grow and to thrive at the desired level. Nonetheless, expectations would need to be determined early and reinforced often to secure a viable long-term relationship.

References

Gupta, N., and Goyal, D.P. (2012). Nurturing Green: vows and woes of an entrepreneur (A).                Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, pp. 1-10.