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Persian (Farsi) to English: Carpet Business Case Study General field: Other Detailed field: Business/Commerce (general)
Source text - Persian (Farsi) Write-up text.
Translation - English
Translated by: R. Pakseresht
Date: June 2012
Carpet Business Case Study
Item 1
A- Status of the carpet company/shop is summarized below:
Status
Description
Strength
. Persian carpet business is still on roll in UK/Europe.
. Small wall, hand made carpets and luxury silk made carpets have still good market in UK.
Weaknesses
. This shop represents just 20 pc of Babak's £2.5 sales.
. Profit of £150,000 down from £250,000 the previous year despite a smaller turnover.
. For the first time in company's history, they won't see any improvement in its top-line.
Opportunities
. Babak's son wants to grow the business into a fully successful operation .
. Repairing skills/techniques of hand made carpets is not well introduced
in UK/Europe.
Threats
. Supplying to retailer shops would require setting up a bigger shop and hiring about 10 staff.
. The original prices of Iranian hand made carpets have hit the roof, utilities and wages are rising in UK.
The principle weaknesses arise from the fact that Babak can't find qualified carpet salesman and repairman, and new immigration law does not allow him to employ someone reliable from Iran. He also considers setting up a training pro gramme, but this should be done at the cost of something else, and the problem of finding willing trainees can not be ignored.
However, Babak has to strengthen the staff of his shop somehow, e.g. advertise in Europe to find a salesman and repairman who is specialized in Iranian carpets. On the other hand, Babak needs to financially strengthen his business, possibly by getting some loan, to grow this business into a fully successful operation.
B- One factor that seems to influence the organizational culture of Babak business is the effect of the dominant leader presence. If Babak's son is going to take the business, his approach, management style and personality has a significant influence on the values that Babak himself tries to gain.
The current regulation is another factor that has impacts on Babak's carpet business. New immigration law on non-EU workers means that he can't hire skilled workers from Iran, thus, he should consider advertising the job in Europe.
Last, but not the least factor for success of Babak's business is goal and believe. Babak's son likes kind of growth that is risk free, believing that contentment is important, not always worrying how does he squeeze his supplier.
In fact the most influential factor for Babak is legislation and broader business environment which unable him to find a qualified salesman who is specialized in the Persian hand made carpets.
Item 2
A- Cultural aspects such as national culture and globalization have influences on number of customers in the case of hand made carpets business. For instance, the national culture of an Iranian carpet shop may contradict with what British consumers prefer as their own national decoration. All consumers do not necessarily take buying decision for pricey items in the same way.
Complex buying approach and high-reducing shopping attitudes are two types of consumers buying characteristics concerned, for Babak's business. Extent of consumers involvement and significant differences between brands are two considerable factors of the complex buying characteristics. Besides, British costumers with this characteristics tend to choose expensive, antique and infrequent products. On the other hand, consumers with high shopping behavior tend to get involved in purchasing, though it is difficult for them to determine the differences between brands. Often after spending money, many consumers tend to get further information to make sure they made the right decision. According to the Babak's website, his shop never compromises on quality and try to offer really original and hand made Iranian carpets.
When a consumer makes complex shopping decision, he is supposed to proceed a
few steps. In the first step, the consumer notices a need which should get fulfilled through purchasing something. In the case of Babak's shop, a need for a decoration, for example, may be triggered when someone speaks about his own experience with this carpet shop. According to Babak's website, the hanging carpets will leave an impression of brilliance on all guests. Therefore, this could be an advertise for them, for instance, one may like to choose this shop's carpets for his home or recommend other friends to see this shop.
When complex buying attitude of a customer recognize the need, he may seek further information about the product in order to satisfy this need. Customers
should also be able to find more information through public sources (Babak's website) or personal sources; family or friends.
The Last stage is post-purchase attitude. Customers may find out that the
product they purchased perform even better than what they expected, thus, they may recommend it to others too. However, if the purchased product is not as good as what they expected, the consumer would complain for the salesman, decide not to shop this product or not to tell anyone about it.
B-The promotional complex includes; communication/advertising, quality improvement, personal up-grading and public relation. In the case of Babak's shop, focus should be made on communicating messages about their goods. The Babak's marketing communication/advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and public relation are the transmitters concerned in the promotional complex . Advertising can be provided by shoppers, employees, and other public groups. Sales promotion and personal selling can only be received by shoppers, while the public relation are received by all public groups.
There are different kind of advertising, and through media channels advertising is not personal but communication with numerous number of people. In the early stage that the Iranian carpet/product expose to viewing, Babak can use pioneer advertising, by which they should achieve the consumers awareness.
At the later stage of product life , competitive advertising may be more appropriate, as Babak should make their demanding carpets distinguishable from those offered by competitors. The comparative advertising can help the shop brand products to be compared against those of its active competitors.
Babak can use reminder or reinforcement advertising which designed to operate, having the consumers have purchased the product.
There is another kind of advertising, by which the general reputation and images of the shop/products can be improved.
Money-based sales-promotion is a promotional approach, through which it is attempted to temporarily increase sales by offering customers an incentive tendency to buy a reduced priced product which is a usual technique but doesn't provide much excitement. Refund/return money to costumers who have bought expensive products through cash back, immediate price reduction on sail or giving gifts are considerably effective actions. Babak can offer gifts in return for proof of purchase, such as tiny antiques given on presentation of a number of labels from a product.
Personal selling can be considered as a powerful means of marketing communication. Babak's salesman should patiently talk to potential shoppers and find out about their needs. The benefit of a product can personally be more/higher in a sale marketing compare to advertising sales promotion or public relations. Personal selling would provide an opportunity for customers to directly ask about the product concerned.
Almost for all businesses, public relations provide a favorable condition on the minds of their stakeholders. It includes creating and placing favorable news, and good public relations, and can be more effective than advertising for Babak
because it is free and saves some budget.
C- Babak's company should have a future plan considering pricing concept in order to be really successful. The difference between the right price and a wrong price is like getting a successful or failed business, respectively. One of the important issues in pricing is deciding what price should be considered as a good value for the paid money by customers allowing the business to make a good profit too.
Another issue in the future planing for Babak's company is understanding other related factors concerned. Meeting customer expectation is not enough if competitors can do it even better, so Babak should find out actually who his competitors are.
On the other hand if Babak wants to be planned base on accounting and finance, the cash flow forecast is a suitable practical exercise. This is required if a business is looking ahead to determine future income and expenditure, for a defined period. Cash flow statements should consider a period of forecast, and the level of analysis would require potential changes in the extent of expenses and timing of their payments as well as the effect of seasonal changes in income and expenditure. The benefit of the cash flow statement will not only provide forecast but also it provides the actual month's outcome, when they are known. Its best estimation can be within the time of preparation, based on the data available.
Another issue which helps Babak is preparing and using an appropriate budget. Budgeting is a financial plan which can be seen as a statement of the financial impacts expected through resource conversion process. This is usually planned in the business for a period of time, for example, to set up a budget for the coming year.
ITEM 3
A-Across the political boundaries of nation states, globalization means expansion of economical activities. It has resulted in increasing an international trade or company, operating in more than one country, and also when a business has greater dependence on the global economy. It is associated not only with a phenomena spread and volume of cross-border economic transactions, but also with an organization of economic activities that specifies national boundaries. Sometimes, internationalization and globalization use interchangeability, though it is possible to distinguish these two. Activities such as joint ventures with partners in other countries to cooperate in some aspect of business can be considered internationalization.
However, globalization is the extension of internationalization in the sense that most aspects of the production are performed and integrated, across many global locations. In the case of Babak's carpet shop, Babak's son wants to grow this business into a really successful operation, supplying more Iranian hand made carpets to UK's market. Case of Babak business can be compared to Swiss watch, which manufactures and distributes the best brand of watches around the world, utilizing some components from other businesses.
B-Those changes which have impelled business and nations to adopt their approach are called operators of globalization. Cost operator, market operator , government operator and competition operator are different operators concerned in business. The cost operator provides an advantage for a business by the possible lowering of the cost of the service or production. If Babak wants to grow his business into a fully successful operation, supplying Iranian carpets to the UK market, in fact he is running to gain an scaled up economy, by means of increasing the size of business operation.
The development of a world market that brings about change in the demand of the customers is known as the market operator. It is company's movement to become globally rather than nationally centred.
The government operator is when nations work together to increase the possibility of trading activities in their international trade, in order to create economical benefits and wealth. The creation of more open and freer economies provided an opportunity for Babak to find sufficient number of suitably qualified salesmen from Europe, nationals of EE countries and Switzerland who can live and work in the UK.
Competition operator is opening up an economy or business to create a condition in which more players can enter the market place, whether nationally or internationally. Therefore competition will increase as the business attract potential customers for their products.
However, he most influential part of globalization operators for Babak's business is the government operator the present condition of which is terrible. Thus, if Babak can not find or train couple of salesman/repairman for hand made carpets who is allowed to work in UK, he cannot easily face with the present customers demands.
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Years of experience: 28. Registered at ProZ.com: Mar 2012.
I am a qualified engineer with over 40 years of working background in the mechanical and energy fields. In this capacity, I have extensive experiences in preparation, translation and proofreading of English to Persian (and vice versa) documents. These consisted of technical documents such as specifications instructions, manuals, quality/safety and contractual documents. I have also performed many site translations on technical guidelines, letter of intents and scientific abstracts.
I believe that the key to achieve success as a translator lies in precision and attention to correctness. I have great respect for professional ethics in this field and always focus on accuracy and punctuality. With the combination of my technical and interpersonal skills, I will add quality to the work. I believe that my strong professional ethics makes me a trustworthy person who always strives to do acceptable works.
Keywords: English<>Persian translation of technical/engineering documents/texts and social interpretation.
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