Assignment # 1
Case Study – Worm Boy
The Future of Business – Page 196
February 15, 2011
Collin Nair
TerraCycle was founded in 2001 and is the brainchild of both Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer. At the time both were freshman students at Princeton University. The two envisioned a company that was financially profitable yet ecologically and socially responsible.
TerraCycle does business in Hazardous Waste Treatment and Disposal (NAICS)
Their primary business function is manufacturing and selling organic plant food or fertilizer. Incorporated into their main business is an overall corporate strategy of managing waste effectively and meeting financial, social and environmental goals, namely a triple bottom line. TerraCycles’s business
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They supplement TerraCycle’s work force during the summer. His friends are his managers and are attracted by the environmental mission, the dynamism and charisma of Tom Szaky as well as the financial reward should the company succeed.
A host of issues have given rise to stress and much angst as Szaky attempts to develop a viable business. His mangers, his friends, do not possess the essential business skills in Sales, Marketing and HR to propel the company forward. Further his student volunteers are difficult to motivate over a longer period of time, sloppy work and the lack of attention to detail is commonplace. On the plus side these volunteers are a source of cheap labour for a start-up and may easily align with the values and mission of the business. However inappropriate behaviour, inadequate skills and poor quality of work will definitely not be good for business.
Expenses are mounting, an injection of additional capital is required, cash flow is non-existent and sales are desperately needed. Amidst the stress Szaky remains focussed and true to his values and goal, namely to eliminate waste.
Szaky as key decision maker knows that a sales breakthrough needs to happen soon or else everything will be lost.
At this stage Szaky has a few alternatives to consider, namely * Surround himself with very strong talent who have similar corporate values, are
‘Herewith appear to be the most pressing matters; one, infective and inexperienced entrepreneurial leadership. Two, the dialectic nature between front of house and back of house, and three, a lack of general training motivation and direction in original concept.’
We are dwelling in an age in which everything needs to be instant. Competition is stiff, hence, any company that needs to maximize sales must use all tactics to win the attention of the
The company has been functioning well in terms of generating profit and demand so far. However, there will be a 20% increase in demand for the next month of operations as predicted by management, and the production and supply management's problems may come as a problem they can no longer afford.
The roles of for-profit and nonprofit businesses in the economy are both organizations that rely on the factors of production which are the four fundamental resources. One of them is natural resources such as land, fresh water, wind and mineral deposits. The value of all natural resources tends to rise with high demand, low supply, or both. Another one is capital which includes machines, tools, buildings, information, and technology. Capital does not include money, although businesses use to money acquire, maintain, and upgrade their capital. In additional human resources consist of physical, intellectual, and creative contributions of everyone who works within an economy. Education and motivation have become progressively important to human resources. The last fundamental resources are entrepreneurship and they are people who take risk of
The company is looking to increase profitability and find a long-term solution to the inventory problem.
The purpose of this essay is to critically discuss 2 debate topics using both opposing sides, for and against, in order to create an academic argument for each topic. Debate 1 will argue the points of “Starting a small business is too risky or can anyone do it?” will be supported with references of journals and articles. Debate 2 will analyse the for and against argument for the topic of “To fail to plan is to plan to fail: you must plan” where academic articles will be used to back up each point made to for each side of the debate. Business has been a foundation in society for centuries but only within the past 10 years has the UK government promoted SME’s (small and medium enterprises) and encouraged the public to invest in creating a business with incentive grants and education programmes such as Business gateway and the hatchery.
I have always been interested in “doing my own thing” or, better known as, entrepreneurship. In high school, I would buy T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats in bulk. I’d embroider little emblems on them and mark up the price by 100%. People at school would buy $1 shirts and pay $9 for my craftsmanship. However, I wanted bigger and better things. I channeled Andrew Carnegie in my approach to business: why just stop at my little venture when I could vertically integrate and market for myself? I decided to invest all my money in a new cause and thus, my own social media marketing company was born. The skills I’ve learned in starting my company is something that cannot be taught. I would relish the opportunity to grow and learn at an institution like The Stephen M. Ross School of Business that understands the importance of innovation and exploration.
After carefully reviewing the income statement, balances sheet and cash flow it seems that the company has a negative cash flow for 1998, so even before thinking about obtaining internal and external resources for long term investment, the company must assure resources for their own working capital.
As shown in the ratios chart, working capital has increased by $13M. Maturities of short-term investments and cash flow from operations are projected to be sufficient to sustain the company’s overall financing needs, including capital expenditures. The following corporate strategic plan identifies a project that needs financial backing.
On the other hand, the company has been growing constantly. In deed, according to the net income estimation for 2007 (see Table 7) the company increases its profits $25 thousand dollars more than the previous year. This is an evidence of how the company is been management and of its willing to grow year after year. Nevertheless, the first quarter of 2007 the working capital only has increased by $7 thousand dollars, which is the difference between the current assets and current liabilities but the importance of this is that according to the rotation on receivables and payable accounts, shown in Table 5 and 10, leads us to the conclusion that the company will have to pay its suppliers
The company revenue can be spent to purchase sustainable plant and equipment. Installation of equipment means better atmospheric appeal for stores.
The main objective of this semester was to learn various organizational behaviors that are conducted in a business environment outside the classroom; these would help us as students and as future business entrepreneurs. Throughout the semester, every week different professors came and gave us lectures. Each lecture was about different topic with professors of different departments. Along with the weekly lectures we also had an interactive session that gave us the opportunity to apply the lessons and techniques learnt in our professional and personal lives.
"We were looking for ways to make our business year-round, and we were involved in a lot of different things. We were involved in the scallop industry, storing boats in the winter, servicing engines. We even distributed bread," explains First.
secretary of education states that “high-quality education" that encourages "creativity, imagination, and ingenuity’”. It is true that thirty percentage of startup business failure reasons of “unbalanced Experience or Lack of Managerial Experience”, followed by “lack of Experiences in line of goods or services” is about eleven percentage. Interestingly, company competence occupied the highest rate of failure of 46% (Statistic Verification, Entrepreneur Weekly, Small Business Development Center, Bradley University, university of Tennessee Research). In addition, successful entrepreneur usually possess “highly motivated and willingness to take initiative to execute duties” and have appropriately responsible to their activities, decision, and company’s outcomes.
Our choices led to a constant increase in net income over the three years. Short term debt increase by approximately 100% percent but steadily reduced over the next three years. We were happy with the positive growth of the company and the fact that we were able to pay off most of the initial short term funding required by the increase in working capital requirement. Overall the current situation of the company in 2018 is good, although the total value created is less than 20% of that created in phase 1. From this we learned that the value of the firm can be significantly increased more through a reduction in working capital requirement than through increasing the firm’s sales and net income.