Extra Post October: Investment Opportunity

October News:

A producer called our manager a few days ago. She told our manager that an actor wants Sweet Fruit Arrangements to provide an arrangement for free to give the actor's girlfriend.

She presented this opportunity as a chance to boost our publicity. The actor would post a picture of our arrangement on his twitter account which has 310,200 followers.

I was present when the manager told the producer that she would contact her with a reply. Since I have given the opportunity to help make decisions and work along side the manager. I did some research on if this would be a good investment.

The actor is not famous and even though he has 310,200 followers, not many people retweet or favorite his posts. I told the owner (my mentor) and he contacted the producer to decline her offer.

After all we have been noticed by many, including Snookie. We expect better opportunities than this in the future.

Blog 8: Research and Working EQ

1. Working EQ:   What is the best way an owner-manager can help grow a small business such as a fruit and flower shop?
2. What is a possible answer to your working EQ? Please write the answer in thesis format. 

• There needs to be communication between both the flower and the fruit shops.
• There has to be a better relationship with florists interface.

3. What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ? 
 The Future of Business: The Essentials

4. Who is your mentor, or where are you doing mentorship, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?
 My mentor is Ibrahim Baggia. He is the owner and CEO of Sweet Fruit Arrangements Incorporated. I have been working with my mentor in management for a long time. Sometimes, he lets me take over some of his duties. Since I am working hands-on as an intern owner-manager, I feel it has everything to do with my EQ.
 

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1. Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

I have been working with my mentor in management for a long time. Sometimes, he lets me take over some of his duties. For my independent components I want to divide half of my management time towards Sweet Fruit Arrangements and the other half towards Sweet Flower Arrangements. My mentor will allow me to work on management duties and create my own strategy towards owner-managing these two shops. For the first 30 hours I will work for Sweet Flower Arrangements.

 

2. Describe how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

I will have hours and duties I did during those hours. I will create a journal with many different things: ways of improving organizational skills, implementing professional tactics that I have read through my articles, and brainstorming new ways to improve and help the shops grow.

3. Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

By having management duties, I will experience first-hand what its like to be an owner-manager. By creating a journal I will reflect on how I could improve and learn more about what I am doing right or wrong. This will help me in the future when I will be given more responsibilities for this family-business.

4. Update your senior project hours log.

Done.

Extra Post September- Business is...Blooming?

September News:

Our flower shop has a system what's called a florist to florist interface where any florist can place an order in the system with a specific zip code and we distribute for that florist in the desired area. But, under our agreement with 1800flowers we are not allowed to take any orders under $45, because it would not be profitable for us.

This month, our company decided to end an agreement with a company called FromYouFlowers due to many ongoing reasons. FromYouFlowers provided 80% of our florists to florists interface orders. The reasons for this were:

• FromYouFlowers send special requests on their deliveries which causes management issues with delivery routes in our company.
• 50% of their orders were under $45. Even though we have an agreement with 1800flowers, we still receive these orders daily. There is a way to reject these orders within 2 hours of receiving them, after 2 hours there is a penalty of $10, after 24 hours there is a penalty of $20, and after 48 hours the penalty is the full price of the arrangement.

Everyday, our company needed to reject 50% of the orders. This resulted in a very unorganized way to manage business because there was no way to reject the orders under $45. It was a very difficult decision, but our companies could not come to agreements. We will have less sales but we think we will still be profitable without having this disruptor in our business.

This situation has brought some new obstacles to the flower shop, which means more work for my mentor which also means more for me to learn! We are currently working on training employees  who are at minimum wage to save money. We are only going to have one designer and the new hires will be given less hours.

Blog 6: Second Interview Preperation

1. Who is your mentor and where do they work?

My mentor is Ibrahim Baggia. He is the owner and CEO of Sweet Fruit Arrangements Incorporated. He also works as Director of Operations at WIS International. LinkedIn

2. What 5 questions will you ask them about their background?

• Why did you choose this career?
• What kind of majors did you consider?
• Why did you start this fruit arrangement business?
• What were your original plans on a business?
• How did you begin to open this shop?
• How did you market and compete with Edible Arrangements?
• What made you decide to merge with 1800 flowers?

Blog 5: Mentorship Reflection

1. Mentorship Question: Describe your experience in how you found your mentorship?

I had many different ideas for my mentorship. First, I contacted many biotechnology firms and labs because biotechnology is the major I want to pursue in college. I never received a solid reply due to liability issues because of my age, so I moved on. Then, I decided to do a topic related to Robotics, because it has become a significant part of my life. Finally, my other option was our family business, which opened another shop during the summer. I had to chose between two very important topics which I will work on anyways throughout this year. To save my parents from the hassle of driving me to mentorship, I chose our family business. Through this topic, I will also be able to lower my parents burden at the new shop. By researching and working close with my dad, I will not only learn more about business but help manage and grow our small shops.

2. Research Question: What has been the most important article you have read and why?

The most important research piece I have read is an online textbook called The Future of Business: The Essentials. This textbook outlines supply chain management, selling process, and definitions of important terms such as wholesalers and industrial distributors. This book also explains how 1800flowers works. I will continue to use this book for the next research check. I chose this book because I want to learn more about how products are ordered and sold and the terms used to explain these processes.

Extra Post August- Flower Shop is now complete!

Today I went to visit the shops for the first time after my summer mentorship hours. I never had the opportunity to tell the employees and drivers about my senior project so I was very excited to do so.

Here's the good news. Whenever you start a business, you start small. When the flower shop had its opening in the summer, we shared a facility with a computer repair service,  next to the fruit arrangement shop. Today the owners of the computer repair service moved out. Now we have an entire shop which provides extra room for the growing business.

The sort of bad news: We had a power outage which interferes with orders coming in through the wire. Basically, we receive orders through Bloomnet, a service by 1800flowers for online orders. Fortunately, I took care of the problem by restarting the computer screens, opening our accounts, and printing the orders. We also have a great employee (more like a sister to me), Mariel, who fixed the power outage by herself.

Our family's flower shop is a dream come true. Just imagining how many people receive smiles everyday by such a sweet gesture, is priceless. Plus they smell so wonderful!

P.S. I love to change things up a bit, so I will be changing the flower arrangement on the left side of this blog. All the flower arrangements are the ones we offer through the website.