Northern Ireland Essay Example for Free

Northern Ireland Essay Within the results many important factors have arisen. Looking at the map produced using my national competition and local competition I can see that the stores are nearly evenly spread across Northern Ireland. This tells me that there is a large enough market for computer games in the Northern Ireland area as these stores can be sustained. On the other hand this tells me that there is already a lot of established national competition, and the business I am opening is not entering a gap in the market. A large number of the stores (4) are situated in Belfast, which can be easily accessed by Lurgan through the m1. So I would need to treat these Belfast stores as a serious threat, and I would need to keep the local market from buying there games there and also by enticing some of there customer to shop at our Lurgan store. This would mean that I would have to give the customers something that is not offered in the Belfast stores. The local competition consists of three stores in the Craigavon area which, although not in the immediate area, still pose the most serious threat to my business. The stores are already established, and this means that there is a market, although there may not be enough room for another games store. But the advantage I have is that none of these three stores are based in Lurgan town centre, so that would mean there is an untapped market that I can enter into. My covert observation of game shows me a successful business in the Belfast area. I taught me that a computer games store is one in which a lot of people browse and not buy the first time that they are in the store. This would tell me that we would need to tempt customer into buying what they may be interested in. This would require me to hire skilful staff who would have a keen interest in computers and would have a wide scope of knowledge about the games and equipment that would be available. I would hope to be a manager that has a lot say over each aspect of the business I would be able to adopt a McGregor theory Y approach. I would do this, as I would like to delegate to my workers to effectively use their skills to the highest level. It would also help in improving organisation and motivation, and also help in the costs that may be meet in hiring extra managers or staff. However, as I want a lot of control over my business I may have some characteristics of a theory X manager as I would be on the floor as much as I could, and also would try and make all the main decisions to be taken in the business. Analysis of my questionnaire results provides me with various important numeric results. The first important result that I came across was that every one of my respondents owned a computer. This was very significant, as my potential market would have to be persons who already owned a computer, and would be interested in my goods, and so if they did not already own a computer these goods would be useless to the consumers. Briefly this means that this question give me an estimate of how large my potential customers is. However these potential customer may not be interested in games and owning a computer may not mean that they could be persuaded to attend my store. Knowing now if the person owned a computer or not I then needed to find out what type of computer they may own. I found that the majority of respondents owned a PC or a Playstation. This was significant in that the second most popular was the Playstation which is a pure gaming machine, and this would suggest that there is a large number of persons living in the Lurgan area who enjoy computer games and may be interested in my store. Knowing who owns a computer games console I was then interested in knowing how frequently the respondents would buy computer games, to know how often customers would use my store. Over half of the respondents would buy their games over six months apart. This is a negative result as it tell me that there may be spells when the business may not have much custom and periods when it does, making balancing the books an up hill task. I was interested in knowing where my respondents would buy their games to know where most of my competition comes from (locally or nationally), and whether the Lurgan market would attract any of their custom. The results showed me that the majority of the respondents would not buy their games from the Lurgan area and so my national competition would pose a bigger threat than first expected. Lastly I was curious to whether the respondents would use a specialist store if it were available. The majority said that they would mean that a lot of the respondents who do not buy their games in Lurgan might if they had a better quality of service. My second questionnaire done to gain further information showed me a very significant result. Most of the first questionnaire respondents did not purchase games in the Lurgan area, and so I needed to look at where they would then purchase. I found that 3 respondents purchase games in Belfast, 1 in Lisburn and 3 in Portadown. But what was most significant is that the store in Belfast and Lisburn (part of the national market) were specialist store such as the one that I was planning. This could suggest that these specialist stores attract my local market away because of something that only a specialist store offers. When looking at the property values in the Lurgan area I came across various properties, which could be potentially busy locations, where I could attract a wide and large scope of my potential customers. I needed a retail property large enough to accommodate all of my products and their layout, including enough space that would be needed to present each part in a manner that is organised and invite the customer to look at our products. I also needed a property that was not going to push up my fixed costs so high that I could not possibly meet them, and would have problems in the long term in making a profit or be able to break-even. The first property that I had looked at was the most promising of all the properties in the Lurgan area. It was located at 35 William Street Lurgan. At 75000, this was the cheapest property that was currently available in the Lurgan area, and cost is an important factor, as I would wish to keep my possible costs to a minimum. I could attain a mortgage on the property meaning that I would not have to pay out such a large sum on start and not run into financial difficulties from the start. Also banks are always interested in investing in franchises as they are seen as less risky than most other business start-ups. The property is also a size that is feasible enough to hold everything that I require and also leave enough floor space for me to work with. I could use the top floors for offices for myself or to rent out to other firms. However these floors need some additional work done. The property is also located just 100-200 yards from the town centre and is adjacent from a car park meaning that this is a very accessible property. I found very few properties in the Lurgan area, with Century 21 stating most retail properties are sold before a brochure can be made. The other properties that I had found in the Lurgan area where either too small, expensive, or located too far from the town centre.