Reference no: EM133773783

Case - "SPLASH and DASH" CAR WASH

BACKGROUND - FIRST 7 MONTHS (PHASE 1)
In July 2022, motivated by a need for an income that would allow him to pursue a sporting career as a zorber, Johnny English commenced business offering a car wash service to the public. Johnny named the business "Splash and Dash", obtained an ABN, and maintained a basic fee schedule, a list of customer enquiries and a summary of invoices relating to jobs completed.

Johnny considered the requirements of washing different sized vehicles when setting his prices and treated every customer and vehicle as requiring a clean to a very high standard. Operating from sub- let space at an inner-city shopping centre, Johnny quickly earned a reputation with customers of providing excellent service and professionally cleaned vehicles. However, the demands of keeping up with a growing client base took its toll on Johnny as he found himself struggling to keep up with bookings.
Johnny's client base kept growing and in November 2022 he hired Basil Golightly, a longstanding friend, to assist with the workload. Basil did help reduce the load on Johnny but with a busy summer of zorbing competitions, Johnny a stress fracture in January 2023 causing him to close the business temporarily.

Johnny maintained some basic records of his business activity and is seeking your assistance in evaluating the data captured across the initial 7-month period of trading.

PHASE 1 RECORDS MAINTAINED
Records maintained and provided include:

Exhibit A - Phase 1 Fee Schedule
Johnny established a basic fee schedule where each job was charged based on the type of vehicle. Time records were not maintained during this period and Johnny did not consider the actual time spent when billing his clients.

During October 2022, Johnnyy offered a discount of 10% to new clients for their first service but believes that he may have misapplied the discount at times during this busy period.
Exhibit B - Phase 1 Customer Enquiries
Every enquiry received by Johnny was recorded with the following data maintained:

Customer #
Customer Name
Vehicle Type
Customer's Region (the section of the city in which they lived)

Exhibit C - Phase 1 Invoices
Every job completed was invoiced with the following data maintained:

Invoice #
Date of Service
Customer #
Whether a promotional discount was applied
Fee Received (in $)

PHASE 1 BUSINESS CONCERNS

Johnny is concerned whether he has charged his clients correctly.
Although this period was an initial attempt at operating the business, Johnny is interested in where his clients were based (was Johnny servicing mostly inner-city local clients, or did he attract clients from other parts of the city?)
Johnny is also interested to determine the proportion of his revenue that was derived from each type of vehicle as well as the volume of revenue for each month during this period.

BACKGROUND - 15 MONTHS FOLLOWING RELAUNCH (PHASE 2)
After recovering from his stress fracture, Johnny rehired Basil and they contacted each of the existing clients to advise that the business was recommencing. To help prevent further health issues from overwork, Jeremy relaunched the business with a new fee schedule offering three levels of detailing service - silver, Gold and Platinum.
Realising that he had no idea how he obtained his clients during the initial period of trading, Johnny commenced adding a note to the record of each new client indicating how they become aware of "Splash and Dash". Johnny also decided that it may be useful to note whether a job was completed by Basil or himself.
Apart from relying on passing trade (walk-ins), referrals and social media posts, Johnny began passing more of the detailing work to Basil and developed a business website. Again, the business grew quickly and Johnny found it necessary to hire further employees in April, May, June and July.
Johnny found that hiring others to take care of the highly physical work allowed him to focus more on client contact and allowed him more time to practice his zorbing. However, the business ceased meaningful growth between July and December prompting Johnny to launch an extensive email campaign in early 2024.

PHASE 2 RECORDS MAINTAINED
Records maintained and provided include:

Exhibit D - Phase 2 Fee Schedule
Johnny upgraded his fee schedule to establish charges based on the type of service provided as well as the type of vehicle. In simple terms, the Silver service is charged at a base fee level with 20% and 60% markups added for Gold and Platinum services.
Exhibit E - Phase 2 Hours per Service Budget
Based on his experience from the initial 7-month period, Johnny established a standard number of hours expected for each service type.

Exhibit F - Phase 2 Customer Enquiries
Enquiries received by Johnny were recorded with the following data maintained:

Customer #
Customer Name
Vehicle Type
Customer's Region (the section of the city in which they lived)
Customer Source (how the customer found out about "Splash and Dash")

Exhibit G - Phase 2 Invoices
Every job completed was invoiced with the following data maintained:

Invoice #
Date of Service
Customer #
Service Level Provided
Staff Member Responsible
Fee Received (in $)

Exhibit H - Time Records
Every job completed was supported by a time record noting the hours taken to complete the job.

PHASE 2 BUSINESS CONCERNS

Although Johnny established an estimated time for the completion of each job, he is concerned that some employees are more productive than others.
Johnny would also like to receive some feedback on whether his budgeted hours per type of service is accurate.
Upon realising that the fee schedule used by staff to prepare invoices had been partially destroyed by spilt coffee, Johnny is extremely concerned that errors may have been made with invoicing clients.
As the email campaign required considerable cost and effort, Johnny would like to evaluate whether it was worthwhile.
Johnny also believes that he would benefit from further insight into which customers are responsible for the majority of his revenue (i.e., vehicle type, region and type of service).

ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS

PHASE 1

Prepare appropriate reports that will support the evaluation of data in Phase 1.

There are many reports that may be produced from the data provided. You are to select reports that will help address the proprietor's concerns.

This is to be completed in Excel.

For one of your reports, outline the steps taken to select, prepare and format the report. This should be presented in dot point format.

Prepare a brief written summary of your evaluation of the data in Phase 1. Each of the reports that you have prepared should be used as the basis for an expanded summary note including:
A statement explaining the information in your report (i.e., numerical)
Why the information is important to the business
A description and explanation of a suggested improvement to the data collected (may relate to inputs, processes, or outputs)

Parts b & c are to be completed in Word or PDF.

Note - these sections must contain your own original text, Images will not be accepted

PHASE 2

Prepare appropriate reports that will support the evaluation of data in Phase 2.

With the additional data provided, you are to select reports that will help address the proprietor's concerns.
This is to be completed in Excel.

For one of your reports (that is different from reports produced for Phase 1), outline the steps taken to select, prepare and format the report. This should be brief and presented in dot point format.

Prepare a brief written summary of your evaluation of the data in Phase 2.
Each of the reports that you have prepared should be used as the basis for an expanded summary note including:
A statement explaining the information in your report (i.e., numerical)
Why the information is important to the business
A description and explanation of a suggested improvement to the data collected (may relate to inputs, processes, or outputs)

Assume that you are a business consultant that has been contacted by Johnny to assist him in growing his business. What areas of improvement can you suggest?

Parts b, c & d are to be completed in Word or PDF.

Note - these sections must contain your own original text, Images will not be accepted.