Investigating Two Local Businesses

Investigating Two Local Businesses

The two businesses that I have decided to investigate are Sealy Beds

and Asda.

I have chosen these two businesses because they are local and easily

accessible, in the past either a family member or me have shopped in

it. These two businesses are quite the opposite; Sealy Beds

manufactures their own products and sell them to different stores.

Whereas Asda buys their products off other brands and sells them in

there own supermarkets.

General Information on Sealy Beds

Sealy Beds UK is a part of the Silentnight group that is based in

Lancashire. The brand came to the UK in1974 and it is located in

Aspatria, West Cumbria. In Aspatria it operates 200,000 square foot

manufacturing plant; it supplies beds to retailers all over the UK. In

the year 1999 Sealy Beds celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary.

Sealy is primarily an American owned company, Sealy brand is also made

in many other countries including:

· Australia

· New Zealand

· Canada

· The West Indies

· South Africa

· Japan

· Israel

· Thailand

When Sealy started making beds its annual turnover was a mere

£450,000, but Sealy started to flourish and it has now established

itself among the leading bed manufacturers such as Sleep Easy,

Millbrook, Myers and Slumberland.

General Information on Asda

Asda has made itself the best value food and clothing superstore. Asda

became part of 'The Wal-Mart Family' on 26th July 1999. The company

was formed in 1965 by a group of farmers from Yorkshire. It has come a

long way since then, it now has 240 stores and 19 depots across the

UK. Asda offer pr...

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...e also operational issues are

discussed.

E.g. uses of machines, working on load times is the amount of time of

customer order and delivery.

2 years ago the lead-time was 6 months it is down to 130-140 working

days.

Quarterly (every 3 months) the managing director gets together with

the whole factory and gives a presentation to see how the business is

doing.

Factories only tend to communicate when there are problems or areas

for improvement.

There are many reasons for using communication: -

· Asking for Information

· Supplying Information

· Planning Work

· Asking building managers to conserve water

· Explain how a job must be done

· Deciding on how to re-organise a department

Communication is the most important factor of a business whether it is

to customer's suppliers