BUSI2035 Entrepreneurship and Innovative Thinking

Take-home Examination Answer Sheet (Semester 2, 2020-2021)

BUSI2035 Section _3__

Student ID : __19229216____
Student Name : __Chong Lok Lam__

Answer to Question 1
Business model is a summation of the core business decisions and trade-offs employed by a company
to earn a profit. The business model of Seal Engraving Centre. Seal Engraving Centre is mainly provide
a range of workshop of DIY seal engraving.
Start with the value proposition, the starting point of the business is that Candy is passionate
about Chinese art and she is interested in using Chinese character to develop patterns and
graphics. The value is that she wants to expand her own interests and makes her dreams
come true. Therefore, she starts her business about DIY seal engraving and open a teaching
centre to teach people to make it. Also, she helps to design wedding seals and signets for
wedding couples. The value is that she helps to satisfy the couple’s needs and give a blessing
to them. Moreover, she helps the local branches of foreign companies offering seal engraving
DIY courses to their employees, which help the employee to team building and motivation
purposes. This shows that she helps to make the company more firm and solve their internal
problem. Lastly, she opens course for the member to learn seal engraving will help others to
develop a skill and satisfy their wants and needs. She provides products and services to the
married couple.

Secondly, in view of the key activity. In Candy’s business, she will provide the course of the
DIY seal engraving and teach people how to make the seal engraving. For the DIY carving
class, some of them are dating or married couples, she helps to design seals and signets for
wedding couples. For the loyal corporate customer, she will help them for team building and
motivation purposes.

Thirdly, in view of the key partners. Candy corporates with those suppliers of the materials
for seal carving, those famous local online marketing platforms/ e-tailing website and local
branches of foreign companies and landlord for rent. Candy has to contact with the supplier
for seal carving and discuss the amount and the cost of those teaching materials. Also, Candy
has to corporate with those famous local online marketing platforms/ e-tailing website to
promote the Centre and help to attract new students. Through corporating with those loyal
corporate customer which mainly local branches of foreign companies offering seal engraving
DIY course to their employees, she can help to retain part of the customer as they will attend
the course regularly and maintain a stable customer base and try to find more customer in

1
those business field. She also contacts with the landlord which the monthly land rent is lower
than the market rental. She has bargains with the landlord and make a balance between
them.

Fourthly, in view of the key resources. The key resources are the materials which used for the
seal carving as this is the main material which teach students. For the physical resources,
they need to rent the physical shop for teaching and those raw-materials. For the intellectual
resources, she has the knowledge of Chinese art and using Chinese character to develop
patterns and graphics and designing sense. She has to design the course and design the
website and choosing photo for the website for the teaching materials. For the human
resources, she only run the business by herself and she did all the renovative work and
website development by herself. For the financial resources, she needs $5000 for monthly
rental and keep a total startup capital at less than $10,000.

Fifthly, in view of the customer relationship. Candy introduces a membership system. All the
students will automatically become a member for one year, which means all students will
keep receiving the latest information of the course and the linkage of the bond is strong.
They will be able to keep a friendly relationship with customer to develop further
relationship. Moreover, Candy has promote in the social media. Therefore, Candy can
through those platforms attract more students. This can enlarge their customer base and
help to enlarge the circle of customer.

Next, in view of the channels. They have a physical seal engraving Centre 300 square feet unit
located inside an industrial building at Cheung Sha Wan, which is 5 minutes near MTR station.
There will be a physical store which link member together. Also, Candy has famous online
marketing platforms and e-tailing websites. Through the online platform, customer can know
about the information of the DIY course and they can keep updating the information of the
course. She has a website on her own and all the renovative work. This shows that the
website is the platform for her to communicate with customers or students. Also, she has a
part-time teaching at the continuing education units of three post-secondary institutions.
This shows that she can extend her customer base and try to attract customer to her own
company.

In addition, in view of the customer segment. Customer segment is the target customer of
the company. They are commercial firms, dating or married couples and local branches of
foreign companies. For the commercial firms, she will provide the course for the employee
for them to have team building and motivation purposes. For the married couple, she will
help to design wedding seals and signets for wedding couples. This help the couple a blessing
and make their wedding more fully.

Lastly, in view of the cost structure. For the fixed cost, the rental expenses is $5,000 X 12 =
$60,000. For the variable cost, it includes the expenses of the percentage of the course fees
to the platform, utilities and materials of the seal engravings. Candy also need to do all the
renovative work and website development, which the startup capital at less than $10,000.

2
 For the revenue, is the tuition fee from the DIY Workshop and revenue received from the
designing wedding seals and signets for the couple and the commercial firm. Also, she will
receive the 10% off for buying materials or engraving tools.

I think that Candy should have a better division of labour. Candy does all the renovative work
and website development. She also has to handle all the membership account. This shows
that she put too much effort in doing those preparation work like searching for suitable seal
stones for teaching purposes and develop the course and all teaching materials. Therefore, I
think that she should hire someone who can help her to do the management work. This can
provide a better division of labour. Therefore, she can concentrate in teaching and improve
the quality of the teaching course. She can works more efficiently and at the same time can
attract more new customer.

Also, Candy can extend her customer base. Currently, she only helps the married couple to
do with the designing wedding seals and signets for wedding couples. I will suggest her to do
with broader customer base like baby day who turning to 100 days. She does different kinds
of design can satisfy different people’s want. As a result, she can attract more kinds of
customer and extend her business field. She can attract more potential customers. This can
increase her business revenue.

Lastly, I think that Candy can try to do both online and physical lesson. She can take video
and upload to the youtube channel and let students to follow the video by themselves.
Therefore, she can have a more ways to earn money and become cost effective. This can also
help her to increase the business revenue.

Answer to Question 2

New/ Next Normal means people based on the assumption before and after COVID-19.
Usually during COVID-19, there will be new idea appear and emerge in the post-virus era. For
the New/Next Normal, during COVID-19, the business of Candy dropped a lot as there are no
one join the workshop. But according to Candy’s prediction, she supposes that after the
COVID-19, her sales’ revenue will return to the normal as people will have the normal level.
However, during COVID-19, other companies are thinking some innovative idea to boost their
sales. In Candy’s case, during COVID-19 period, she won’t make any changes as she thinks
that everything will back to normal. Therefore, after COVID-19, the sales revenue of Candy’s
business not a must for it to increase. In this case, before COVID-19, there won’t be any
flexible working arrangement like work from home or remote teaching. As we enter into the
next normal, work from home or remote teaching become a common phenomenon.
Therefore, those companies or business who are having those mode of will survive in today’s
new era.

For the effect of the New/ Next Normal to the Hong Kong in general, as in this case, during

3
COVID-19, people keep changing the mode of working and become flexible working hour.
Therefore, the next normal will be work from home. In addition to the COVID-19, there will
be less tourist come and the business dropped. Together with the work from home mode,
there will be more companies closed and physical store closed. As a result, people will usually
adopt the remote mode of working. Under this condition, people will be usually stay at home
and do more online shopping or purchasing like IG shop or calling takeaway from those
online platforms. All things will become remote and people will be adopted to a mode of
working from home. People will eventually rather choose to stay at home. In general, it will
change the mode of working and people can open less physical store or company. As a result,
companies require less physical store and save the land rent.

For the effect of the New/ Next Normal to Candy’s business, as in this case, originally, Candy’s
business is through physical store to teach seal carving. However, during COVID-19, people
are unable to go to attend physical class. As a result, Candy’s business eventually decrease as
people can’t attend physical class. After the COVID-19, as the New/ Next Normal is that
people starting to work from home or have activities at home instead of working or do
activities in the physical store. For example, people can watch video at home and learn seal
engraving. Therefore, after the COVID-19, even Candy opens the physical workshop for the
students to learn. They may not be able to attend the physical lesson as people adopt the
mode of working or do activity at home. As a result, Candy’s revenue will eventually
decrease.

As the New/ Next Normal is people working from home or do activity at home. I think that
Candy can change her mode of teaching. She can prefer their students to learn from home
instead going to the physical learning Centre. Therefore, students will be more willing to
adopt the online learning. This can attract more students to join her workshops. For example,
she should set up an online teaching platform. Therefore, this will arise people’s interest as
they are also having the same mode of activity. Candy can also focus more on the online
promotion as people get in touched with more online platform. After knowing it, people are
more willing to join the learning workshop of seal engraving as people get used to adopt
online mode. This can satisfy more people’s needs and help to increase Candy’s revenue.