BUSINESS REPORT OF GENOVA’S CAKE

Abstract

Gift-giving is a worldwide culture around the world. It is an activity where somebody gives a gift to another person, family, and/or institution on a special occasion or as a way to show gratitude. The safest and most neutral gift that would be meaningful, appropriate, and acceptable for any kind of occasion and for everyone is food. As the business owner have a passion for cake tasting and baking, the business owner decided to start selling cakes during special seasons to her friends and family. By the time the business owner see that the cake that the business owner sold the most is apparently lapis legit or layered cake. After doing some research, the business owner conclude that apparently, the layered cake is a type of cake that is used on various Indonesian occasions because we were told by our ancestors that layered cake represents lots of luck. In 2021, the business owner would like to expand my cake business to a bigger audience in the Jabodetabek area therefore the business owner decided to do branding for my cakes. Decided to name it “Genova’s Cake” and design her own packaging to make customers more attracted to buying my cakes. For the moment, Genova’s Cake only sells layered cakes per season; Eid Mubarak, Christmas, and Chinese New Year. Regarding the financial aspect, the business owner has started to record all expenses and revenues since April 2021 and Genova’s cake has reached break- even already. However, the sales declined in December 2022 due to inflation. One way to increase sales is by using a marketing strategy. Social media has been a modern way to promote businesses since it’s easy, fast, and could reach more audiences. Therefore, the business owner is going to focus on building the social media marketing strategy. The issue that the owners facing for the past 2 years are they are struggling to have new clients, there’s not a lot of engagement with social media audiences, as well as the external economic inflation factor. This paper does a deep analysis of Genova’s Cake by using several relevant frameworks such as BMC, Marketing Mix 4Ps, STP analysis, Porter’s 5 Forces, and SWOT analysis. For the internal assessment, this paper explores the business deeper using Business Model Canvas and Marketing Mix 4Ps. Meanwhile, for external assessments, STP analysis and Porter’s 5 Forces theories are applied to analyse Genova’s Cake issues and develop the right strategy to expand the business. Lastly, after doing both internal and external assessments, the SWOT analysis was done to finalise the conceptual framework of using all the above-mentioned theories. In a nutshell, this paper recommends the owner of Genova’s Cake develop a customer loyalty programme, target corporate clients, customer feedback and improvement, collaborate with influencers and food bloggers, offer tastings and samples, participate in bazaars and food events, do brand building and awareness, monitor costs and adjust pricing, the unique selling point of products with dietary restrictions, offer products with affordable prices, target marketing and partnerships, introduce new products to reach more target markets, as well as selling more products to current clients. The detailed goals are written in the 3-year business milestones.