Studying Business Success
For my economics class I have to do an analysis of an existing business and try to change it’s business model to an alternative form. The Professor used the example of a Subway Sandwich shop, which is a franchise. So if you look at what makes a Subway Sandwich shop successful and identify the advantages of it being a franchise, can you theoretically operate the same business under a different business model and have it be comparably successful?
He handed out slips of paper with actual businesses to be assigned and examined by each student. By the luck of the draw, I got a Wilmington NC auto repair shop. The business is a family owned and operated, single location repair shop. At least the subject is interesting to me and they have a web site, so I can do a lot of research from my computer in my room. I might also make a couple of telephone calls during the day and see if the owner would be willing to talk to me.
The shop is named Atlantic Car Care and their web site is pretty nice. It has the hours open and their street address on the sidebar, which is probably what most people will be looking for. They also list all the credit cards that they accept for payment. One cool feature they have is that you can schedule your car repair or maintenance on the internet from their site. It’s got enough informaiton on the site to know that this is a successful business and I can start my analysis with this.