Business and Entrepreneurship

Executive summary 

Tomley Photography will be a limited partnership that was once a sole proprietorship of its founder Tomley. The company is located in Asotin County, New York City. The company enjoys a wide customer base thanks to the efforts made by its founder who was by then a freelance photographer. Being a limited, Tomley Photography expanded its services and rented a high-end studio to ensure that small, medium, and large business can be served with high efficiency. Moreover, the company has highly qualified and skilled photographer whom most of them have graduated from among the best photography colleges in New York City. Furthermore, the tons of visitors who visit Washington on a daily basis offer Tomley Photography an opportunity to grow and expand its business. Besides, Tomley Photography faces a challenge like the presence of established studios in the region and ease of entry in the industry. However, the competitive advantage it has is enough to make it succeed in the industry.

Business and Entrepreneurship

Introduction

Commercial photography is created with the intention of making money essentially through business and photography for commerce. In most cases, commercial photography is used to as an advertisement for the purchase and continues to generate income. However, Commercial Photography just likes any other business does not only focus on income generation but also focusses on the professionalism, paperwork, planning, and headache to ensure a competitive advantage over other rivals in the industry (Kennedy, 2005). For this paper, we are going to focus on the Tomley Photography as far as Commercial Photography is concerned regarding its Products and Services, Business Model, Market Research, Competitor Analysis, Strategy and Implementation, Target Market, and SWOT analysis.

Company Summary

Tomley Photography was established in the year 1999 by Matte Flash as a sole proprietorship was re-established as limited liability partnership enable the investment partners to participate effectively (Press, & Davis, 2012).  Tomley Photography is a conveniently located studio in the downtown of Asotin, New York.  Before becoming a limited, Flash operated as a freelance photographer specialized in commercial shot outs, talents, and establishing a reputation among other small businesses (Kennedy, 2005). With time, Tomley Photography grew to include frequent return clients who rely on the company for their brochures, websites, pamphlets, and other market collateral. Before then, flash has no studio and travel to the client’s events and set up temporary studios wherever possible.

Products and Services

Tomley Photography offers a variety of commercial photography products as listed below:

On-site commercial photography

Studio commercial photography

Setting of photo shot dressing services

Digital editing work and Photo editing

Delivery of digital files or prints of photo shoots

Photo framing

Access digital files from shoots from the Web portal to enhance editing process with clients

Rental of the studio space to subcontractor. However, business is aimed at growing on a daily basis. For this reason, Tomley Photography targets to add its staff plans to a multi-room studio to allow for simultaneous multiple shootouts and offer photo’s graphic design services for the

Business Model

A business model is a way through which a company makes a profit and generates revenue from its operations. Gross profit is the measurement used to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of a business model.

Market Research

Commercial photography gets its market from non-profits organizations and all businesses. Tomley Photography targets medium-sized and small business and non-profits which have less than 500 employees and located within a 15-mile radius of Asotin (Press, & Davis, 2012). In the past years, there has been a contraction in the market for Commercial Photography in Asotin, NY as a result of the economic downturn that was experienced. It is estimated that the contraction experience in the industry is $4.5 million down from $5.7 million which was unusual. Currently, the medium-sized and small business which formerly used commercial studios is unable to afford the rates of the kiosks. As a result, small photography studios with lower prices and overheads have seized the opportunity to serve the market in the current upswing.

Competitor Analysis

The commercial photography business has very few barriers to entry making it easy for freelance photographers who have inexpensive cameras to venture into the business either officially or unofficially on a daily basis. However, on the high end of the business, photographers with expensive equipment gain an advantage because they have a physical location through renting a studio. Customers choose low-priced service but do not comprise quality (Kennedy, 2005). Because in most cases quality can be found in studios and well-established business, clients search for the companies online and from their portal they can select a company that best suits their needs. Besides, word of mouth is an important generator of business for the photography companies because customers who ones receive quality services from an organization make referrals to other customers. As a result, companies should strive as much as possible to offer quality services to attract more customers.

Tomley Photography has three main competitors namely: Redwood Studios, image makers, and Flash photographers. Redwood studio was established ten years ago and operates a small studio with photography as its major product. On the other hand, Image Makers has established 15 years ago, does not operate a studio but used students as photographers to offer lower-priced photography to its clients (Press, & Davis, 2012). Elsewhere, Flash Photographers established eight years ago, subcontracts its photography business to freelance photographers. The company, therefore, acts as a broker between the clients and the freelance photographers. As a result, the company offers lower quality services and leading to customer dissatisfaction. As a consequence, Tomley Photography capitalizes on this weakness.

Strategy and Implementation

Tomley Photography focuses on building its reputation across the board. To achieve this, the company focuses on the very small business who have 20 employees and less, small businesses with 20 to 200 employees, and medium business with 200 to 500 employees (Press & Davis, 2012). To reach its target markets, Tomley Photography uses web marketing, business networking, and email networking to ensure that clients find the company and the company finds the clients.

Target Market

Large commercial photography businesses in Asotin are served by large studios who have the ability to set their photographers in the sites where clients need them and can set up shoots under short notices. Commercial photography requires business who have the resources and equipment to set up multiple shootout sites concurrently without clients complaining of low-quality services and lack of personnel (Pritchard, 2015). As a result, highly skilled personnel and quality equipment are required by the companies.

On the other hand, small business is comfortable working with small studios. The reason behind it I that they are not happy with large studios because they are not given priority as those given to large business. As a result, they feel sidelined because they offer small business to the large photography studios (Seldon et al., 2014. Likewise, small studios are not in good terms with the larger studios because they cannot be able to acquire the large business from large customers die to their lack of capacity to meet the set standards required by the large business. Large businesses organize for large events hence large studios are advantaged to work with them because they offer the quality and standards needed (Kennedy, 2005).

Moreover, large business offers big photo editing work to their marketing departments whereas small businesses value the ability of the photo studios to handle their small chunks of work because their marketing department does not have the capacity to deal with search work when new materials are under development.

Medium and small business provide ongoing work for Tomley Photography; however, the company cannot afford to ignore very small businesses because they provide a wide customer base and enables the company to grow. Moreover, the small businesses make Tomley Photography have a continuous revenue stream and make the businesses have fewer risks of losing potential customers.

SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)

Tomley Photography is aware that it needs Leverage in its strengths in case it aims at building a prosperous photography business in Asotin (Press, & Davis, 2012). To achieve success, compete effectively for the market share, and expands its marked base, Tomley Photography needs to analyses its strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT Analysis)

Strength

The strength of Tomley Photography is not only based on the certification, experience, and robust professional training but also on the passion, network, and ability to converts leads to loyal customers in a short period. Besides, Tomley Photography boasts of the good reputation that Tomley had built when he was a sole proprietor. Tomley Photography has a good track record that the company is capitalizing on attract more clients, retain their clients and increase its market share (Pritchard, 2015). The ability of the company to expand also offers it the opportunity to compete effectively in the industry. The incorporation of other stakeholders in the company is also being added advantage because they provide and additional investment capital to improve the business.

Weaknesses

The weakness that Tomley Photography is that it was a small business and now it has expanded. It has few employees and expertise to handle large business opportunities offered by large companies (Press, & Davis, 2012). However, with the additional investors that translate to additional to purchase high-quality equipment and higher experienced and skilled personnel, Tomley Photography has been able to turn around its weaknesses.

Opportunities

In the USA, and particular New York City, there tons of diverse population that come to visit the area regularly. Besides, Washington has among the best photography schools. For this reason, it is easy for Tomley Photography to expand because of a potential wide customer base just as it is easy to enter into the business (Seldon et al., 2014). Moreover, the availability of among the finest and best photography schools in York City, Tomley Photography is privileged because it can easily acquire highly skilled and professional photographers who will offer quality services to their clients (Press, & Davis, 2012). The presence of a potential customer base and skilled personal are the critical opportunities that any business needs to capitalize for it’s to grow and remain competitive in whichever industry.

Threat

The presence of well-established photography studios in New York years, and in particular Asotin where Tomley Photography is based possess a great threat to the success of the company. The established studios do not require a lot of efforts to convince or attract clients. Other than established businesses, the high cost of running a business in Washington is a big threat to the success of Tomley Photography as it will require a wide customer base to cover costs and realize profits (Kennedy, 2005). The ease of entry of new business is also a threat to the company because small clients will tend to go for less established studios.

Marketing Strategy

Tomley Photography banks on the strategy that the effective use of few marketing strategies is far much better than using many strategies with moderate success from each. Thus, Tomley Photography uses email marketing, business networking, and web marketing.

Email Marketing

Tomley Photography does email of its business to new and existing clients on the studio development, new packages monthly newsletters. Newsletters include helpful tips on photography and are also used to gain permission from clients’ marketing departments. Besides the emails, there will be calls to facilitate action and business referrals.

Business Networking

Tomley, while banking on his reputation promotes the business via the Chamber of Commerce, the local chapter of BNI (Business Networking International), and the Asotin Business Owner’s Association. Flash also introduces the employees to other owners in meetings, received qualified referrals and exposure, and share leads the business. Moreover, he uses a 25percent discount on new clients to attract more members in the business (Pritchard, 2015).

Web Marketing

Tomley Photography purchased search engine that enables it to advertise with Google Ad words with Asotin and Commercial Photography as keywords. Besides, the company website is optimized for higher search engines ranked under the key words.

Competitive Edge

The competitive edge that Tomley Photography has is because of the good reputation that Matte Flash has in the region and the business community around because he is perceived as a quality photographer, who is attentive to his clients and who is easy to work with.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Tomley Photography is in a good position to exploit the photography market in Asotin. The expansion of the business and making it a joint proprietorship is a big boost to the business since the risks are minimized, capital is increased, high-quality equipment can be purchased, and highly skilled personnel can be employed. The company is also boosted by Tomalley’s competitive edge in the market. Tomley Photography has all it takes to remain competitive in photography industry in Asotin as well as expand its customer base.

References 

Kennedy, J. (2005). The small business owner’s manual: Everything you need to know to start up and run your business. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press.

Press, E., & Davis, C. (2012). Start Your Own Photography Business. Irvine: Entrepreneur Press.

Pritchard, M. (2015). A history of photography in 50 cameras.

Seldon, A., Collings, D., Sander, E., & Osen, J. (2014). Architecture of diplomacy: The British Ambassador’s residence in Washington.