Eagles Nest Building & Décor — SME Case Study (UAE)

Eagles Nest Building & Décor Figure 37: Eagles Nest Company Logo

Eagles Nest Building & Decor is a company that was established in 2006. The legal status of Eagles Nest is limited liability company. The company is under the ownership of four partners who share the trading license.

Eagles Nest Building & Décor

Names of the licence members and shares per member

• Hussain Hasan Ali Al Khalaf Bahrani (51%).
• Mohamed Mohamed Saeed Qonialy (1%).
• Saad Al Din Khalid Qonialy (44%).
• Mohamed Sobhi Khalid Qonialy (1%).

The partner who performs the position of chief executive officer is Saad Al Din Khalid Qonialy. Further, Eagles Nest is a company that is based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. In addition, Eagles Nest provides a wide range of high-quality services for clients in the market.

For instance, these services include interior decoration works, interior dyes, wooden floors, and general building materials and maintenance. Nevertheless, Eagles Nest is considered as a small business, as the range of the employees who work in the company does not exceed 49 employees. Moreover, the owner of the company decided to enter this industry after a deep investigation with regards to the needs of the clients in all types of interior decorations, designs, and building needs.

Further, the company maintains skilled employees who have different nationalities, and they have commitments to deliver their projects on time along with high- quality levels that meet and exceed the expectations of customers. Don’t forget to mention that the company cares about the requirements of social distancing due to the recent pandemic of COVID-19. For instance, the company creates flooring designs to be used to keep distance in meeting areas, for example. This is a great service provided that expresses the identity of the company that cares and adapts to the measures and regulations regarding COVID-19.

Vision The vision of Eagles Nest is to become the top leading company in its industry that offers sustainable designs to be used in green buildings. In addition, the company aims to be recognized globally by providing timeless designs that are suitable for every era.

Mission The mission of Eagles Nest is to provide professional service that has a positive impact on the lives of its clients and leaves an ideal impression that will last in the minds of customers forever. For instance, its mission includes providing exceptional and exclusive services for customers who represent the culture and the values of the company.

Organizational Structure

The organizational structure of Eagles Nest is a hierarchical model which is applied in many corporations or government authorities with different management or power levels. In addition, Eagles Nest has 20 employees who work within four departments. Moreover, the employees work under the supervision of one clear supervisor. The supervisors report to the managers and the managers then report to the chief executive officer. Thus, there are levels in the management of the company, and the highest level has the highest level of power to make managerial decisions.

Leadership Saad Al Din Khalid Qonialy Saad Al Din Khalid Qonialy graduated in 2013 from Malaysia with a bachelor’s degree in business management from Limkokwing University. Currently, the position of chief executive officer is held by Khalid Qonialy. In addition, the CEO of the company likes to take advantage of every opportunity and relies on his knowledge and experience to lead the business. Furthermore, after long years of working in the UAE, he gained enough experience and decided to start the business of Eagles Nest with his partners in 2006. Moreover, Khalid Qonialy likes to get involved directly with clients and provide advice with regards to the materials offered.

The pandemic of COVID-19 has posed huge challenges to health systems, leading to widespread closures, business closures, and job losses. Almost all countries in the world are facing an unprecedented decline in economic activity. The process of restructuring Eagles Nest is a logical trend that the world’s largest companies perform due to the times of crisis, as well as governments, when they reconsider their financial position, though it does not necessarily mean that it faces risk of bankruptcy.

However, it is worth mentioning that the UAE is in a good economic position, thanks to the diversification and sustainability of its economy. For instance, Eagles Nest needed to restructure the company with the aim of protecting the company by reducing costs as much as possible. As for the stages of restructuring, the company includes the business planning phase, the stage of determining the level through which it is possible to maintain profit and generate cash, and the phase of assessing financial needs. In addition, the company needed to consider business planning and financial and administrative restructuring, which includes calculating money expectations, cash flows, sources, payment mechanism, or canceling some sections and postponing some projects, as well as reducing costs, dispensing the unnecessary labor, and researching ways to merge some departments.

Indeed, restructuring does not necessarily mean that the company is facing a crisis that limits its ability to fulfill its obligations, but it does mean reconsidering the support of the company’s capabilities, and standing on its financial position in order to enable the company to meet its financial obligations. Furthermore, financial restructuring requires reviewing the financial balances of the institution, and determining its financial capabilities by supporting the company’s own potential, and this is what Eagles Nest did along with decreasing the number of the employees.

Eagles Nest provides its products and services with a goal of providing the highest quality and assure satisfaction of clients.

Eagles Nest products and services include

• False floors.
• False ceilings.
• Hardwood flooring.
• Carpet flooring.
• Stone walls.
• Wall coverings.
• Doors making and installation.
• Limited interior decor.
• Movable partitions.
• Removable partitions.
• Painting and plastering.
• Carpentry.
• Building materials, including wood, cements, etc.

The business strategies adopted by Eagles Nest rely on planning in the first place. In addition, planning is the first pillar for managerial work. Eagles Nest has the belief that planning is extremely important to carry out other administrative functions and processes, because without planning, there is no need for the organization to specify responsibilities and tasks. There is no need for direction and leadership and there is no need for monitoring as well, because control is a primary function to monitor the implementation of plans, and if there are no plans, then what will be monitored?

Planning steps followed by the company

• Setting goals.
• Making planning assumptions: it includes planning

about the future environment in which the plans will operate.

• Identifying alternatives.
• Evaluating alternatives.
• Choosing the proposed plan: After determining

the best alternatives, the best alternative plans are chosen.

The company implements another business strategy, which is customer retention. For instance, this strategy is simply about keeping customers in touch with the brand until they come back to engage with the brand over and over again. Further, the company feels that this business strategy is an important part of the complete customer life-cycle marketing strategy, as it puts customers back in the service request or purchase path once they have completed their first process and so on.

To retain the customers, the company follows several

steps, including

1- Sharing brand news and updates.

2- Following up with customers after purchase.

3- Providing special offers for customers.

4- Providing excellent customer service.

5- Asking the customers for their opinions.

The operational strategies followed by Eagles Nest rely on an integrated process that include tasks of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling all resources related to the facility by a group of individuals. In addition, the company aims to facilitate the activities of the organization by which it reaches its goals, and among the tasks associated with the organizational management is to have the ability to find solutions to problems related to the organizational activity, and to make administrative decisions that change the performance to be the best. In this case, the company entrusted the production manager with the task of managing human resource, which is considered the most prominent element of the operations management in organizations, and who also has the responsibility to choose the best equipment suitable for the entire production process and the various techniques that help the organization reach its products to the best possible quality. Not only this, but he must provide the environment for operations management with sufficient flexibility that makes all the interrelated elements in the production process able to adapt to different circumstances, face difficult situations, and get out of

crises. Nevertheless, these strategies involve

1- Ensure that the company’s operations are efficient.

2- Use resources as needed.

3- Meet clients’ requirements.

Eagles Nest implements several marketing strategies in order to reach out to customers. This strategy helps it to set solutions to shape the marketing plan, easing the evaluation process and measuring the tactics followed.

Some of the marketing tactics followed by the company

include

1- Email marketing: It involves collecting email addresses of potential customers, sending them emails regularly, and getting them to open those emails or click on the links included.

2- Content marketing of done projects: It involves infographics, articles, and videos.

3- Marketing via social media such as Facebook and Instagram.

Furthermore, I will discuss the 4 P’s of marketing within

the context of Eagles Nest

The four P’s are

1- Product.

2- Price.

3- Promotion.

4- Place.

¡ Product Eagles Nest does more than provide flooring designs, it makes potential customers know what they need. In addition, as the company provides building materials and services as well, it has a unique way to install these products as it manufactures some of the products used in flooring services. Furthermore, the company serves its products and services with the aim of satisfying the needs of customers and to have high-quality products and services. For example, the company would be a good choice for customers who have the desire to renew the overall look of their homes and implement new designs.

¡ Price One of the most important aspects of marketing strategies is the product pricing process in companies.

In addition, maximizing the profits when selling products and services can be met when the company establishes a good pricing strategy. In this context, when pricing, Eagles Nest considers a wide range of factors including production and distribution costs, competitors’ offerings, market identification, and the target customer base. Moreover, because it is difficult to satisfy everyone, Eagle’s Nest defines the primary customer segment and price, based on the needs of this segment and its purchasing behavior. Besides, the customers of such companies do not put price in the first place before considering the value of the product and services that they will implement in their homes or offices that will last with them for a long time.

¡ Promotion Eagles Nest reaches its potential customers through advertisements on social media, email marketing, and video marketing. In addition to this, the company relies on its personal relations with clients to grab the attention of potential customers from current customers. Moreover, the company knows when to market its products and services. For example, as it operates in the UAE, it knows many people in summer months or holiday months leave their home countries. Therefore, it focuses on marketing products and services at other times in the year in order to maintain desired outcomes from the marketing campaigns.

¡ Place In order to gain knowledge about the place that customers may present, Eagles Nest targets places that potential customers use to shop, like places, websites, or apps the customers use. Furthermore, the company looks for engaging customers on social media and tries to target these customers who would interact with the brand or specific products offered by the company.

1- One of the most serious challenges that faces Eagles Nest is time management. Time management refers to making the best possible use of time and doing the right thing at the right time. Good time management plays a pivotal role in completing tasks within the specified time frame, and it also increases an individual’s productivity. Employees must learn to manage time well in the workplace to achieve goals before a deadline.

2- Another challenge facing the company is having customers who do not distinguish between contemporary and modern, in terms of design. We always hear the terms modern and contemporary, and it comes to our minds that they are two words of one single meaning, but in fact, they are two different styles in their origin and history, and their characteristics overlap with each other with the passage of time. In short, contemporary style is what is now designed or produced, it is a style that is always changing, and the word style may be appropriate for it because it is not related to a specific time, period, or specific culture. On the other hand, modern style is a constant style that does not change and will stray forever like classicism, retro styles, and others, expressing a specific era in history.

3- Another challenge facing the company is choosing the right employees. Choosing the right employees is considered one of the most important administrative tasks, so an administrative decision to choose one of the employees could be taken, but the consequences are not as desired.

Ways To Overcome Such Challenges 1- Assigning specific time periods for activities according to their importance and urgency in order to make the most of the time available.

2- Every organization runs into deadlines. An individual or employee constantly needs to be ready to finish tasks within the stipulated time frame. It is imperative and essential that employees understand the value of time and make their mark in the workplace.

3- It is imperative for managers to know what their employees are doing. Find out what they are doing throughout the day. Motivate them to make a to- do list. Check their task plan and make sure they do important and urgent tasks first.

4- Promote various training programs to instill time management skills among employees. Hold various workshops where the employees can be given certain tasks regardless of their daily work. Ask them to finish activities in the allotted time slots and reward them appropriately.

5- For the challenge of having customers who do not distinguish between contemporary and modern, the company needs to be patient and explain the difference to customers appropriately. Maybe having a good talking employee can save the company and face this challenge.

6- For the challenge of choosing the right employees, the company needs first to know what it needs exactly from him, gather information about the employee, organize the interview, and ask questions and listen carefully to them.

Successful Best Practices

Successful best practices by Eagles Nest include

1- Creating a comfortable and happy workplace. The company achieved this by taking care of the workplace, as the workplace affects the psychological status of the employees. In addition to this, the administration of the company deals with employees with complete honesty and transparency, and therefore, the company gains the loyalty and commitment of employees.

2- Aligning company goals with employee goals. The company achieves this by making employees aware of the importance of their work in the process of achieving the goal of the company. Not only this, but also through explaining the importance of their work in achieving the mission of the business.

Failed practices include

1- Design deficiencies.

2- Providing different products than those already ordered by clients.

3- The color of the walls does not match optimally with the colors of the furnishings.

4- Using unsuitable materials for building maintenance.

In the early stages of the company, it did not have repeatable and consistent results as the technology back then did not exist as it is nowadays. The company is now taking full advantage of technology usage that brings a feature of enabling business managers to directly interact with everyone it deals with, including suppliers, customers, and partners as well. Under the umbrella of technology, the company now easily reaches its potential customers and knows exactly what it needs by following them on social media.. Consequently, the company is now having strong relations with its clients, as strong relations with clients encourage repeat business or benefiting from other services and vice versa. In addition, by the advancements in technology, the company now easily interacts with clients and it takes great advantage from this, especially when it has a low budget for marketing and advertising techniques.

After doing this case study, I recommend the company

the following steps

• Make the hiring standards high: When companies

begin to hire their employees, each of them might have a major influence on the future of the company and this step often determines the success of the project if it hires the right person, or the failure of the project if it hires the wrong person. On this basis, companies can conduct 100 interviews and not accept one of them, but in the end, accept whomever they think is a perfect fit for the job.

• Be flexible with the implementation plan: When it

comes to implementing the business plan, it must be extremely flexible. It may try to solve one of the obstacles and fail to find the right solution, thus if it is not flexible, it will continue to struggle with the problem without finding a suitable solution, and it will not be able to solve other problems that come if it remains in the same way of thinking where it will be prevented from seeing other opportunities to solve problems.

• Be obsessed about improving the customer

experience: Improving the customer experience with its products, services, or website is much more important than focusing on competitors. In fact, customer satisfaction about what it offers is the right measure of success. Therefore, it should not hesitate to improve the customer experience.

• Learn from failure: Companies must consider failure

as an educational lesson, and they must come out absorbing all the lessons that they encountered.

Lesson Learned While conducting this case study, I have learned many lessons. Essentially, I have improved my skills in problem solving, decision making, and coping with ambiguities. In addition, performing such a case helped me to stand on a platform to communicate and collaborate with members from the selected company with regards to collecting information, analyzing the situation, and reaching a result.

Further, I have gained knowledge about how businesses or companies restructure, especially at the eras of crisis by analyzing a real example from an existing company.

Moreover, I have learned that every business faces many challenges while progressing in its industry, and in order to overcome these challenges, there are ways and strategies to be adopted, therefore, the company can witness successful practices and outcomes.

To sum up everything that has been stated, Eagles Nest is a successful company that provides great service and high-quality products for its customers. Above, I have discussed many essential points with regards to the overall performance of the company and how it managed to survive during the crisis of COVID-19. In addition, I have faced many challenges and limitations with lack of information, which I managed through contacting the company by the phone, which was extremely time consuming.