BUSM40000D Integrated Industry Project

Read the case study of InFlo HR Limited, then Conduct a Porter’s 5 competitive forces,  review and summarise impact on the firm.

InFlo HR Ltd (Inflo) is a human resources company that provides a personalized working experience for clients to achieve the best possible outcome for the client. This is done by providing the customer with technology-driven human resources and brand management services aimed specifically at small to midsize businesses. Current services by Inflo include, but are not limited to: talent acquisition, employer branding, human resource (HR) consulting, social media marketing, and direct support. Other HR services such as creating and implementing policies and procedures, implementing health benefits systems, conducting employee assessments and job evaluations, and assisting with employee separation are also conducted by Inflo.

Recently, the company added new services and products to their line, which aim at a totally new market segment: professionals and graduates. These new services and products include: resume and cover letter templates, interview guide, LinkedIn competition guide, personally recommended websites, self-reflection and goal-setting sheets, a “how to guide” and a one on one coaching session over the phone with Stefani. This now expands Inflo’s market segment to small and midsize businesses, as well as professionals and recent graduates within the Greater Toronto Area.

Currently, Inflo itself is a small company and operations are mainly conducted by a small team of knowledgeable working professionals led by the CEO, Stefani Blazevic. Stefani is involved firsthand in the operations of the business, from gathering clients for Inflo to providing the necessary products and services required by her customers. All executive decisions for Inflo are made by Stefani, who essentially makes up the organizational structure of Inflo.

Just like any other business, many challenges and constraints can occur. Inflo has been in the business for a couple of years now, however, it is still okay to have challenges. With this being said, after looking at the PowerPoint that Stefani Blazevic provided us. Inflo's has some challenges and constraints to consider:

1. Competition: There are many small agencies that Inflo is competing with. This is a challenge that many start-up businesses or even big businesses worry about. Competition these days has been a huge challenge for everyone.

2. Advertisements: During class, Stefani was focused on the point of trying to find candidates to help her with her business. More specifically, she wanted another HR worker to help her with all the work she is getting. However, Stefani is having a difficult time trying to find the right individual that would meet all her requirements. A huge reason she is not finding the right person is that her advertisements may not be ideal for those candidates at this time. 

3. COVID: This world pandemic that has been going on for about two years now, is having a huge impact on business. For Inflow covid has:

• Employees decide to take CERB and looking at the precautions rather than work
• There has been a decline in employment by about 10.7%
• The future is not figured out when it comes to the price-based competition

4. Google: Stefani has talked about how one of her challenges is that Inflo should improve the SEO for the website. This means that currently when people search for Inflo, the website does not show up as the first website on google. This can be a big deal, due to the fact that many businesses want their website to be the first thing that comes up when customers search on google. In order to improve the SEO, Stefani should use keywords, ALT tags, update the information regularly, and most importantly keep a monitor of all the progress that is done.

After taking a look at the challenges and constraints I believe that Stefani should go on Linkedin and post a job description regarding the position needed. Doing this will help her a lot since Linkedin is all about posting about job opportunities. Not only that but if she wanted to, she has a lot of followers on Instagram so she can use her platform to advertise. Another idea that Stefani could look into, is to hire a marketing individual to help her advertise her job opportunities better and hopefully find someone that could meet Stefani's requirements and accomplish company missions. Additionally, after knowing that Inflo has a large following base on IG, she should let this marketer that she should hire take over the page. Doing this would help Stefani give her full attention to other aspects of the job until she finds someone else that meets all her requirements to help her with the HR part of the business.

• To come up with HR training programs.
• To aid the HR department of other organizations mainly of the small and medium scale enterprises know as to how they can improve their skills.

SCOPUS wants to partner with INFLOHR to develop an even better platform that not only provides recruitment and consultant services but also trains employees from HR departments of small and medium scale organizations to be better with their services. For doing so there has to be a new section added to the services of INFLOHR where firms that want to enhance their HR services can register and connect with INFLOHR to get its expert advice. Training sessions need to be planned as per the requirement of the firms.

The scope of the project is to help small and medium scale companies in developing proper HR departments. The scope of the project does not involve monitoring the HR activities after the training is provided.

The deliverable of the project is adding a section that will allow different companies to register with INFLOHR so that anyone will be able to connect with the firm and enhance their HR services.