Legislative And Regulatory Framework Of BBQ Fun

Write a brief summary of the BBQfun operational environment that includes: 
a.an outline of the legislative and regulatory context that is relevant to BBQfun’s operational plan (available on pages 14–16)

Establishing a legislative and regulatory framework

The main purpose of this assessment is to understand the legislative and Regulatory Framework of BBQ Fun which is engaged in business of manufacturing products. The business sells its products from different stores with is established by the business. As per the plan of the management, a e-commerce system is to be established which the management expects to increase the sales of the business. In order to establish a legislative and regulatory framework the management needs to adhere to regulations which are application to business and includes aspects like cyber security, data integration, privacy of consumer data and protection of the same.

The operational plan of BBQ Fun will be incorporating policies and procedures which will facilitate the e-commerce program of the business and thereby promote simplicity in the approach. The policies which can contribute to the effectiveness of the operational plan are better delivery system of goods, efficient online response system, grievances redressal policy and feedback system. These policies can be incorporated along side operational plan of the business in order to set up an efficient business structure.

Operational plans are very important from the perspective of the business as the same is used as a guideline for smooth running of the business and also controlling the activities of the business in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the business. The operational plan sets out all the activities which the business needs to undertake and also uses budgetary controls to specify targets which personnel need to achieve (Croitoru 2014). In case of BBQ Fun, the operational plan of the business should be set up in such a way that it compliments the e-commerce program. The operational plan of BBQ Fun will also be supervising the activities of business. The operation plan will provide a plan for implementing thee-commerce program of the business and along set out the activities which the management needs to perform in order to assist the e-commerce program of the business.

The operational plan which the management of BBQ Fun is currently using needs to be changed in order to accommodate the new sales program of the management. The changes in the operational plan of the business needs to be modified considering the new e-commerce setting which the business is planning to implement in the business process (Al Shobaki, Amuna and Naser 2017). The e-commerce program of the business is expected to bring about an increase in the sales of the business and therefore proper operation plan is to be implemented in order to support the e-commerce system which is to be incorporated in the sales structure of the business.

Incorporating policies and procedures

The management needs to plan for the resources which the business will be requiring in order to implement successfully the e-commerce system in the business and such resources include both physical and human resources. The human resources of the business will be requiring employees to be recruited who will be handling the online sales department of the business. Moreover, the human resources will also consist of skilled employees who will be responsible for the development of e-commerce system of the business. The physical resource requirements of the company will be comprising of system of computer, delivery trucks, forklifts, software installation which will be used in the sales structure of the business after installation of e-commerce system is completed.

The human resource requirements and the skills which are required are to be discussed with the sales manager of the business. The necessary skills which the employees of the online sales team should possess are related to handling clients, handling systems, ability to communicate with the clients of the business (Anderson 2013). The role of sales manager is important as he will be taking the interview rounds and assess the skills of the individuals before selecting the potential candidates for the job. The sales manager has a vital role to play as he exactly knows what are the skills which are required for the new e-commerce program which the management plans to establish.

The physical resource requirements of the business include assets and equipment which the management needs to incorporate in order to support the changes in the sales and sales support system. The business will be requiring assets such as assets like delivery trucks, forklifts, system software. These assets provide support to the management in the e-commerce system of the management. The online sales order is to be delivered by the management by using the trucks which are part of the physical resources requirements of the business. The operational manager of the business is responsible for looking out for the requirements of physical resources of the business.

Milestone: Action and/or objective (to achieve strategic aims of physical or human resourcing)	Date	Person responsible	Budget or resources (where applicable)
Acceptance of the E-commerce Plan	15th July 2018	Operation Managers and Senior Executives of the business.	Presentation of the Plan, Documents supporting the Plan, PowerPoint Presentation with graphs and charts.
Development of Plan	10th August	Departmental Managers and Operational Managers	The presentation of plan along with charts and graphs are to be approved.
Incorporation of E-commerce Functionality in the website of the company	18th September	Online sales and operations manager and technical staff.	Designing of the Website tools and systems developers kit along with appropriate software
Marketing and promotion of E-commerce facilities of the business	6th November	Marketing and Sales team	Marketing Manager and use of different kinds of promotional tools.
Launch of the Website facility with E-commerce.	25th November	Technical and Information Technology Team	Websites IP, login ID, General Settings, Configurations.
Project is Completed and Successfully Implemented	10st October	All departments and operational and Senior managers of the business	Various Performance reports and Project Reviews.

The major performance indicator for the business to establish the efficiency of the new e-commerce system in the business is the overall increase in the sales of the company and the increasing revenue of the business (Parmenter 2015). There will also be a reduction in the costs of the business with successful implementation of the project as the overall efficiency of the sales department is expected to drastically improve.

KRA (key result area)	Target	KPI (key performance indicator)	Result
Financial	Increase in profit generating capacity of the business with the implementation of the E-commerce program of the business.	Savings in terms of Costs of the business.	Higher profit generation.
Sales	Increase in the overall sales which is generated by the business.	Higher Sales Turnover	High sales revenue
Human Resource	Implementation of Training and Guidance program for employees in order to develop necessary skills	Skilled Labour Force	Operational efficiency and proper handling of System.

Contingency Plan Company name: BBQ fun Name of person developing the plan: Who was consulted as part of this plan? Name Position
Risk identified:  Unsystematic Operations due to employee underperformance
Strategies/activities to minimise the risk	By when	By whom
The risk can be reduced by incorporating efficient training program and skill development test in the business process.	After planning Stage	Manager.

The importance of operational plans

Contingency Plan Company name: BBQ fun Name of person developing the plan: Who was consulted as part of this plan? Name Position
Risk identified:  Risk related to management of intellectual property
Strategies/activities to minimise the risk	By when	By whom
Securing the intellectual property of the business with legal rights can bring about reduction in the level of risks of the business.	Before Planning Stage	Senior management

Contingency Plan Company name: BBQ fun Name of person developing the plan: Who was consulted as part of this plan? Name Position
Risk identified:  Risk related to maintenance of health and safety compliance of the employees
Strategies/activities to minimise the risk	By when	By whom
Proper evaluation of the equipment and the working environment can reduce the risk which is related to Health and Safety Compliance of the Business.	Before Planning Stage	Top level management

The proposal which is to be presented to the operational manager for approval purpose includes the following points as listed below:

• The requirement for physical resources for the business will be comprising of infrastructure requirements which can support the sales program of the business and will also include assets such as 6 delivery trucks, forklifts, additional warehouses workers, 8 new employees for sales team and 6 drivers for delivery trucks.
• The costs which the management of BBQ Fun needs to incur relates to initial investment costs of the business, additional expenses which the business needs to incur and day to day cost expenses relating to operations of the business.
• The benefits which are related to e-commerce facilities in the business can be identified as reduction in costs, increase in the profits and sales revenues of the business. In addition to this, its is also improve the quality of services which is offered by the business.
• The key performance indicators of the business can be generated by training plan, setting up of an effective operational plan, meeting the resource requirements necessary for the support for the new plan.
• The risks which can be associated with the e-commerce strategy of the business are related to underperformance of employees, risks associated with intellectual property and risk which is related to health of employees and compliance with safety measures.   

The case study which is provided for BBQ Fun is in the process of expanding the business by introducing an e-commerce program in order to improve the sales structure of the business for which the management will be requiring both physical and human resources. The management of BBQ Fun expects that with the introduction of e-commerce facilities the sales of the business will increase exponentially. As per the physical requirements for implementing the e-commerce system and its support, the business will be requiring 6 trucks, four forklifts and mainly the website development for e-commerce program of the business.

The management can acquire trucks and forklifts by either opting for open market purchase which will be first hand or the management can purchase the equipment on a second-hand basis for use of limited period use. In order to develop the website for e-commerce facilities, the management has planned to offer tender to website developers and the management has short listed three developers who are Ace Developers, Premier Tech and Innovative Technologies. As per the case study which is provide, the management has set a budget for development of e-commerce website is $ 1,00,000. On the basis of quality of services, future upgradation and integration with existing system, the management is of the opinion that the Innovative Technologies can be selected for the job of website development of the company. Therefore, the management of BBQ fun should give the tender to Innovative technologies.

Intellectual property in a business refers to intangible assets which are used in a business which includes goodwill, patents, copyrights and several other intangible assets. Risk management of intellectual property requires measures to be taken in order to ensure that the intellectual property is not adversely affected (Moore 2017). The risks which can be identified with intellectual property is that a business can develop a property which is similar or copied from other organizations. In addition to this, intellectual property faces the risks of being trade secrets being leaked out. In case an intellectual property is taken on a lease basis, there is a risk of damaging the intellectual asset. The business of BBQ Fun also faces similar kind of risks for the software which is being developed for the new e-commerce program of the business.

Modifying the operational plan

The management needs to formulate an appropriate strategy in order to ensure that the intellectual properties of the business are safe. The risk management strategy of the business regarding protection of Intellectual property of the business is essential in order to ensure that the intellectual property of the business is not copied by any third party or even violated. The management can register the intellectual property and acquire legal rights for the same in order to protect the intellectual property of the business (Cosby 2014). In addition to this, the management of the company needs to develop an appropriate strategy regarding copying of third party intellectual property. The management should avoid from using intellectual property of other business. The company should incorporate a regulation that the business will not be using intellectual property which is developed by third parties without prior consent.

The management of BBQ Fun also needs to focus on the human resource requirements of the business as they contribute to the operations of the business. The human resource of the business will comprise of employees who have the necessary skills to carry out the operations of the business (Bratton and Gold 2017). The management will be using human resource planning model which includes aspects such as job description, competency of employees and also contains information as to how the business can retain employees. As the management of BBQ Fun is planning to expand the operations of the business by introducing new e-commerce system, the business will be requiring new recruitments who will be handling the online sales business and also sales personnel who will be delivering products and selling them to customers. The human resource planning model would help the business to accumulate information about the demand of employees and supply of employees in the market.

As identified by the management of BBQ Fun, the business will be requiring four online sales employees and four sales representatives. The management at first will be advertising for the requirements of employees and the necessary skills which is required by the designation. The sales manager will be conducting the interviews to determine the right candidate for the right job and also assess the competency of the candidates. After the recruitment process, the employees will be trained with the help of a training program formulated by the management. This is to be done in order to ensure that the employees are properly trained to handle the website of the business. The human resource development plan intends to hire the best quality skilled employees for the jobs which are offered by the business.

Acquiring necessary physical and human resources

The intellectual property protection plan which is also a part of human resource planning model aims to prevent leakages of crucial information the third parties. The steps which the management can take in order to ensure that there is no leakage of vital business information to third parties by mandatorily requiring the employees of the business to sign on a confidentiality deed which the binds the employee with legal implications if any leakages come from the part of the employees (Williams 2013). In case of detection of leakages of information, the management has a server law suit which can ban the employee from such an industry or cause him to pay excessive penalty.

Planning aspect	Description	Time
1. Type of interview	Selection Interview
2. Objectives	Ø To ascertain the competency of the candidate and whether the same can handle the website and e-commerce software of the business Ø To recruit an individual who is enthusiastic, positive in his approach and looking to face problems head on.
3. Approach and style	The management will be adopting a technical approach in order to test the technical knowledge of the candidate.
4. Schedule	1. Establish rapport with the employee 2. Set agenda of the business. 3. Collect Basic information about applicant. 4. Discuss job profile and company policies thoroughly. 5. Invite applicant’s questions.	10 mins 10 mins 10 mins 10 mins 5 mins
5. Topics and questions	? Previous work experience if any and especially in this industry. ? Any training or education related to software handling ? Career plans and interests. ? Explanation of the job and company benefits. Page.

Planning aspect	Description	Time
1. Type of interview	Selection Interview
2. Objectives	Ø To select a candidate who can stay with the company for a long period and also have necessary skills required Ø To recruit an individual who have good communication skills and problem-solving ability.
3. Approach and style	The management will be adopting a technical approach in order to test the technical knowledge of the candidate
4. Schedule	1. Establish rapport with the employee 2. Set agenda of the business. 3. Collect Basic information about applicant. 4. Discuss job profile and company policies thoroughly. 5. Invite applicant’s questions.	10 mins 10 mins 10 mins 10 mins 5 mins
5. Topics and questions	? Previous work experience in IT field ? Previous training and education. ? Hints of career plans and interests. ? Explanation of the job and company benefits. Page.

Candidate:
Question	Ideal answer contains:	Number of possible points	Score
1 Tell us about yourself	A brief introduction of individual, including hobbies, likes and dislikes	10	8
2 What do you know about website handling?	The ideal answer should consist of a positive response and also include any software which the individual has experience in.	10	8
3 Tools Handled by employee	This should include a list of software and programs handled by individual	10	6
4 What are your expectations in life and where do you see yourself in five years?	The answer should consist of explanation related to well settled and working with BBQ Fun and in a high post	10	6
5 Any Past experience or how the employee can contribute towards the business?	The individual should mention past experience if any and should include positive aspects which the employee is capable of such as hard work, quick learning ability	10	8
6
Total			36
Recommendation: The employee can further improve by showing a positive response, maintaining professional behavior and overall quick to analyze a problem and develop a solution.

Candidate:
Question	Ideal answer contains:	Number of possible points	Score
1 Tell us about yourself	A brief introduction of individual, including hobbies, likes and dislikes	10	10
2 What do you know about website handling?	The ideal answer should consist of a positive response and also include any software which the individual has experience in.	10	10
3 Tools Handled by employee	This should include a list of software and programs handled by individual	10	6
4 What are your expectations in life and where do you see yourself in five years?	The answer should consist of explanation related to well settled and working with BBQ Fun and in a high post	10	8
5 Any Past experience or how the employee can contribute towards the business?	The individual should mention past experience if any and should include positive aspects which the employee is capable of such as hard work, quick learning ability	10	6
6
Total			40
Recommendation: The employee can further improve by showing a positive response, maintaining professional behavior and overall quick to analyze a problem and develop a solution.

In order to make the e-commerce strategy and the operational plan of the business to be successful, the management needs to set up a plan for monitoring the performance of the business. The operational manager of BBQ Fun is responsible for managing the activities of the business and also with the risks which arises in day to day business operations. The action plan which is given below relates to the monitoring plan of the business.

Milestone: Action and/or objective (to achieve strategic aims of physical or human resourcing)	Date	Person responsible	Budget or resources (where applicable)
Setting up of supervisors to ensure quality of goods and sales services provided are of highest quality	10th October 2018	Supervisors are responsible for the project	Performance reports, inspection reports
Setting up of camera’s in different areas	20th October	Departmental Managers	CCTV Cameras, Monitoring teams.
Inspection of the website system and software	1th November	Online sales and operations manager and technical staff.	Inspection Software
Monthly production report	10th December	Operational Manager	Production charts, pivot tables and excel presentations.

The Chief financial officer of BBQ Fun is responsible for measuring the performance of the business in terms of financial performance of the business. The financial performance of the business is measured in terms of overruns which is expressed in percentage terms. The target as set by the management for such cost overruns is zero but the same is revealed to be 10%. The main reason for such discrepancy as identified by the management of the company is due to wastage of resources and also due to piling up of stocks. This can be prevented if the management adopts the following steps:

• The management needs to set up a strong internal control so that there is no wastage of resources in future.
• The management needs to avoid the problem which is related to stock piling up which can be reduced by effective stock management system.

The productivity of the business is measured in terms of the performance of the employees of the business and their ability to generate sales units. If the productivity of a business is appropriate, the business will have no problems in generating revenue for the business. Thr productivity of the business can be maintained by following the following steps:

• The management needs to follow effectively the control and supervision plan developed for which tools like budgeting, performance management are to be applied.
• The productivity of the business can be improved by providing motivation and facilities to the employees of the business. It is seen in many cases that if appropriate facilities are provided to the employees along with security of job, the employee performs exceeding his limits which gradually improves the productivity of the business (Elnaga and Imran 2013).

The business of BBQ Fun will be requiring a lot more employees due to the e-commerce program which the management is planning to initiate. In order to effectively implement and run the e-commerce sales program the management needs to training and develop the skills of the employees of the business. The quality of services which is provided by the employee of the e-commerce team of the business is measured in terms of percentage of errors which is committed by the employee. The target for the percentage of error which is set by the management is 1% whereas in current performance the actual rate is 10%. The management needs to exercise strict supervision over the activities so that the mistakes which are once caused by the employees are not repeated again. Another fault which can be identified is the time which an employee takes to solve any problems of a client.

Role of the sales manager

The operational plan which is formulated by the management of BBQ Fun also consist of a timeframe in which the e-commerce project of the business is to be completed. The estimated milestone statements show that the management anticipates that the e-commerce plan will be implemented completely by 10^th October 2018.

The resources which are available to the company for the purpose of monitoring the activities of the management includes supervisors, performance charts, budgeting techniques and similar other processes. The management has also decided to use security cameras in order to improve the effectiveness of the supervision of the activities of the business. Moreover, the management of the company can also set up a special monitoring team for the purpose of monitoring the activities of the business. The results of such supervisions cam be analyzed with the help of charts, graphs and presentations.

Progress reporting is a system which is used by the management of BBQ Fun in order to get information about the performance of different departments. This information is represented with the help of charts, graphs and presentation in order to communicate about departmental performance with the senior level management. The progress report is an efficient way of the management of the company to keep the operational activities of the business under check.

The requirement of BBQ Fun is mainly for the employees who have necessary sills to handle online operations of the business. The management therefore needs to recruit new employees who can handle the online sales services of the business. The recruitment process is to be handled by the human resource manager and sales manager of the business. The performance of the sales can be judged from the sales targets achieved and also with the rating which the company gets from the online customers of the business.

The employees are considered to be the most important assets of a business especially when the employees are skilled in nature. The management of BBQ Fun is planning to incorporate e-commerce facilities in the sales structure. The new recruitments for the online sales team needs to be trained first and then the same employees can move into the main process.

Through the monitoring plan of the business, the management has noticed that some of the employees are not performing up to the expectations of the management for which the main cause which can be attributed is due to the errors and mistakes which are caused by employees (Kerzner 2017). In order to overcome this underperformance of employees, the following steps are suggested:

• The management needs to incorporate a provision in the employee training plan that if the employee makes repetitive mistakes in the main process than the employee can be send for retraining which will reduce the level off mistakes caused by the employees.
• The human resource manager and sales manager needs to appropriate the work to be performed by the employee on the basis of skills and strength of the employee in order to generate maximum productivity.

In order to develop the underperforming employees of the business, the management needs to take initiates for coaching the employees and guiding them in the right course of action. The management of the company can follow the GROW model for coaching the underperforming employees of the business. The Coaching Model which is developed by BBQ Fun is shown below:

Employee: Online Sales Professional
Coach/Manager: Sales Manager
Date of session: 18th November
	Questions
Goal	Identify the goals which is set by Organization?  What problems are the employees facing? Is there a measure for the problems faced by the employees?
Reality	What are the established standards of the business on which performance is based? What is the actual performance which is achieved by the employee? How much is there a gap in performance?
Options	In what ways will the employees employees can overcome the performance gap? What are choices which are there for the employees to improve his/her performance?
Will	What are the factors which motivates the employees? How well can an employee who is motivated, perform in the business?

BBQfun operation plan status report		Date:
Plan goal	Implementation of e-commerce strategy	Department	Operations
Plan objective/s	Website redevelopment and purchasing physical resources Selection and training of staff Achieving short term objectivies following the budget adhere to timelines.	Person responsible	Project Officer

Key performance indicators	Current status (Red, Green, Amber)	Comments
Training of the new recruits and old employees of the business have been completed	Green	The employees are trained to handle the system software and also guided as to how to speak to a customer
New recruits should be competent enough for the job	Amber	Some of the new recruits of the sales team are not fully contributing to the business productivity and therefore these employee needs to be retrained.
Meeting standards as per Budget and financial plan of the business.	Amber	The management has started to implement the budget and ensures that everything is going as per plan, however it is expected that there might be certain delays in execution of the plans. The management has incorporated strategies other than budgeting techniques which can look after the structuring of the business. The management as per the performance is trying to achieve the financial target of the company which is $ 30000, however the company is currently earning around $ 20000.
Achieving Profit Targets	Red	Due to the wastages and unproductive expenses which is incurred by the business, it is difficult to achieve profits during the year.
Milestone Achievement	Green	The management is working as per the schedule formulated which is a positive sign.

The recommendations which can be provided to the management of BBQ Fun in order to improve the operational efficiency of the business are listed below:

• The management needs to set up a strong internal control system in order to avoid wastage of resources which further leads to management incurring unproductive costs which can affect the profitability of the business on a long-term basis.
• The management needs to introduce a proper training program which will only focus in the development of skills and professional attitude of the new recruits of the business in an effective manner.
• The management needs to invest more in the sales structure and incorporate more advance system and processes which can help the online sales and e-commerce of the business and also generate more revenues for the business.   

Reference

Al Shobaki, M.J., Amuna, Y.M.A. and Naser, S.S.A., 2017. Strategic and Operational Planning As Approach for Crises Management Field Study on UNRWA.

Anderson, V., 2013. Research methods in human resource management: investigating a business issue. Kogan Page Publishers.

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.

Cosby, D.M., 2014. Sustainability program leadership for human resource development professionals: A competency model. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 18(2), p.79.

Croitoru, I., 2014. OPERATIONAL RISK MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING. Internal Auditing & Risk Management, 9(4).

Elnaga, A. and Imran, A., 2013. The effect of training on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), pp.137-147.

Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons.

Moore, A., 2017. Intellectual property and information control: philosophic foundations and contemporary issues. Routledge.

Parmenter, D., 2015. Key performance indicators: developing, implementing, and using winning KPIs. John Wiley & Sons.

Williams, H.L., 2013. Intellectual property rights and innovation: Evidence from the human genome. Journal of Political Economy, 121(1), pp.1-27.