Enterprise Resource Management of Selected Garden Retailers: Towards Effective In-Store Services in Disruptive Time

Abstract

The business flow of the entire world significantly changed after COVID-19 hit the globe. Business disruption is one of the significant problems that interrupt business activities. This meaning of disruption is synonymous with "interruption," which has a largely negative connotation. (Robbins,2021)

The decision maker must decide on the best policy to find the optimum solution. As a manager or entrepreneur, you need to have a clear picture of your goals to succeed. One of the excellent behavior described is being a good leader. According to Steve Kerr (2014), "As a leader, one of the things that's most important is to know your team needs to see you as confident."

To hit the most remarkable peak of a small business depends on how the entrepreneur manages and operates the business. The study of Gaiardelli et al. (2016) says that they investigated the best practices behind Italian best-performer assistance workshops of the heavy truck industry. They are different by the typical peculiarities of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The best performers are characterized by funding capacity, suitable organizational structures, grounded skills, and solid management commitment. The latter said that being successful demonstrates the ability to combine entrepreneurial and managerial skills.

Nowadays, building a business can be a little exciting and challenging. For one to run a business effectively, as a whole, one has to experience difficulty arising among the conflicting goal of its various functional areas. Nowadays, the whole world is experiencing severe difficulties in the Covid-19 pandemic. According to ADBI, the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has significantly changed people's lives and business activities nationally, regionally, and globally. A series of strict lockdowns happened during the first quarter of 2020, causing substantial economic losses. Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) continue to confront a sharp drop in demand and revenue (ADB Institute Publications, 2020).

What is an ornamental plant? Ornamental plants provide greenery in cities and other inhabited areas, gardens and parks, and outside public buildings and residences. They are distinct because of their attractive shapes and the different colors of their flowers, leaves, and fruits. In terms of biological properties and agro-technical requirements, ornamental plants are divided into several groups, such as trees and shrubs (i.e., hibiscus plants), perennials (i.e., peony and stargazer flowers), biennials (i.e., parsley, onion family including leek), annuals (i.e., petunia and marigold), grasses (i.e., pampas grass and Indian wood oats), and bulbs (i.e., daffodil and tulips).

Enterprise resource management of selected garden retailing industry is rarely unseen nowadays because of the fast-growing technology that affects people's interest. Especially in this challenging time, we must discover new techniques to cope with our new regular business. The researcher herself is a business owner of ornamental plants; as she has observed in the past ten years, many challenges could be considered to re-evaluate Enterprise resource management in this industry.

The study focuses on the enterprise resource management of selected garden retailers in Metro Manila towards effective in-store services in disruptive times. This is limited only to enterprise resource management in the garden retailing industry regarding plant logistics, sales management, personnel motivation, and rate of return on operations.

The respondents were chosen according to the following criteria: 1. must have at least five years of field experience, and 2. must have handled two or more staff. Doing so limits the sample size to the ornamental plant sellers.

This study investigates selected garden plant retailers regarding enterprise resource management in terms of plant logistics, sales management, personnel motivation, and rate of return. The result of the study identifies effective in-store services in disruptive times. Accordingly, the program develops the enterprise resource management of the selected garden retailers.

This study utilized descriptive quantitative methodology. The quantitative research approach analyzed the extent of effectiveness of enterprise resource management of selected garden retailers towards effective in-store services during disruptive times. Through focus group discussion, the researcher spent considerable time designing a survey questionnaire.

Enterprise resource management of selected garden retailing businesses creates a significant role in providing the highest level of efficiency in the company. Enterprise resource management contributes sustenance to the business process. Most of the businesses experiencing some operational issues can be improved. It can learn along the way through the mistakes experienced on the way to achieving the goals.

However, in the current situation from the past two years up to now, people are still adopting the new scenario. In enterprise resource management in terms of plant logistics, there are many ways that the industry can practice even more. The proper utilization of SKUs or the other way to monitor their inventories. Maybe some lapses in regular inventory because of too much trust in the staff and laziness in doing regular inventory because of too wide varieties of plants. Inventory management is not utilized to benefit the company. The industry experiences delayed deliveries, incomplete deliveries, quality issues of delivered plants, the unreliability of continuous supply, and trust issues with suppliers in terms of the distribution of the products during deliveries. These problems arise from the mismanagement of business owners who hold on to their old beliefs.

Regarding sales management practices, the companies do not provide a budget or other means to meet customers' needs regarding sales management practices. They have no sales target and no training in the marketing process. Most small and micro retailers are contented with walk-in clients with no other market penetration and expansion source. This is due to companies holding on to their old-fashioned strategies.

As to personnel motivation, the industry lacks company training and orientation task, and technical sales training is underutilized. It is also revealed that the enterprise resource management's effectiveness of providing meaningful and helpful feedback on the employee's performance did not practice well.

Regarding the rate of return operations, enterprise resource management's effectiveness of reinvesting net income in business capital money gains active or passive income. Some respondents didn't maximize online investments or diversify their funds to another business during the disruptive time.