Pumpking Patch

Background of the company
Pumpkin Patch is a mid-range chain store founded in 1990, which was originally based in Auckland, New Zealand. They mainly sold children’s wear and maternity clothing. It entered the Australian market since 1996 and has now become a leading children’s wear fashion brand in Australasia with above 2800 employees across four countries. It has its own in-house design team,which makes an effort to ensure that the children’s wear has distinctive design and high-quality. Pumpkin Patch conducts multi channel sales model (retail, wholesale partnership and direct-internet or mail order), its products are sold through 233 company stores around the world including New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, and the Middle East. Australia,New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are its predominant markets. (Pumpkin Patch1, 2011)
Mission, Vision, & Organizational Culture
Mission: Pumpkin Patch aims to provide customers with innovative design and quality products, building strong and friendly customer and supplier relationships, and developing a one-stop clothing shopping store. (Pumpkin Patch1, 2011)
Vision: Pumpkin Patch willstrive to continue increasing sales and profits by continuously developing in the Australian and UK markets, expanding to overseas markets and expanding their online service through its websites in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Ireland and the US to increase its online revenues. (Pumpkin Patch1, 2011)
Culture: Pumpkin Patch creates a family-friendly working environment for its employees. They ensureevery staff understands Pumpkin Patch’s vision and mission, so employees could better service customers. It also makes effort in employees’ equity interests. Integrity is Pumpkin Patch’s core philosophy which aims to create a trust and commitment atmosphere for all their stakeholders. (Pumpkin Patch1, 2011)
Stakeholder analysis
For Pumpkin Patch, its main stakeholders include: internalstakeholders such as shareholders, managers, board of directors and employees; and external stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, partners, competitors, media, websites, and the government.
Pumpkin Patch has 6000 shareholders who are also the investors (Chalkie, 2011). They are mostly concerned with profits and returns. Pumpkin Patch must be responsible to its shareholders and make more profits forthem, or shareholders will lose interest and withdraw their investment. For example, its performance was good before 2008, so its stock price rose to a historical high of $4.95 in 2007. However, because of the global financial crisis and an increase in the price of raw materials, its sales and profits decreased from 2008. Therefore, its stock price dropped to $1 at present. (Chalkie, 2011).Managers and employees are the key to operations. Pumpkin Patch has a 2800 person staff around the world (Pumpkin Patch1, 2011); there are different kinds of managers, design teams, sellers, and other employees. The managers make decisions and transmit strategic plans to lower managers and staff. The design team is the soul of Pumpkin Patch, its performance determines whether the products are popularor not. Sellers are the people who have direct contact with customers, and their abilities influence the company’s sales.
Suppliers are a big part of an apparel company, and they are the biggest costs of the company. Pumpkin Patch has a lot of suppliers around the world, like raw materials suppliers and production factories. With raw materials prices increasing and an increase in labour cost, thesuppliers also increase their price which puts more pressure on Pumpkin Patch.
For Pumpkin Patch, its main consumption group is children. Its products should entice children and grab their attention but most children do not have independent thinking, and they wear what their parents buy for them. Therefore, to understand their parents’ thinking is more important. Moreover, pregnant women are...