Taffe’s Ice Land
Case Analysis

Taffe’s Ice Land is clearly already sustaining itself by breaking even. Ty just needs to develop a plan that focuses on his current strengths, which is what is currently working for Taffe’s Ice Land and target those to increase them.

The SWOT analysis is a powerful tool to determine everything. His current strengths are definitely the hockey sessions and weekend hours. Ty has been able to successfully manage this and kept the business up and running. Hockey sessions should continue to be held in order to continue breaking even, however Ty needs to work on the schedules.

One of his weaknesses is the fact that he can’t handle huge amounts of clientele because he needs to have the business well staffed during these peak hours. Labor costs are one of the most expensive costs in a business.

A major external opportunity is that children are constantly dropped off by parents and Taffe’s Ice Land is the only ice skating rink in town. Just the fact that he is and continues to be the only ice rink in town, gives Taffe’s Ice Land a great advantage.

The only threat that Ty has encountered is the scheduling of the public skating sessions. Ty still hasn’t been able to figure out how to make it work so he can increase his profits.

Since his strength so far has been running the hockey sessions, Ty should continue to offer them, but also on a more programmatic way. This will allow him to continue offering the hockey clinics and figure skating classes. Having a solid sports program will permit Ty to organize tournaments and championships. This will not only create more revenue in terms of the teams paying for their participation but also with the crowd rooting for their selected teams, the concession stands would be extremely busy.

By taking advantage of his current strength, Ty can effectively staff these peak hours and not run into the problem of not being able to provide an excellent service. Ty will need to determine what is the minimum of staff required and amount of sales needed to cover these costs. However, if Ty were to be successful in gathering larger crowds during these times, the business would be a huge success and he would always be making profit. Having a weekly report of hours, he can start collecting this information in order to generate a forecast. This report will definitely help him determine what are the peak hours in terms of people and sales.

Knowing that children are constantly dropped off by their parents for “kidsitting”, Ty should think of different programs during these times to increase his flow of guests. Targeting all of the schools, magazines, places and shows that parents look for would give him a great opportunity for outreach. He needs to sale the benefit of parents taking their children to Taffe’s Ice Land. One of the magazines that is very popular in the Bay Area is Bay Are Parent. This magazine only focuses on giving parents advice and ideas concerning their kids. Part of the content of it is academics, music and sports. Parents need to feel worry-free when it comes to where their children will spend their time and money. Creating an attractive extra-curricular program for school children will attract many parents. Another idea would be that he were to team up with the surrounding schools to offer skating as part of their curriculum in Physical Education, just as many do it for swimming, given the fact that Taffe’s Ice Land is the only place in town. Parents are constantly looking for ideas to take their children during school vacations. Creating a summer program for children that want to learn professionally, or those that just want to simply have fun would give Taffe’s Ice Land a great chance to bring more customers.

If Ty were to effectively toughen his strengths, strengthen his weaknesses, and take advantage of his opportunities, he would not have any threats. All of these resources and tools will help Ty determine his weekly and monthly schedule, depending on his activities and seasons.

I understand that Ty has repeatedly tried to attract couples by creating events and a romantic environment for them but he has been unsuccessful. All of these tries has just allowed him to know that that is not his target market and shouldn’t spend anymore resources in it. In his marketing strategy, couples should not be included in the plan as a target. Ty has already identified his target market, which are the hockey players, figure ice skaters, and school children.

Having opened a Facebook, and MySpace page, will allow Taffe’s Ice Land to attract a younger generation and keep them engage. These social media websites have a greater advantage over other forms of media. They are inexpensive and most free, outreach to millions of subscribers, and maintains a connection with the clientele. Most of the people are now relying on Yelp to read other people’s reviews and therefore determining their own choice. In order for Ty to grow his number of fans, he could offer a special promotion for people that like his page or join his group. Another current trend is giving a special discount to people that check-in on Facebook to the business as their current location. This enables all of the person’s friends to know where that person is currently and attract the attention to the business. Again, all of these practices is for a technology- savvy market, but again, who are the people interested in ice skating? I would say that a young generation, the ones that are technology-savvy.

Knowing what is his largest clientele, Ty should also consider if this décor is attractive to them. Some places have decorations that have been there for years and never evolved, or sometimes it is the owner’s personal taste but it could not be the general public’s taste. Having a second opinion about could potentially help Ty in creating a more attractive environment for people to visit Taffe’s Ice Land. His décor should reflect what his niche is. How is Taffe’s Ice Land different from all of the other ice rinks in the neighbor cities?

Music and lights are a very strong component to a great skating rink. People get stimulated into wanting to skate more and more by the music and lights that are being put. Most of the skating rinks offer upbeat tracks and disco lights for night sessions. This environment attracts people into maybe celebrating a birthday party at Taffe’s Ice Land.

Some business owners get into this daily routine that they forget to keep an eye on the smallest details, like keeping the place tidy. This routine of struggling to make money causes them to not care about the maintenance of the facilities. Unfortunately, this causes a great impression on clients, maybe not so much on the children that could possibly not care, but on the parents, young adults, and hockey players. At times, businesses don’t know why their clientele is not coming back, but resolving this issue could imply a turnaround result in the sales.

Although he considers his clientele to be a mixed bag, the reality is that children and hockey players are his greatest clientele. However, taking advantage of a season is a great opportunity like it is winter. Most people relate winter time, holidays and stories with ice skating. During these months, Ty should create a general public program to incite clients of a wide range of ages to enjoy ice skating. Winter Wonderland is a theme that gets people in this jolly holiday mood. Late November, and all of December should be focused on having holiday music and holiday treats for sell in the concession stands. The goal would be creating a holiday environment to attract people and make them feel in another world. Consumers are guided by their senses, so creating this environment triggers their memories, and determines the success of the season. Year after year, the town will know that Taffe’s Ice Land makes their holidays memorable, therefore attracting more and more people to the business and setting their visit to Taffe’s Ice Land as a tradition.

Taffe’s Ice Land could offer an annual membership with certain perks. These types of membership either obligate clients to constantly visit the place or simply pay for it and not have the time to go.

Gyms offer three types of memberships. The option for the visitor that rarely visits- like a pass for a limited amount of visits, the monthly option for the client that could possibly move or travels constantly and want the option of being able to cancel at any given month. And there is also annual membership which is usually cheaper on a monthly basis, but cannot be cancelled or else you have to pay a cancellation fee. Offering these types of memberships allows client to consider visiting Taffe’s Ice Land more often and joining all the events scheduled. These types of membership would allow Ty to have a fixed revenue and encourage his employees to sell more of them.

Taffe’s Ice Land has a great potential for succeeding, but requires a motivated Ty to implement all of these market strategies to test what really works. You will never know what works, if you don’t do a deep analysis on your market and try it. I believe Taffe’s Ice Land is off to a great start since it already knows what his largest market is. Trying to develop all of these strategies at the same time will not determine success, however, strategic planning will determine if it was effective—success or failure.