Analysis of Colchester Zoo: History, Ownership, Stakeholders

History of Colchester Zoo

Colchester Zoo was first originally known as Stanway Hall Park Zoo the zoo was opened in 1961 June 2nd by Frank and Helena Farrar. Dr Dominique Tropeano took over the zoo in March 1983 and invested in enclosure improvements brining the zoo back up into the standard to get its license.

Colchester zoo is a private limited company (ltd), this means that they are not owned by the government which means that they cannot sell shares outside of the business shares can only be sold to friends and family. A disadvantage of being a private limited company for Colchester Zoo would be that it limits the shareholders to up to 50 people. This would be bad for the zoo as 50 shareholders is not a lot of people and this can cause a downfall within the business, shareholders invest within the business that they are interested in, so having 50 shareholders means that they do not invest as much money as they could. However, having 50 shareholders gives them an advantage as they each control a certain amount of the business. By being a private limited company with shareholders it means that the shareholders can only lose what they have put into the company. Being a private limited company has the advantage of being funded by retained profits this means that the company does not have to go out for loans, but it is also a disadvantage because they would have a certain amount of money so when that money is gone it cannot be spent again.

There are two types of stakeholders they have internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders are people that are already committed to the business who are already serving is as board members, employees, volunteers and/or donors. Shareholders or stakeholders are also internal stakeholders because they own or work for a business. An external stakeholder included the customers, suppliers, communities, partners and the government. Internal and external stakeholders are both groups of people that work with the business.

There would be internal and external within Colchester Zoo this is because it is a big company and there are a lot of stakeholders. Their internal stakeholders would be people that are already committed and involved in the company, such as, managers, employees, volunteers and/or vets. Internal stakeholders such as employees influence the company because they are need for it to run smoothly they all work harder than most stakeholders involved to make sure the business is a success. Without employees the business would not be able to run sufficiently. Without these there would be no one to make sure that the zoo is up to date with everything that needs to be done. Colchester zoo would have to keep in contact with their employees so they can keep them up to date with what is happening around the zoo. This could be done in many ways, for example, they may send an email to all of their employees. They may also make staff announcements throughout the day this would be so the staff would be alert of the surroundings. All of their employees would benefit from working there in various different ways, for example, they would benefit from seeing the public each day this would help them to develop their communication skills for the future. Employees at the zoo learn to develop good customer service. Within the zoo there would be conflicts within the employees such as, if an employee was given a certain job and it was not their specialty this would cause a problem as the work would not be as higher standards as the managers would like it to be. This would impact the zoo because if the site was not perfect it would be bad for the customers and then that would be bad reviews this means that the zoo would lose money and profit as they would lose customers.

Another internal stakeholders of Colchester Zoo would be the volunteers that help with the animals and customers at Colchester zoo. The zoo has two types of volunteering programs on called ‘Blue Crew’ and the other is ‘the W. O. W team (Wonders of Wildlife). The ‘Blue Crew’ influence the zoo as they are the main communication with the public that visit the zoo. This means that when people come to the zoo they can talk to people who are involved with the zoo which gives them an opportunity to make the public have a positive experience. The ‘W. O. W’ team are responsible for is to make the visitors of the zoo understand and respect nature. They help the visitors explore and expand their relationships with the animals and encourage empathy for the animals. They also help create memorable experiences for the guests to make them want to come back again. Without volunteers the zoo would have little contact with the community, this means that if there would be no volunteers the zoo would not be able to have direct contact with their guests, so they would potentially lose business and money as people may have bad experiences at the zoo making them not want to come back. Also if the zoo had no volunteers the customers would have no way of finding out direct information about the animals as it is the volunteers job to inform and create a good experience for them with the animals. There is a number of possible ways a volunteer for the zoo may be contacted, this could be through email they may contact them to keep them up to date with what they have to do throughout the day and they may also email them to tell them where in the zoo they are going to be based. Most volunteers would benefit from being in a zoo because they meet a wide variety of people each day this would help them significantly develop their communication and confidence skills. There would also be conflicts and issues with the volunteers which the manager s would have to deal with, they may be minor for example, the volunteer may be low o confidence and find it hard to talk to the public this would be a downfall for the zoo as they need to be able to communicate with the public otherwise they would not have the connection they need to make their experiences at the zoo as good one. They manager may deal with this by helping that volunteer get the level of confidence he needs so he may make him shadow an employee for a day going from the zoo talking with someone instead of by themselves. Other issues could be that they do not want to be in a certain area of the park which means that they may fail to do their job sufficiently which would be a downfall for the zoo as it would have a knock on effect to the visitors. So the manager may change the position where the volunteer is so it fits in with their skill set.

b) Internal Stakeholders such as vets would be a key for the zoo, these are the people that would help to make sure all the animals are well vets of the ‘International Zoo Vet Group’ would visit the zoo regularly to check over the animals. The vets have a huge influence on the zoo as they are the only ones who would be able to make an animal better if it falls ill. They also train animals this means that when an animal needs to be moved to a new enclosure they are able to do this easily, for example, at Colchester Zoo a male orang-utan was trained to accept an injection in preparation to be moved to his new enclosure. Vets have such a big impact on the zoo because they are the only ones that know enough about the animals to know what to do if one dos fall ill, this means that without vets the people would not be able to look after the animals properly because they do not have the vets there to tell them what is wrong for what has happened to make the animal ill. Without vets the zoo would not be able to cope with the animals this means that they would not know what to do or how to deal with a sick or injured animal and the likely hood of that animal surviving would be slim which means that they would lose assets to their zoo. All of this would have a knock on effect to the money that would come in because if the zoo showed signs of neglect towards the animals the public would stop coming to visit the zoo which would evidently lose the zoo a lot of money. So without vets the zoo would probably be shut down and the animals would be transferred somewhere else. There would be various ways that the zoo would communicate with the vets if they needed them. One of these ways may be through phone call if the injury or illness with the animal was sever they may have to get a vet is as soon as they can so the quickest way for them to communicate would be through phone call. They may also email them, this may be to check on when the next visit is going to be or if there has been an animal that needed tests done this may be a way of them getting the results. The vets would benefits from working alongside the zoo because they would be able to meet the different animals this means that each day or each time they visits the zoo they would be able to see and interact with the different species, it would also be a learning curve for them as each day would be a new experience for them. They also get the chance to train each animal this has a positive effect on them and on how the animal acts around people.

Another benefit would also be the new people they meet, each day they would meet a different employee this means that each employee would have a different personality which allows the vets to develop there communications skills. There would be conflicts and issues for the vets as there is a possibly of them being injured by one of the animals they are caring for. For example if an animal was injured and it needed help but was not properly sedated or held down the vets could be a risk of being injured by the animal, so the manager would be held liable for this issue. Another issue for the vets may be that they may not be able to get to the zoo for when they need them, this means that if an animal needs help but the vet cannot get to the zoo this would cause an issue for the company as they are at risk of losing an asset.