Assignment on Enterprise and New Business (GC01999)
Table of Contents
Introduction.
Part 1: Business Plans.
1.1 Purpose and uniqueness of “Peace Essentials”.
1.2 Market opportunity.
1.3 Products and/or services the Peace Essentials will offer
1.4 Sales and marketing strategy and activities.
1.5 Competitor analysis and competitive advantage(s) of the business.
1.6 Operational structure and choices.
1.7 Profit and loss summary for Peace Essentials- 2016.
1.8 Estimated Cash flows for Peace Essentials- 2017.
2.0 Funding Requirements.
2.1 Suitable sources of finance.
2.2 Optimum choices for Peace Essentials.
2.3 How investment capital will be used.
Conclusion.
References.
Introduction
Small and medium-sized enterprises have huge opportunities in the current business world including the United Kingdom. Shane and Venkataramn (2014) define the terms entrepreneurship as the process that explores and innovate opportunities for new products and services by focusing on the particular target market. Torrington et al. (2015) define entrepreneurship as the process that develops small and medium-size companies to attract new markets and introduce new products and services. Wright and Snell (2014) said entrepreneurship businesses must develop appropriate plans for business growth and surviving in the market with competitive advantages. According to Britton and Gold (2013), small and medium entrepreneurship businesses to net develop several strategies to continue their business growth.
A business plan is developed in this paper for an entrepreneurship business, called “Peace Essentials”. This report is divided into two key sections: a) business plan and b) funding requirements. As part of business, the first purpose and uniqueness of “Peace Essentials” are discussed. Then, the market opportunities are defined along with defining gaps and potential solutions. Next, the products and services offered by “Peace Essentials” are discussed. Following these, the sales and marketing strategies are explained. Next, the competitive positions of “Peace Essentials” are outlined. Then, operational choices and structure of “Peace Essentials” are discussed. Finally, a profit and loss summary along with a cash flow forecast for the first year is incorporated. In the second part of this report, several sources of finances are discussed. Then, an appropriate source of finances is defined for funding in “Peace Essentials”. Finally, how the investment will be used in the proposed business activities of “Peace Essentials”.
Part 1: Business Plans
1.1 Purpose and uniqueness of “Peace Essentials”
1.1.1 Background and uniqueness of “Peace Essentials”
“Peace Essentials” is an entrepreneurship business. This is a small and medium business. This business has gained uniqueness in Islamic products and essentials. The key products this business sells are Islamic clothing such as Hijab, Scraps, Veils, Abaya, etc. In addition, it is selling alcohol-free perfumes and fragrances, Islamic books such as Holy Quran and Holy Hadid (Peace Essential, 2016).
1. 2.2 Location, structure and target audience
This business has now one branch and is now operating only in East London. However, the owners of the “Peace Essentials” are thinking to extend its branches and operations in other areas of London and outside London, mainly in Birmingham (Rahman, 2017). This is a private limited company. This was established in 2008 by two partners. “Peace Essentials” has now 8 dedicated and experienced staff who are serving about 2500 customers every week. This business is using a hierarchical business structure, whereas the director/owner makes all of the decisions that are followed by the managers and employees. The target customers of “Peace Essentials are all kinds of Muslim customers including children, men, women. Most importantly the key target customers are the women ages 15/16 to 65+ who are attracted by the variety of Islamic clothing and essentials (Ullah, 2017)
1.1.3 Peace Essentials’ vision and mission
The vision of a business refers to the key target point of the business. The business always wants to reach this point (Kotler et al., 2014). The mission of a business refers to the planned business made to reach the vision (Palmer, 2015). The vision of Pease Essentials is to be a leading retailer of Islamic essentials in the UK. The mission of Pease Essentials is to ensure quality products at reasonable prices and provide excellent customers to retain the existing customers and attract a new customer base (Ullah, 2017).
1.1.4 Aims and objectives of Pease Essentials
Business aims refer to the overall purpose of the business (Kotler et al., 2014), whereas objectives are the plans and activities to reach the aims (Palmer, 2015). The aim of Pease Essentials is to extend and maximize the business and its operations (Ullah, 2017). The objectives of Pease Essentials are listed as follows:
- To open new branch in Bethnal Green, East London by December 2017
- To increase products range by adding at least six more products by December 2017
- To increase at least 5% of local market share by attracting more potential and customers by December 2017
- To improve at least 5% of customer retention and loyalty level providing excellent customer service by December 2017
- e) To improve 5% revenue, 5% gross profit, and 3% net profit by December 2017
1.2 Market opportunity
1.2.1 Market/customer segment
According to Palmer (2015), market/customer segmentation is recognized as the business strategy by which organizations group their potential customers or markets into a number of categories. Peace Essentials group its customers as men and women, children. However, every 80% of customers of Peace Essentials are local females including teenagers, adults, and old-aged women. It is mainly operating in East-London area but targets to do business other places in future. Key customers segments of Peace Essentials are shown in the diagram below:
1.2.2 Targeting/market target
According to Kotler et al. (2014), targeting is a business strategy that divides the target customers into several groups according to their needs and expectation. Targeting can be customized, concentrated, and undifferentiated, shown in the diagrams below:
Peace Essentials applies undifferentiated targeting strategies, whereas it’s every single category of product target all categories of its target and potential customers shown in the diagram below:
1.2.3 Positioning
Kotler et al. (2014) said the market position of a business is the technique of defining the target point where the business wants to reach in the competitive marketplace. The positioning map for the Peace Essentials is shown in the diagram below:
In January 2017, it is indicated that Peace Essentials is providing poor customer service and a range of products but high product prices. Thus, its target is to increase product range by June 2017 and improve customer services by providing attractive promotional offers by December 2017.
1.2.4 Market size
The market size for the Peace Essentials is wide (Ullah, 2017). This is because it is dramatically growing up the Muslims across the world, mainly in London and other parts of the UK. Therefore, there is high potential and opportunities for Peace Essentials to extend and maximize its business, retain its customers, attract more customer bases, and sustain in the market with competitive advantages. In a word, the market is of Peace Essentials is being bigger day by day (Hendriksz, 2016).
1.2.5 Market value and anticipated growth of the market
Several studies disclose that Muslims are increasing dramatically because Islam is the fastest-growing religion. Most importantly, in UK (particularly in East-London areas) the Muslims have been double in the last 10 years (Benson, 2016). This trend has brought great opportunities for the entrepreneurs like Peace Essentials. In addition, the social and demographic changes in Muslim communities (for example, increase in disposable income among the Muslim women, increase trend of Muslim younger cohorts) are also providing huge opportunities to the entrepreneur like Peace Essentials. The vast majority of Muslim women love wearing dresses following religious guidelines such as wearing modest clothing lengths, loose fits, and hair covering (Hendriksz, 2016). In addition, in London, Muslim women are being more curious about high-end fashion and Islamic dresses following the Middle Eastern traditions. A study conducted by Reuters (2016) disclosed that in 2015 Muslims in the US, UK and EU spend about £21 billion on clothing and footwear. Therefore, there is high potential and opportunities for the entrepreneurs like Peace Essentials to extend the business with high revenue and profits…………………………