Thai Day Sap Business - Essay Example

Critically review the key decisions I have taken as Planning Manager and assess the impact on our Thai Day Sap Business plan Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 4 Conclusion 15 References 17 Introduction The business plan is regarding the objective of opening a Thai Spa business in London, United Kingdom. The main objective of the company is to provide good refreshment facility to the customers at an affordable price. The business will provide contemporary message services and beauty care service to the customers in a traditional manner by using Thai herbal and natural products. This will help people to get a lot of relaxation from their stressed life and also provide huge opportunity to the customers to get relief without spending much time on it. The strategies formulated will help to generate profits for the company in a long run. Most of the treatments that are been used in the outlets of Thai Spa business are based on the western style of treatment. The materials used for providing the services are completely organic and are obtained from the Harnn Products Co. Ltd. which is the biggest spa service provider and also the largest producer of organic products in Thailand. It also has got its services in other locations as well in western countries except UK and other Asia countries. The use of naturally products in for spa and message will provide a lot of competitive advantage to the company over the other spa service companies. With the increasing demand among the people of UK for the service of Spa and message, the company has got a huge opportunity in this market to grow at a good pace. People try to find leisure time, they need relaxation and also look to minimise their stress level which is increasing at a fast rate because of the work pressure, family pressure etc. They look to get some of the spa and massage business services where they can get some relief and relax without spending much time of their life towards it. The biggest advantage of Thai Spa business in the UK market is that its facility of providing herbal and holistic service of treatments to the customers at a quick time and also at affordable prices. This type of herbal treatment and user of organic products for healing purpose in the unique point for the company as it is one of its type in the market and the other spa business are not into providing completely organic treatment to the customers. This service will also meet the demand of the customers of getting the service at a quick pace so that they can meet up to the requirements of fast lifestyle of the customers. The business will be able to provide quality service and also at a quick time to the customers and get a good competitive advantage over others. The task of the plan manager will be to strategise the position of the company in the market, have a thorough understanding of the market and plan accordingly. The various tasks of the planning manager are to make a strategic analysis, position it in a specific manner, make the plan in a proper way, collect the data in a specific and accurate manner by conducting marketing research and then make the particular strategy that will be implemented in a very efficient and effective way helping in the success of the entire project and the company. This way going in a scheduled manner will help the planning manager in making the plan in an accurate manner and make the strategies and decisions also in an efficient way. All the activities did by the planning manager will help in a smooth process and a good guidance for the planning manager to go along with the task been allocated to him/her. Discussion This part of the paper will talk about business perceptions of the company. Thai Day Spa will provide herbal and organic treatment to the customers of UK. The business is looking forward to bring the testaments been done in Thailand in UK and provide the same natural service for the customers. As per Tawil (2011), the unique selling point for the company is its herbal and organic products that will be used for healing and treatment purpose (Tawil, 2011, pp. 155-169). The various services that the company will offer to the customers will include the Thai heritage massage, Thai aromatherapy and Thai compress, all with a common focus of proving relaxation and rejuvenating the energy among the customers. According to Seddon (2011), expert advice will be taken into consideration for providing the service to the customers so that the treatments and messages that are been provided are of best of quality and are able to provide good relaxation and healing affect to the customers (Seddon, 2011, pp. 1-33). The pricing for each of the service is been kept very competitive and also is very much affordable for the customers. This will provide the company an additional competitive advantage over the competitors. Monteson and Singer (2004) stated that huge level of promotional activities will be conducted using various platforms of promotion like print media, social network like Twitter and Facebook to increase the brand awareness (Monteson and Singer, 2004, pp. 282-287). This will also help the company to communicate across the right message to the customers and make them understand the value that can be created in the life of the customers from the service provided by Thai Day Spa. The company must look to implement a penetrating pricing strategy to enter the market and also for capturing more customers in a rapid manner. As per Sije and Oloko (2013), this will help the company in increasing its customer base at a huge rate and also increase their sales volume at a good pace. It should look to utilise its resources in the best possible way to achieve maximum profitability even after keeping a competitive less price (Sije and Oloko, 2013, pp. 114-123). It needs to look to get over the breakeven point as quickly as possible by clearing all its loans and also by convincing the investors. Thai Day Spa will be able to do this only if it has a good range of promotional activities and increase the brand awareness among the customers in UK thus attracting more number of customers to avail the service from Thai Day Spa. Jobber in 2012 stated that it will also get additional advantage in the market because of the lack of Thai spa and message in the centre country and as the company is the only herbal and holistic spa and massage provider in the market it will be highly benefited (Jobber, 2012, pp. 34-37). Apart from this the concessions that are been given to the customers and also the differentiated policy that is been used to engage the clients will provide a huge advantage to the business in the market and provide huge opportunity to generate huge amount of revenue. According to Pride and Ferrell (2011), apart from the opportunities there are also many threats for the company towards which the company needs to have a good strategy to control the threats. The main threat for the company is from the existing competitors in the market who are in the business of providing spa and massage business to the customers of London on an extensive scale (Pride and Ferrell, 2011, pp. 56-64). As the other companies have already been in the market from many years and have build a good brand image, it will be a huge threat for the company to shift the preference of the customers from the competitors to their business. Reuvid (2012) said that as the company will be new in the market it will be difficult for the company to get the belief of the customers over their service and shift their preference from the existing spa service providing companies like The Sanctuary Spa, Elemis Day Spa and Spa London (Reuvid, 2012, pp. 65-74). Using the PEST analysis it can be seen that the company has no problems from the political side in UK as it very stable, the economic condition in London is a stable one with huge number of white collar employees been settled in the city, the social life for people in UK is very hectic and with full of stress thus they tend to look for services where they can get relaxation at a quick time and also from the side of technology Cunningham and Harney, 2012 said that the company is able to adapt to latest technologies which can enable them to provide good service and it has been able to do so because UK has a good technological growth (Cunningham and Harney, 2012, pp. 56-63). Thai Spa Day has looked to position its service of Spa and massage in the city of London. In London there is a huge number of white collar professionals who work in many companies and thus for Thai Day Spa there is huge opportunity with an approximate of 300.000 customers that can be the targeted. As per Hutt and Speh, 2012, there is a huge opportunity for the company in the market of UK. As the demand of Spa and massage has been increasing at a constant rate in the country and people are looking to avail the spa service to get relief and relaxation from their daily busy schedule (Hutt and Speh, 2012, pp. 32-38). Thus the company needs to see that it opens its outlets in the good locations in the city where it can get maximum visibility and also can create good brand awareness among the customers. The positioning of the company and its services should be done in a specific manner to make sure that the exact value that the company creates is been understood by the customers. According to Abraham, 2012, the company’s brand should be positioned in a proper way. This is to be done by understanding the competition in the market and also by having a clear understanding of the needs and requirements of the customers (Abraham, 2012, pp. 45-53). As in this case people in UK especially in London look to have some kind of service where they can get relaxation and also relief in a quick time. Thus Thai Day Spa must look to position its business in a form to provide good quality herbal treatment and spa service to the customers at a quick time and also at an affordable price much competitive than the competitors. The company must look to enter the market with a penetrating pricing strategy, which will give a competitive edge to the company over the competitors. As per Marr and Gray in 2012, the company should position itself in the market as a quick service provider at an affordable rate to the customers (Marr and Gray, 2012, pp. 23-28). The business is the only herbal and holistic spa and massage service provider in London and thus needs to have a good promotional strategy to make sure that the customers are able to increase their awareness about the company. The target customers for the company are the white collar job people and their family members especially in the female category. Lee, 2011 stated that the age group that should be in between 24-55 years which will include mostly the working age group in the country. As they are the main people who tend to look for availing good quality service without spending much time where they can get relaxation and also relief from the huge work pressure they have (Lee, 2011, pp. 36-42). The company has to be positioned in the market as not only the source of providing relief and relaxation but also as a company which provides herbal treatment to the customers to overcome many diseases by using expert advice. It needs to provide service to the customers at a discounted price in the starting and look to get as much as benefit out of the referrals from the people in UK. This will help the company to increase the number of customers and also increase its sales volume by a huge extent thus help it generating huge amount of revenue. The company should be positioned with specifying its uniqueness of providing the Thai style of treatment to heal the customers in the market. As per McKeever in 2012, it should make sure that the beauty products and the health care products been used which are completely herbal are been explained to the customers and the benefit out of them over the non herbal products is been made clear to the people of London (McKeever, 2012, pp. 45-53). Thus these provide an additional advantage to the company in creating a good brand image in the minds of the customers and also capture a good market share. MIKE in 2012 said that people look to get the herbal and natural health care service more over the artificially made products so the company by positioning itself as an herbal and natural spa and massage service centre will get huge competitive advantage over the existing competitors (MIKE, 2012, pp. 89-97). Thus Thai Day Spa must look to position itself in a very careful manner making sure that it gets a good amount of competitive advantage over the competitors in the market and create a good impact in the market by generating good amount of revenue and also by increasing its market share. Luther in 2011 said that the Company needs to have a good business plan which is going to be designed by a planning manger to go about for setting up a successful business operation in the highly competitive market of London. Thought the Company has huge number of opportunities to explore it also has got good amount of competition because of the presence of huge number of competitors in the market in the same business. It must look to have a good sales plan by going step by step for increasing its number of customer’s base on a continuous basis. To improve the business operation the company needs to communicate and also visit the potential customers at a regular interval to increase the customer engagement by a greater extent (Luther, 2011, pp. 37-44). It must look to enter with a penetrating pricing strategy to get competitive edge over the competitors and also will be able to capture more market share. The everyday scheduling of the treatments must be done in a specific way so that there is no wastage of time and the customers are also been provided good quality service. This proper planning and scheduling will help the company not to make the customers to wait for more time and thus not waste their time which is a crucial point for the people in UK as they have less time for relaxation. According to Calkins (2012), with an average occupancy rate of 75% in a day in spa industry in UK for each treatment room and also the additional 15min required for preparing the treatment room for 1 hour treatment the company must schedule its daily operations in that way only. It should look to see that the occupancy rate keeps increasing at a constant rate so that they can have a constant rise in their revenue and also market share (Calkins, 2012, pp. 53-59). With the predictions of the amount of revenue that can be generated and the profit margin that can be obtained on an annual basis it is very important for the company to build strategies that will help the company to continuously grow and expand its business operations. The promotional activities that are to be done by the company should be done on an extensive scale making sure that they can promote their business and conveyed their message across to the customers in the best possible way and customers. A proper plan regarding to the promotional activities is to be done so that the return on investment of the promotion been done is good enough and huge number of customers are been attracted. The annual growth of the company on yearly basis over the increasing number of room occupancy by the customers should be done in a way that they can strive every year in more better way to achieve the target that is been set during the planning process. The planning activities and also the control of the plan should be very strict so that the company continues to perform as per the plan and does not deviates from the plan been set up. This will help the company to get a good market share and also a huge increase in its revenue. The Thai day spa is a conventional spa organization which would give traditional way of spa as stated by Friederick, 2011. It would go to fill that vacuum in the UK market. There are lots of spa are present in UK market. But the traditional SPA is missing. It is would give a competitive advantage to the Thai Day Spa. The Thai Day spa is an organization which would give more important to the medicinal and human relaxation aspects. It is being noticed that in UK market all the existing Spa are focusing on the beauty aspect, in that process the medicinal effect and the relaxation process is getting neglected. The main objective of Thai Day Spa is to strike a good balance between the both beauty aspect and the traditional aspects. The most unique feature of the Spa would be it would use all Thai herbal products. It would help the company to create a unique image in the mind of customers (Frederick, 2011, pp. 105-109). Marc argued (2011); in this way company would able to serve people to reduce their daily working stress. It would go to provide multi dimensional services to its customers. People of UK would come across a different style of relaxation. The Thai Day Spa is also planning to provide its service on very high speed. Time is a very important matter for modern day customers so company is focusing very hard for timely offering of services to its customers. Company’s planning must be very precise in nature (Marc, 2011, pp. 201-206). Abraham (2012), Proper market research is very important for The Thai Day Spa. Any new business is full of risky investments. Here in this case market research is very much important for The Thai Day Spa. Different market research has shown that the modern day UK Spa market is growing heavily. The market research is also showing that people want both beauty and medicinal approach out of one brand or single window. This market is having a global presence. This high growing trend is the great revenue earner in the modern world and the count is increasing day by day (Abraham, 2012, pp. 101-105). In UK market it has a heavy presence account for 1.5 million pound. The foot fall in those spas is also very higher side. Estimation is showing that almost 6 million consumers visit spas located in the different parts of the UK yearly. Modern people are focusing towards wellness more than before. It is a very prominent changing trend that people are spending lots of money for their medicinal and beauty aspects out these spas. These spas are helping a lot to get what customers are wanting out of them. This market segment is a very important factor for keeping people stress free. It plays a very important role to reduce mental pressure that each and every person in the world currently facing every day. These trends are showing that this segment is here to stay. Rita (2013), life of people is getting busier day by day. The scope of relaxation is very less so all market research is showing and clearly stating that, the planning of the Thai Day Spa is very good and it would give long term sustainability in the market. The Whole Industry is going to see a good growth in upcoming years. People of London have welcomed spa open heartedly (Rita, G. M. 2013, pp. 43-51). There are lots of other ways of relaxing like watching movies, T.V., sports and many other sources. With every passing day people of UK welcoming the spa as a lifestyle concept. It is becoming an unavoidable stress busting concept for UK people. This industry has reflected lots of significant growth. According to Michael (2011), different research the spa business will target those people who belong to age of 25 and above. Generally starting from 25 years age group and above age people are related with different works and jobs. These are the areas from where people are affected by lots of stress and mental fatigue. It would target both middle and high income people of the society who would be able to pay properly for the service and products. Here comes the impact of a planning manager (Michael, 2011, pp. 91-98). High income group people would not mind spending high amount of money for good undisturbed services. These middle aged well income people want to reduce their stress with the help of spa. It would rejuvenate its body to work more hard during its office hours. It not only rejuvenate and kills the stress but also provide a holistic approach towards medicinal treatment. All these different aspect of market research is showing that it would very feasible for The Thai Day Spa to open its new business. According to Cunningham and Harney (2012), the research of the management the city of London is having lots of different existing spas. Day spa, destination spa, club spa, medical spa, hotel and resort spa and cruise spa. In this case The Thai Day Spa is having competition from all the existing day spas in the country. This specific category of spa contributes for 12% of the total spa market in UK. Some of the major competitors in the day spa market are 1) The Sanctuary Spa; the spa offers pools, sauna and steam rooms facilities. The spa focuses on natural products like different botanical extracts (Cunningham and Harney, 2012, pp. 67-75). This is the uniqueness of this spa. The pricing pattern of the services is with the reach of middle income people. Traditional services are missing. 2) Spa London Spa London is a day spa doing operation in the different parts of London. The spa offers different luxurious treatment along with recreational offerings. The spa is very specific in case of providing any services related to its price. It is generally related with different thermal treatments. The spa does not have any product related to herbal care. It somewhat expensive in nature and services are mainly designed for high end customers of the society. 3) Elemis Day Spa. Their pricing strategy fluctuates according to market change. The spa is innovative in nature. It has good global presence. Planning manager would act accordingly for the benefit of the spa. It must be stated that there are more than 80000 spa organizations are present around the world. Every company must design an extensive marketing strategy before coming up with any investment decisions. Proper marketing strategies would result in good revenue for The Thai Day Spa. The company in its initial stage can go for conventional way of marketing. According to Smith (2011), in its first step it can begin by distributing leaflets near by the spa and in other places of the city. This leaflet would have all the details related to different services will be there and their price will also be mention over there. This would help customers to get an idea about different products or services offering by the new spa. The spa can offer free trial body message to some selected number of customers for free of costs the message would last for 10 minutes. It would clear the quality of services provide by the company. It would help the spa to get a valuable customer feedback about their services. It would help the spa to spread its image to different parts of the city (Smith, 2011, pp. 78-86). It may attract customers from round the city. Edward (2011), one coupon can be given which would enable these guest customers to get a 10% discounted price for the next time visit to the spa. In the next week The Thai Day Spa can offer a family or friend bonanza in which it can offer 20% discount for the friends and families of a visiting customer. In the next step customer will be given different products which would help them to experience a spa like situation in their home as well. In these strategy customers has to take the service from The Thai Day Spa. Then the customer would be given some spa related products which they can use in their home. It is a very effective marketing strategy for the company to earn revenue. This theory would help the company immensely (Edward, B. 2011, pp. 122-125). Jennifer (2011), states that company can go for further more towards relational marketing where the company can offer memberships to its customers. It would give customers a sense of attachment with the spa. It would help to get customer loyalty. In the below table the customer membership related details are given. This below list is clearly showing that as the membership slab amount is increasing the discount percentage is also increasing (Jennifer, L. 2011, pp. 123-126) Membership Amount (£) Discount (%) 100 10 300 20 500 30 Mike, (2012), the spa can come up with a web page for their promotional purposes. It would solve both promotional and selling purposes. Company can go for social networking site like Facebook and Twitter. As the like is more and more in the Facebook lots of people will be attracted towards the brand. The Thai Day Spa can go for print media as well. It can use different lifestyle magazine, news papers, radio fm channels and different fashion T.V. channels for their promotional purposes. Lots of people on a daily basis come across all these above written promotional media. It would be easier for the company to get attention of many customers with a single attempt through any of them. The promotional strategy would give a notion closer to nature and more pure. It would create a sense of healthiness and recreational mood for customers. It would create a unique image in the mind of customers. The more customer feel attachment about the spa the more consumers’ spa will get. A very well maintained and loyal customer would advocate for the brand. Customer advocating for the brand would work as a viral marketing which would spread very quickly in the market (Mike, 2012, pp. 134-141). It should not create any confusion in the mind of customers. Complex marketing strategy can prove to be counterproductive for the Thai Day Spa (Reuvid, 2012, pp. 78-82). According to Singla (2011), as the brand get more and more familiar in nature it can come up with more and more new innovative ideas like sponsoring any fashion events. It must notice different strategies followed by its competitors in the market. According to that The Thai Day Spa can design its marketing strategies. Marketing strategies must be change according to the business situations and market situation (Singla, 2011, pp. 101-105). The theories did help a lot in making the business plan to understand the current market situation in UK and also the presence of competitors. It has helped to know what all things that the company needs to do to build a good platform in the country capturing a good market share and also be able to attract good number of customers by increasing the brand awareness and image of the company. According to Reuvid (2012), the spa can maintain a customer profile for maintaining good customer relationship with existing customers of The Thai Day Spa Marketing strategy must address the factor of competitiveness. Marketing should be done in such a way that it shows different competitive advantages of the Thai Day Spa. Marketing strategy must be very simple but effective in nature. The secret of this growth is people are striving for holistic treatments and relaxation services in their stressful life. Conclusion The spa industry is booming heavily. The Thai Day Spa wants to keep its footstep to this ever growing industry. Any new business is all about spotting the opportunity, conducting market research, planning properly for every aspect, implementation of that plan and constant evaluation and monitoring. The above research is showing that The Thai Day Spa has done all these above written steps very well. The Thai Day Spa has conducted an extensive market research about its competitors and behaviour of the market. The company has designed its objective, marketing strategy and sales planning very well. Company has done SWOT for analysing the situation of the company. It has design a very detailed objective for its new business opening. The company has looked after all the different legal aspects related to the business. It is very important for The Thai Day Spa to be transparent in terms of their business practises. Company has designed its clear goals and core values in which way they would run their business. The company has designed its objectives very well according to different time frame. Marketing strategy of the company is also very good. It has designed its marketing strategy in very well manner. It has changes its marketing strategy according to different time period. The company has shown a fair amount of innovation in terms of their marketing strategies. Marketing strategies would provide The Thai Day Spa a very sustainable competitive advantage in the market. Marketing strategy is very important for any new business. The Thai Day Spa has come up with good balances of different marketing strategies. Modern business world is ever changing. Here change is the only constant thing. In this highly competitive business world coming up with new ideas is very important. Sales activity plan is very important it would give a guideline to the Thai Day Spa to enhance its sales. The Thai Day Spa has done its pricing very well. It has classified its services into different levels. Those different services are offered in exchange of different price. Their pricing strategy is depending on the basis of the production costs of different services. Company has done a PEST analysis for understanding the UK market. This analysis has clearly indicating the different factors related to political, economical, social and technological of the market. The business world is full of uncertainties. Every business houses especially new entrants like The Thai Day Spa must have a very well designed back up plan which can handle any adverse contingencies. The company also has design that plan very professionally. It has gone for insurance to combat any adverse situations. Proper workforce is very important for any organization. Efficient and well organized workforce is the backbone of any successful company. The company has given great focus towards this aspect also. Future researches can be undertaken to further analyse the operation of the business plan, the future success directions and how to make optimal use of resources. References Abraham, S. 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