Sustainable Development of the Green Team - Term Paper Example

? The Green Team: Sustainable Development The Risk Management Perspective Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Situation Analysis 4 Analysis 4 Competitor Analysis 5 Company Analysis 5 Community/Climate Analysis 6 Marketing Mix 7 Product 7 Price 8 Place 10 Promotion 10 Budget & Timeline 12 Reference Notes and Bibliography 14 Executive Summary The Green Team reviews development plans and value engineers the sustainability, or LEEDs process, from a risk management perspective. The website solicits projects and/or partners with demands for sustainable development, but either lack in-house expertise or require value engineering advice to complete projects in a truly sustainable fashion. The website offers advice on the green supply chain, green procurement, green efficiency, specialty green funding trusts and environmental auditing. Free advice articles will be written in search engine optimizing (SEO) format to target architects and engineers seeking sustainability advice or products. These articles, blogs and advisories will lead the target market to pay for fee pages which solicit projects and partnerships. The fee structure is based on time for consulting and percentage savings for value engineering in sustainable matters such as products and supply chain. The average fee should be about 3% of the projected project cost, but the risk management approach to sustainable development should return this investment several times on a lifecycle analysis. Direct marketing at symposia, targeted online marketing and industry and professional journal advertising will target the stakeholders and clients of choice. The marketing budget of 100,000 Euros is adequate to launch the website, attend a few choice symposia and publish some articles or advertise in journals. Once projects are selected and joined, the marketing budget will become self-sustaining. The qualitative goal is word of mouth advertising buzz within the year. The quantitative goal is self-sustaining marketing budget by end of fiscal year 2012. Situation Analysis The overall sustainable design business is in its infancy. Many service providers lack sufficient expertise to bid on projects, or to complete the project. In the United States, architects and engineers are only beginning to seriously consider LEEDs certification and sustainable development expertise. Although many of these techniques are conceptually old-school, the modern application and certification process demands new technology and expertise. The Green Team provides all levels of that expertise through an international team of certified technical consultants with broad environmental experience. Customer Analysis The Green Team targets architects and engineers involved in or likely to be involved in green, LEEDs or sustainable development projects. Bid lists, industry group research and SEO articles identify likely prospects. Since our expertise and experience is international, these prospects can be located anywhere in the world. This feature is important because the worldwide economy is currently in recession. Predicting the first recovery location is difficult. The Green Team will be able to respond to any area quickly. The target customer is an architect or engineering firm that designs sustainable projects. The firm must be large enough to have the capacity to deliver multimillion dollar projects annually, but not have an in-house department that specializes in sustainable practices. Of course, The Green Team will work on a contingency to value engineer behind any firm, and those large firms may be a viable market for that service. The target is architects and engineers with five or more professionals on staff. Competitor Analysis Competitors in the market are compliance oriented. Several industry groups at .org addresses claim to be sustainability consultants, but delving into their literature proves otherwise. Many of them are political groups masquerading as consultants. The Green Team may be unique since it is profit rather than agenda driven in this marketplace. Supply suggests a true consultant honestly working toward sustainable and economically feasible projects is rare if not unique. The Green Team is the only entity working on sustainability with a risk management model. Since the economy is down, and professional staffs are shrinking, sustainability expertise is lacking in many firms. The demand will increase in a few years, about the time of this launch. The Green Team will be positioned with contacts in the professional ranks, the supply chain and the products end by then. The Green Team will be positioned to accept the challenge of meeting the demand for sustainability expertise. Company Analysis The website brand, appearance, personality and reputation reflect the consultative nature of the business. The appearance is conservative green, no controversial claims of doomsday or environmental Armageddon, just a “let’s solve the problem” motif. Pages are available for project managers/designers, suppliers and experts looking for consulting jobs. Each of these pages will access free blogs and articles meant to demonstrate expertise. The desired reputation for the site is a task oriented, informative site easy to navigate and request proposals, information or consulting opportunities. No nonsense and direct, but professionally entertaining. This site is the first step toward demonstrating the services are quality and directly profitable. The positioning map looks like so: Self sustaining service Extra Cost Service Community Analysis The key to success is finding consultative architects, engineers, builders, suppliers and environmental people to form the team necessary to The Green Team’s survival. Once all the components are available, finding projects is a priority. The current economic conditions cannot last forever, and some development will start somewhere. The international make-up of this company will be able to take advantage of the mobility of the team. Two financial advantages the company has within the community are no prior failures due to the economic bust, and no unpaid overhead due to a reduction in staff size or company reconfiguration. Other potential competitors have these burdens. Potential collaborators are abundant, project financing is not. The marketing effort will take a year after the launch, so the economy needs to recover in two years for this business to be viable. By that time, many more potential customers will leave the industry from the weight of their debt. The Green Team will be in a position to mobilize and partner with project leaders. Politically, compliance may slack off slightly to spark development; however, the risk management approach largely negates the compliance issue. The social trend is toward greener operations and sustainability awareness. Technology is in place and only improving. The biggest exterior risk is economical. Development needs to get restarted for company survival in the next two years. Marketing Mix Product The service is risk management based sustainable development. The current state-of-the-art is a binary choice of not sustainable or sustainable. The risk management approach involves the lifecycle of materials, the choice of suppliers and the value engineering of a project. Sustainability of materials involves renewability and growing term to replenish supplies. Paper products may best be produced by Malaysian wood, but transportation to Europe creates a green problem. Bamboo might be best for flooring, but that flooring may require replacement more often. The risk management perspective views the useful life and shipping costs rather than the building cost alone. For example, providing paper recycling capacity to the building infrastructure encourages recycling. On site document shredding or newspaper disposal chutes can easily be designed into the floor plan of most occupancies. Risk management incorporates length of product life, built in recyclability, waste reduction and secondary usage into all development decisions. Our international experts have access to suppliers of many materials around the world. One expertise will be to match the best lifecycle material choice with the location of the project. In some cases, marrying two projects for bulk purchases to reduce shipping and waste. By monitoring many projects, extra materials can be sold and shipped to a secondary use rather than simply being discarded. These are additional services we provide our target market. Supply chain management requires constant attention to detail. Shipping and handling not only add cost, but are generally environmentally unfriendly. Choosing the correct supply, supplier and delivery method adds value to any sustainable development. All of these services are forms of value engineering in a context of sustainability. The risk management aspect is reviewing the lifecycle usage, and the likely capacity to replace, recycle, reduce or reuse the chosen materials or methods to protect the future waste stream from the project. This form of value engineering assumes two constants in sustainability ethics: 1. Government intervention and regulation will always become more strict rather than less, so future compliance needs should be anticipated in good design. 2. The market demand will move toward greater sustainability, like industry leaders now trying to position as most sustainable, for example, Xerox. (Reinhardt & Victor 1996) The risk management approach considers these facts thoroughly. Price The price structure for this service is based on three income streams. The fee for service consulting business, the percentage savings supply selection and management business and the commission value engineering service. One project may employ all three services and an average value of service will be 3% of a project. The fee for service consulting business accepts assignments and charges a project fee or a time and expense fee. These services are designed for early project interventions like feasibility studies or attainable level of sustainability or LEEDs studies. If a professional firm wants to increase the power of its bona fides, The Green Team will partner on a consulting fee basis to add more expertise to the project, making the team an acceptable alternative. The percentage savings on supply chain issues allows the customer to use our expertise at a limited risk to find better alternatives in materials and lifecycle waste issues. This area of expertise provides the company with unlimited income potential. In controlling materials, suppliers and cost, a commission is earned on each savings or improvement. An average project may yield a five to ten percent reduction in overall costs or improvements. The Green Team can split those savings and pay for its own services from the client’s perspective. Similar in nature to the supply chain management service, the value engineering service provides alternative design ideas for the project. Our local experts know the prevailing weather conditions, alternative energy sources and markets and local reliable suppliers. Selling this expertise on a commission basis provides an unlimited upside and the service is self sustaining. Xerox found that the European community was ahead of the United States in sustainable, environmental friendly manufacturing techniques. (Reinhardt & Victor 1996) By maintaining an international team of experts, The Green Team should stay on the cutting edge of technology and innovation. Place The internet is a tricky place. Most of the business and service provided by The Green Team could be accomplished from anywhere, and probably will be organized in multiple locations. From a business perspective, The Green Team will need a United States and a European permanent location. For the internet, hosting the website from a physical location in Europe is best. And simply as a function of economics, an office location shared with technical and professional staff is best. The internet site will be hosted from the European office. Frankfort or the surrounding area is favorable because of labor and tax laws, education level of the employee pool and its location in central Europe close to many large cities. Since the company is not a destination for clients except on the internet, any office space will suffice as long as internet service, electrical power and phones are available. In the United States, back-up internet equipment and offices will be located in Richmond, Va. This city is a one day drive from half the United States population. Office rent is low, and services are readily available. If the Frankfort office crashes, the Richmond office can be online quickly. Promotion The promotional campaign will find customers, experts and suppliers. The website will direct each target to its page. The targets will be selected from industry lists and enticed to the site by articles on subject and SEO. Solid leads will be phoned personally or individualized email will be sent. Either way, individual correspondence will bond the prospect to the company. Magazine articles for industry publications will advance the risk management approach to sustainability. The same articles can be placed in Engineering and Architectural professional journals and magazines. About half the budget will be used to target sustainability industry group meetings. Symposia and trade shows allow mass meeting and contact with professionals, suppliers and products. Speaking at these symposia and creating a catchy demonstration booth are keys to name and process recognition. Certainly the two biggest shows in the United States and Europe should be attended with plenty of hand-out material. It is equally important to find local contacts and clients or professional partners. The measurement of success is the extent of the contact list, projects identified as feasible and potential professional partners. These symposia are key to beginning long-term relationships with the correct contacts. By inserting the company plan in people’s minds, word of mouth, the best marketing, can begin. At the end of the symposia, articles positively reviewing the company targets can be published using SEO techniques on line and key word techniques in print. Long-term survivability depends on attaining and maintaining ties to industry associates. Budget & Timeline The marketing budget is split in half. The first half will create and maintain a quality website, updated weekly at a minimum. The second half will be used for travel to symposia and delivering speeches and papers on the subject of sustainability. Symposia cost about 3000 Euros each per person to attend. At least two in the United States and two in Europe in this first year is mandatory. Two people should attend each symposia for the best coverage of the event. That totals 24,000 Euros. Developing a catchy demonstration, providing written materials and give-aways and booth rental will cost an additional 26,000 Euros for the four events. The website design, launch and maintenance will cost about 50,000 Euros per year including some ghostwritten copy and occasional articles. This website must be first class and demonstrate professionalism without intimidation. The website will be launched prior to the company opening to work the kinks out. The SEO articles should draw web hits fairly quickly. At the end of the first quarter of company operations, a good measurement of success would be an on budget routinely maintained website and quality contacts from the first seminar with a game plan to better the next demonstration or strategy for attendance. A good measurement for the first quarter is getting to the near horizontal area of the learning curve. The second quarter measurement of success will be a greater number of hits driving inquiries from the website. The contacts from the web and the two symposia should begin to look impressive, and several developments should be under review or agreements should be sent out for approval. The third quarter should be on budget still with greater penetration into all three target sectors. The web page should be getting close to self sustaining and repeat customer hits should be commonplace. The informational content should be worth review by industry professionals. At the end of the fourth quarter, the web site should be fully self sustaining economically, it should be driving actual fee business and it should still be maintained to the highest quality with fresh material and information. The ROI probably will be negative, but trending positive. The website and symposia should have produced a good catalog of talent and suppliers available for contracts. The Green Team should be sustainable. The ROI on these expenditures is several years down the road. These are tools to open doors and get some word of mouth buzz, which is notoriously slow, but yields great long-term results. References French, HF 1995, ‘Forging a new global partnership’, in L Brown et al. (ed.), State of the World 1995: a Worldwatch Institute report on progress towards a sustainable society, NY Worldwatch Institute, NY, pp. 170–89. Reinhardt & Victor 1996, ‘Xerox: design for the environment’, Business management and the natural environment: cases & text, pp. 3–124–3–147. Reinhardt, F & Victor, R 1996, Business management and the natural environment, South- Western College Publishing, Cincinnati, Ohio, pp. 1.53–1.69. United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD) 1997, Programme for the further implementation of Agenda 21 – adopted by the special session of the General Assembly 23–27 June 1997, viewed 20 August 1997, . United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD) 1997, Overall review and appraisal of the implementation of Agenda 21, viewed 12 August 2004, Read More