IT & Entrepreneurship - Essay Example

Business Plan Company Dental Ease. Address: Street Postal Telephone/ Mobile: Fax: Email: Contents Executive Summary4 Business Idea 6 Background 6 Ownership & Company Structure 7 Mission statement 7 Company’s Objectives: 7 Company’s Goals: 8 Financial Goals: 8 Non-Financial Goals 8 Core competencies of the company: 10 Value Proposition 10 Industry Analysis 10 SLEPT Analysis: 10 SGM (Strategic Group Mapping) 12 The Team 12 The Product Or Service 14 Marketing Plan 15 Market analysis: 15 Target Market 15 Total Market Valuation: 16 Market Size Volume: 16 Market share 16 Market Trend 16 Marketing Strategies 16 Sales and distribution strategy 17 Online Marketing 17 Social Media Marketing 18 Events, exhibitions and seminars 18 Competitors analysis 18 SWOT analysis for competitor 19 Strengths: 19 Weakness: 19 Opportunities: 19 Threats: 20 Customers 20 Demographics profile of the customers 20 Agreements and/ or Alliances 21 Sales forecasting 21 Investment Needs 21 Budget 22 Break even analysis 22 Project schedule chart 24 Barriers 26 Profit & Exit 26 References 28 Appendix 29 Resume: 29 Executive Summary Dental Ease will be a website designed especially to cater customers that are in need for dental treatments. Dental treatments for even standard procedures vary greatly in price as each dentist charges according to their experience and the quality of facilities provided. This business will aim to solve the problem of people looking for dental services at affordable rates in their surrounding areas. The website will offer the visitors different dental services deals offered by different doctors, clinics and hospitals and with these deals people can save money on dental services. Dental Ease will have all these prices with any deals or discounts offered on our website from these dentists all across the region for our customers to compare and pay for these availed services easily. Thus, it will be one of its kind business and people will be attracted to this service, as it will not cost them any additional money, but will be helpful in saving money. The Estimated cost of startup is as follows: The company will initially start with a total investment of £30,000. With a budgeted retained earnings after the first 3 years. Calculated ROI of the company is 43.76% which is fairly good. Dental Ease will be targeting customers of all ages and both genders, and the company’s marketing platform would be through social media advertising as this service would be for customers who have access to the internet. Dental Ease unique selling point is that it will enable the customers to compare prices of all the dentists in the region along with their specialty so that they can easily choose the best alternative and save time and money. Business Idea Dental Ease has come up with an idea to design a website, which will include data of all the dentists located in a particular area or region. This website would present information regarding dental clinics where consumers can locate the ones convenient to them differently. These details would be clearly outlined for each dentist including their address, telephone numbers, their clinical specialities, price lists of various standard procedures and any ongoing discount deals. They will also be able make comparisons between their selected clinics through a simple 2-step procedure. As such, there is no other website offering a service like this. Therefore, this would be one of its kinds and beneficial to the consumers who do not have time to survey each clinic individually. This website will enable them to quickly select their desired clinic, save time and help compare clinics within seconds. Background Over the past decade, private and cosmetic dental care has grown to be a large business. Over 29.8 million patients were seen during the past 2 years ending June 2013, indicating an increase of 1.6 million on the March 2006 baseline. With the increase in population, the need for dental care will keep on increasing. However, each dentist has a different charge sheet mostly based on his or her experience and location. These prices vary even for standard procedures. Unfortunately, those giving better or discounted deals are largely being prevented from advertising. Dental care is a unique business and usually people only in need for it go to their local dental clinics. Most of the time people are not aware whether any deals or discounts are being offered. This is because of lack in market transparency that consumers do not find much of a choice as they cannot survey each clinic before getting the medical treatment. For this very reason, Dental Ease has come up with a unique solution that will benefit everyone in need of dental care. Ownership & Company Structure Company name: Dental Ease Company number: 123456789 Value of stock issued: £1 per share (20000 shares in total) Details of Stock Ownership: Josh Anthony 5000 shares of the total value of £5000 Kaurence Evan 5000 shares of the total value of £5000 Scott Ryan 5000 shares of the total value of £5000 Megan Anthony 5000 shares of the total value of £5000 Mission statement Dental Ease is an online 24x7 business for its customers to avail its services anytime they choose since it is catering to people of both genders and all ages. Company’s Objectives: Dental Ease will be a mechanism for comparing prices locally and across regions as well and to provide discounts for dental services. Also the objective is to offer quality dental services at affordable prices. Company’s Goals: Financial Goals: 1. Achieve profitability in the second year. 2. Achieve breakeven in less than 2 years. Non-Financial Goals 1. To offer quality and affordable dental services. 2. To come up with a user-friendly website that everyone can enjoy. Market Audience The audience of the company will be people of all ages and company will attract them by offering discounts and special offers for dental services. SWOT Analysis SWOT analysis for Dental Ease is presented below: Strengths: The company will be having a good PR and dedicated staff Customers would become loyal since the website be user-friendly to help them select the best alternatives. The business model will be one of its kinds. Weaknesses: Employee turnover might be high being a small company. As the website would need to remain active 24x7, employees need to be hired for night shift and these employees might not be as energetic and responsive as the day shift employees. Employees would work in double shifts which will increase the cost. Opportunities: Since it would be one of its kind website, it would be a move towards a completely different industry, providing a win-win situation for all, thus a lot of scopes available. A huge market would be open for business. Since the buying power is low, people now are more careful in selecting between alternatives and, therefore, would wish to avail services of such websites. Increased use of smartphones and easy access to the internet opens many doors for growth. Threats: No barriers to entry, therefore, it would not take long for competitors to enter this industry. Each competitor brings a new threat in terms of more advanced technology and better options for consumers. Price lists need to be regularly updated, or the whole point of this website will be destroyed. Core competencies of the company: The website will be one of its kinds and this will be the core competency of the company. Value Proposition The company will add value to the customers by offering them affordable and discounted dental services. Thus, the business aims to add value to the customers and will save them significant money by utilizing services at cheaper rate. Industry Analysis SLEPT Analysis: Political factors: There have been several scams raised from online businesses, and this could influence the trust of online business. Economic factors: The economy of UK has shown a growth rate of 1.9% in 2013, which is being considered the fastest growth since 2007. Socio-cultural Factors Many people search online for several things including deals and including dentists in their locality. Major portion of the market is not aware of the best alternatives to choose from. They mostly visit dental clinics near to them Technological factors Technology has provided this opportunity to Dental Ease as people tend to search information on the internet. Smartphones and tablets are now replacing laptops. Thus, a large number of users are now switching to mobile apps from websites. Legal factors Dental Ease can be held responsible in case of any uninformed price changes. Porter Analysis Rivals or competitors already in the market: Hospital websites only but mostly without the price lists. Suppliers’ position in the market: Dental Clinics are present at different places with different prices that not everyone is aware of Customers’ purchasing power: Low purchasing power. There is not too many options as they do not know about what other dental clinics are offering and at what prices. Potential competition: Other competitors entering market with the same idea as Dental Ease, but for them to enter, it will take a lot of time and effort and not very easy to cover a lot of clinics or hospitals in a short time. Alternative products or services: Individual websites for each dentist would take a lot of time to compare, and most of the prices of treatment are not mentioned. Thus, it will give Dental Ease, the advantage. SGM (Strategic Group Mapping) Dental Ease Competitors (Hospitals) Weights assigned: 50% 50% Convenience 5 2 Product Line 2 4 CSF 5 4 The Team As this is a private limited company, partners would be the owners of the business. Further, only one director will be appointed as per the requirement of a private limited company. DIRECTOR’S NAME & DESIGNATION COMPETENCY PROFILE Finance Interpreter of financial statements Can evaluate and monitor financial health of the business and identifying warning signals. Financing alternatives Business & project planning and appraisal Sales and Marketing Clear concepts of marketing strategy and achieving target sales. Expert in designing marketing strategy. Setting sales targets and entering into the new markets IT Use of Information Technology as a tool of business management and development Evaluation of IT strategy. Administration Able to change and to align the company’s administration and policies accordingly, merger and acquisition, corporate restructuring, IPO, policy development. Monitor strategic planning and makinnng strategies for implementation. Instilling confidence. Evaluation of results achieved. Company Accountants Ernst & Young 1 More London Place London SE1 2AF London phone: +44 20 7951 2000 fax: +44 20 7951 1245 Company Lawyers Herbert Smith Freehills LLP Exchange House Primrose Street London EC2A 2EG T+44 20 7474 8010 The Product Or Service Dental Ease website will provide the service of helping customers with selecting the best dental clinics in their locality or region. They will be able to compare prices of different treatments, their clinical specialties and take advantage of any special discounts or offers available. Customers will be able to select their desired clinic and dental treatment and checkout from Dental Ease website using their credit card and PayPal. Upon checkout, a voucher will be emailed to them, which will contain details of their purchase. A copy of this voucher would also be sent to the desired clinic to confirm customer and Dental Ease will then pay the clinic after the customer has received the treatment he or she opted for. A 5% fee will be charged to the clinic that was selected based on the total amount of the voucher, and this will be realized as revenue for Dental Ease Company. Dental Ease will not be charging any fees from its customers as the company will be working to minimize cost for them and offer them the most benefit. Other revenue sources will include advertisement from teeth related products such as toothpaste and even dental clinics that would like to present their ads on the website. Their advertisements will be displayed on Dental Ease website about any new offers and promotions, and the company will earn revenue from these ads. As this is a social welfare project, Dental Ease is also expecting donations and charities from professional bodies. Marketing Plan Market analysis: As Dental Ease is a business that is focused on the customers, therefore, the basic concern of the company is to help customers choose the right clinic for their treatment. The company will focus on doing research and will continuously analyze and evaluate the market and what consumers are looking for. Before starting the project, the market research and analyzing the market and its potential will be important in ensuring the success of the plan. Target Market It is important for the company to formulate the marketing strategies and prepare a complete marketing plan to achieve the marketing objectives (Kotler Armstrong, Wong, and Saunders, 2008). For this purpose, identifying the target market is important. Dental Ease aims to target mostly internet users regardless of age and gender. The clients of the company would include a majority of parents as they are the ones to select which clinics to go to keeping in mind their budget. Thus, it can be said that the main focus would be on the consumers from 20 years and above. The average income of these people will be £4,000 per month. Total Market Valuation: The total market valuation or the potential of the market is expected to be around £150,000 annually. Market Size Volume: The market size volume for the project would be approximately 1,250 subscribers in the first year. The total targeted consumers are around 10,000 and the company expects to achieve a penetration rate of 12.5% in the initial year. Thus, the market size would be 1,250 consumers. Market share With around 1250 subscribers in the first year, and the average value would be around £500 annually. Thus, the market value would be around 625,000. Market Trend Consumers have become more attractive towards any discounts or special offers than before. Thus, they tend to attract and purchase goods or services at times even if they do not need them. Therefore, this could be an important strategy for Dental Ease to attract the consumers. In addition to this, the trend of cosmetic dental surgery has increased significantly particularly in people belonging from age group of 20 years to 45 years. This segment can be important in earning significant revenue for the company. Also, other general dental services will also be helpful for the company in earning revenues and by promoting and encouraging consumers, Dental Ease would be able to increase its sales with the passage of time. Marketing Strategies Dental Ease will need to make people aware of its services through brochures at different clinics and other medical facilities (Kotler, and Keller, 2009). Word of mouth will also play an important part in the marketing campaign of the company (Fill, 2009) as the best form of advertising will be through these delighted customers of the company. The goal of the company should be the same as any new company i.e. to reach the maximum number of people to create market awareness (Kotler, 2003). Dental Ease also needs to consider giving some discounts on the treatments to attract more people towards this new platform. This will not just bring the potential customers to the site, but also others, who might later become loyal customer of Dental Ease. Discounts should continue for around two months to get a larger number of visitors on the website. As the company will make more clients, more dental clinics and dentists will be attracted. Therefore, a larger geographical area will be covered as these clinics will increase automatically and thus, the consumer base will increase. Dental Ease will also have a few employees dedicated to customer relations so as to know if the clients are satisfied from the service and to rate the clinics for others to know about the quality of treatment offered. This will also help Dental Ease to build customer trust. The marketing budget summary has been outlined in the financials section presented in the appendix. Sales and distribution strategy Sales will incur from the website. Therefore it is important to keep the website up to date on a regular basis. Dental Ease aims to dedicate some of the employees of the company constantly to stay in touch with all the clinics on the list of Dental Ease and be informed of any price changes. Online Marketing The company will use different online marketing platforms such as online banner advertisements, Google Adwords, Google analytics, online Classified posting and other tools to market the company’s offerings. Social Media Marketing Some of the social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter will also prove to be one of the most successful channels to advertise the offerings and to engage the customers (Smith, and Zook, 2011). Dental Ease will use these marketing platforms to convey the message to the consumers and interact with them. Events, exhibitions and seminars Dental Care will also keep organizing events for dentists collaborating with dental product manufacturing firms to retain these clinics on its website as well as to engage the customers. Competitors analysis Dental Ease is one of a kind of business and hence the company will not be facing any direct threat from competitors. However, after Dental Ease has entered in the market and since this service will come in demand, some of the competitors will start appearing. Dental Ease’s main focus will be on quality of service and keeping prices fully updated. Unless customer does not feel that he or she has received a good value for service, he will not return. Therefore, Dental Ease will ensure that customers who go through the site receive the best service for the price paid. Since the company will be getting more customers to the dentists, they would urge the dentists and clinics to improve their services as better as they can so that their customers keep returning to them. Customer relations staff of Dental Ease will be trained to assist customers in the best possible manner. Other competitors will also need time to build customer trust which Dental Ease will already have, and Dental Ease will take the first-mover advantage. Dental Ease will however face indirect competitors which include hospital websites displaying information about their dentists and prices. Since these will also have details about every other doctor as well, customers will find it time consuming to search for their treatments. Apart from this, the customers will also have to open each hospital’s site individually to compare the price lists. Therefore, Dental Ease being the only ones with time saving solution for this hassle would have a competitive edge. SWOT analysis for competitor UK Health Care is a competitor for the company. SWOT analysis for the company is presented below: Strengths: Along with dental treatments, other treatments will also be given since the hospital would consist of other specialty doctors. Weakness: Dentists at hospitals might charge more since hospital fees would also be included in their fees. Also, not all hospitals display price lists on websites Opportunities: They can make their services better to attract more customers through reduced waiting time for their customers by appointing more doctors as sometimes appointments are hard to get on an earlier date. Threats: Some customers like more one on one attention from their doctor. This cannot be provided by a hospital due to the large amounts of patients present all the time. Customers The customers of the company will be people looking for dental service. The target customers of Dental Ease would be the general people of age group around 20 years and above. However, the company will also be promoting general dental services, therefore in a broader way it could include almost every people of any age group and gender. In addition to this, there has been a growth in dental surgery and thus, people of age group from 20 years to 45 years are more inclined to use such services. Therefore, this can be another important customer segment for the company. the average income of the customers is expected to be around £4,000 per month. Though, it would also be include people above and below 20% of the income. Dental Ease will offer these customer segments services at special rates. Demographics profile of the customers Demographics of the customers would be: Age 20 years and above Gender: both male and female Location: throughout the country, company will have dentists from different parts of the country so people can select the one close their home Education: computer savvy and knowledgeable Average income: £4,000 per month ± 20% Agreements and/ or Alliances Dental Care will have agreements with the clinics on the website for superior services to its customers. Also, Dental Care would request the dentists to attend the customers of Dental Care as they do not have to wait much since Dental Care will be offering these clinics a larger exposure as their customer base. Dental Care will also have agreements with dentists to keep its prices lower than what they offer to others since Dental Care will be giving them a larger chunk of the audience to attend to. Sales forecasting   Year 2014 Year 2015 Year 2016 Sales Forecast       Revenue from Dental Subscriptions £ 58,700.00 £ 64,570.00 £ 67,798.50 Revenue from advertisement and donations £ 16,300.00 £ 20,500.00 £ 31,200.00 Investment Needs Following will be the investments needed as per the budget set in financials. Budget The budget of the company will be marketing expenses £8,300. Website development along with hosting would cost around £6,000. Development of mobile app will cost the company £3,000. Furniture and office supplies would worth £980 and £6,200 respectively. Other costs are also presented in the table below: Break even analysis Break even analysis is calculated using the data below: Year 2014 Year 2015 Year 2016 Total Fixed Cost £ 60,550.00 £ 60,550.00 £ 60,550.00 Total Variable Cost £ 21,000.00 £ 26,300.00 £ 34,200.00 Sales Revenue £ 75,000.00 £ 85,070.00 £ 98,998.50 Project schedule chart   Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7 Month 8 Month 9 Month 10 Month 11 Month 12 Business Idea                         Finalizing the idea                         Doing Market Research                         Analyzing the potential of the market                         Identifying the target market                         Formulating Marketing and promotional strategies                         Sales distribution                         Online Marketing strategies                         Budget                         Budget plan                         Idea Implementation                         Barriers Dental Care offers unique services, and as most of the customers would identify the services as time and money saving, it has a greater chance of being a success. After Dental Care enters the debut, it would take some time for the competitors to show up like presenting detailed list of dental clinics on the website in short term requires a lot of effort and motivation by a dedicated team to negotiate well with all the vendors. A few ethical issues can arise as medical treatments cannot be guaranteed to fix the problems. Moreover, at times it takes longer than usual for certain treatments and hence fees need to be revised, and the customer tends to be uncomfortable for paying more than agreed on. Since Dental Care would also have an option for its customers to rate the services they received, some dentists would be reluctant to join the website thinking that a bad rating if ever received, would not show a good sign their reputation. Profit & Exit As the business will start showing good profits, outside investors will turn towards buying out the stocks from existing investors. Friendly Sale: This is a great way to “cash out." Dental Care can pay investors, pay our self, take some time off, and then opt for another business plan once Dental Ease becomes a success in the market. The ideal buyer of the business would be someone who has more skills and interest on the operational side of the business and will be ready to pay a little extra on the investments. Make it our cash cow. If the business is stable and keeps earning a good return, Dental Care will pay off investors, and find someone that can be trusted to keep running the business while the management uses the remaining cash to develop the next great idea. This way the management can retain ownership and enjoy the annuity. References Fill, C. (2009). Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and Content (5th Ed.) London: FT Prentice Hall Kotler P., Armstrong, G.,Wong, V. and Saunders, J. (2008). Principles of Marketing (5th European Ed.) London: FT Prentice Hall Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall. Kotler, P., and Keller, K. (2009). A Framework for Marketing Management. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Smith, P., and Zook, Z. (2011). Marketing Communications: integrating offline and online with social media. London, UK: Kogan Page. Appendix Resume: Alfred Mark Author Street Address 1253 – 1234 Phone: +113 51 695 311 E-mail: AlfredMark@hotmail.com Academic Degree: Masters in Business administration Professional Profile: Results oriented. Adaptable experience in IT environment. Technical Skills: Operating systems: knowledge with Windows 8 and 7 . Server Software and applications: Windows server 2003. Extensive experience with CMS such as Joomla, xhtml, CSS – Web Design and development. Material control store applications - Server for inventory management. McAfee Security enterprise edition – Server for security maintenance on workstations. Micros Point of Sale Workstations - Server for centralized reporting of Cost of sales, pricing, menu engineering. Fidelio Front Office/Reservations Management System - Server for reservations mostly used in hotels. Photoshop CS5, Corel Draw Graphics suite 12.0 and Dreamweaver. Proficient with Microsoft Office products. Extensive experience with Loan Performer – Micro Finance Management Software Network Technologies: Wide experience with TCP/IP networking. Understanding of TCP/IP family protocols including experience with DHCP. Professional Experience: January 2013 to Now: Manager at IRehman Dent Co Web design and development. Implementation, Support and troubleshooting of LAN and Wi-Fi hotspots, Switches and Routers. Setting up of wireless access points for individual businesses. Technical support of data systems and infrastructure. Installation and configuration of Loan Performer – Micro Finance Management Software. January 2011 to December 2012 Dubois Hotel & Casino Position: ICT support Compiling and maintaining company assets (computers, printers and faxes) inventory. Carrying out preventive maintenance on various IT equipment and software. Troubleshooting for tone and data on faceplates. (Telephone) Help desk support using remote desktop connection. Setting up and running of McAfee security Enterprise Edition, virus scan and McAfee Agent monitor. January 2002 to December 2010: Anarchy Hotel & Casino Position: ICT support Hardware installation and deployment, including PC, printers, and network switches in ICT department. Phone system configuration and maintenance. Hardware installation and deployment, including PC, printers, and network switches in ICT department. Phone system configuration and maintenance Education History/ Qualifications: Level of Education: Graduate University Masters in Business and Information Technology degree - Saskatchewan University of Business and Technology Bachelor of Science in Information Technology degree - Saskatchewan University of Business and Technology Read More