Implementing a Strategic Plan

A Strategic Approach

Vision

To instill the culture of reading amongst people and provide quality and reliable services ensuring efficiency, professionalism, and timeliness.

Mission statement

To facilitate and support a dynamic, market-driven culture of reading by issuance and provision of reading space and materials to all students, professionals, and people whose hobby is in books and information-seeking.

Goals and objectives

1. Sensitize and promote the culture of reading by 10% by the end of the day.

1. To support and offer education facilities by ensuring that people get knowledge that will enhance their potential by at least 5 %.

1. Increase market share from 0% to 5% at least and achieve sufficient profit to finance business growth.

Strategy for growth

The business will first open its door to all during the summer holiday for most students. This is intended first to sensitize on children who will have closed school, and there will be minimal tuition classes that are common when schools break for the holiday. In this way, parents will be attracted to find out what the venture is all about considering that many parents want their children to be engaged during long holidays. It will also target college students and professionals who would wish to get references from institutions of higher learning, but due to the time of operations of these institutes, they do not access their libraries. To be in the market the business should offer the best service as much as possible. They should have good relations with the clients and strive to improve over time. It will use the school heads to let the students and parents know of its opening.

Posters and leaflets will be circulated to surrounding colleges and others will be issued to people in public places such as the bus stops and churches.

Service delivery

· The staff that comprise of the managers and subordinate staff.

· Business structure, that is, the building itself.

1. The staff.

This includes the managers and other personnel comprising; librarian, receptionist, watchmen.

The managers which include the director and the finance manager will do the following;

Responsibilities & Duties

· Planning all duties to be performed

· Recruiting and promoting staff

· Ensure proper record management

· Creating positive conducive environment for both the customers and employees

· To handle all aspects of library operations

· To assist customers to find the information they need

· To develop and index databases

· To analyze and plan for future information needs

· To provide information on competitors or new developments affecting the field

· To select and purchase materials from publishers, wholesalers and distributors

· To supervise library assistant

The finance manager;

· Coordination of financial activities, while ensuring proper records are maintained

· Process all payments due to employees, service providers, and bills

· Ensure proper accounting and control of expenditure

· Ensure that statutory deductions are remitted to the relevant authorities by the statutory provisions.

· Ensure that income tax returns are accurately done and dispatched to the relevant authorities on time.

Other personnel

The business will later employ some personnel with skills to help to run the business effectively. They will engage the services of Secretary/Reception, Assistant Librarian, and Watchmen whose duties and responsibilities and qualifications will be as follows;

Assistant Librarian

We intend to source for a Diploma holder in library services. This is because the core business is books and library services that will require an additional employee to assist the library director. The officer must have experienced to enable continuity of the services without spending too many resources in induction and training. We intend to recruit one of the major library services whose skills will help accelerate the business operations.

The secretary /receptionist

Will handle incoming customers. The employee will be responsible for communicating with both internal and external parties by managing the front desk. She will play the role of a go-between the clients and the directors/ librarian. Their major duty will be to respond to customers’ queries and redirecting them as appropriate. They will also be responsible for maintaining cleanliness, flowers and to ensure that the office space/rooms are well kept for a good image. The person specification will include academic qualification of ‘O’ level and professional qualifications of secretarial/front office management with at least two years’ experience and excellent interpersonal and communication skills. They must also be team player and have computer literacy.

Watchmen

The business will employ a watchman who will be expected to guard the business 24/7. The proposed hiring of watchmen has been considered as it has been found to be cheaper to hire than outsource for the service.

2. The building itself.

The business will be in a four-story building, which composes of the ground floor of approximately 130msq. 10msq will be used as a bookshop 20sqm will be used as an office for management issues, 80sqm for library services, 10msq for the conference room, 5msq for storage and the other 5msq will be the reception area. Since this is a service industry, the offices will require modifications of great manner as places such as the resting rooms must be conducive to enable those who are visiting feel at peace in a serene environment that is different from the usual place where the clients are used too. The colors of the walls will be light pink with the light blue parts. These colors will attract both young children and the old since bright colors invite a warm feeling. Also, there will be sufficient air conditioning and fans to enable free circulation of air. Lastly, lighting will be sufficiently provided by natural sunlight and electricity.

3. Internet connectivity

Providing connectivity is essential in this business. The business will ensure there is access to the internet this is because research is necessary for fast new ideas and innovations. This will attract the youth since we live in a digital world and everyone needs connectivity.

Support components

· Parents’ whose children will be visiting the library.

· The government through the ministry of education

· Finally sponsors who will be interested.

1. The parents.

The parents will play a role in encouraging their children to visit the library and also by paying for the books borrowed and other services that will be offered in the library.

2. The government.

The government through the ministry of education will provide necessary license and documents for the official running of the business. The government also to encourage a reading society will organize scholarships for exemplary students who show skills in books and research.

3. Sponsors.

Another support component will be sponsors who will play a big role in the business. Sponsors will give us free books and computers among other reading materials that will help our clients to carry out research and studies smoothly and efficiently.

Approach to maintain the strategy

We aim at maintaining the mentioned strategy through the current social media specifically: - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, among others. This is because the current society is mostly into social media and then there will be our own innovative and existing up-to-date website which will be giving necessary information to both our clients and sponsors.

The services which include, serene space for reading, books journals, magazines daily newspapers and the Gazette for referencing, bookshop for sale of books, borrowing of books at a fee, internet services at a fee, will be up to date and comprehensive to meet the needs of our customers and to maintain customer loyalty

In this part, we shall look at the way the business shall grow from scratch to the desired level to realize the effective and non-effective strategy and therefore make necessary adjustments.

References

Bruce, L. D. (1981). A Reappraisal of Roman Libraries in the" Scriptores Historiae Auguste". The Journal of Library History (1974-1987), 16(4), 551-573.

Ehrich, L., Hansford, B., & Ehrich, J. F. (2011). Mentoring across the professions: some issues and challenges..

Murray, S. A. (2009). The library: An illustrated history. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc..