Business plan

jhh19970724

BusinessplanningFormativeeMAN00001I.docx

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Accounting homework help >Business plan

Business planning (MAN00001I)

Proposal and initial feasibility analysis (Formative Assessment)

Team: e.g. B2

Name of business / Enterprise / Team:

UNIFORM

Which seminar group are you in?

e.g. Seminar B 1130 Thursday

Seminar H 1130 Friday

Self-Assessment

As a team, please indicate the degree to which you feel that you have successfully developed your ideas for each section of the document:

Section	Underdeveloped, we’ve still got a lot of work to do	Ok, but some aspects need to be developed more	Well developed, we’re very happy with this aspect
Idea & Business Model	YES
Target Market	YES
Competition and Risks	YES
Team planning	YES

Briefly describe any particular section or aspect that you would like specific feedback on:

Describe the specific sustainability issue your ideas addresses

Fast fashion is harming the planet.

◎The current "fast fashion" business model is encouraging overconsumption and generating excessive waste. One-third of young women in the UK believe that garments worn once or twice to be old.

◎And British consumers sent 300,000 tonnes of textiles for incineration or dumping in landfills in 2018.

◎WRAP estimates that 140 million pounds of clothing are used in landfills each year in the UK.

◎It takes 80 years for clothes to break down in landfills.

◎Every year, 500,000 tons of microfibers enter the ocean.

◎1.2bn tonnes of carbon emissions produced by the global fashion industry a year.

It is expected that the fashion industry, of which fast fashion will become the dominant one, will be responsible for a quarter of the global carbon emissions budget by 2050.

◎The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry on earth.

Harrabin, R. (2018). Fast fashion is harming the planet, MPs say. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45745242 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2020].

Siegle, L. (2019). Fast fashion is on the rampage, with the UK at the head of the charge. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/jun/21/fast-fashion-is-on-the-rampage-with-uk-at-the-head-of-the-charge [Accessed 22 Feb. 2020].

BWSS. (2019). The Problem with Fast Fashion | BWSS. [online] Available at: https://www.bwss.org/fastfashion/ [Accessed 22 Feb. 2020].

wrap (2017). Valuing Our Clothes: the cost of UK fashion.

What is Your Idea?

The second-hand clothing waste produced by fast fashion is an urgent problem to be solved. At the same time, we have observed that more than 90% of schools in the UK need students to wear uniforms. The cost per family is about 212.88 pounds, which is hard for many parents to afford. In order to buy school uniforms, one in six families needs to reduce food and other basic living expenses.

Our organization tries to link the fast fashion issue with the school uniform issue. Collect the second-hand clothes and then reprocess them into low-cost school uniforms affordable for low-income families. In this way, we can protect the sustainable development of the environment and relieve the burden of low-income families.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/school-uniform-increasing-costs-second-hand-495100

Product(s) and/or service(s)

Provide low-cost school uniforms made of second-hand clothing materials.

Describe your Business Model (what will your enterprise do, what will others do, how will people know about you? How will you distribute and sell your product/service? Consider route to market, premises, outsourcing, franchising, distribution, users, influencers, payers, online model)

First of all, our organization will try to collect second-hand clothing materials through various channels. We collect materials mainly made of polyester, acrylic yarn, viscose and natural fibres.

-Cooperation with professional clothing recycling companies such as I：CO. I: CO worked with partners to collect about 17,000 tons of clothing and shoes (about 37 million pounds) in 2015 while recycling 40% of clothing or nearly 15 million pounds.

-Cooperate with charity organizations to acquire second-hand clothing collected by charity organizations

-Work with schools

Purchasing second-hand school uniforms collected by schools at low prices. Or contact parents directly to provide channels for them to donate or sell their children ’s second-hand school uniforms

-Collect clothing scrap generated during clothing manufacturing in garment factories or scrap textiles from other industries.

Then send the raw materials to the garment manufacturing factory for producing the uniforms.

We plan to contact the school directly. At the front stage we may be a direct supplier to 1 or 2 schools for their school uniform shop – then expand into our own shop or more suppliers.

Target market: who will use your product/services? Who will pay you? Why will they pay for/use what you provide?

Direct Customers / Segment (pay you)	Characteristics	What are they looking for?	Estimated Annual Value of Customer/Segment
1.	Schools	Uniforms that provide benefits, while remaining within the dress code regulations by including all items needed within the uniform. They will want their schools’ bespoke on the clothing, which our business will be available to provide.	Average cost of uniforms: £256 per child in primary school. £198 per child in primary school average in large supermarkets. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49090913 Ours is cheaper alternative = Average cost per uniform is £140 As ¾ of British children wear uniform made under ethical and fair trading code = high demand https://ie-today.co.uk/Article/10-school-uniform-statistics/ If we provide to 20% of schools’ children (underestimate): Average number of children in primary schools = 281 https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-schools-get-bigger-as-pupil-population-increases-by-66000/ 56 estimated number of customers per school. Aim of targeting 30 schools = 30 x 56 = Estimated number of customers is 1,680
2.	Parents	Cheaper alternatives to the highly priced school uniforms available with ‘1 in 6 families have to cut down on food and other basic essentials as a result’ (Battersby, 2019). Clothing that is practical, hardwearing and easy laundering (Connelly, 2019) This is particularly with primary school children, who may need a new uniform annually due to child growth.


Indirect Customers / Segment (use your service but someone else pays you)	Primary school children	Comfortable and practical clothing. Primary school children are at a young age of accepting what their parents want them to wear, making the parent the more challenging customer to persuade.

Direct and Indirect Competitors

Competitor (or alternative) Name	Strengths	Weaknesses
Uniform Direct	Across a wide base of the country	Uniforms fairly costly
Total Clothing	Large company
Brigade Clothing	Offer more items than just purely school uniforms e.g. hoodies for school trips
Stevensons	Exceptionally large company Works with lower income students as well
Supermarkets	Can deliver items at a cheap cost Well known Large market share across the industry	Don’t offer bespoke products

How will you compete with them?

Key Risks: what are the key risks for your enterprise? What would put your idea in jeopardy? What might you do to mitigate each risk? (e.g. new entrants; competition; regulations; social or technology trends; seasonality; over-dependence)

· New entrants unlikely to have a significant impact, as it is already a fairly competitive market, only likely to cause issues if they bring alongside their entry significant advancement to technology and are highly innovative

Ø Mitigation: Maintain up to date with advancements in technology that may impact our industry

· Fairly competitive markets, lots of schools already have links with existing providers. Furthermore, companies such as Asda and Sainsburys offer cheap alternatives for school uniforms which are difficult to compete against as they are exceptionally well-known

Ø Mitigation: By using recycled fabric gives us the ability to produce the school uniforms at a lower cost, thus making them more attractive to consumers

· The EU has aligned laws in all member countries with Textile Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on fibre names and related labelling and marking of the fibre composition of textile products. This was done to protect consumer interests and eliminate potential obstacles to the proper functioning of the internal market.

Ø General obligation to state the full fibre composition of textile products

Ø All products containing at least 80% by weight of the textile fibres, including raw, semi-worked, worked, semi-manufactured, semi-made and made up products are covered by the regulation

Ø As UK exits the EU possibility that these regulations may alter and thus may free or restrict trade which could have a significant impact

Ø Mitigation: Maintain consistent checking of potential changes and updates to regulations

· Seasonality, September period likely to have a high volume of sales, likely to fall across other months as there is much less demand for school uniforms

Ø Mitigation: Ensure the firm and suppliers are prepared to deal with large influxes of business in the summer months and adjust employment numbers in accordance with periods of high demand (seasonal workforce contracts)

Ø Mitigation: Also consider looking particularly at schools who have summer and winter uniforms offers the capacity for two clear periods of high demand as opposed to one, thus securing increased sales across a greater period of time

· Highly dependent on people recycling fabric and on the outsourcing of the recycled fabric and production of the school uniforms

Ø Mitigation: Ensure there is no over reliance on just one particular supplier, have a range of suppliers or possible suppliers to ensure in the worst-case scenario the business is not completely reliant on one individual firm

References:

https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/fashion/textiles-clothing/legislation_en

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/513963/BIS-16-193-textile-labelling-regulations-guidance.pdf

What assumptions are you likely to need to make? (maximum 3).

· Cost quotes as business can be fairly secretive

· Technological advances

· Exact processes for production

BWSS. (2019). The Problem with Fast Fashion | BWSS. [online] Available at: https://www.bwss.org/fastfashion/ [Accessed 22 Feb. 2020].

wrap (2017). Valuing Our Clothes: the cost of UK fashion.

Battersby, M. (2019). School uniform costs are on the rise and pupils’ parents are forced to turn to second-hand clothes. Inews. (Online). Available at: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/school-uniform-increasing-costs-second-hand-495100

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49090913