Business strategy plan- Capstone project

The cover sheet presents identifying information, such as the business name, address, phone number and who the principals are

Executive Summary

Who We Are

What We Sell

Who We Sell To

Financial Summary

Financial Highlights

Company

Company Overview

Introduce the company:

· Name

· Location

· What it does

· Who owns it

· Why do you think it will be a success

Mission Statement

Mission Statement

A clear Mission Statement:

· State the vision: where do you want to be?

strategy

Summary statement regarding the strategy to fulfill your Mission : How will you get there?

Locations and Facilities

Provide the reational of your location & facilities choice:

· Explain your specific choice of Location & key Facilities

· How does your choice serve the corporate mission?

Management Team

Provide a rationale for your choice of the specific management team.

Why is this a good team?  Skills and complementarity, Corporate culture, Leadership

Products and Services

Products and Services

A detailed analysis of your product(s) and/or service(s) e.g. principles of product/service design like a House of Quality, prototype products

Is there a service-product mix?

Are you expecting to expand your product/service offering in the future and how? What will be the objective for the expansion?

SWOT Analysis

PEST Analysis

PEST analysis of the general business environment:

· Politics: How the political system, institutions, government regulation, possible corruption,  labour & corporate governance laws. political parties & attitudes that affect your business

· Economics: The international/national economic outlook (current and future), government policies, financial system and access to capital, taxation & subsidies, exchange rates, interest rates, macroeconomic risks affecting your business

· Socio-cultural: Trends that affect your product that might include cultural issues (Europeanisation, openness, women, minorities, youth etc), demographic issues (population growth, population ageing, urbanisation etc), educational skills, local habits & cultural traits, entrenched mentalities, social classes/groups and their attitude to your product

· Technology: access to technology, availability of tech-skilled employees, R&D issues, population open to technology related products, technological infrastructures, tech literacy of population.

Industry Analysis

This is the first part of your 5-Forces analysis focusing on Demand & Suppliers:

· Demand: Market size (industry turnover), growth prospects, purchasing power of consumers and broad characteristics, market segments, elasticity of demand, product differentiation, buyers information availability, product distribution channels/infrastructures, Government regulation issues,

· Suppliers: availability of raw materials and other inputs, costs of materials, labour costs & union power, characteristics of suppliers (market segmentation, competition), market types of suppliers and their bargaining power, distribution channels, substitutes for inputs, reliability of suppliers (prompt delivery and lead times), quality of delivered inputs, ability to collaborate & network with suppliers, terms of payment.

Competitors

This is the second part of your 5-forces analysis relating to competition:

· Competitive products: substitutes from other industries, switching costs for customer, pricing of substitutes, structure of competition & market type, complementarity with other products

· Existing competitors: the overall competitive structure of the industry, market type and segmentation, the dominant players and their strategies, key competitive advantages of existing players, sustainability of their competitive advantage via innovation, flexibility via customisation-product variety, discount policies, importance of advertising, on-line versus off-line competition.

· Potential competitors: potential new entrants to the market (domestic and foreign), potential evolution of market type, customer brand loyalty to existing products, barriers to entry (patents, rights), capital requirements for entrants, government policies (tariffs, licenses), industry profitability as incentive to entry, product distribution & other operational barriers

Corporate Operations

Strategy & Operations

State and explain your choice of competitive strategy:

Having defined your product/service and market type and other market characteristics (PEST, 5-Forces) you are able to evaluate your Value Chain versus competitors so as to broadly define your competitive strategy (low cost, differentiation, response, customisation, mixed strategy).

The next step is to use your strategy as a guide to achieve your Strategic Fit i.e. making your corporate operations compatible to this strategy in the following subsections

Production

How are you going to produce your product?

· The production processes to be employed (method of production)

· Choice of outsourcing modules and costs

· Capital/technology, Land and Labour to be used

· Cost structure characteristics (choice of scale, efficient scale, costs of alternative production methods)

Quality Management

TQM techniques to be employed to safeguard quality:

Corporate processes and TQM models to be employed for quality management

At which stages of the corporate operations is quality management to be applied and which tools of quality management will be used

Quality management for a service and options for rescuing the service when things go wrong

How will quality management serve your strategy?

Supply Chain & Logistics

Supply chain management:

· Supply chain strategy: many, few, vertical integration, virtual integration

· Inbound and outbound logistics issues (getting inputs to production and outputs to final market e.g. transport, distribution channels)

· Setting up a corporate network across the supply chain? What is required?

· Potential for collaboration & co-innovation with supply chain partners

· Inventory requirements,  purchase discounts, access to materials, lead times, seasonality issues

· Inventory strategies & management e.g. striving for a JIT system? Level of inventories (final product /modules/raw materials)I nventory system to be used

· Purchasing inputs and choice of supply chain partners (selection criteria)

· Cooperation to achieve savings e.g. joint purchases

· Ensuring the smooth functioning of the supply chain e.g. bullwhip effect, trust, coordination, forecasting

Target Market

Market Overview

In this section you are to segment the market.  This means, slice the market into smaller groups (segments) and describe each one of them.  Use:

1.  Demographic and geographic segmentation

2.  Benefit segmentation

3.  Psychographic and lifestyle segmentation

Market Trends

Examine the trends in order to take them into account when you are choosing your target market/s.

Market Needs

Try to relate this section to the Market Overview section.  See what needs exist out there and which your company or business idea can satisfy.  Decide whch segment/s you are going to address and define them on the basis of the previous section.  This will be your target market.

Market Growth

You do not necessarily need to address a growing market.  It is, however, a substantial advantage when you do so.  Examine your target market choice in terms of growth so as to incorporate in your planning not only current demand but future demand as well.

Key Customers

Try to prioritize your target market segment/s in terms of importance to the success of your revenue and profit objectives.  Key customers may be determined in terms of their importance in things like opinion leadership, volume of expected purchasing, expected loyalty (i.e. high switching costs), ease of access and others.  This prioritazing will help you develop the marketing stategy section so as to maximize effectiveness by primarily focusing on the key customers.

Strategy and Implementation

Marketing Plan

Positioning

Product

· objectives

· product characteristics

· product benefits

· product line

· warranty

· cost factors and cost

Pricing

· objectives

· price and price range for product lines

· ways of payment

· discount policy and discount promotional strategy

· cost

Promotion

· objectives

· target market/s for communication

· general description of communication mix (justify in relation to decision making)

· above the line communication

· below the line communication

· digital communication

· cost, reach, frequency

Distribution

· objectives

· points of sale (geographical, content, image)

· time availability

· cost

Milestones

Financial Plan

Sales Forecast

Sales Forecast

About the Sales Forecast

Personnel Plan

Personnel Table

About the Personnel Plan

Budget

Budget Table

About the Budget

Startup Costs

Profit and Loss Statement

Profit and Loss Statement

About the Profit and Loss Statement

	19

CONFIDENTIAL - DO NOT DISSEMINATE. This business plan contains confidential, trade-secret information and is shared only with the understanding that you will not share its contents or ideas with third parties without the express written consent of the plan author.

Appendix

Sales Forecast

Sales Forecast Table (With Monthly Detail)

Personnel Plan

Personnel Table (With Monthly Detail)

Budget

Budget Table (With Monthly Detail)

Profit and Loss Statement

Profit and Loss Statement (With Monthly Detail)

CONFIDENTIAL - DO NOT DISSEMINATE. This business plan contains confidential, trade-secret information and is shared only with the understanding that you will not share its contents or ideas with third parties without the express written consent of the plan author.