Homework answers / question archive / WEEK 4: ASSESSMENT 1 Develop a Business Plan Business Function and Procedures (UU-MBA-714-ZM-15738) STUDENT NUMBER: R1905D8406910 LECTURE NAME: MARIA GEORGAKALOU April, 2020 Table of Contents BUSINESS PLAN

WEEK 4: ASSESSMENT 1 Develop a Business Plan Business Function and Procedures (UU-MBA-714-ZM-15738) STUDENT NUMBER: R1905D8406910 LECTURE NAME: MARIA GEORGAKALOU April, 2020 Table of Contents BUSINESS PLAN

Business

Share With

WEEK 4: ASSESSMENT 1 Develop a Business Plan Business Function and Procedures (UU-MBA-714-ZM-15738) STUDENT NUMBER: R1905D8406910 LECTURE NAME: MARIA GEORGAKALOU April, 2020 Table of Contents BUSINESS PLAN........................................................................................................................................................................2 Introduction.............................................................................................................................................................................2 Vision, Mission and Core Values............................................................................................................................................3 Strategic Goals and Objectives..............................................................................................................................................3 Governance..............................................................................................................................................................................4 MARKET RESEARCHES.........................................................................................................................................................4 Situational Analysis - TOWS..................................................................................................................................................5 Threats..................................................................................................................................................................................5 Opportunities.......................................................................................................................................................................5 Weaknesses...........................................................................................................................................................................5 Strengths...............................................................................................................................................................................5 INDUSTRY ANALYSIS..............................................................................................................................................................6 Competition..............................................................................................................................................................................6 Target Market and Products..................................................................................................................................................6 MARKETING PLAN.................................................................................................................................................................7 Promoting and Advertising HandyMan................................................................................................................................7 INVESTMENT AND PROFITABILITY..................................................................................................................................7 Capital Requirement...............................................................................................................................................................7 Breakeven analysis..................................................................................................................................................................7 INVESTORS, ECONOMICAL GAINS AND RATIONALIZATION...................................................................................7 ACTION PLAN...........................................................................................................................................................................8 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................................................8 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................................................9 APPENDIX 1.............................................................................................................................................................................10 1|Page BUSINESS PLAN Introduction HandyMan is an on call app for requesting the services of a handyman. HandyMan seeks to bring together a number of handymen and service seekers. By leveraging on technology, these handymen could be called upon when a consumer requires their services. HandyMan is a product to be designed and developed by three friends who after their respective ordeals they had with their respective handymen they contracted. Not all, the group of three friends also have had separate discussions with people who find it frustrating and difficult in engaging handymen. Some of these individuals live in Ghana and outside of the country. With our HandyMan app and web services, users can request for the services of a handyman and would be assured of receiving professional services at an affordable price. Also, it would offer a one stop shop for all kinds of handymen services ranging from carpentry, masonry, plumbing, locksmith, horticulture & landscaping, cleaning, on-call-househelps, etc. With HandyMan, users would not have to worry about who I can get to resolve my issues for me. Users can always within 24hours a day, 7 days of the week, a user can be served. The HandyMan will bring to its users access to a wide range of services and service providers as well access to users who requires their services. The HandyMan app would be accessible through the use on an android and ios apps, website for those who do not have smartphones and via a short code through the use of an offers is centered around onboarding of SGs on its network that is accessed either through an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code on a feature phone or non-smartphone. To enable a user to be enrolled to use the HandyMan app, every user would be required to have an account on which they would use to request for services. This would be achieved through the acquisition of some personal identifiable data such as name, address, date of birth, email address, and a contact number. These data would be acquired in accordance to the Data Protection Acts and all applicable laws required by HandyMan to comply within every country it is launched. Furthermore, since the application provides services to two different types of users, handymen who wish to join the application would be also required to provide some form of personal data and that of a police clearance report to attest that the service provider does not have any criminal records. This is a requirement by the National Communications Authority as well as per the Ghana’s Electronic Communications Act. The HandyMan service would provide a one stop shop for service providers to provide services to users on the platform. When a user requires the services of a carpenter, a plumber, electrician, etc. they would launch the application on their phones or utilize the USSD service or go to our website and login to their account. Once they are granted access, they would navigate to the services section and select the service they require. A number of service providers would be presented to the user in the order of service providers that are closer to them to the one furthest to them with their service ratings tagged to them. This would then give the user the opportunity to select the service provider of their choice. Once than a notification would be sent to the service provider to accept the service or reject depending on their current engagements. Once accepted, the service provider would then follow up with a call to give you their estimated time of arrival. After the service provider arrives, the estimates would be processed within the app and the user would accept or reject if it is beyond their budget from within the app before work would be carried out. At the end of the work, users make payments on the app and then also rates the service provider on the quality, cleanliness and timeliness of the work done. The HandyMan business plan is consequently developed with the intention to deliver the tactical roadmap of the application and sustain the business to achieve its planned objectives. It is imperative to note that a business plan is very key due to the fact that it details all the strategies the business would use 2|Page to achieve its strategic goals set out in the plan. Without this per (Kotler, 2011) attests to the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin that if you fail to plan, it implies you have planned to fail. In the same way a business that does not have a business plan is planning to fail. Vision, Mission and Core Values Vision We strategize to increasingly develop HandyMan into being the foundation of the municipals we serve. Our objective is to be Africa’s extremely needed and trustworthy application of home repairs services providers. Mission To build a sustainable home services business that would unleash the potential in our handyman services provision, deliver an excellent service, develop handymen to the utmost professionals and provide innovative services to every environment in which we operate. Core Values Our core values which have been carved to support both our vision and mission statements are: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Provision of an exceptional services to our users Treating the homes of our users as our own with diligence and care Considering best options for users in all our service provision Support users in maintaining their homes in a bid to add value to it through our services. Providing our users with reasonable and right price evaluations Treating our users, service providers and other stakeholders respectfully We would develop a robust, long-term users as well as stakeholder relationship Perform our Corporate Social Responsibilities within every environment we find ourselves. Strategic Goals and Objectives Our goals and objectives are categorized into three. Short, Medium and Long terms. Our short term goals and objectives are as follows: Acquire One Million users from Ghana in the next six months to 1 year on the platform. Acquire One Hundred Thousand service providers on the platform. Employ and train HandyMan employees to handle the affairs of the organization. Signup Five Hundred tools and equipment dealers who would provide our handymen the tools and parts that would be required to service our users. ? Make the name of HandyMan the household name in the whole of Ghana within year of its lunch. ? ? ? ? Our medium term goals and objectives are as follows: ? Breakeven with regards to our profit and loss accounts in the next three years. ? Grow our user base by another One Million, Service providers to Five Hundred Thousand and tools and equipment services provider to Ten Thousand by the third year of our services. ? Acquire service vans to be used by our handymen to enable them move around easily. 3|Page Our long term goals and objectives are: ? To start making profits in the next five years of our existence ? Grow outside of Ghana to other African countries starting with Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, etc. ? Grow our brand to become synonymous to quality handymen service provision ? Achieve a 25% year on year profit growth ? Achieve year on year return on equity by 15% ? Achieve earnings per share rate of 5% annually. Governance HandyMan is a registered company in Ghana under the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992). HandyMan is owned by three friends as stated earlier and has an equal shareholding structure of 30% each with the remaining 10% given to projects under our corporate social responsibility and charity. At HandyMan we have strong policy on adherence to all applicable laws and regulations locally and international. HandyMan is registered with the Ghana Revenue Authority for corporate, employee and value added tax (VAT). Due to the fact that we at HandyMan would collect, store and process personal data, are obligated to obtained Data Processing License from the Data Protection Authority to comply with the regulations set in both the local data protection laws as well as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and all other international data protection acts. HandyMan would also have to adhere to international standards such as ISO 27001 – Information Security Management Systems (ISMS), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCIDSS) due to the fact that payment via the use of payment cards and other medium such as Mobile Money, Bank Transfers, etc. HandyMan would constitute a Board of Directors (BoD) that would steer the strategies of the business by instituting policies and the strategic direction. The BoD entrust the operations of the business to the management by giving them agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and objectives. Appendix 1 shows HandyMan’s organizational structure. KPIs and objectives would as indicated above be grouped into three main terms namely short, medium and long terms. According to Archibald et al (2012:23) strategies establishes and organizational business objectives. Hence HandyMan would greatly implement an emergent strategy design procedure as it would empower the business for convergent performance and mutual involvement in the strategic design. (Naffziger et al, 1999). MARKET RESEARCHES HandyMan conducted a market research to give us a clear insights into the industry we are venturing. The research included the identification of our major stakeholders, identifying our key competitors both direct and indirect and key partners and getting a grip on the industry trends, who are our main movers and shakers in the industry. HandyMan also did a research on its main ideas and to understand our weaknesses, what type of clientele we would be looking at, which areas in the country we would like to concentrate on, what our clients would be looking for and also how we can come up with what our clients would need in the future. These coupled with the acceptance of our services in the environment and our capability to accomplish the essentials of our users as alluded by Mooi et al (2018) in their research titled Market Research. 4|Page Situational Analysis - TOWS According to Helms et al (2010), by conducting an analysis on our treats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths (TOWS) would be the geneses of the situational analysis of HandyMan this offers an environmental analysis of how and where HandyMan would be operating as well as where it stands. Threats HandyMan though have a conducive environment in terms of regulations, the artisan (handymen) are not trusted to deliver on their words. Not all, there have been cases where handymen accept the work and then fail to deliver and does not return the advance payments received. Also, handymen in the past have destroyed properties and have failed to pay for the destruction or caused the property owners to have to spend more than necessary. All these pose as a treat to HandyMan. Opportunities According to Morden (1993), opportunity signifies openings outside of an organization that the business can take advantage of to stay ahead of competition. HandyMan has the opportunities ranging from the conducive regulatory regimes to the use of online methods for service acquisitions in the world over. We have seen how smartphones have opened up the world to innovations ranging from the way we communicate to the way we live our lives. However, COVI-19 pandemic has changed the lives of such institutions with users now understanding why and how to utilize these online services. Weaknesses Since HandyMan is an app or online version of a handyman coupled with the fact that none of us have experience in the fields we would be providing, there is the tendency that could have reputational issues. Also, the reliance on the existing handymen would have the potential to damage the existence of HandyMan. However, the executive management of HandyMan notes the lack of experience in the business sector we are venturing as we lack a strong financial sponsorship some of the basic necessities such as vans, experienced personnel, etc. for the business would be lacking. Strengths According to www.statista.com, smartphone usage worldwide is currently in excess of three billion (3b) and it is expected to increase to hundreds of billions in the next few years. This serves as a strength for HandyMan as it would enable us to penetrate the market easily. Not all, in analysing our strengths, HandyMan noted that we have a comparatively energetic fresh skilled and competent workforce. We would also have a low developmental cost as in the short term we would be relying on existing platforms to build our solution. 5|Page INDUSTRY ANALYSIS According to Anne-Maria (2014) conducting an industry analysis would help HandyMan better understand their competition and users in the market they find themselves. To this end, we have conducted our industry analysis and have come up with the following as findings: Competition To enable HandyMan better serve its users with unique service provision, we need to understand how our competitors business proposition, their strategic direction through the study of their product development journey etc. The market in Ghana for HandyMan has one competitor who has come up with similar service. The difference is that our competitor is only concentrating on the servicing of vehicles and other machinery. This is an opportunity form HandyMan in that existing users for them could be our potential users and a treat in that if they get the drift that we are coming up with more than they are offering, they could quickly release those services to counter ours. Target Market and Products HandyMan recognizes that Ghana has about 46% of its population of classified as the middle class (source: African Business Insight). These are the class that spend between $2 and $20 daily. These groups are the people who can afford to buy houses, build houses, buy vehicles, rent houses, etc. and would one way or the other require the services of handymen. The middle class are also the group that are able to afford smartphones being it android base or ios base. It is worthy to note that in as much as we would be concentrating on the middle class, we would not leave sight on the low class as thanks to China, they also have accesses to cheaper smartphones and would sparingly require our services. HandyMan recognizes that the middle class are constantly on the move and do not have the patience to be asking around for handymen to resolve their issues for them. Mostly, they rely of friends and colleagues to give them referrals to handymen. A number of times these referrals end up either disappointing them or making their issues worse than before. In this regard, HandyMan would be a go to product for them. The other important factor is that most of these handymen do not guarantee their services meaning should the problem develop again, you would have to pay for it to be repaired again. However, HandyMan would guarantee or work done for a number of months and if the problem recurs, the users would have if fixed at no cost. Users would also have the opportunity to sign up for our HandyMan insurance where by users pay a yearly premium and covers specific services for parts and labour should they require fixing. Market segmentation is critical in our service provision. This is according to Kotler (2011) a plan for marketing is not a one fits all plan. There is the need to segment and have different plans for each segment. To this end, our user segmentation would be based on smartphone users, feature phone users and non-phone users who can rely on our website to get a service. 6|Page MARKETING PLAN Promoting and Advertising HandyMan HandyMan would utilize all forms of advertisements in promoting its services strategically that we have developed by concentrating on our capabilities in order to take full advantage of the environmental opportunities we have. To enable us achieve that, we would employ the following strategic plans: ? Utilize the services of Google AdSense to enable us automate our adverts across the numerous android aps to get potential users to install and utilize HandyMan ? We would institute a free labour cost on all first call out through HandyMan app. ? Utilize social media advertising such as Facebook, linkedIn, tweeter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. to target the middle to high class potential users. According to Okazaki et al (2013) the use of smartphone is on the increase and these users use one form of a social media tool and hence it has the potential to get HandyMan to its potential users. We would now perform and analyses on how these forms of advertisements and promotions are contributing to our client uptake. Also, in order to guarantee our promotional strategies are implemented successfully, HandyMan would engage a sales and marketing executives who would oversee how we are penetrating, developing, service quality and different ways to ensure sustainability. INVESTMENT AND PROFITABILITY Capital Requirement HandyMan would need a total of $100,000.00 of funding which would be generated from the three owners equally. Out of the initial funding, forty-five percent (45%) would go mainly into development of the application with twenty percent (20%) into promotion and advertisements whilst the remaining thirty-five percent would be spent on the set up in the office and initial salaries for office staff. It is worth noting that none of the executives would receive salaries until HandyMan starts to make profit. Breakeven analysis Per or projections, it is predicted that HandyMan would breakeven from the third year and start making profits from the fourth year onwards. It is estimated that the first profit would be in the region of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000.00). This we expect to grow rapidly by a year on year rate of 25%. INVESTORS, ECONOMICAL GAINS AND RATIONALIZATION As indicated above, the business plan offers the gains, prospective and feasibility for stockholders to invest in HandyMan in order for us to achieve our tactical objectives and our reason of existence. HandyMan consequently identifies that it can gain capital investments its stakeholders and/or through loans from the bank, contributions from savings, etc. It is evident that the services of HandyMan would catch up quickly and would be able to return the investment as projected in three to five years when it would become self-sustaining business. 7|Page ACTION PLAN According to Kotlar (1996), an action plan entails all events and processes a business employs to achieve its vision and mission. In this regard, HandyMan has strategized and action plan to enable us accomplish our vision and mission. Excerpts of these action plan are scheduled in a table below. HandyMan Action Plan Excerpts for 3years CONCLUSION In conclusion, presented plan above has described the business proposition for HandyMan. It has shown how lucrative the business is as well as sustainability of an app based handymen service provision. In the long-run stakeholder prosperity as well as addition of their economic worth. The business plan has effectively shown proof of HandyMan’s sustainably and effectively achieving their strategic objectives and targets. Not all, it is worth noting that there are numerous structures that could be utilized effectively and efficiently which have been approved in devising a business plan. There isn’t a fixed to a business plan. The business plan development is basically dependent on the industry, the size, the location, etc. of the organization. One must understand the area of business they are venturing and then identify which model of framework they would use for their business plan. The main import is that the plan should help the business stay in competition at all times and levels. 8|Page REFERENCES Anne-Maria, H. (2014). Adaptation in Business Contexts: Working Triadic Relationships. Hillman, A. J. & Hitt, M. A. (1999). Corporate political strategy formulation: A model of approach, participation and strategy decisions, Academy of Management Review, 24(4): 825-42. Kotler, P. (2011). Contributions to Marketing Theory and Practice, Malhotra, N. (Ed.) Review of Marketing Research: Special Issue – Marketing Legends (Review of Marketing Research, Vol. 8) Kotler, P. (1996). Leading Change: An Action Plan from the World's Foremost Expert on Business Leadership. Harvard Business School, p. 1-7. Mooi, E. Sarstedt, S. & Mooi-Reci, M. (2018). Market Research. Springer Publishing, United States of America Morden, T. (1993). Business Strategy and Planning, Mc-Graw-Hill Book Company, England Naffziger, D. & Mueller, C. (1999). Strategic Planning in Small Businesses: Process and Content Realities. Okazaki, S. and Taylor, C. (2013), "Social media and international advertising: theoretical challenges and future directions", International Marketing Review, Vol. 30 No. 1, p. 56-71. 9|Page APPENDIX 1 Organizational Structure for HandyMan 10 | P a g e 11 | P a g e