2.3 Tools to create business plan of the new enterprise

At the start-up of the firm marketing analysis is necessary. This is necessary for positioning of the new venture on the markets and efficient targeting of the customers. An entrepreneurial approach implies taking advantage of market opportunities in a dynamic, proactive way. While entering stage of the new venture its marketing is essentially operational and has little strategic focus. The innovation in service is often witnessed but lack of planning in consecutive order.

Marketing plan and business plan are two main strategic documents that guide management team and investors through business development process.

Marketing plan

A marketing plan is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives¹⁸. In this Thesis the marketing plan of the new venture are included in Business Plan (Chapter 5).

For better marketing planning of the new venture two well-known theoretical concepts are taken:

1. SWOT analysis;

2. Industry analysis: The five force model;

3. Marketing mix (the four Ps).

SWOT-analysis

SWOT analysis came from the research conducted at Stanford Research Institute from 1960-1970. The background to SWOT stemmed from the need to find out why corporate planning failed.

The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. The SWOT analysis headings provide a good framework for reviewing strategy, position and direction of the new venture.

The Five Force Model

A large number of different frameworks have been developed to facilitate industry analysis, the most popular is the Five Force Model developed by Michael Porter (Figure 5) which examines rivals and how their strategies interact, influences of the power of buyers, the power of suppliers, the threat of substitutes, and the potential entry of others into the industry.

Figure 5. The Five-Force Model

Rivalry among existing firms

Central to Porters model is the companies that compete with each other about the customers’ patronage. Rivalry occurs because one or more competitors either feels the pressure or sees the opportunity to improve its position. The way that rivalry is expressed is characterised by mutual dependency; the fact that actions by one firm affects other firms that in turn make counteractions to protect its position. This pattern of action and reaction may or may not leave the initiating firm and the industry better off. Escalating moves and countermoves, as often seen in fierce pricing competitions, can cause all parties to suffer and leave the industry worse off than before. On the other hand, advertising battles is an example where the industry can be

strengthened by increasing demand and higher levels of product differentiation.

The intensity of the rivalry has been described by Porter as being the result of a number of interacting and structural factors:

• Numerous or equally balanced competitors. A larger number of firms increase rivalry because more firms must compete for the same customers and resources. The rivalry intensifies if the firms have similar market share, leading to a struggle for market leadership.

• Slow industry growth. Slow market growth causes firms to fight for market share. In a growing market, firms are able to improve revenues simply because of the expanding market.

• High fixed costs. High fixed costs result in an economy of scale effect that increases rivalry. When total costs are mostly fixed costs, the firm must produce near capacity to attain the lowest unit costs. Since the firm must sell this large quantity of product, high levels of production lead to a fight for market share and results in increased rivalry.

• Lack of differentiation or switching costs. A low level of product differentiation is associated with higher levels of rivalry. Brand identification, on the other hand, tends to

constrain rivalry. Low switching costs increases rivalry. When a customer can freely switch from one product to another there is a greater struggle to capture customers.

• Capacity augmented in large increments. A growing market and the potential for high profits encourage new firms to enter the market and existing firms to increase production. A point is eventually reached where the industry becomes saturated with competitors and

demand cannot support the new entrants and the increased supply. This can create a situation of excess capacity with too much goods for too few buyers followed by a shakeout with intense competition, price wars, and company failures.

• Diverse competitors. A diversity of rivals with different cultures, histories, and philosophies make an industry unstable. There is greater possibility for radical actors and for misjudging the rival’s moves.

• High strategic stakes. Strategic stakes are high when a firm is losing market position or has potential for great gains which can intensify rivalry.

• High exit barriers. High exit barriers place a high cost on abandoning a product. This tends to cause firms to remain in an industry even when the business is not profitable. A common exit barrier is asset specificity. When the plant and equipment required for manufacturing a product is highly specialized, these assets cannot easily be sold to other buyers in another

industry.

Threat of new entrants

It is not enough for a firm to only focus on its current customers and competitors; they must also take the new potential competitors and possible substitutes into consideration. One of the defining characteristics of competitive advantage is the industry’s barrier to entry. Industries with high barriers to entry are usually too expensive for new firms to enter while industries with low barriers to entry are relatively cheap for new firms to enter. Industries with high profit margins and low barriers to entry are particularly attractive for new competition. For companies within these industries it is required that they take into consideration the different possibilities to build up these barriers to entry. The threat of new entrants rises as the barrier to entry is reduced in a marketplace. As more firms enter a market, rivalry will increase and profitability will fall (theoretically) to the point where there is no incentive for new firms to enter the industry. Some barriers are structural, as for example the need for capital, and cannot easily be influenced by the firm. Others, as for example patents and switching costs, are within the control of the firm and are potential elements for the firm’s strategy. The major sources of entry barriers are summarised by Porter as:

• Economies of scale

• Product differentiation

• Capital requirements

• Switching costs

• Access to distribution channels

• Cost disadvantages independent of scale

• Government policy

Substitutes

Pricing decisions not only need to take into account their deterring effect on potential entrants but also the possible substitutes for the firm’s product. For example, engineered plastic producers supplying material for automobile bumpers must consider the cost of potential substitute materials such as steel and carbon fibre based material. This is probably the most overlooked, and therefore most damaging, element of strategic decision making. It’s imperative that business owners not only look at what the company’s direct competitors are doing, but what other types of products people could buy instead.

When switching costs (the costs a customer incurs to switch to a new product) are low the threat of substitutes is high. As is the case when dealing with new entrants, companies may aggressively price their products to keep people from switching. When the threat of substitutes is high, profit margins will tend to be low.

Bargaining power of buyers

Porter states that buyers compete with the industry by forcing down prices, bargaining for higher quality or more services, and playing competitors against each other – all at the expense of industry profitability. A buyer or a group of buyers are particularly powerful in the following circumstances:

• It is concentrated or purchases large volumes relative to seller sales.

• The product it purchases from the industry represents a significant fraction of the buyer’s costs or purchases.

• The product is purchased from the industry are standard or undifferentiated.

• It faces few switching costs.

• It earns low profits.

• Buyers pose a credible threat of backward integration.

• The industry’s product is unimportant to the quality of the buyer’s products or services.

• The buyer has full information about demand, actual prices and even supplier costs.

The buyer’s power can be divided into two types. The first is related to the customer’s price sensitivity. If each brand of a product is similar to all the others, then the buyer will base the

purchase decision mainly on price. This will increase the competitive rivalry, resulting in lower prices, and lower profitability.

The other type of buyer power relates to negotiating power. Larger buyers tend to have more leverage with the firm, and can negotiate lower prices. When there are many small buyers of a

product, all other things remaining equal, the company supplying the product will have higher prices and higher margins. Conversely, if a company sells to a few large buyers, those buyers will have significant leverage to negotiate better pricing.

In some industries, in particular those who are characterised by a few large buyers and suppliers, the strategic alternatives and choices can be limited. On the other hand, many industries consist of buyers and suppliers that are heterogeneous which facilitates a much greater range of strategic options. Some companies choose to sell to large, strong consumer since the volume of available business is sufficiently attractive to offset the ability of the buyer to negotiate low prices. Other companies may choose to turn themselves only to consumers where their product only constitute a small part of the total purchase and thereby reduces the consumer’s incentives to negotiate for low prices.

Bargaining power of suppliers

Buyer power looks at the relative power a company’s customers has over it. When multiple suppliers are producing a commoditized product, the company will make its purchase decision based mainly on price, which tends to lower costs. On the other hand, if a single supplier is producing something the company has to have, the company will have little leverage to negotiate a better price.

According to Porter, the suppliers are particularly powerful when:

• It is dominated by a few companies and is more concentrated than the industry it sells to.

• It is not obliged to contend with other substitute products for sale to the industry.

• The industry is not an important customer of the supplier group.

• The supplier’s product is an important input to the buyer’s business.

• The supplier group’s products are differentiated or it has built up switching costs.

• The supplier group poses a credible threat of forward integration.

Size plays a factor for the suppliers as well as for the buyers. If the company is much larger than its suppliers, and purchases in large quantities, then the supplier will have little power to

negotiate. Using Wal-Mart as an example, we find that suppliers have no power because Wal-Mart purchases in such large quantities.

Marketing strategy described by Marketing mix of the organization

The term “marketing mix” (see Figure 6) was first used in 1953 by Neil Borden¹⁹. A prominent marketer, E. Jerome McCarthy, proposed a 4 P classification in 1960, which has seen wide use.

Elements of the marketing mix are often referred to as “the four Ps”:

• Product - A tangible object or an intangible service that is mass produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units. Here in the Thesis services of the new venture is intangible. Ph. Kotler (1994) highlights four characteristics in service business, intangibility, inseparability, variability and perish ability.

• Price – The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. It is determined by a number of factors including market share, competition, material costs, product identity and the customer's perceived value of the product. The business may increase or decrease the price of product if other comparatives have the same product.

• Place – Place represents the location where a product can be purchased. It is often referred to as the distribution channel. It can include any physical store as well as virtual stores on the Internet.

• Promotion represents all of the communications that a marketer may use in the marketplace. Promotion has four distinct elements - advertising, public relations, word of mouth and point of sale. A certain amount of crossover occurs when promotion uses the four principal elements together. Advertising covers any communication that is paid for, from commercials, radio and Internet adverts through print media and billboards. Public relations are where the communication is not directly paid for and includes press releases, sponsorship deals, exhibitions, conferences, seminars or trade fairs and events. Word of mouth is any apparently informal communication about the product by ordinary individuals, satisfied customers or people specifically engaged to create word of mouth momentum. Sales staff often plays an important role in word of mouth and Public Relations.

Product

Product variation

Product differentiation

Product innovation

Product elimination

Place

Distribution channel

Direct sales

Indirect sales

E-commerce

Figure 6. Marketing mix concept

Business plan

There exist three strategic alternatives for the people to become entrepreneurs or to start a new business. These alternatives are as follow: developing and introducing a new product or service; buying an existing business, managing it, and cloning an existing business model, possibly franchising someone else’s idea.

In the same light there are three reasons why people become entrepreneurs namely: be their own boss; pursue their own ideas and realise financial rewards. With the burning desire to be our own boss, pursue our own ideas and realise financial rewards, I act as the driving force of the team in transforming this idea that has been tested through a feasibility study and seen as an opportunity into action.

The founding members commence the establishment of Marktune through followed business plan that meets academic and professional requirement. A business plan is intended to be a living document²⁰ that can change if the situation warrants.

Based on this postulate, three types of business plans were proposed namely: summary business plan (10-15 pages), full business plan (25-35 pages) and operational business plan (between 40 and 100 pages). This business plan falls within this framework and is a full business plan. The main purpose of this business plan is to provide a guide on what is needed and how to go about establishing a company that brings relief to the customers and satisfy the opportunity driving quest of the entrepreneurs²¹.

Business plan is a document that defines all aspects of business activities of the new venture. This plan answers questions that target tactical and strategic management actions. These questions concerned type of business to start, amount of money available for investments, what a company does well, and competitive advantages of the newly started business. Clearness of business plan is controlled by a rule a thumb: “If you can’t describe your idea clearly and simply, you haven’t though it through.”²²