The Market Opportunity: Price, Marketing Plan,Sales Growth and Service

Business Plan
Section 1
The Market Opportunity:
The company will be providing both services and a product to students in campus. By providing laundry services and an application as a product that would make it easy for the coordination of these services easier, there will be better opportunity for the business to thrive. Students are also facing time constraints in campus, for that reason there will a great market opportunity for this kind of business.
The Market Need
Campus laundry is a business that is increasingly becoming even more marketable due to high demand for these services. Although the application that has been developed is fairly a new idea, it has gained popularity among students in campus. Considering the fact that students are always busy with their studies, they normally do not find time to do the laundry work on their own. For instance, when examinations are around the corner students tend to be immersed in their books and therefore this laundry application will have a great market opportunity among students. It is important to remember that students are having fair amount of discretionary income that will enable them afford for these laundry services. There is a big market opportunity for this kind of business for washing clothes. Also, considering the fact laundry takes a lot of time for students, there is a great need for this kind of business among students. Therefore, it would be prudent to conclude that there is market need for these kinds of services among campus students, since our business have huge market for campus. It is a great opportunity to attract more advertisers put their advertisements on our APP.
The Service
This is a service delivery kind of business. The service is provided from an application that would with laundry among students in campus. The application has been configured in such a way that it would save time for students. The paper will be discussing on the market opportunity for an application that has been created to help those students who are in campus with laundry services. This application will be able to inform students about the washer that is free as well as asking for the person controlling the washer to reserve one. Put in other words, the application is geared towards helping the students not to waste a lot of time waiting for the washer to be free. It is also important to remember that there is also a timer that will help in reminding the students when their clothes are ready to be picked. There is a big market opportunity for this kind of application as most of university students are always finding challenges with their laundry.
The Competition
Due to the fact that this kind of business has attracted huge demand from students, who are in need of these services, there have been competitions from different players who are determined to also share in the market. Although not many organizations have been able to establish this kind of application the company is currently facing competition from a laundry firm that is based in Syracuse. Despite the competition that the organization has experienced from its closest competitors from firms like Syracuse, it would important to note that competition is healthy for any kind of business. If there is a healthy competition in the market, this will make it possible for an improvement for the business to make the business to be even better. It is also advisable for a business to evaluate the competition; this will enable it to understand its shortcomings and improve on those shortcomings so that the business can win over more customers.
The Price
Before talking about the prices of this business, it is important to first talk about some of the benefits of this kind of application. The reason why this laundry application was developed is to enable the students not waste a lot of time waiting on the queue. Because it might be very difficult for one to pre-empt whether the washer is being used or not, the application that has been established will make it easier for the students to tell when the washer might be free. This application is quite convenient as it will make it possible for the students to properly use the washer in a reasonable. The price of this laundry application is fairly reasonable for students in campus and therefore no one can claim that it is expensive for students. Considering the benefits that the application offers, the price is fairly affordable for the campus students. To download the application one would only be required to part with U.S $5. This price is quite reasonable considering the fact the major clients being targeted are students whose income is not that much and further they have to depend on their parents for their up keep. Generally, this business idea is quite viable and it will guarantee the owners good returns on their investments.
Section 3: Estimated Revenues
Marketing Plan
A marketing plan is a well detailed document or better still a blueprint that clearly indicate a business marketing and advertising efforts for the entire year. In other words, a marketing plan provides description of business activities that is involved for the accomplishment of some specific marketing objectives within a given time frame. This particular business will would perform much better if there is a proper marketing plan in place. The marketing plan for this marketing should not be complicated since the target audience is already known. The marketers should have direct messages to the audience that will make them find a reason why they should be downloading the app. For instance, the students who are the major clients should be told how the app will assist them save time at the laundry. They should also be told that the price for downloading the app is pretty affordable and therefore they should take the advantage and download the app. This app will also inform them as to whether the laundry is occupied or not. The other benefit of this app is that the client will be able to ask for an empty washer to be reserved for him or her. However, it is important to remember that the washer can only wait for a period of between 10-20 minutes. The marketing will be done through Daily Orange that is there in the laundry room.
Steady-State Demand
Due to huge number of people that will be targeted with this nature of business, our profit is focus on advertising as there will be steady-state of demand for these services and also for this product. This kind of business has proven to be highly profitable. This business will be attracting a steady state of demand of 100 advertising annually. If a profound marketing strategy is put in place, the demand for these laundry services from the students as primary consumers. Ever since the business was established, the business has been reporting a steady demand growth for the laundry services and also the app. For example; in year one there was a demand growth of 60 percent, in second year the steady demand grew by 90 percent, between year three and year five, the steady demand grew by 100 percent steadily, and cumulatively for the five years when the business was in operation, the business had grown by a total of 450 percent in terms of growth in demand.
Sales-Growth
As of the viability of the business, the business has been reporting a steady growth in terms of sales. The steady growth of sales can be shown by the number of people are actually going for the laundry service through the application that has been put in place. It would be important to remember that a business will only attract this kind of growth in sales if it is viable. For example, in the first year the business was able to generate sales to 3,200 people, in the second year to 3,600 people, between years three and year five, the business recorded steady sales to 4,000 persons. This generated revenue to the firm. Cumulatively, the total number of people that were able to go for the laundry services and downloaded this app was 18, 800 people. This kind of business has proven beyond reasonable doubt that a well organized research before entrepreneurs actually ventured into the business. Despite the fact the sales have been quite impressive; there is a wide room for improvement. It is important to remember that the business is targeting a population of 10 thousand annually. This shows that an aggressive marketing should be conducted to ensure the target is met.
Estimated Revenues
To begin with, it would be prudent for one to believe that this was a well thought idea. We want have 100 advertising consumer per year and steady state demand per year is 1000. The app can attract nearly 10000 students in Syracuse University to download this app, it is huge market for advertisement business. It only cost U.S $100 to put advertisement on out APP. The revenues that have been generated from business for the first five years the business has been in place. In the first year in operation, the business was able to generate $60,000, the second year in operation revenue was $90,000, and the following consecutive three years of business in operation was an average of $100,000. In total, the business was able to generate a total of $450,000 in the last five years the business had been in operation.
Section 4:Estimated Cost:
Production Plan
Production planning refers to the organization of production and manufacturing modules within an organization or a company. Production planning requires resources that have been allocated to employees so as to achieve organizational goals for production. There are some principles that are required for the purposes when planning for the production. Some of the principles that control production planning include materials, customer demand, equipments, manpower, processes, and controls.
Start Up Costs
When starting a business, there are so many factors that are there to be considered. Start-up costs may as well be referred to as the expenses that one would be required to cater for when starting a business. For instance, for this particular business some of the start-up costs that should be considered include; research and development cost at $20,000, legal cost at $2,000, cost for designing website $1,000, the cost of the equipment needed at $5,000, expenses for facilitating credit payments $500, cost for laptops at $2,000 and other equipment $2,000, initial promotion and training cost $15,000.
Operational Costs
In this business that has been suggested, there are some operational costs that are mostly fixed ones. Some of the operational costs include; the ISP costs at $1,000, I.T staff at 14,000, the annual cost to Apple at $800, the routine promotion at $5,000, the routine development cost at $7,000, employee salaries at $30,000, the Serve costs that has been estimated to be at $8,000, and also the database management fees for I.T estimated to be $15,000.
Net Cash Flow
The business was a well thought one since it has proven to be quite profitable considering the net cash flow that was presented. In the first year of operation the business attracted the following cash flows: the first year there was $60,000, the second year $90,000, and from the third year to the fifth year the cash flow was at an average of $100,000. Therefore the total cash flow was at $450,000. Therefore the Return on Investments is 19.64%.
Section 5: The Strategies to Improve Profitability
Strategic Pricing
There are numerous strategies that can be used for pricing in a business when selling a service or a product. The price can be set in such a way that can make it easy to for the purposes of profit maximization for every single unit sold from the entire market. It is important to note that marketing strategies can be used to protect others from entering the market and also to protect unnecessary competition.
Strategic Positioning
The first and the most important step that should be taken in defining the business strategy are through strategic positioning. Every goal of a business is to attract the new customers, satisfy them, and also to maintain the existing one. There have been models that can be developed to help with the business strategic positioning. One of those models is the Delta model that provides a road map for identifying the right strategic positioning.
Impact of Strategic Positioning on the Profitability
Like this particular business, the owner was strategically located by targeting the campus students with the laundry business. Due to the fact that the business has been strategically located it has turned out to be profitable. This can be witnessed from the cash inflow that has been shown.
Section 6: Innovations to Improve Profitability
Secondary products
The app that was developed for the purposes of informing the students at what time should they take their clothes to the washer. The app can also enable them to request for s free washer to be reserved. So, our secondary products is download fee. It only cost U.S $5 to download the app and this is the revenue that the developer will be getting from the students.
Incremental Costs
The revenues that have been generated from business for the first five years the business has been in place. In the first year in operation, our secondary business was able to generate $15,000, the second year in operation revenue was $22,500, and the following consecutive three years of business in operation was an average of $25,000. In total, the secondary business was able to generate a total of $112,500 in the last five years the business had been in operation. It means our secondary business made us make $112,500 more money over five years.
Impact on the profitability
The Secondary products like this create more profit base on the first one. “The second business enters an entire new industry, investment in a new set of customers.” For instance, the customers of our first products are the investor of advertising, the secondary products is focus on the campus students in Syracuse University.
Section 7: Incremental Value Analysis
Opportunity Cost of Time
Opportunity cost of time will involve calculating the amounts of time spend in developing and running the laundry service application up to breakeven point. Due to our format, during the first year, the total amount is $32,760 - base on we have two person and we made the wages to $15 per hour. Incremental revenue analysis determines the impact of demand and cost on revenue generation. The students in need of washing services will represent the demand side while the laundry operators will constitute the supply side of the business. Determining a breakeven point by balancing demand and supply will be pivotal to the business success. Therefore the number of customers and suppliers required for the business to breakeven and make profit without increasing operational costs will calculated using incremental cost analysis. This...