The Business Exists Primarily to Serve Customers

The Business Exists Primarily to Serve Customers
Mission Statement: “Create your mind! Create your life!”
Inspiration Center looks forward to increasing its reach significantly in the next three years. Owing to the rise in mental health challenges, mainly due to COVID-19 and associated financial strain (WHO, 2022), the business seeks to increase the sales of its mental health kits and subscriptions to its mobile application.
Objectives
* To promote access to mental health care by providing valuable mental health tools.
* To promote creativity and self-expression among the general population and mental health patients.
* To provide education and self-care resources to allow customers to take charge of their mental health problems.
Stakeholders
* Currently, the business has one internal stakeholder, the owner, who runs all the operations.
* The external stakeholders of the business include customers, application developers, and the government. The business exists primarily to serve customers, who can be individuals with mental health problems or members of the public that seek to learn more about mental health to help their loved ones. Application developers are tasked with developing and maintaining the mobile application for the business. The government primarily sets the legal framework within which the business operates.
Current Leadership
The business is currently operated and maintained by the owner, who automatically is the leader.
Fundamental Leadership Problems
1 It is inefficient for the owner to carry out all business operations.
2 Customer service is severely hampered given the inability of the owner to address the concerns of each customer fully.
3 Communication between the business owner and application developers often breaks down.
Change
Change is necessary to attain its mission, achieve the set objectives, and address the fundamental business problems. In essence, the business is expanding but lacks essential human resources to meet its needs. Therefore, the change strategy encompasses hiring three employees, upgrading the mobile application to include new features, and implementing new marketing ideas to increase the number of customers.
The change would mean that Inspiration Center will have three additional internal stakeholders to spearhead the business in the new direction. The three new stakeholders, a marketer, a new product development personnel, and a customer care representative, will be part of the human resource plan of the business. They will be responsible for engaging in different actions according to the job descriptions. This will relieve the owner of some of the responsibilities, allowing him to concentrate his efforts on other important business operations.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths

Weaknesses

* Unique branding
* Accessible mental health and wellness tools in time of COVID-19
* Wide customer base

* Lack of enough human resources
* Inexperience in the market
* Lack of clarity in the product's purpose

Opportunities

Threats

* Mental health problems among young people who have access to smartphones and the internet
* Marketing opportunities on social media and the internet to reach more people
* More features on the mobile application to boost customer satisfaction

* Cyber-security threat as the application may be hacked by malicious individuals
* Competition from other mental health applications.

Strategic Plan
The strategic plan covers three years and includes investment, marketing, sales, human resources, and contingency plans.
Investment Plan (1-3 years)
* Invest money in mobile application upgrade to include new features and services
* Invest in human resources by hiring three personnel to take care of marketing, customer care, and product development
* Invest in research and new product/service development
 Marketing (1-3 years)
* Create and maintain social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
* Create and maintain a Youtube channel focusing on mental health discussions
* Partner with social media influencers to post about mental health and drive traffic to the mobile application
Sales (1-3 years)
* Triple the sales of the business in the second year through investment in marketing, new mobile applications, and new products
* Have the owner focus specifically on monitoring sales and implementing strategies to increase them.
* Partner with online retailers to have products feature on their stores with the aim of increasing sales
Human Resources (1-3 years)
* Hire a marketer, new product development personnel, and customer care representative. These new employees will relieve the owner of the many duties, allowing him to focus on sales and maintaining relationships with mobile application developers. This will address the breakdown of communication with the developers.
* Develop a culture of creativity and leadership where each employee will be responsible for their part as well as the overall business.<...