Philtech Business Acedemy

BUSINESS PLAN

PART II – THE MARKET

Dear entrepreneur, we are thrilled to welcome you as one of our successful start-up founders and we cannot wait to see your business achieve great results within your industry. In this particular part of our entrepreneurship program, we will educate, equip and empower you as a business owner to write a comprehensive business plane, which you will be able to use as a supporting document while applying for seed funding at a later stage of your entrepreneurial journey.

However, before you complete this online form to generate a professional business plan that you can start using, consider the following:

“Do your market research. You will definitely need to make quite a few decisions about your start-up including structure, marketing strategies and finances before you can complete this online form. By having the right information at hand, you also can be more accurate in your forecasts and analysis.”

Lastly, we highly recommend writing your answers on a separate document as a backup before submitting this form in order to avoid any unrecoverable loss of important information.

What is your current username on our e-learning platform? *

The username you chose when you created your account on our website.

What is the Order Key associated with your username? *

The Order Key was provided to you by email after you successfully enrolled in our programme.

Entrepreneur's Full Name *

First

Last

Cellphone Number(s) *

Ideally, please provide your WhatsApp number. Thanks!

What is your current position at the company? *

Founder, CEO, CFO...

Enter your business Email *

[email protected]

Market research: What statistical research have you completed to help you analyse your market? Did you use a survey/questionnaire? If so, you may like to attach a copy of your survey/questionnaire to the back of this plan. *

Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy.

Market targets: Outline your planned sales targets. What quantity of your products/services do you plan to sell in a planned timeframe? Are they monthly or yearly targets? *

A target market is a group of customers within a business's serviceable available market at which a business aims its marketing efforts and resources. A target market is a subset of the total market for a product or service.

Environmental/industry analysis: Detail the results of the market research you have performed. Is the area experiencing population growth? Are there long-term employers in the area? Is the region's economy stable? Are there seasonal variations? What is the size of the market? What recent trends have emerged in the market? What growth potential is available and where do you fit in? How will the market/customers change when you enter the market? *

The environmental analysis in the context of business planning normally refers to conditions and factors external to your company, outside of your company’s control, that might affect its sales, market, costs, and so forth. These are often grouped into kinds of factors, such as the common PEST, which stands for political, economic, social, and technological factors that might affect your company. They might be worldwide trends, or specific local market trends, or anything in between. A good analysis looks at the specific individual context of your company, in your market, with your strategy and resources, and guesses how these factors might affect your company in the future.

Customer demographics: Define who your target customers are and how they behave. You can include age, gender, social status, education and attitudes. *

Customer Demographics are defined by most business analysts as including “gender, race, age, income, disabilities, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location.

Key customers: Identify your key customers. (These can be large consumers of your products or individuals whose satisfaction is key to the success of your business.) How will you target your products/service to them? *

A Key customer is a person or a company who gives a substantial amount of business to your organisation. These key customers some times are given special discounts like cash discount,trade discounts, turn over discounts, quantity discounts and other privileges according to the organisation's policies.

Customer management: How will you maintain a good relationship with your customers? What techniques will you use? How will you keep your customers coming back? Have you introduced customer service standards? Do you follow any particular code of practice? *

Customer relationship management is an approach to managing a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.

S.W.O.T. analysis: List each of your businesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities or threats in the table below and then outline how you plan to address each of the weaknesses/threats. *

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique used to help a person or organization identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to business competition or project planning.

What are your strengths? *

[e.g High traffic location]

What are your weaknesses? *

[e.g High rental costs]

What are your opportunities? *

[e.g build on customer and brand loyalty]

What are your threats? *

[e.g Cash flow problems]

Your competitors: How do you rate against your competitors? How can your business improve on what they offer? *

Knowing who your competitors are, and what they are offering, can help you to make your products, services and marketing stand out. It will enable you to set your prices competitively and help you to respond to rival marketing campaigns with your own initiatives. You can use this knowledge to create marketing strategies that take advantage of your competitors' weaknesses, and improve your own business performance.

Competitor details: [List at least 5 competitors and provide the following information about each one] Competitor name; When were they established? Number of staff and/or turnover; Estimated percentage of market share; Unique value to customers. E.g. convenience, quality, price or service? What are your competitor's main strengths? What are your competitor's main weaknesses? *

Monitor the way your competitors do business. Look at: the products or services they provide and how they market them to customers the prices they charge how they distribute and deliver the devices they employ to enhance customer loyalty and what back-up service they offer their brand and design values whether they innovate - business methods as well as products their staff numbers and the calibre of staff that they attract how they use IT - for example, if they're technology-aware and offer a website and email who owns the business and what sort of person they are their annual report - if they're a public company their media activities - check their website as well as local newspapers, radio, television and any outdoor advertising.

Advertising & Sales: Promotional strategy - What strategies do you have for promoting and advertising your products/services in the next 12 months? *

First of all, it’s important to note that advertising is a component of marketing. Marketing refers to preparing a product for the marketplace. Advertising is making your product and service known to an audience or marketplace. Advertising is a specific step of marketing. Advertising uses the data and research collected by marketing strategies to best communicate the brand.

Planned promotion /advertising type: Print media advertising, online advertising, mail-out, giveaway, media release, social media campaign or event. *

Promotion is one of the marketing mix elements among a system of five in a promotional plan (often known as the five Ps). These elements are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity.

Expected business improvement: How do you expect it will improve your business success? *

Business improvement is the process of measuring, changing and measuring again to improve the revenue, efficiency and reputation of a firm.

How much is your Advertising & Sales strategy going to cost *

The overall budget you will put aside and invest into your marketing strategy.

What is your target date? *

[Day/Month/Year]

Sales & Marketing objectives: Who makes up your sales team? What sales techniques will they use? What tools/material will they use to help sell your products/services? What sales goals/targets will they meet? *

Typically, most entrepreneurs marketing objectives include some or all of the following: - Increase sales - Build brand awareness - Grow market share - Launch new products or services - Target new customers - Enter new markets internationally or locally - Improve stakeholder relations - Enhance customer relationships - Improve internal communications - Increase profit'.

Unique selling position: Why do you have an advantage over your competitors? How will your products/services succeed in the market where others may have failed? *

The unique selling proposition or unique selling point is a marketing strategy of making a unique propositions to customers that convinced them to switch brands.

Sales & distribution channels: [List all the products/services sold via this channel]; [What percentage of overall sales do you expect to sell via this channel?]; [What advantages are there of using this channel for these products?]; [What challenges do you expect to face using this channel? How will you overcome them?] *

[e.g. Shopfront, internet, direct mail, export or wholesale] B2B and B2C companies can sell through a single distribution channel or through multiple channels that may include: - Wholesaler/Distributor - Direct/Internet - Direct/Catalog - Direct/Sales Team - Value-Added Reseller (VAR) - Consultant - Dealer - Retail - Sales Agent/Manufacturer’s Rep.

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Business Plan: The Market – PART II

BUSINESS PLAN

PART II – THE MARKET