Business Plan for Super Green Smoothies
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Health is an important factor in everyone’s life, and people in the United Kingdom are moving towards healthy eating and drinking options with increased awareness of health related issues. However, it is determined that after having a boost in juices and smoothies market, now both of the markets are facing a decline in sales because of the negative publicity of smoothies. Smoothies faced negative publicity that they contain ingredients that damage teeth and high calories. Other smoothies those are famous with the label of green (organic) use sugar in their smoothies. There is no product in the market of smoothies that can offer the desired pure natural ingredients to customers.
Building on this gap Super Green Smoothies’ main ingredient will be locally produced fresh organic vegetables; however, for taste purpose and to add nutrition; unique will be used rather using sugar or any other additives. This approach will enable the company to become a market leader. Further, the company will use competitive pricing strategy to attract customers. The firm will not set its production facility, but outsource the production services and rent a warehouse space. That approach will enhance cost cutting and the business focus on the product’s marketing. For spreading the awareness of the product, multimedia channel strategy will be used. The major focus will be on social media marketing for using that channel is relatively easy and offer an instant review of campaigns. However, the final measure will increase in profitability.
BACKGROUND OF THE INDUSTRY FOR GAP ANALYSIS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY
Super Green Smoothies is a product idea that is driven by the gap that exists in current juice and smoothies market. Super Green Smoothies is a company that will offer a unique blend of organic fruits and vegetables. The emphasis of the company will be the utilization of locally grown produce for attracting environmental friendly consumers. The unique selling proposition of the company will be that it will offer a differentiated list of options to its consumers and unique blend of organic fruits and vegetables. The blend will give the smoothies a healthy boost of extra minerals and vitamins and will differentiate the super smoothies from conventional smoothies. The company will offer a verity of smoothies that will include spinach, ginger, avocado, carrot, fennel, sea vegetable, kale, cucumber, zucchini, broccoli, and mushrooms coupled with a diverse mix of fruits with the aim of complementing the nutrition and flavor for appealing both health conscious and taste-conscious consumers. The company will offer smoothies in eco-friendly bottles.
Mission
Vision
The vision of the company is to become an essential part of a healthy lifestyle by providing a specialized and unique blend of smoothies that people can enjoy.
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
PESTLE Analysis
Macro environmental factors of any country affect businesses significantly, and Super Green Smoothies is no exception. Therefore, for the examination of the external factors that can affect the business in the United Kingdom, PESTEL analysis tool has been used.
Political: The political environment of any country makes a significant impact on the policies of companies. It is determined that in the United Kingdom, the government has been strict regarding the corporate social responsibility initiatives. Even multiple companies are accused of presenting misleading or wrong claims about the environmental credentials (Phelvin & Wallop, 2008). Therefore, the company making such claims has to ensure that its products are meeting the set standard criteria. Failure to meet the regulation can lead to the negative publicity as well in addition to the penalty from the regulators.
Economic: Jemima Bokaie (2008) indicates that during the recession period, sales of smoothies market decline. They indicated the reasons at work, to include the decline in purchasing power of consumers. However, in recent years, the economic condition of the country is improving and so the purchasing ability of people as well. The GDP growth of the country is relatively slow, but the spending of consumers is strong. The inflation rate in the United Kingdom is low (PWC, 2016). Therefore, it can be expected that the sales of smoothies will improve as well, but it has been realized that the sales of fruit smoothies are constantly declining; however, vegetable smoothies are expected to grow and continue to show a positive trend.
Social:The social environment of the country has been positive for health related items. People of the state are concerned about their health and due to increased health concerns, and they prefer healthy lifestyle by adding organic products to their daily routine specially eating and drinking. Because of increased awareness regarding calories, it has been realized that people have moved from fruit juices and smoothies to vegetable smoothies. Therefore, it can be expected that in the upcoming years, the trend of vegetable smoothies will increase more. As a result of such trend, Super Green Smoothies will be able to gain the advantage of increased sales because of its unique blend of vegetables and fruits (The Statistic Portal, 2014a; The Statistic Portal, 2014b; Sea Food Research, 2009; Williamson, 2015).
Technological: Technology has changed the business world completely. People before buying any product search for information on the internet, and compares the health benefits as well as prices of the other product with other similar options. Increased access to the internet and mobile phones changed the way of making promotions and attracting customers. The technological environment of the United Kingdom is advanced and approximately 86 percent of adults, which mean 44.7 million people were using the internet in the country in 2015. Therefore, it can be concluded that the technological environment is positive for Super Green Smoothies because the major focus of the company will be in marketing the products through social media (Office for National Statistics, 2016).
Environmental: Environment includes the climate of the country, its weather, environmental offsets, and global climate changes. The weather of the country remains cold most of the time and smoothies can be taken in any season. However, it is expected that in cold weather smoothies with plain yogurt may not be preferred. Therefore, the production of units will depend on the weather that what sorts of smoothies are made more. Also, the environmental friendly packaging will be crucial in addressing the rising environmental concerns of the effect that packaging materials have.
Legal: a legal initiative of government such as taxes affects the business operations and its policies considerably. The increase in taxes means an increase in the operational cost of the product and therefore, price. The taxation system of the United Kingdom is complex for smoothies. The government of the United Kingdom place 20 percent value added tax on smoothies. According to the tax rules of Britain, consumers are not liable to pay any tax on the drinks and foods that are essential, but they have to pay 20 percent on luxuries, and the government considers smoothies as a luxury item. The taxation rules of the government regarding food items are complex that can affect Super Green Smoothies pessimistically (Pidd & Hawkes, 2010).
Key Drivers
Every product is driven by the demand of customers, and it has explored from the research that the due to the increased awareness of health and fitness people are moving to more healthy options in their eating and drinking. The numbers of consumers in the United Kingdom are switching from high calories to mid, low, or no calories. Apart from a healthy lifestyle, another key driver of the trend is the search for customers for convenience. Customers are seeking more on the go options (IBIS World, 2015). Despite the fact that there are several beverages in the market of the United Kingdom, but the desire for healthy products will remain the major driver of healthy smoothies.
Porter’s Five Forces
Porter’s Five Forces model deals with the factors that exist outside of the company. These are the factors that have an important effect on the nature of competition within the industry and require the business to understand the barriers to the success of the businesses (Hills & Jones, 2009). Therefore, for being successful, it is essential that the competitive environment for the industry is observed.
New Entrant: The smoothies market is open for new entrants; barriers are lower for new companies in term of capital investment (Planet Smoothies, 2016). However, some big brands like Tropicana and Innocent dominates market, but as it has been described that these companies have a major focus on fruit smoothies given their sales decrease during 2007 to 2009. The trend of vegetable smoothies is increasing due to health concerns, and people are moving from pure fruit smoothies to pure vegetable of a mix of fruits and vegetable smoothies. Therefore, although the threat of new entrant is high, it is expected that Super Green Smoothies will not have to face much competition given its differentiated concept.
Power of Buyer The level of awareness that buyers have about the product and its competition influence the business significantly. It has been determined that due to increased health concerns the awareness of buyers increased regarding different brands in the juice and smoothies market. However, despite increased knowledge, the power of buyers is low to medium because they do not have multiple options in term of green and healthy smoothies. However, they still can influence the prices and demand for the products because of the substitute available in the market. For example, if they do not find smoothies good option then they can switch to juices and in the juice market; multiple brands are available to them.
Power of suppliers: Fewer numbers of suppliers affect the product price by enhancing the prices of raw material. Limited supply results a challenge and buyers have to bear the high cost in term of switching, but this is not the case in smoothies industries. It has been determined that in post financial crises era, the consumption of organic food declined by 33 percent that reduced the power of supplier. Therefore, they do not have an edge to influencing the prices. Therefore, it can be concluded that the power of suppliers is low in smoothies industry (Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, 2014).
Threat of substitute Selling green smoothies by keeping vegetable a prime product with the combination of fruits, as a secondary product do not leave the company with the wider range of substitutes. In the market, some brands including coconut water, tea, coffee and healthy drinks such as protein shakes could act as substitute for smoothies. However, with the added value that the Super Green Smoothies offers, the threat of substitute is medium, but there still need to make the distinction. Therefore, for making differentiation and making people realize the need that has been filled people will be made aware of the product through multi-channel marketing strategies.
Rivalry: The competition in smoothies and juice market is high as many players have come in marker that is offering ready to go drinks, smoothies bars are the major competition of the company. However, if brands like Feelgood and PJ Smoothies, and Innocent are considered then it can be said that the competition is not tough for Super Green Smoothies because their focus of rivals is not on the vegetable smoothies. However, the company is focusing on vegetables and fruits are the secondary product that is used in smoothies for taste purpose. Therefore, rivalry in the industry may be medium but low for the company.
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
For being a successful business, it is essential that the competitors of the business be analyzed. All juice and smoothies bars and companies that offer vegetable smoothies and juices and are the direct competitors of Super Green Smoothies. The most major of them have been discussed below:
Competitors A: Naked Juice
Products: Feelgood and PJ Smoothies, Tropicana, soft drinks, juice smoothies, a line of coconut water, tea, and coffee.
Competitive advantage: The company offers the wider range of products and competes primarily in juice market with its brand Odwalla owned by the Coca-Cola company.
Competitor B: Starbucks
Products: Bottled drinks, coffee, chocolate beverages, smoothies, tea, breakfast boxes, petite, sandwiches, salad, fruit, yogurt, food nutrition, and drink nutrition.
Competitive advantage: The Company enjoys competitive advantage based on its diversified portfolio of products. The company competes mainly in coffee market and for making differentiation introduces diverse products in its portfolio (Starbucks, 2016).
Competitor 3: Innocent
Products: Fruit and vegetable smoothies, fruit smoothies, coconut water, juices, and bubbles (tropical and lemon-lime and apple)
Competitive advantage: The competitive advantage of the company is that it has a focus on health related products and focus on related diversification. The company is competition in both markets of fruit juices and smoothies (Innocent, 2016).
The competition analysis revealed that no one is offering smoothies with an emphasis on vegetable, and companies that are offering vegetable smoothies include sugar in their content. In this regard smoothies of Super Green smoothies are different from competition because the prime ingredient of smoothies is a vegetable and rather adding any preservatives and sweeteners for enhancing taste, the company will use an appropriate amount of fruits. Both vegetables and fruits will be organic.
Smoothies Consumption and Growth Trend:
It is reported that the trend of healthy drinking is increasing in the United Kingdom, and some people in the United Kingdom are using vegetable smoothies. The usage frequency of for ready to take smoothies is increasing. In 2014, more than 1.13 billion people were taking vegetable juices and smoothies on a daily basis more than once in a day. People who were taking smoothies more than once in a day were 1127 thousand, people who were consuming vegetable smoothies or vegetable juices once in a day were 4100 thousand. Similarly, some people with intake of smoothies for two to three times in a week were 4164 thousand. However, consumers who consume vegetable smoothies once in a week were 2109, consuming two to three times in a month were 3298 thousand, and people who are consuming once or less in a month include 3388 thousand (The Statistic Portal, 2014a).
The most popular brand in the United Kingdom is Tropicana that includes smoothies, vegetables, and fruit juices (The Statistic Portal, 2014b). It has been determined that people are taking smoothies because either they are conscious about their health or they like the taste of smoothies. People who do not take smoothies are not interested in taking, or they do not like the texture. The research revealed that pre-packed smoothies accounts for 47 percent of the total sales of smoothies that are made by bars, at home, and by factories. This also provides an important opportunity that by sieving the smoothing outcome, once can change its texture to plain. Hence, such variations can be added for based on the customer response.
According to the recent research report on IBIS world related to the market of juices and smoothies bar, the revenue of the industry in 2015 was £ 58 million. The industry had an annual growth of 7.8 percent from 2010 to 2015. Being a relatively new, the sector is enjoying healthy growth in the United Kingdom (IBIS World, 2015). According to research, approximately 68 percent people in the United Kingdom perceived smoothies as extremely healthy drinking or eating option as compared to the 97 percent who totally agree that smoothies are a good option. However, 59 percent of them also believe that smoothies contain a high level of natural sugar (Sea Food Research, 2009). In 2014, the demand for smoothies increased in the United Kingdom, despite the news of sugar people spent 1.5 billion on smoothies and juices. A further boost was realized in 2015, as people due to health concerns and the utilization of some vegetables in which spinach, mint, lime, and avocado are the popular vegetables, increased their intake of smoothies (Williamson, 2015). It has been realized that vegetable smoothies are more famous as compared to fruit smoothies.
SWOT Analysis
The internal environmental scanning for the business is done using a systematic framework defined in the strategic management. The SWOT analysis based review enables business to understand its strengths, weaknesses from inside while competition and threat environment that is from outside and beyond its control. Based on the above industry and competitive overview, the internal environment for the business is reviewed in section as under.
STRATEGY
Competitive Strategy
Businesses to gain competitive advantage choose to play on different strategies. Porter generic model propose three competitive strategies that include cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy. The company will adapt the mix of cost leadership and differentiation strategy.
Super Green Smoothies proposed to adopt a differentiation strategy for gaining a competitive advantage against the rivals. However, the company will differentiate itself by promoting it a wide range of vegetable smoothies that come up with a unique blend of fruits. The utilization of locally produced organic vegetables and fruits will differentiate the firm from competition and deliver the sense of organization’s commitment to environmentally friendly practices (Held Guide. Org, n.d).
Packaging for differentiation
Differentiation will not be limited to the manufacturing of the product, but the packaging will also be differentiated from the product of the competitor. The Super Green Smoothies will be provided with the cups made up of glass that is the best environmentally friendly option (See Appendix). The glasses based cups will be returnable, and people will be able to save $ 0.5 cent on the return of cup, and if they choose, they can keep those cups for $0.5 cent. This will also add a unique selling point as competitors do not offer such options to their customers. The labeling will contain the description of the ingredients used and their quantity as well so people will have an awareness that what intake they are having.
MARKETING PLAN
A comprehensive marketing plan is dependent on the effective identification of the target audience. It is important that business upon identifying the target audience also outline the marketing elements from all four Ps i.e. products, prices, place, and promotion. Collectively reaching customers through all aspects plays an important role in the success of the business.
Target market
It is difficult for a start-up business to serve the needs of mass segments. Therefore, it is essential that the company as retailer decide on specific target customers so it can better meet the needs of customers. The company has decided to target the people from the age of 15 to 55. It will target professionals who prefer healthy lifestyle and do not have much time to spend at the gym and seek for healthy eating options to maintain a balance. The Super Green Smoothies will target college and university students, and gym audience that is conscious about their health and believes that for being healthy eating and drinking healthy is important. The company will target both men and women from lower class to upper middle class.
Product:
The vision of the company is to become an important element of every fitness and health plan and healthy lifestyle. Super Green Smoothies for the attainment of this purpose will offer a unique blend of organic vegetables and fruits. The major emphasis of the company will be in the utilization of locally grown organic vegetables that will be used as primary products, and fruits will be a secondary product that will be used to maintain a taste without using any sugar and additives. This concept will help in attracting health conscious consumers. The unique selling proposition of the company will be that it will offer a differentiated list of options to its consumers and differentiated blend of organic fruits and vegetables that will give the smoothies. A healthy boost of extra minerals and vitamins and will differentiate the super smoothies from conventional smoothies will be another feature to differentiate the product from competitors.
Smoothies will be available in three different cup sizes i.e. small, medium, and large and a total of seven flavors will be introduced initially. The smoothies will include Fennel, ginger, avocado, spinach, Broccoli, mushrooms, kale, cucumber, zucchini, sea vegetable, and carrot together with a diverse mix of fruits with the aim of complementing the nutrition and flavor for appealing both health conscious and taste-conscious consumers. Packaging is an important factor that helps companies in differentiating from rivals. Therefore, Super Green Smoothies will differentiate its products further by offering smoothies in eco-friendly bottles. These bottles will be returnable, and the consumer will enjoy gaining $0.50 cent on the return of cup. This initiative will reduce the landfill and promote the company as an environmentally friendly organization.
Price:
Pricing plays an important role in making the product success. Company can choose to adapt penetration pricing strategy (setting the product price low initially and then increasing it later) or skimming pricing strategy (setting the price of the product higher and then lowering the price). The problem with the penetration pricing strategy is that people may perceive the product as of low quality. On the other hand, the skimming strategy may not allow the company to attract people and people may find the products of the company expensive. Therefore, it has been decided that Super Green Smoothies will be selling its products at competitive price. The price of 250 ml smoothies will vary from 1.99 to 2.10, 750 ml will vary from 2.99 to 3.10, and for 1L will vary from 3.99 to 4.10 according to the ingredients that will be added to them.
Place:
The research found that the most suitable place from which then most of the smoothies consumers purchase smoothies is smoothies or juice bars. Juice bars in term of selling smoothies account for 47 percent and supermarkets for 39 percent (Sea Food Research, 2009). Therefore, the company has decided to establish its smoothies through different juice bars, gyms, and retail stores. Moreover, the company will not leave any gap and will directly distribute the product to consumers through online sale.
Promotion
The aim of the company is to position itself environmentally friendly companies that just not care the health of people and make them happy in term of their health, but also want to keep the environment safe. Through the promotions, the company will enhance the awareness of customers regarding products.
For the attainment of this purpose, the company will choose the multichannel strategy and will place its ads on all traditional and new mediums. However, the major focus for the promotion of the products will be on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube as these methods are cost-efficient and enable companies to measure their campaigns’ success instantly. The company will position its products as environmentally friendly products and communicate the benefits of its products to customers.
The company to promote its smoothies will serve customers with promotional offers such as the company will offer them a 0.50-cent discount on the buying of the 1L bottle.
MANAGEMENT TEAM
The management team will include the owner of the business and three other members of the management of operations.
Other staff members: The organization will hire three warehouse employees who will consolidate the packets according to the requirement of distributors and load the material on trucks.
Operations
It has been decided that the company will not set its production house but will outsource to experienced businesses in the market who also have the required production facilities. However, the formula is unique, therefore; the guideline will be provided to production Company that how the smoothies should be made. The company will rent the warehouse and deploy CCTV cameras for keeping a check on any inventory related issue. After the consolidation of bottles, smoothies will be loaded on trucks and it will make sure that trucks are full with the aim of reducing transportation cost. The company is offering smoothies only, therefore, it does not need to install any bar code systems and instead the RFID technology will be applied if the firm will find any significant increase in demand then with increased inventory appropriate measures will be taken.
FINANCIAL PROJECTION
Start-up Cost
Operational Expenses
Profit and Loss Performa
Balance sheet
FUNDING REQUEST AND BUSINESS PROPOSAL FEASIBILITY
For starting a business, the owner and three other members will contribute 30 percent in the business from their personal finances. However, for the remaining 70 percent, they will submit the loan request in the bank. The borrowed amount will be returned to the bank in the shape of monthly installments with the current interest rate applied to the funds.
The feasibility of the proposed plan is revised using Net Present Values tool. By accounting the impact of time value money, the NPV based analysis reveals that business will though start profits in the third year; the financial returns for the three years are not feasible. Five years based analysis states that by the fifth year, the Net present value will be £ 185,286. These results are based on the conservative estimates so as to assess the sustainability of business even in the case of pessimistic scenarios.
IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation is an important phase, no matter how appropriate the plan is if the implementation of the plan is not appropriate then it will be difficult to gain success. Therefore, the company for implementing the plan will follow the specific timeline.
The company will introduce its smoothies in the season of because in June the weather is hot and people prefer to take fresh intakes and chances of more sale will be high.
Conclusion
The plan has been presented for a start-up business called Super Green Smoothies. It has been realized that the sale of smoothies after 2007 has declined due to the negative publicity of smoothies. However, it has been determined that the option of vegetable smoothies with the right balance blend of fruits has immense potential to grow as people are moving more towards vegetable smoothies from fruit smoothies. Some companies are offering vegetable in their smoothies, but the major ingredients of their smoothies are still fruits. Therefore, it is expected that the plan is feasible, and the chances of Super Green Smoothies’ growth are high. The company will further make a distinction by its packaging and spreading awareness of it unique blend that will serve the company with competitive advantage.
List of References
Euromonitor International. (2016). Juice in the United Kingdom. Available from: http://www.euromonitor.com/juice-in-the-united-kingdom/report [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Held Guide. Org (n.d). Organic Foods: All You Need to Know. Available from:http://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/organic-foods.htm [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Hills, C., & Jones, G. (2009). Strategic Management Theory: An Integrated Approach. USA: Cengage Learning.
IBIS World. (2015). Juice & Smoothie Bars in the UK: Market Research Report. Available from:http://www.ibisworld.co.uk/market-research/juice-smoothie-bars.html [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Innocent. (2016). Things We Make. Available from: http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/ [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Jemima Bokaie. (2008). Innocent hit by dramatic sales slide. Marketing Magazine 23 September 2008. Available from: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/847899/innocent-hit-dramatic-sales-slide
Mintel Store. (2010). Smoothies - UK - September 2010. Available from: http://store.mintel.com/smoothies-uk-september-2010?cookie_test=true [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Mintel Store. (2014). Fruit Juice, Juice Drinks and Smoothies - UK - November 2014. Available from: http://store.mintel.com/fruit-juice-juice-drinks-and-smoothies-uk-november-2014[Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Office for National Statistics. (2016). Internet users: 2015. Available from:http://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/itandinternetindustry/bulletins/internetusers/2015 [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Phelvin, P., & Wallop, H. (2008). Innocent Smoothies accused over environmental marketing. Telegraph. Available from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2484148/Innocent-Smoothies-accused-over-environmental-marketing.html [Accessed 29 March 2016]
Pidd, H., & Hawkes, A. (2010). Innocent loses fight over VAT charged on smoothies – but not raw fruit. The Guardian. Available from:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/nov/22/innocent-smoothies-challenge-vat-ruling [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Planet Smoothies. (2016). What Are My Startup Costs?. Available from:http://planetsmoothiefranchise.com/learn-planet-smoothie/startup-costs/ [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
PWC. (2016). UK Economic Outlook - March 2016. Available from:http://www.pwc.co.uk/services/economics-policy/insights/uk-economic-outlook.html [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Sea Food Research. (2009). SMOOTHIES Consumer knowledge, attitudes and beliefs around the nutritional content of smoothies. Available from:http://www.safefood.eu/SafeFood/media/SafeFoodLibrary/Documents/Publications/Research%20Reports/9354-Smoothies-AW_web-FINAL-030309.pdf [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Starbucks. (2016). Starbucks Menu. Available from: http://www.starbucks.com/menu [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
The Statistic Portal. (2014a). Number of people using ready-to-drink fruit and vegetable juices and smoothies in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2014, by frequency of use (in 1,000 people). Available from: http://www.statista.com/statistics/302079/fruit-and-vegetable-juices-and-smoothie-usage-frequency-in-the-uk/ [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
The Statistic Portal. (2014b). Brands of ready-to-drink fruit and vegetable juice and smoothies ranked by number of users in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2014 (in 1,000). Available from: http://www.statista.com/statistics/308483/leading-brands-of-ready-to-drink-fruit-and-vegetable-juice-and-smoothies-in-the-uk/ [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
Williamson, O. (2015). Health-food nation: how Britain went mad for spiralizers and smoothies in 2015. The Telegraph. Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/food-and-drink-trends-of-2015-and-2016/ [Accessed on 29th March, 2016]
APPENDIX 1: CUP FOR SMOOTHIE
APPENDIX 2: REVENUE FORECAST AND ASSUMPTION
REVENUE ASSUMPTIONS
APPENDIX 2: BREAK-EVEN ANALYSIS
APPENDIX 3: Reflection
Prior to the study on the topic of business planning, I did not consider the planning process to be much engaging in terms of resources, personal commitment and need for skills. However, with the course that culminated producing a business plan as the evaluation criteria, I have come to realize the immense work that goes into business planning. In completing this project, the key focus was to apply the skills that I had learnt throughout the course and assessing my ability of putting them into practice. However, I did not foresee the challenges that I later faced in the process regarding some aspects of the planning process. Prior to the practice, I had the idea that planning for a business would just involve putting down the idea on paper for reference as well as use by other key stakeholders. With that, I did not foresee the need to substantiate the idea with actual market research that could involve extensive studies on similar business models as well as market trends and relevant factors. However, when I began the project, I realized that much was demanded of me as a comprehensive business plan would need identifying opportunities and possible risks that need to be assessed for purpose of effective solutions recommendations. In that respect, the first step in developing the business plan involved coming up with an idea that would be viable and even attractive to possible financiers. With that, making a choice from the many business ideas I have ever thought was not easy and required consulting an experienced entrepreneur regarding the idea choice. That consultation made me realize that selecting the business idea would require considering the areas that would capitalize on my strengths and skills. The second step involved working with my colleagues in setting up a schedule to complete the plan. That also presented a challenge as it needed a balance of interests and prioritization of the tasks that each team member had at hand. To address that, we had to agree on a schedule that catered for each member needs and which would provide us adequate time to deliberate on the idea and the involved tasks. Then the third step involved the start of the idea definition including its scope and the concept that the business idea would take. For that, I had to draw from the course learning regarding the need to review various concepts before making the final decision. That was also a key challenge as it brought different ideas and concepts that had to be agreed on and a choice made on the most suitable one that we would effectively address as a team. Fourth, the planning got us involved in various tasks that required an effective division of responsibilities relating to issues such as data collection and recording, analysis and report writing. That was the stage that I can describe as the most useful in my learning as it involved interacting with different people and applying the business idea evaluation techniques. With that, I realized that communication was a crucial skill for an entrepreneur as they would need to interact and consult different people in the market. Finally, after the first draft, the review by the assessor also identified some shortcomings in our approach as it was identified that much of the plans’ assessment was not based on realistic expectations. That resulted to a reassessment of the business plan in view of the need to collect more data that was relevant to the Super Green Smoothies concept. In summary, the planning has helped me apply the skills I learnt in class as well as identify the challenges that entrepreneurs face.
