Introduction
Squeezed juice and bottle juices are of high preference as opposed to juices, which are flavored, colored, and added preservatives. Fresh juices and fruits are also in a better position to be bought if the competing juice substitute is made using unhealthy and artificial ingredients. The reason as to why the fresh juices made in trucks are preferred is their availability especially in an area that has high temperatures. I supermarkets, you will find products that are added preservatives to improve their shelf life, a quality that makes fresh juice from fruits highly demanded. Most consumers prefer making their sauces or become loyal customers to businesses offering fruits or preparing fresh juices for them. Most people have become sensitive to the health, and they consume products putting in mind that the product can affect their well-being in the future. Fresh juice business is a significant opportunity or entrepreneurs to venture in due the readily available market.
The company will serve specifically the Arizona state university campus. It is a good market for fresh juice truck because of the hot climate, and this “offers a significant opportunity for students to enjoy fresh juice any time they want”. The business will operate on the twenty-four-hour basis as it will sell not only the fresh juices but also the ingredients so that the students and staff who have time can make the juices by themselves. The business, however, may face competition that may bar it from thriving very fast. These competitors are the restaurants in the campus that offer juice. They would be in better position to outdo my truck business if they offer the product because they serve food after which people will be interested in having some fresh juice. Since the restaurants have them, they are likely to threaten my fresh juice truck business.
Research
The study will provide the best analysis the business venture and offer all the information that will be necessary for anyone who wants to get into this business. The hot climate in the geographical location of Arizona State University provides an opportunity to make the business a valid one. It is not a capital-intensive business thus; students can come into it and make profits too. The business is likely to attract competition because the venture is not yet exploited despite the excellent opportunity of the readily available market.
Figure1: extracted fresh juice from oranges.
The use of a mobile automotive will be cost efficient and would help reach all the customers. The automotive will also be used to collect the raw materials and ingredients and bring them to the manufacturing plant. The type of vehicle that can serve the market better is shown in the figure below.
Figure 2: truck to supply the juice
Analysis
For smooth running of the business, there is a need to have accurate reports like forecasting profits, the combination of resources to use to achieve target production and duty allocation. The competitor market analysis is very critical to my business. It will involve identifying the competitors in the market. The current competitor is the restaurants on the campus, and the future competitor will be the tuck shops in the campus since they have the potential to start the business too. The restaurants within the campus are a threat just because they offer food, and most customers may prefer to take a bottle or glass of juice whenever they eat a meal. Since my business will specialize in fresh juice only the competition that could come from the campus restaurant, could be stiff and throw me out of business.
Competition from customer’s point of view
This involves an analysis of the first part of SWOT analysis that is the strengths and weaknesses of the competitor. The strengths for my competitor here include the food they are offering, their health standards maintained in their premises and while preparing meals. The other strength could be the reduced prices for their products they offer, and they are well established since they have been serving the campus with food all through. Their weaknesses, on the other hand, include their location since they are permanent and not mobile. They have poor customer relations. The poor customer relations are evident in that the attendants are harsh on students, and this makes the customers, not like their services. It is clear that students go to these places simply because they are near them. The other weakness is the poor motivation of their employees where their allowances and salaries delay most of the months thus they are never happy while delivering their services for the campus restaurants.
Competition from competitor’s point of view
The competition involves an analysis of the last part of SWOT analysis that is the opportunities and threats to the competitor. The analysis on this basis allows the researcher to understand the competitor better. The opportunity for the restaurants within the campus is that they have great capital that they can invest on to make the business thrive quickly. There is an increase in the admission of students. During orientations, they may market themselves better and establish a better market share.
The other analysis is the PEST analysis, which involves scanning the political, economic, social and technological factors that affect the business. The in-depth analysis brings in the PEST analysis to assess the external forces that may have an impact on the business. Through the SWOT and PEST analysis, my fresh juice truck company will have the answers to questions like who is the biggest competitor, the products offered by the competitor, the market share he has, their past strategies and current ones. The strengths and weaknesses of the opponent. Are they the same strengths and weaknesses for my company?
Problem Statement
Methods
The study will adopt three methods or concepts that will allow the business achieve its objective and eliminate the competitors from the market. These methods are geared towards bringing out my truck juice business as an innovative company and will be used as a tool to become the most competitive advantage for my business. The strategies and methods to use in the firm include the ten types of innovation, the blue ocean strategy and the design think. The utilization of these methods in truck juice business will ensure its success.
The ten types of innovation strategy
Figure 3: an image showing the summary of the ten innovations
It is a ten stage or level to achieve the best regarding market share and profits through innovation to all the products offered to the market. Keeley et al. (245) broadly classified into three dimensions that are configuration, offering, and experience. The configuration has four sub-classes that are the profit model of the company, network of the business operation, structure of the business and the processes involved in making the products.
The profit model innovation. The truck juice company is to make money through product concept. The product concept proposes that the buyers of a product prefer one product to others due to its quality and differentiated features as opposed to any other normal product. Keeley et al. (245) claims that product differentiation is paramount here, and thus, it will show innovations to truck juice business. The branding of my company’s product, the ingredient mixing and new products from different raw materials will be the lines in which we offer our products. Flexible pricing of truck juice company will be the model to make more money. The company would take all prices afforded by the customers, and thus, we will have the chance to give their price. Making many sales is a good strategy to come out with huge returns. The packaging or measurements to use when pricing our juice will be the most convenient to all our target customers.
Network innovation. Truck juice will work hand in hand with researchers on the campus with the knowledge of the business and the fruits to use. Partners from within and outside the campus will be allowed to come in and have their ideas considered (Keeley et al. 245). The business will be a joint venture and collaboration between different parties. Operating on discount retailing is the best form is an innovative form of business that will assure good profits.
Structure innovation. The organization and the alignment of the corporate structure are imperative for the smooth running of activities (Keeley et al. 246). The assets need a good utilization for value addition to our products. Also, the company intends to outsource the properties that are not adding value to the business. A decentralized company structure will be preferred so that each department operated autonomously and meet customer needs better.
Processing innovation. Processing involves adding value to our products to make them superior to others. At first, Truck Juice Company will produce based on the demand for our juice on the campus. The manufacturing will be quite flexible to meet the customer’s needs.
The offering dimension is the second broad category of the ten innovation step. It has three subgroups, which include the performance of the product in the market and the product system.
Innovation on product performance. The management will employ distinguishing features in different sectors. The functionality of every sector will be allocated her duties (Keeley et al. 245). The juice products will be processed in a very innovative way like mixing the juice of different fruit to come up with a new product that meets the needs of customers who want a variety of fruits in one. The uniqueness of the company product that meets client needs will be the priority. The juice will add value to the customer as they expect. The design and cleanliness standards of the juices and their packaging material will be the taste and preference of the customers.
Product system innovativeness. The products will be processed in a manner that they complement each other. The business aims to achieve the complementarity through making a bundle of products that connect to one another. The intense research will help the truck company to produce products that are collaborating with other products.
The third dimension is the experience part which has four sub-classes. These classes include service innovation, channel innovation, brand innovation and the customer engagement level.
Service innovation. The product will be offered by good supportive personnel to enhance the value of the product we offer for the market. The customer support whenever they buy our product would be the service delivery strategy for truck juice. There will be a free sample for our customers to make them loyal to our products. Keeley et al. (245) explain that the services offered to the clients with full personalization will ensure they enjoy the interaction with the sales team. Self-service incorporation would allow customers enjoy every bit of our product and feel valued and part of our juice company.
Channel innovation. The products would be delivered to customers place. The mobile truck will supply the juices to all corners of the campus. There is a change in marketing that use a home delivery strategy for our customers (Keeley et al. 249). The hot climate does not favor clients to walk around the campus compound all the time. The company will have both business-to-business and peer to peer channel to serve the customers.
Brand innovation. The products of Truck Juice Company will be easy to distinguish among other products through brand differentiation. There will be distinctive marketing and have our unique brand.
Consumer engagement innovation. The fostering with our customers will be interactive. There will be personalized interaction. Awarding our loyal customers will create a bond between the business and the customers (Keeley et al. 250). The customers will be networked to know other customers too thus increasing the business base. The company would seek to bring together different player to achieve its objective.
The blue ocean strategy
Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne developed this innovation strategy for business to adopt and stop competing with one another. Companies in the competitive market need to take this policy so that they create a non-competition market (Kim and Mauborgne 47). The approach seeks to pursue simultaneously low cost for products and differentiation. The main aim of Truck Juice Company will be to make the completion of fresh juice business irrelevant. Through its tools and frameworks, the strategy will be adopted to break away all the competition and create a free competition market space for juice on the campus. Since this strategy is a systematic process, it will assess the market and the whole industry as a whole. There is a room when using this strategy to test the economic viability of the business idea. This is critical as it minimizes risks involved in a business and at the same time, it helps the business to maximize its profits. The tools used in blue ocean strategy are inclusive and easy to understand hence making policy through building an execution. Through integration, blue ocean strategy is always ready to create a win-win outcome for the business. The objective of this strategy is to create value in products and make profits with the interaction of the parties involved that is the business and its customers.
Instead of fighting for customers in the market, the blue strategy creates a market space that is free from competition. Here the demand is never fought for, but rather it is created. There is an opportunity for growth if a firm chooses blue ocean strategy to enter a competitive market. The Truck Juice Company will adopt the blue ocean strategy through launching an entirely new industry (Kim and Mauborgne 61). There exists an opportunity to sell fresh juice on the campus thus many players may come in to meet the gap and bridge the gap. The products readily available in the market have food additives and preservative thus a fresh juice company will be in a position to offer exactly what customers prefer which is an entirely different industry. The product differentiation of juice can appear in the color of the bottle, the content or the branding. The picture below shows a sample of product differentiation
Figure 4: product differentiation
Blue ocean strategy is hardly about technology innovation. The already technology used by a firm still exists in the market. Truck Juice Company will not use the competition as the benchmark for survival in the market. Instead, the management will make competition irrelevant by creating a mutual relationship where the customers and the company will all enjoy value addition. The other strategy to use the blue ocean strategy is the one of reducing the costs involved in the manufacturing of products at the same time offering customers more value. Kim and Mauborgne (67) claims that Incumbent creates blue oceans. The company does not need an external force to adopt a strategy but instead business usually perform through the adoption of strategies from within. The way industries are known today; they will continue to be known in the future as we are aware the current manufacturers were still known a century ago (Kim and Mauborgne 71).
Design Thinking
The design thinking has been in existence for quite some time in the development process. It occurs in the manner that new products are made more attractive and appealing to consumers, the existing brands are enhanced too to improve their perceptions before customers. Brown (84) illustrates that with technology, the firms are making an innovation to their products. A lot of collaboration is involved when making a design-thinking product. For instance, the truck juice company needs high health standards as the products included are food for consumption. Design thinking is not about how our products look like but how they are consumed and their nutritive value to the consumer. When one consumes our juice, what nutrition has she taken into the body? Therefore, we can say design thinking brings what our customers desire into existence. Fresh juice extraction from the fruits and selling it on the campus is a form of design thinking for our business. This is because the fresh juice does not currently exist on the college. Design thinking involves a lot of imagination with systematic reasoning so that one can realize what could be done to create the desired outcome.
Design thinking seeks the simplicity of doing something that is complicated to make, the appealing of a product as well as its functionality. Elegant solutions to an existing problem are found through this type of thinking. The needs of people are always at hand while designing a product (Brown 90). The truck juice company will partner with other companies like that refrigerator manufacturer who will offer a cooling system for the juice so that it best serves the customers. The existing hot climate around the campus requires one to use well-refrigerated juice or liquid to satisfy their thirst and at the same time get nutrients that will not affect their body functioning in the future. It is through design thinking that an innovative strategy would make a company succeed in its operations. The figure below shows the design thinking to create the best product for customers
Figure2: Design Thinking (Brown 85)
Summary
The research on the juice truck has revealed that there exists an opportunity to exploit as the consumers in the market need what the project is intending to offer. The utilization of the three methods that is the ten types of innovation, blue ocean strategy and the design thinking give the project a benchmark to use them so that the business thrives with and without any competition for customers. When one starts a new business and grows, there are many other firms attracted on the same business to come in and cause competition hence the profits will start to shrink as competition increases. The blue ocean strategy will then go in there with tools and frameworks that would make the competition irrelevant.
Works cited
Keeley L. et al. The Ten Types of Innovations: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs. John Wiley & Sons. (2013): 245.
Kim, W C, and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant., 2015. Print
Brown, Tim. Design Thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86.6 (2008): 84-92.
