Business Venture Proposal: Cloud Computing for UK Small Businesses

This business venture proposal outlines the establishment of Business Innovation Technologies (BIT), a company designed to provide internet-based cloud business intelligence and big data analytics services to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the UK, specifically targeting the hospitality sector. The proposal includes a comprehensive business plan with sections covering the company's vision, mission, goals, core values, market segmentation, customer analysis, and a detailed market and competitor analysis using Porter's Five Forces. It also addresses management strategies, distribution and supply chain management, marketing strategies, PESTLE and SWOT analyses, an implementation plan, risk anticipation, and financial projections, including cash flow, profit and loss statements, funding requirements, and a break-even analysis. The plan emphasizes the importance of building trust and integrity, especially when handling sensitive data, and details the company's commitment to providing innovative cloud computing solutions to enhance business efficiency and decision-making for its target market. Appendices provide additional financial data and supporting documents, offering a complete overview of the proposed business venture.

Business Venture Proposal

Table of Contents
OUTLINE OF THE BUSINESS PLAN..........................................................................................1
Background of the proposed business.........................................................................................2
Vision...........................................................................................................................................3
Mission........................................................................................................................................3
Business goals..............................................................................................................................3
Core value....................................................................................................................................4
Market segmentation for the target market selection..................................................................4
Customer analysis........................................................................................................................5
Business environment..................................................................................................................5
Market research...........................................................................................................................5
Canvas business model................................................................................................................6
Market and competitor analysis...................................................................................................6
Management of the business and employees...............................................................................7
Distribution and supply chain management................................................................................8
Promotional plan..........................................................................................................................8
PESTLE analysis.........................................................................................................................9
SWOT analysis..........................................................................................................................10
Marketing strategy.....................................................................................................................13
Marketing plan...........................................................................................................................14
Implementation plan..................................................................................................................14
Anticipation on the problem and risk and way to overcome from it.........................................15
Financial projection...................................................................................................................15
Cash flow...................................................................................................................................17
Profit and loss statement............................................................................................................17

Funding requirement..................................................................................................................18
Break-even point........................................................................................................................18
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................20
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................23
Canvas business model..............................................................................................................23
Appendix 1: Cash flow analysis................................................................................................23
Appendix 2: Profit and loss statement.......................................................................................24
Appendix 3: personnel budget...................................................................................................25

Index of figures
Figure 1 Core values of Business Innovation Technologies...........................................................4
Figure 2 Porter's 5 forces model......................................................................................................6
Figure 3 Pestle framework for external analysis.............................................................................9

OUTLINE OF THE BUSINESS PLAN
Company Name: (BIT) Business Innovation Technologies Inc. (BIT)
Business Idea:Providing internet-based cloud business intelligence and big data analytics
services to small and medium scale businesses in the UK.
In today’s era, IT industry undertook major changes in the corporate world through
different means such as digitalization, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data security,
analytical software and others. Such IT meta-trends, more importantly, new software and
technologies gain high demand in the global market as companies use different business
analytics software for the data mining, analysis, performance evaluation, prediction and
computerized management of their regular operations. Evidencing from the current statistics, in
Europe, UK became the leading nation in digitalized and technological investment which
contributed £97bn to the economic GDP.
Therefore, the proposed business plan will develop a unique digitalized platform and will
deliver cloud computing services to the consumers.BIT aims at using cloud computing services
that will be offered to small sized companies like hoteliers and Bed and breakfast companies
(B&B) with cloud ERP, cloud hosting technologies and Management Information Technologies
(MIS) as well. The reason behind this is due to lack of adequate funds, Small sized businesses
like small hoteliers are unable to integrate their all the business functions through MIS as it is
available at high cost; hence, they prefer manual system. Two of the main reasons as to why
companies are increasing their use of Business Intelligence in the cloud services sector include;
cost and flexibility. Other reasons are the decreased software/hardware maintenance, the
implementation speed, speed of deployment and reduced administration costs as well.
Furthermore, the company will provide a wide array of IT solutions which will revolve around
various areas such as cloud services, security, manufacturing, distribution, systems integration,
business continuity and so on. However, initially, the prospective business will specifically target
bed and breakfast (B&B) or small sized hotels so as to build trust, integrity and resilience. It is
necessary because the proposed business will be going to host confidential and highly important
data on the behalf of other companies therefore; entity can only attract more and more consumers
through building integrity and trust among them. It will focus on satisfying the user’s needs and
operations such as inventory management, automated manufacturing, room booking, check-in
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and check-out, rent per room, total sales, costs, profitability, merchandising, hotel booking on
web, on consumer visiting, through mobile app and other areas of business. Thus, the system
functioning will be designed keeping into account their business requirement. All the small sized
hoteliers and Bed & Breakfast (B&B) founded in UK will be the target audiences of the
proposed business. For the funding purpose, it will collect required capital from different sources
such as personal savings and bank borrowings.
Background of the proposed business
Business Innovation Technologies (BIT) will be a collective group of various application,
technological platform, infrastructure, hardware and software and various business practices that
will enable the entity to analyse the big database to optimize prudent policy formulation and
sound decisions. Thus, its data analytics software i.e. cloud ERP, MIS and others will provide
services of information collection, analysis and sound decisions so as to maximize business
performance of small sized UK hotels and B&B businesses.
(Source: Gevorgyan, Krob and Spencer, 2016)
It will provide them various data analytics software like cloud ERP, MIS and other along
with the personalized consultation services so that small sized businesses will not need to spend
a lot of money to purchase the software just by outsourcing the data base integration &
management system to the experienced professionals (Barringer, 2012).
Reasons to choose BIT
 Outperforming competitors in the hospitality industry
 Prudent and sound decision-making through historical performance evaluation and future
forecasting
 Reaching industrial benchmark position
 Business growth, progress and long-run sustainability
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 Better reporting
Vision
The key vision of the BIT is “To gain a leading position in the data analytics and
business intelligence industry by the end of 2025”
Mission
The mission of the company is “To provide highly innovative and technological platform
to small and medium sized businesses in UK at competitive prices”.
Business goals
 To provide a unique technology platform to the UK SMEs
 To reduce the gaps between small and medium sized businesses and ICT advancement
through providing them innovative cloud computing services
 To maximize business efficiency and minimize database management issues
 To provide data collection, management and integration facilities with high security and
privacy
 To promote business capability and productivity
 To facilitate efficient and prudent decision making process and better policy formulation
 To provide better excess to the managerial team through keeping all the information at a
single database
 To generate maximum sales and highest return on the total revenue by delivering great
quality offerings
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Core value
Figure 1 Core values of Business Innovation Technologies
Market segmentation for the target market selection
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning approach
STP is a strategic approach and considered as one of the most important framework to
determine the target market. It helps marketers to identify the target market whose requirement
will be assessed and examined to engage with the target audiences.
Segmentation: This process involves categorizing the market into different parts
considering various elements and factors i.e. demographic, psychographic, and geographic and
others (Grant, 2016). For the Business Innovation Technologies (BIT), company will segment
their market into small, medium and large sized businesses considering demographic factors.
Moreover, taking into account the geographical segmentation, it will segregate the market
considering the country as a factor of market segmentation.
Targeting: It is not possible for the company to serve the needs and expectations of the
entire consumer’s population as their demand may vary from each other. Therefore, it has been
decided to select a target market whose desires and expectations will be prioritize by the entity.
In the context of BIT, it will target only the small sized hoteliers and small & medium sized bed
and breakfast businesses that are operating in UK (Gevorgyan, Krob and Spencer, 2016). It is
because; the planned business involves collection, integration and management of their huge
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EfficiencyExpertiseQuality

quantum of database which requires high integrity & trust. Therefore, initially, by targeting small
sized businesses, it will be able to build trust and resilience and afterwards, more and more
audiences can be attracted to the BIT for promoting growth.
Positioning: A portfolio of Innovative business analytics software and the best
consultation services through a team of competent and experienced professionals will be the part
of its positioning strategy (Aithal, 2016). It will encourage and attract more and more proportion
of the target population to use its services and maximize BIT’s competitive strength and brand
reputation.
Customer analysis
Due to shortage of adequate fund availability and less access to capital, small sized
hoteliers and B&B businesses are not able to use big data analytics software as it requires
excessive funding (Blank, 2013). However, the planned business will definitely bridge such gap
by providing data analytics software i.e. cloud ERP, MIS and others to the small sized businesses
at competitive rates. They will be able to use such services as they not will be required to
purchase software and just need to provide their critical data to the analytics that will integrate
and analyze the data using updated software with high privacy and confidentiality. Initially, BIT
will target such audience to build trust so that afterwards, company can target other businesses
too like retail sector and others and gain success (Gevorgyan, Krob and Spencer, 2016).
Business environment
The two most important reasons why business intelligence is growing in the market
comprises cost and flexibility. Besides this, decrease cost of hardware and software maintenance
and high speed provide various IT solutions which covers various areas of cloud computing
business i.e. security, manufacturing, distribution, system integration, performance analysis and
others (Barringer, 2012). Thus, it becomes clear that there are opportunities in the market for the
potential entrepreneur to set up his own business intelligence company, BIT.
Market research
Data Explosion is a revolutionized business which provides robust data analytics services
to the companies to support data analysis and decision-making process. It becomes the forefront
of the British success story and it focuses upon expanding digital tech sector comprising business
intelligence, data analytics and others (McGoogan, 2017). Thus, it provides opportunity to the
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ventures to bring unique technologies for the businesses to streamline their operations through
digitalization. Therefore, it has been decided to open a cloud computing business named BIT that
will provide various data analytics software like cloud ERP, MIS and other along with the
personalized consultation services to the small sized hoteliers and B&B (Ham, Park and Jung,
2012).
Canvas business model
Refer to Appendix
Market and competitor analysis
Porter’s 5 forces is the great tool for examining the market through the analysis of
competition in the industry, enumerated underneath:
Figure 2 Porter's 5 forces model
(Source: Bohnsack, Pinkse and Kolk, 2014)
Threat of New Entrants: From the past few decades, the IT industry reported a rapid
growth with the high market demand. Lower up-front cost, faster time, reduced financial riskand
high growth potential of the market encourage entrepreneurs to set up their own cloud computing
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business, still, on the other hand, high cost of infrastructure development stated that threats of
new entrants is low in the industry (Albrecht, Albrecht, Holland, Holland, Peters and Peters,
2016).
Bargaining Power of Buyers: Buyers have number of choices from where they can get
advanced and updated big data analytics software and cloud computing services i.e. ERP, MIS
and others. Thus, bargaining power of consumers can be considered high.
Threat of Substitutes: There are number of cloud computing companies such asMetaphor
IT, Host Venture, Acertis, Appware and others who are delivering quality software to the users,
still, their software cannot be considered as close substitute because they run different functions
and operations considering the client’s need, hence, threat of substitute is low (Zhao, Zuo, Wu,
Yan and Zillante, 2016).
Suppliers’ Bargaining Power: Lack of IaaS providers in the country demonstrates high
bargaining power of the suppliers where they can charge desired prices from the companies
operating in BI industry.
Industry rivalry: There are number of businesses such as Cloud Monkey Ltd, DAGEOP,
Ampflex, Metaphor IT, Pwc, Accenture, Oracle, Acertis, Appware and others who are serving
major proportion of the market, thus, it is probable that BIT will face tough & stiff competition
from the competitors (Hu and Yang, 2016).
Management of the business and employees
Management of employees is necessary to increase the productivity of the business. BIT
has made plan to manage its staff members in order to increase their effectiveness and efficiency
at work place. BIT plans for employees’ management which is as follows:
 The company will focus on behaving properly with each and every individual working
with an organization. Treating workers equally encourage them for effective functioning
of production operations.
 BIT will provide adequate training to staff of every department to ensure proper
functioning. The firm is focusing on investing in leadership training for employees so that
they can perform effectively in every stage of organizational functions (DaSilva and
Trkman, 2014).
 The firm will also focus on conflict management of employees because when disputes are
most common within organizational environment.
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Distribution and supply chain management
BIT will follow a structured distribution and supply chain management system where it
provides personalized services to the hoteliers and bed and breakfast companies. The services
delivered to them depend upon their necessity and is tailor made according to their requirements.
The customers are required to tell the personnel involved about their preferences of software and
what they want to get customized in it. The entity provides option of pricing based upon the
selected configuration and services.
BIT picks the order from customer's side and asks for their requirements through which
software is required to be prepared. The personalised services give liberty to the client and the
entity to discuss the model to be prepared in better manner. Further, after completion of the
order, it is then transferred to the customers (Sevkli, Oztekin, Uysal, Torlak, Turkyilmaz and
Delen, 2012).
Another way of service distribution is providing services through online portal where no
interaction between the client and entity happen to take place. Cloud computing is performed
through monitoring the work, preparing the financials, checking database, network, block storage
of data etc. Further, it helps in developing and delivering based on customer's demand. It plans,
develop and deliver to the clients according to right course of actions. It also navigates large
amount of information provided by the client and investigate it in deeper manner (Luo, Roach
and Jiratchot, 2016).
Promotional plan
Promotional plan is kind of integral activity of the business enterprise. It is important
activity in order to achieve desired objective. Without the planning of effective promotional plan,
the marketing plan of the firm could waste. A promotional plan should be excellent in order to
bring profitability in the organization. The cost per action is referred as cost per acquisition it’s
like an advertising pricing model which is helpful in making effective promotion planning. At
this model advertiser pays for particular acquisition which can add profitability and productivity
in the business enterprise.
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