University of Northampton: Business Opportunity Report (MKT3026)

This report analyzes entrepreneurial opportunities within the food and beverage sector, using the case of the Red and Blue restaurant. The report begins by defining entrepreneurial opportunities and highlighting key market trends such as bright and bold food presentations, the rise of puffed snacks, sustainability concerns, nutritional value focus, and infused beverages. It then assesses the viability of the puffed snacks opportunity for the restaurant, including an executive summary, mission, vision, funding sources (bank loan and retained earnings), budget allocation, and marketing strategy. The report also explores creative and innovative approaches like brainstorming and role-playing to maximize the identified opportunity. Finally, it concludes that identifying and capitalizing on market trends through innovative strategies is crucial for business success, especially in a competitive landscape. The report provides a detailed framework for assessing and leveraging business opportunities, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and creative thinking in the food and beverage industry.

Opportunity Innovation
and Entrepreneurship

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Understanding of business opportunities.....................................................................................1
Assessment of viability of business opportunities.......................................................................3
Creative and innovative ways of making the most of the innovative opportunity......................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurial opportunities refer to using of situations created in the market for
advantage of the enterprise (An and et.al., 2018). It can be used by either by creating a new
product or service according to needs, demands of customers and the new trends emerging in the
market. Food and beverage sector has been selected for this case study. Red and Blue restaurant
is a small restaurant in United Kingdom which is a part of this sector. In this report, analysis will
be made on critical understanding of business opportunities, identification and assessment of its
viability and developing innovative and creative ways to make most of opportunities.
MAIN BODY
Understanding of business opportunities
Business opportunity refers to use of trends in market and identifying needs and demands
of customers to develop a product or service accordingly (Aparicio, Urbano and Audretsch,
2016). Business opportunities have a direct relation with innovation and entrepreneurship as it is
an activity which involves taking the risk to develop a new product or service according to a new
trend. The food and beverage market in U.K. Is witnessing high growth consistently and there
are a lot of new trends emerging in it. Thus its gives opportunities to firms in it to maximise their
profits.
Trends in food and beverage market-
Bright and Bold- Bright and Bold means customers are preferring originality of food
products. They aren't preferring artificial colours or elements in their food. Thus companies will
now have to focus on building the visual appeal of food products which will be crucial in the
future.
Bright and Blue Restaurant can use it as a business opportunity by bringing originality in
its food products and by not using artificial colours. This will enhance its image and more
customers will come to restaurant increasing its profits.
Puffed snacks- This means due to a busy lifestyle consumers are becoming more and
more interested in packaged snacks. Therefore, food companies and restaurants need to provide
food in high-quality packaging to the consumers so that they can eat on the go. This is a highly
profitable trend which can be a business opportunity as it can increase the sales of packaged food
products of the restaurant.
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Bright and Blue Restaurant can use it as a business opportunity by providing different
snacks in high-quality packaging. This will help in attracting more customers significantly
raising profits.
Sustainability- Nowadays, consumers are becoming aware about the environment and
want food products to be packaged in environment-friendly packaging and want ingredients in
food products should not harm the ecology (Bolz and König, 2018). Thus restaurants and food
companies need to take note of this change in market and develop their products accordingly.
Bright and Blue Restaurant can use it as a business opportunity by using eco-friendly
technology in food processing. It must be careful towards the environment which will ensure
more customers will come to it.
Nutritional value- Consumers are valuing the amount of nutritions in the products of
restaurants. This has brought a change from the past when they used to concentrate on fast food.
Therefore, food businesses have to identify and make the most of this change by increasing the
nutritional content in their food products and making them diet-friendly. They should aim to
make their products adjust according to the lifestyle change of consumers.
Bright and Blue Restaurant can use it as a business opportunity by increasing the
nutritional value of its food products which will help in lifestyle of consumers and will result in
positive publicity.
Infused beverages- Consumers want beverages to be healthy and prefer fruit flavours
which are unusual (Davari and Farokhmanesh, 2017). Examples can be prickly pear cactus,
bergamot orange, pomelo and yuzu. Thus, restaurants and other food businesses need to avail
this opportunity by bringing a change in their beverages. If they will make their beverages
health-friendly then certainly more customers will prefer it resulting in increase in the level of
profits of firms.
Bright and Blue Restaurant can use it as business opportunity by introducing new
flavours in beverages and making them diet-friendly which will enhance its profits.
Thus it can be concluded that various entrepreneurial opportunities are available in
market as a result of above-mentioned changes in trends in recent years. Red and Blue restaurant
needs to identify a specific trend and convert it into an entrepreneurial opportunities for
sustainability, growth and maximisation of profits in the long-run. Also it is necessary if it has to
get ahead of its different competitors in market.
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Assessment of viability of business opportunities
Red and Blue restaurant needs to avail business opportunity in the form of Puffed
Snacks. By introducing them, it can help its customers in eating on the go due to their busy
lifestyles. It will help the restaurant in increasing its level of profits and will enhance its image in
the market (Ghura, Li and Harraf, 2017).
The Red and Blue Restaurant will asses the viability and feasibility of the trend of puffed
snacks it is going to convert into an opportunity in the following manner-
Executive summary- Puffed snacks are becoming popular among consumers due to fast
lifestyle in metropolitan cities. Consumers nowadays aren't getting much time to visit restaurants
for snacks. They prefer that they can have snacks on the go and for providing this high-quality is
packaging is required. This will enhance the restaurant in attracting consumers whose lifestyles
have changed and thus it can make more profits.
Mission- The mission of Red and Blue restaurant is to provide quality products to its
customers. It wants to provide food products of all types to consumers relating to different
cuisines around the world and ranging from snacks to healthy and diet-friendly choices for
health-conscious customers.
Vision- Red and Blue restaurant's vision is to maximise its profits in the long-run. It also
wants to get ahead of its competitors by being fast in capturing new market trends and innovation
and utilising them as opportunities. It wants to become the market leader in the industry.
Sources of funding- Red and Blue restaurant is going to take a bank loan for this new
innovation. Also, it is considering using its retained earnings for funding this idea.
Bank loan- It is provided by banks at a fixed interest rate and facility of payment in easy
instalments (Hajizadeh and Zali, 2016). Red and Blue restaurant can consider this option which
can help it in funding its innovative idea.
Benefits-
 Bank Loan does not dilutes the control on operations of the firms and therefore decisions
can be taken independently.
 It offers flexibility of payment through instalments thus ensuring that there is no load on
finances.
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Retained earnings- It refers to holding back of profits by a company or a firm for its future
usage (Karimi and et.al., 2016). Red and Blue restaurant can use this source which can provide
financial help for its idea.
Benefits-
 It does not involves payment of interest and therefore financial burden on firm is reduced
significantly. Therefore it does not needs to pay interest regularly.
 There is no requirement of assets of firm being mortgaged and put as collateral security
and therefore no liability is created on assets. This is beneficial for the firm.
Budget- Red and Blue restaurant is setting a budget of 50000 pounds for utilising this
innovative idea as a business opportunity. The budget is as follows-
Particulars Amount
Market research 5000
Implementation expenses 4000
Processing expenses 10000
Packaging expenses 15000
Machinery expenses 5000
Salary expenses 5000
Other expenses 6000
Total 50000
Benefits of availing innovative opportunity-
 By using market trend of introducing puffed snacks Red and Blue Restaurant can ensure
that more customers are attracted resulting in higher sales revenue, turnover and
ultimately maximisation of profits.
 Red and Blue Restaurant can ensure that it implements this idea before its competitors in
food and beverage industry implement it which will set it ahead of them in the market
ensuring high-level growth.
Marketing strategy- Red and Blue restaurant is planning to bring puffed snacks as the
innovative product (Martin and Wilson, 2016). It will use penetrative pricing strategy for
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introducing this innovation. It will set is operations in United Kingdom which is its existing
market. For promotion, it will rely on digital marketing techniques to make consumers aware
about the new innovation.
Creative and innovative ways of making the most of the innovative opportunity
Creative and innovative ways are required to make the most of innovative opportunities
available in the business environment. The approaches followed for creative thinking are-
Brainstorming- These sessions help a lot in generating creative ideas which can be
effective if there are large teams present in the organisation (Reid and et.al., 2018). Different
members of team can have various approaches of solving a particular problem. Red and Blue
Restaurant can use this approach as it can generate a highly effective idea.
Role-play- This can be used to train new employees of the firm so that it can be seen
what decision they will take in a particular situation. Red and Blue Restaurant can use this for
training of new workers and generating of creative ideas.
Reframing issue- Reframing of a problem or issue means looking at it in a entirely
different way. This can help in generating creative ideas. Red and Blue Restaurant can use it in
finding ideas which are creative.
Making most of the creative flow- It involves becoming deeply absorbed in a particular
project which can result in brilliant creative ideas while being immersed in work. Red and Blue
Restaurant can use this approach to develop ideas which are creative in nature and can result in
higher profits.
Flexibility- Flexibility in thinking and open-mindedness is required if a firm has to work
on creative ideas. Red and Blue Restaurant must be flexible in its approach in a dynamic
business environment which will enable it to use creative ideas for business opportunities.
Creative and innovative ways of making most of opportunities-
Bright and Bold- Red and Blue Restaurant can make most of this opportunity by
bringing originality in food products. It can use creative options in its menu for this purpose.
Puffed snacks- Red and Blue Restaurant can use creative packaging techniques which
can save cost of the firm as well as ensure that the demands of consumers are met.
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Sustainability- Red and Blue Restaurant can adopt such techniques in its food processing
which do not harm the environmental resources. It can use creative techniques which are also
environment-friendly in nature.
Nutritional values- Red and Blue Restaurant can provide tasty snacks to its consumers
which are also nutritious in value. It will help in serving consumers who are health-conscious
and aware about their lifestyle. If the restaurant is able to make most of this opportunity using
creative thinking then it will certainly enhance its profits.
Infused beverages- Red and Blue Restaurant can provide health beverages to its
consumers who are aware about their health. Further, it can use creative names and options for
combination of beverages with the food ordered (Welter, Mauer and Wuebker, 2016). This will
help in attracting the attention of consumers and will result in increase of revenue and overall
profits of firm which will help it in the long-run.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment, it can be concluded that entrepreneurial opportunities can be
identified using creative and innovative approach. For their identification, it is necessary to scan
the business environment for different trends that can be converted into an opportunity. It is
important to understand the available opportunities and use creative and innovative ways to
make the most of them so that firm can maximise profits.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
An, W. and et.al., 2018. How bricolage drives corporate entrepreneurship: The roles of
opportunity identification and learning orientation. Journal of Product Innovation
Management. 35(1). pp.49-65.
Aparicio, S., Urbano, D. and Audretsch, D., 2016. Institutional factors, opportunity
entrepreneurship and economic growth: Panel data evidence. Technological forecasting
and social change. 102. pp.45-61.
Bolz, K. and König, H., 2018. Can responsible innovation be a moderator of entrepreneurship?-
Learnings from the debate on advanced biotechnology. International Journal of
Business and Globalisation. 21(3). pp.308-326.
Davari, A. and Farokhmanesh, T., 2017. Impact of entrepreneurship policies on opportunity to
startup. Management Science Letters. 7(9). pp.431-438.
Ghura, H., Li, X. and Harraf, A., 2017. Moderating relationship of institutions for opportunity
entrepreneurship and economic development. World Journal of Entrepreneurship,
Management and Sustainable Development.
Hajizadeh, A. and Zali, M., 2016. Prior knowledge, cognitive characteristics and opportunity
recognition. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.
Karimi, S. and et.al., 2016. The impact of entrepreneurship education: A study of Iranian
students' entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity identification. Journal of Small
Business Management. 54(1). pp.187-209.
Martin, L. and Wilson, N., 2016. Opportunity, discovery and creativity: A critical realist
perspective. International Small Business Journal. 34(3). pp.261-275.
Reid, S. W. and et.al., 2018. Blazing new trails or opportunity lost? Evaluating research at the
intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship. The Leadership Quarterly. 29(1).
pp.150-164.
Welter, C., Mauer, R. and Wuebker, R. J., 2016. Bridging behavioral models and theoretical
concepts: effectuation and bricolage in the opportunity creation framework. Strategic
Entrepreneurship Journal. 10(1). pp.5-20.
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