Kensington Ice Cream Parlour: Scoops & Smiles Business Plan Report

This report details the business plan for Scoops & Smiles, an ice cream parlour launched in Kensington, West London. It outlines the business type (partnership), unique selling proposition (innovative ice cream flavors and packaging), and market research within the UK's ice cream industry. The report analyzes the application of the 4Ps (Place, Products, Price, Promotion), detailing the chosen location, product range including fusion ice creams, pricing strategies (penetration, premium, and value-based), and promotion through social media. It also covers staffing details, including the roles of the manager and zero-hour contract workers, and the target customer segment (millennials). Finally, the report discusses potential expansion routes for Scoops & Smiles, such as licensing, franchising, and joint ventures, to increase sales and market reach. This business plan provides a comprehensive overview of the venture's strategies and future prospects in the competitive ice cream market.

SCOOPS & SMILES ICE-
CREAM PARLOUR

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Outline of Business Venture...............................................................................................1
1.1 Business Type...................................................................................................................1
1.2 Business Research............................................................................................................1
2.1 Application of 4P's...........................................................................................................2
2.2 Staff of Scoops & Smiles................................................................................................4
2.3 Customers/Clients.............................................................................................................5
3.1 Expansion routes for Scoops & Smiles in future..............................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business plan is a formal documented layout of a new business venture and outlines its
products, services, procurement routes of materials, staffing, finance, operations, goals and other
necessary details (Tipu, 2018). This assignment is based upon the launch of a new ice cream bar
in Kensington, United Kingdom under the name “Scoops & Smiles”. This assignment will gain
an insight into the overall business plan of this venture inclusive of details about business type,
unique idea, staff and probable expansion routes. Also, it will include research into the economy
and rivalry in the selected business location. Further, it comprises of strategies that the enterprise
can adopt in future to facilitate expansion.
1. Outline of Business Venture
Scoops & Smiles is a new ice cream bar that is launched in Kensington, West London,
UK. This venture is set to target the population of the densely populated borough within the
capital city of UK. This business belongs to food & beverage industry, particularly the ice cream
sector and seeks to provide ice creams of varying choices to people.
1.1 Business Type
Scoops & Smiles is a partnership firm where there are two partners with 50-50 profit
sharing ratio. This model has been chosen as the whole thought about the venture idea and setup
of this ice cream bar was collectively contributed by two friends. One friend, Mr. Joseph Sylvie
proposed the idea of opening an ice cream bar while the other partner, Mr. Stephen Johnson
presented the idea of various flavours and styles of ice-creams that will be served by this
enterprise.
1.2 Business Research
Scoops & Smiles is operating within Food & Beverage, specifically the ice cream
industry which is a lucrative market for aspiring ventures who are willing to invest less yet gain
more from the population. Ice cream industry within UK is divided into two segments, namely,
take-home and impulse ice-creams. As per the survey conducted by a renowned UK Government
Agency, this industry has shown massive turnover by way of bringing improvements in the
service quotient of ice cream manufacturers and retailers. This has been done through meal deals
and extensive New Product Development (NPD). Further, as a result of the rising inflation since
2016, consumers within UK have started opting for the premium products in ice cream sector.
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Thus, this market was priced at £1.4 billion in the year 2018 which reflects increase of 26% from
2013 (UK ICE CREAM MARKET REPORT, 2019). Companies such as Wall's, Morelli's Gelato,
Kelly's of Cornwall are some of the top names within this sector in UK.
Also, it has been noted that healthy choice are dominating the population of UK to opt for
ice cream as a lucrative dessert choice due to low presence of calories and fats than other sugar
products. This has led to 8.3% growth in the sales of ice cream companies. Also, products like
protein and sugar free ice-creams strive to enhance the componet of turnover due to the health
conscious section of population prevailing in UK. Besides this, scorching summer in UK last
year led to an increase of £45 million from 2017 (Focus on Ice Cream, 2019). All this strives to
build opportunities for Scoops & Smiles to gain a high stake within Kensington, West London as
they are offering a unique and innovative range of fusi on ice-creams.
USP: The unique thing about Scoops & Smiles is that it provides innovative flavours and
packaging styles for the ice-creams. Some of the examples of its unique and exceptionally
innovative products are Thai-style rolled ice cream, doughnut cones, chocolate tacolates,
Macaron ice cream sandwiches, hot & cold ice chocolate punch and egg waffle sundaes. All
these products are fusion of two or more existing products or ideas. Thus, this creative and
unique product range renders a competitive and strategic edge to Scoops & Smiles over its rivals
and provides a scope for company to captivate the attention of a large base of audience towards
the ice cream bar (Thébaud, 2015).
2.1 Application of 4P's
For feasibly launching a new idea or process in market, owners of business have to carry
out a market and competitive research to gain knowledge of the latest trends and techniques
prevailing in the industry (McKeever, 2016). In this regard, the partners of Scoops & Smiles
have conducted marketing mix of this ice cream venture to gain an insight into the products,
services and prices being offered by entity. The marketing mix (4P's) of Scoops & Smiles is as
follows:-
Place: The place selected by both the partner for launching this business is Kensington
which is a district in the borough within West London, United Kingdom. The location is decided
to be Kensington High Street which is a commercial centre visited by a large number of people
every single day. This street was declared as London's second best shopping location in past
owing to the wide range of products available for sale here and the number of shops prevailing in
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this street (Vurro and Perrini, 2018). This location has been strategically selected by both the
partners due to the large number of people within UK who visit this place. Thus, Scoops &
Smiles possess a unique opportunity to meet the needs and demands of health conscious and
dessert captivated audience of UK and enhance its sales and profitability in marketplace.
Products: Scoops & Smiles provides a wide product range of ice creams by way of doing
fusions with the flavours. This enterprise offers simple flavours like chocolate, vanilla,
strawberry, black current etc. Besides this, Scoops & Smiles also strive to provide unique and
innovative ice cream and snack blends such as Thai-style rolled ice cream, chocolate tacolates,
doughnut cones, hot & cold ice chocolate punch, Macaron ice cream sandwiches and egg waffle
sundaes. In addition to this, Scoops & Smiles have low calorie and sugar free ice creams too to
serve the requirements of health conscious population within Kensington, UK. All of these are
unique products which are not at present being sold by any of the ice cream producers or retailer.
Such range has been introduced by enterprise largely with the motive of fulfilling the needs and
demands of customers of all age groups and segments (Tipu, 2018).
(Source: Self Generated)
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Illustration 1: Products of Scoops & Smiles

Price: Scoops & Smiles provides ice creams at prices influenced by 3 price strategies
depending upon the industry and market scenario. These strategies are described below:-
Penetration Pricing: This pricing strategy is being used by Scoops & Smiles at present.
This approach aims to charge low prices in return of the unique and innovative fusion ice creams
being provided by company. This strategy is being used by partners of the entity to grab the
attention of a large number of individuals who visit Kensington High Street on a daily basis and
to retain them for a long duration of time by offering lucrative discounts to early shop visitors.
Premium Pricing: Scoops & Smiles have planned to follow this pricing strategy after a
while when they establish a positive image in market due to the unique, creative and innovative
range of ice creams that this enterprise strives to render to population of Kensington, UK. This
approach is utilised by the business due to the element of innovation that has been brought by
enterprise and yet unexplored by other ice-cream companies (Hopp and et. al., 2018).
Value Based Pricing: Scoops & Smiles has decided to opt for value based pricing
strategy when there is scorching summer season in UK so as to tap the advantage of weather and
human psychology. In this strategy, the enterprise sets the price of ice creams as per the value
perceived by customers of the products offered by them. Further, Scoops & Smiles tend to offer
optional extras such as snacks or sandwich to increase the value of ice-creams in the eyes of
customers.
Promotion: Scoops & Smiles has adopted social media as the marketing and advertising
tool. This has been chosen due to the vast audience that has its presence on social media and is
online for almost all the time except while sleeping. To increase communication with customers
and to gain their attention towards the innovative and unique range of ice cream fusions that this
firm is providing, social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have been
used (Chang, 2017). Pages on these media will strive to communicate the vision and products of
Scoops & Smiles to audience of UK. This is being done with the aim to maintain a healthy
relationship with people so as to retain them for a long duration of time in future. Further, this
will provide assistance to the organisation in enhancing its overall sales and profitability.
2.2 Staff of Scoops & Smiles
Scoops & Smiles is a partnership firm having a total of 4 employees where one is a
manager, 1 fixed worker and the other 2 are zero hour contract workers.
Role of Manager
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The basic role of manager in Scoops & Smiles is to meet all the customers in a friendly
manner so as to retain them for a long period of time. Also, their role includes ensuring that
customers get best quality ice creams and flavours. Further, the manager ensures that the workers
provide the consumers customised flavours which tend to satisfy their needs and demands
(Hutchinson, 2017).
Zero Hour Contract
Zero hour contract is an agreement between the worker and the employer in which when
the organisation needs them, they can call the workers for doing their job instantly (Burns, P. and
Dewhurst, 2016).
Advantages of Zero hour contract workers:
By hiring such workers, Scoops & Smiles avoid the unforeseen situations such as upsurge
in demand, seasonal work and other casualties. Also, their wages is relatively lesser than other
permanent workers. Further, Scoops & Smiles doesn't have to pay them when the owners don't
need them.
Disadvantages of Zero hour contract workers:
This can also have a limitation for Scoops & Smiles which is that Zero hour contract
workers are not employed on permanent basis and thus can be busy in the hour of need for
company.
2.3 Customers/Clients
The segmentation of market has been done by Scoops & Smiles on the basis of
demographics, in particular, the age group. The target audience for Smiles & Scoops is
millennials owing to the craze that is generally observed in this customer segment towards ice
creams (Chambers and Humble, 2017). Thus, the customer cohort for this entity is people
belonging to the age group 22-36 years. This will provide assistance to enterprise to enhance the
overall sales and profitability within UK. Further, this will aid the enterprise in gaining a high
stake in Kensington, United Kingdom and facilitate growth of business in near future.
3.1 Expansion routes for Scoops & Smiles in future
Ultimate goal of a company is to expand its business in near future. Global expansion
plays an important role for the growth of any organisation in today's competitive environment
(Chang, 2016). In this regard, Scoops & Smiles will also expand its business once it becomes
successful so as to increase the base of customers and to reach a large number of people to
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become a leader in ice cream industry. Expansion assists the organisation in increasing the size
and scale of a business geographically. Scoops & Smiles has planned to grow and expand their
business in order to increase the sales and profits. For this, the firm can adopt for expansion
strategies such as licensing, franchising and joint venture. All of these are described briefly
below:-
Licensing: It is an agreement between two parties where one party grants permission to
another party for manufacturing their products with the payment of specified amount. Licensing
provides access to companies to tap the already existing distribution, production and marketing
processes and systems that other organisations may have taken decades to effectively build. It is
one of the most advantageous routes which Scoops & Smiles can use to facilitate expansion of
their business.
Franchising: For facilitating business expansion, franchising is one of the most feasible
strategies which is based on marketing concept. Franchising is basically an agreement between
two parties, Franchisor and Franchisee (Ambat and et. al., 2017). Herein, Scoops & Smiles will
grant permission to the other party to use its intellectual property rights such as brand name,
designs, trademark. Expanding by way of expansion helps an enterprise in enhancing their
goodwill in marketplace.
Joint Ventures: It is a well known path for business expansion and basically refers to an
agreement between two or more parties, who combines their resources for a specific business
organisation to earn profit (Baliga and Rodrigues, 2015). Scoops & Smiles can make use of joint
venture with other leading ice cream companies of UK for the expansion of current product line
of ice creams or for development of any new ice cream. This strategy strives to expand the share
of entity in marketplace and to enhance the network of distribution.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion, it has been concluded that business plan is a necessary
document that has to be made by business before launching a new idea or product into market.
Besides this, it has been analysed that the owners have to evaluate the strategies in relation to
price, product, promotion and place. In addition to this, it has been assessed that the staffing and
market situation is also to be evaluated by the owners before launching a venture project within
any industry.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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Chambers, I. and Humble, J., 2017. Plan for the planet: a business plan for a sustainable world.
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Online
Focus on Ice Cream. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/reports/features-list/focus-on-ice-cream-3-march/
562762.article>.
UK ICE CREAM MARKET REPORT. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://store.mintel.com/uk-ice-cream-market-report>.
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