Entrepreneurial Venture Report: Online Service Platform

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Entrepreneurship Report

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................. 2
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS....................................................................4
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS....................................................................................................6
KEY PEOPLE AND SKILLS.............................................................................................8
FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY................................................................................................9
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................13
APPENDICES................................................................................................................ 14

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The business idea will be an online platform; it can be a website or a mobile phone application
that will allow its users to check for the nearby plumbers, interior designers, electricians,
technicians, etc. and allow the user to make deal with them and the user will be able to call the
serviceman to his/her place for completion of any requested service. The services here can be
like fixing households, and office equipment, interior designing, building small things, some
woodwork, etc.
What we Intend to sell?
This platform will work as a meeting point for the servicemen and the customers and the main
earnings will be on the basis of per service pay.
This platform can also be sold to other businesses that provide such services on a monthly
subscription basis.
Where will be our ‘position’ in the market?
There will not be such platform launched in the market right now so this can be a totally new
platform and can work on market development.
What is the Industry like?
The industry will be a software-based SaaS company. That is the business will work on the basis
of Software as a Service platform.
Who are the main players and stakeholders?
The main stakeholders will be leaders, employees, customers, servicemen, the intermediate
businesses and the legal parties too.
How will we obtain products and reach your customers?
The product will be software which can be accessed through a web browser and can also be
downloaded to the mobile as a mobile application which can provide user-friendly interaction.
How will we provide services or sell your products?
The app will charge the user for a single service call and that will be the main source of income.
Other sources can be data selling, special subscriptions, recurrent billing, advertisements etc.

Skills needed to run the venture
The skills needed for running the venture can be:
 Sufficient knowledge of software and website development.
 Knowledge for managing geographic locations.
 Excellent convincing skills for gathering the intermediate businesses that will provide
servicemen, and customers.
 Excellent marketing skills.
 Other skills like planning, money management, quality management, transport and
collection of servicemen, etc.

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
The external environment, in terms of business, covers all the factors that influence the
business but cannot be controlled by the company or is in the hand of the company. A company
can only react to the influence of the external environment or can make plans to tackle the
external environment (Yüksel, 2012).
For reacting to the external environment or for making plans to handle its bad impacts, the
company needs to analyze the external environment at first. Analysis of the external
environment provides the company with strategic planning and company also get to
understand its strategic position in the market. This helps the company to take the right
decisions and make future plans for the growth of the company (Yüksel, 2012).
IDENTIFYING THE TRENDS
The people in their daily life do break their households by mistakes, or something stops working
suddenly, or the wall design may need a new look. For all these things people need expert
technicians, carpenters, plumbers, interior designers etc. This can be a great opportunity for
entrepreneurs to create a technical platform (it can be a website or a mobile application) that
can help people find the right person for their problem (Osmani, et al. 2015). People can go to
the platform and search for the job they need to get done and get suggestions of people that
can do the job. The user can pick any of them for fixing their issues (Osmani, et al. 2015).
There can be multiple conflicts that can hinder this idea or can affect the business negatively.
Hence we need to analyze the external factors that can identify the threats and the
opportunities from them. For this we can use PESTEL analysis:
PESTEL ANALYSIS
PESTEL analysis is a tool by the help of which an organization can analyze the macro or external
environment in order to identify the threats from it and its weakness too (Issa, et al. 2010). The
application of PESTEL analysis on the above-presented idea will discover various factors like
Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal factors:

 Political – The political factors like website policies and access in any country can be a
threat to the platform. Asking for user information like their home or office address and
storing it can be confidential and political communities may oppose that.
 Economic – The economic factors like non-availability of the technicians, overall
education level of the people who will serve the service, unemployment of the people in
the country can have both positive and negative impact over the business model. The
platform will create more opportunities for jobs in this way unemployment can be
reduced but the non-availability of technicians can affect the business negatively.
 Social – The social factors will not impact the business in a negative way. The app is
making human lifestyle more comfortable and adding more value to it.
 Technological – The technology that will be used for providing the service can affect the
business a lot. First, the platform will itself get affected if it is built and works on old
technologies. Secondly, technological factors can also affect the technicians and the
plumbers and can affect the efforts they will be putting in.
 Environmental – The environmental factors like climate conditions and the weather
may affect the company and the service providers may need special care for such things.
 Legal – The legal factors like the service provider may not cause any harm to the
customer and other factors can also affect the business negatively.

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
The key objective behind doing the industry analysis is that it will allow business organizations
to understand the market for the product or the service they are providing (E. Dobbs, 2014).
IDENTIFICATION OF POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS
a) Geographic Areas
1. The business can target any area filled with people like offices, hotels, homes,
restaurants, etc.
b) Characteristics of Customers
1. Customer will be found in all the areas dominant with homes.
2. They want a "call from home service" by which they can easily assign a
technician, interior designer, plumber, etc. to fix their issues.
3. The customers can pay a little amount for this service on the basis of per call and
the type of service they need.
c) Characteristics of Intermediates
1. The intermediates will be the serviceman like technicians, plumbers, electrical
engineers etc.
2. They can also be the businesses which provide servicemen through contacts.
d) Characteristic of Business Organizations
1. The business organization which will act as an intermediate will demand some
amount if they provide the servicemen.
2. If the product is provided to these business organizations then they will pay for
using this as an online service for their business.
IDENTIFYING THE COMPETITOR
Since the idea presented here is totally new so there may be few (possibly zero) competitors
that will be willing to offer the same service. Still, if there exists any competitor we can identify
the Unique Selling Point by applying Blue Ocean Strategy.

APPLYING BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY
 Buyer Utility – The product is solving a major class of problems which occurs in day to
day life. Hence the product will provide exceptional buyer utility (Mi, 2015).
 Price – The price of the service will be pay per service or per serviceman call and the
distance from which the serviceman is coming from. This is a totally viable price model
that is suitable for everyone the customers, the intermediate and the company too (Mi,
2015).
 Cost – The total cost for the product will be the creation of a platform, its maintenance,
the advertisements and a few more investments. To earn a profit, the company will
keep the extra charges between the serviceman and the customer and in this way, the
company will earn for every single serviceman call or booking (Mi, 2015).
 Adoption – The main adoption issues for the service will be letting the user know about
the service, convincing the intermediate businesses that provide servicemen to work
with the platform and providing enough plumbers, technicians, interior designers, etc.
near the geographic location of customer (Mi, 2015).
SWOT ANALYSIS FOR ANALYSING THE INDUSTRY AND MARKET
 Strengths – The main strength of this platform will be that it is solving a problem which
no other competitor will be addressing. The business can take advantage of this and can
add more value to the service/platform (Ghazinoory, et al. 2011).
 Weakness – The main weaknesses observed will be locating and convincing the
servicemen near the customer to join the platform (Ghazinoory, et al. 2011).
 Opportunities – Opportunities will arrive once the product will start to get the
acknowledgement and due to this more businesses will be willing to join it (Ghazinoory,
et al. 2011).
 Threats – The main threats will be the security of the customer and maintaining the
servicemen so that they do not leave the platform (Ghazinoory, et al. 2011).

KEY PEOPLE AND SKILLS
It is necessary to identify the main roles of the company who can show interest in the idea and
can invest in it and also help in developing the idea to so that it can be launched to the market.
These people can include investors, employees, leaders, etc.
SKILLS REQUIRED FOR BUSINESS
Here a platform is being created which is connecting the businesses and customers with each
other and hence the required skills will be:
 Sufficient knowledge of software and website development.
 Knowledge for managing geographic locations.
 Excellent convincing skills for gathering the intermediate businesses that will provide
servicemen, and customers.
 Excellent marketing skills.
 Other skills like planning, money management, quality management, transport and
collection of servicemen, etc.

FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
START-UP’S CASH REQUIREMENTS:
INVESTMENTS
Task Beginning Completion Investment Manager Post
Draft layout to owners 3/2/2020 3/11/2020 £175 Yoman Adviser
Website Content
Developed
3/2/2020 4/2/2020 £0 Lure/Shona Holder
Initial UI Completed 3/11/2020 4/2/2020 £475 Yoman Adviser
Back End Developed 4/2/2020 4/16/2020 £750 Yoman Adviser
Design Approved 4/17/2020 4/21/2020 £0 Lure/Shona Holder
Graphics & Logos
Completed
4/21/2020 4/29/2020 £0 Christiana Supervisor
BETA Complete 4/21/2020 4/29/2020 £475 Yoman Adviser
User Testing 5/2/2020 5/8/2020 £175 Yoman Adviser
Necessary Changes 5/8/2020 5/12/2020 £250 Yoman Adviser
Site Launch 5/13/2020 5/13/2020 £0 Yoman Adviser
Totals £2,300

PERSONEL PLAN
PERSON FY 2022
Lure Keen, Co-Owner £18,000
Shona Keen, Co-Owner £18,000
Servicemen £235,000
Other Staff £119,000
Christiana Keen, Admin £25,000
TOTAL PERSON 25
Total Payroll £415,000
BREAK-EVEN ANALYSIS
Break-even monthly revenue £45,547
Approximations:
Avg. variable cost 3%
Fixed Cost Estimated / Month £35, 854

SALES FORECAST:
FORECAST FOR SALES
SALES FY 2024 FY 2021 FY 2022
Standard Stream Inflow £904,000 £920,080 £926,482
Advertisements Increment Sale £23,550 £25,000 £42,050
Other £0 £0 £0
TOTAL SALES £927,550 £945,080 £968,532
Direct Cost of Sales FY 2024 FY 2021 FY 2022
Straight Costs (Direct) £42,982 £43,732 £43,895
Other £0 £0 £0
Subtotal Direct Cost of Sales £42,982 £43,732 £43,895
SOURCES OF FUNDS:
Sources Funding
Equity Funding 12%
Loaned Money 30%
Lease 5%
Investors 53%
The main funding for the project will be used in marketing strategies and other parts of the
business because the creation of the platform will be done at a very low cost.