Sustainable Business Plan for The Bean Palace Cafe in Melbourne, AU

This business plan outlines the strategy for launching 'The Bean Palace,' a cafe restaurant in Melbourne, Australia. It includes a comprehensive situation analysis, assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the hospitality and food services industry. The plan details the business concept, positioning the cafe as a friendly, high-quality, and affordable option targeting students, professionals, and families. It covers the marketing plan, including branding, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and promotional strategies like billboards, advertisements, and discounts. The plan also addresses competitive advantages, external factors, barriers to entry, infrastructure, technical aspects, legal regulations, human resource needs, and a detailed financial assessment including start-up budget, revenue projections, and financial dynamics. The conclusion emphasizes strategies to attract customers, create value, and achieve sustainable growth for the business venture. The plan references relevant academic sources to support its analysis and recommendations.

Sustainable Business
Plan

Introduction
 Business plan is a formal document which creates
a structure which a business can follow to launch
and move ahead in a new business venture.
 A businesses plan creates the objectives of a firm
along with the various strategies it should
undertakes including marketing, financial and
human resource strategies.
 It helps in formulating market segments,
positioning and brand image for the firm (Butler, 2012)

The Business Concept
 The new business venture would be set up in
the hospitality and food services industry in
the form of a café restaurant
 The café would be named as- The Bean
Palace
 The café would be a sit in restaurant with airy
and friendly atmospherics
 The café would be located in Melbourne in
the vicinity of a college and a residential
colony to enable the firm to get easy access

The Business Concept
 The café would be positioned as friendly
place for an outing or relaxation
 Target market of the café would be college
students, professionals and families of
middle income group in the age group of
20-60
 Focus of the café would be on high quality
product and service offering.

The Business Objectives
 To provide high quality coffee to customers
at lower prices
 To create a café which is friendly and family
oriented
 To expand in next three years and open
another café and to make The Bean Palace
into a café chain with at least 5 to 7 Café’s
within next 7 years.

The Situation analysis
 A situation analysis helps a business form in
assessing its own strengths and weaknesses and
the opportunities and threats of the industry in
which it is operating. (Aaker & McLoughlin, 2010).
 Proper business planning and situation analysis
can help a business firm to augment its key
strengths and attain competitive advantage to
survive in the market (Aaker & McLoughlin,
2010).

The Situation Analysis
Strengths
 High quality product and
service offering
 Good location with an
attractive infrastructure and
ambiance
 Well trained staff
Weaknesses
 Heavy investment
 High marketing cost
 Low price may affect
revenue
Opportunities
 High demand
 People’s preference for
local café
 Very few local cafes
offer free Wi-Fi so
attractive to students
Threats
Very heavycompetition
Coffee considered as
unhealthy(IBissWorld, 2018)

The Market Assessment
Size of the market and its growth-
 People in Australia love to have coffee. Hence Cafes
are in demand. The industry growth rate was around
5.1% in the last financial year.
 Coffee drinking population is nearly 75% hence
demand is supposed to be good for the new business
venture. Café restaurants is a $4.3 Billion industry in
Australia with no big coffee chain having more than
5% of market share.
 Therefore there is potential of growth in this industry
(IBissWorld, 2018)

The Marketing Plan
 The Brand Name- Brand is any name symbol or logo
with which a firm or its products get identified or
recalled by the customer (Brown, 2016)
 The café venture has chosen the name ‘The Bean
Palace’for its café. A steaming coffee mug with coffee
beans spilled around will be the logo. The brand will
try to position itself as a high quality low priced café
where one can feel relaxed
 Through a quality focus the brand intends to create
value for its customers

Marketing Plan- Segmentation,
Targeting and Positioning
 Target market- The target market of The Been Palace would be
students, professionals and families from the vicinity.
 Positioning- The firm would like to position itself as a café with
friendly atmosphere and high quality service so that it can
attract customers and create value for them.
 Segmentation -The firm would segment the market based on
demographic segmentation and use age, family and income
size as a means to target the market. It can offer discount
offers to students and variety in flavours for family outings.
This will help in catering to the needs of different segments
like students or family and friends.

Marketing Plan- Promotional
Strategy
 Due to tough competition the new business firm would
need to create awareness through a promotional strategy.
 A sound promotional strategy can help the firm in
enhancing brand recognition and enhance customer value
by making them aware of the good quality products.
 A sound promotional strategy would also help the firm in
creating its brand image which will lead to better revenue
in the future.
 (Ferrel, 2012)

Market Plan: Promotional Strategies
 As the firm is a new business venture with a limited
budget, it can use billboards, hoardings and
pamphlets a means of spreading awareness about
the new café.
 Additionally, the firm can give newspaper
advertisements for a few weeks to create brand
awareness
 The firm should also try to create positive publicity
for its café
 Also, the firm can use sales promotion techniques
like students discounts to generate more footfalls

Creation of value for the customer
and competitive advantage
 The café aims to be a low priced café which
provides quality services. This in itself is done well
will provide value to the customer
 Most big cafes price their products very high so a
relatively lower price can create competitive
advantage for the firm
 Value addition services like free Wi-Fi and seating
areas for discussions can create value for student
customers and also an edge against the competitors.

External Factors and Barriers to
entry
External Factors
 Major external factors which can affect market growth are
government regulations pertaining to customer health and
safety, employment regulation, ingredient quality and safety
and waste disposal norms
 Social and health trends to avoid coffee can also be a major
external factor.
Barriers to Entry-
Industry specific barters like Start-up cost of setting a new
infrastructure is one of the major barriers to entry in this industry
(Hiduke, 2013)

Infrastructure and Technical
Assessment Technology Development- The Been Palace needs to
fix ingredients value and quality of each coffee cup
and other snacks that are available for sale.. Quality
control in ingredients and recopies will help the firm in
catering high quality coffee to the customers (Evens,
2015). Better raw material for the products can
generate better value for customers and investors by
increasing sales.
 Infrastructure- The Bean Palace has selected a well
lit and airy ambiance for its café so that customers can
sit relax, chat-chat and even work on their laptops
while having coffee. This will create more value for
them and in turn for the investors Evens, 2015.

Laws and Regulations Affecting the
Business
 Competition and consumer Act 2010 abides the firm to
protection of consumer health and holds that no
ingredients should be used which are harmful to
human health
 Food standards code, workforce related norms and
waste disposal regulations are some more regulations
to which the firm needs to abide.
 Any kind discrimination towards any gender, race or
ethnicity is prohibited under Australian Laws
(Government of Australia, 2018)

Human Resource Needs Assessment
 Service industry is heavily dependent on workforce for
delivery of service. Therefore workforce planning is very
important for The Bean Palace.
 Technical and Management Experience
Requirements- A café needs proper management to
handle customers and day to day functioning (Niehaus,
2010) Therefore, a manager with a proper management
qualification should be hired to handle the day to day
activities.
 Ownership status- The Bean Palace will be a partnership
firm jointly owned by Mr Smith and Mr Jones . The
infrastructure of the café also belongs to the partnership
firm,

Human Resource Assessment
 Manpower Requirements- After making a proper
recruitment policy and interviews staff will be hired
based on skills and experience. Major jobs are Jobs
will include Café manager, Receptionist, Hostess,
waiter, cleaner and delivery boy.
 Policy will be made for retention, training,
performance appraisal and training of staff

Financial Assessment of the
Business
 Finance is the most important aspect of any new business
venture, The new business firms needs to pinpoint its capital
requirements and allocate budget for various activities to
grow and sustain the industry. It also needs to pinpoint its
cost and revenue sources.
 Start-up Budget- Total budget allocated for the business
amounts to $350.000 which will be raised through venture
capital. Infrastructure premises for the café is already
available with the owners. $ 50,000 has been allocated for
its upgradation , interiors, décor and furnishing.
 Revenue- Low prices model for the coffee initially may lead
to less initial revenue however more customers are expected
which lead to rise in revenue in future.

Financial Assessment
 Financial Dynamics- $10000 would be initially sent
on marketing . $20000 would be spent on equipment
purchase and another $ 35000 would be spent on staff
acquisition, salaries and training in the coming year
 Financial Dynamics- $10000 would be initially sent
on marketing . $20000 would be spent on equipment
purchase and another $ 35000 would be spent on staff
acquisition, salaries and training in the coming year
 The business has a hope of attracting customers who
do not want to go to big coffee chains and spend too
much . Therefore growth is expected. Hence the firm
aims to create value for both the investor and the
customer.

Conclusion
 Through this business plan the new firm aims to
formulate strategies to attract more customers and
create customer value.
 The firm wants to give better ambiance to customers
along with high quality with relatively lower prices.
 This can create good value for customers and attract
more customers. More customers would mean more
revenue which means value for the investors.

References
 Butler, D., 2012. Business Development: A Guide to Small Business Strategy. New York:
Routledge.
 Brown, S., 2016. Brands and Branding. London: SAGE Publications.
 IBissWorld, 2018. IBisWorld. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/
accommodation-food-services/cafes-coffee-shops.html
[Accessed 28 Sep 2018Sep].
 Ferrel, O., 2012. Marketing Strategy. New York: Cengage Learning.
 Evens, N., 2015. Strategic Management for Tourism, Hospitality and Events. New York:
Routledge.
 Hiduke, G., 2013. Small Business: An Entrepreneur's Business Plan. New York: Cengage
Learning.
 Government of Australia, 2018. Legal essentials for business. [Online]
Available at: https://www.business.gov.au/planning/new-businesses/legal-essentials-for-business
[Accessed 28 Sep 2018].