Date post: | 19-Aug-2014 |
Category: |
Education |
Upload: | bhavesh-bhansali |
View: | 214 times |
Download: | 4 times |
UNIVERSAL BUSINESS SCHOOL
KARJAT
Program Name: Entrepreneurial Strategies
Professor Name: Prof. Bibhas Bhasumatray
Student Name: Bhavesh M. Bhansali
Roll Number: 1313
Batch: MBA3
Date of Submission: 28th March, 2014
Assignment: Launching an online wedding
service
Page | 2
Table of contents:
Sr. No Topics Page
No. 1 Executive Summary
3
2 Business Concept 4
3 New Category 5
4 Problem to be solved 6
5 Segmentation & Targeting 7
6 Current Competition 8
7 Customer’s Pain Points 8
8 Porter’s five forces model 9
9 Marketing Strategy – 4 Ps of Marketing Mix
11
10 Business Model Canvas 14
11 Action Plan – Phase-I and Phase-II
15
Page | 3
Executive Summary
Starting a commercial website venture solely dedicated to wedding is a new
concept which will help busy brides, grooms, their family and friends to make
wedding an easy thing. At the time of wedding, there is a lot of chaos that goes
around the house for getting the contacts of Catering services, Wedding Halls,
designers, etc…That’s why the need of this portal arises. This Online wedding
portal will contain all the contact points and products that are required during
wedding. The site can be indexed by state or even city and be broken down into
subsections featuring every imaginable wedding-related product or service
including:
A directory of wedding photographers and videographers.
A directory of wedding singers, DJs and bands.
A directory of wedding planners and caterers.
A directory of formalwear and rentals for both men and women.
A directory of transport services.
A directory of best halls and open grounds for wedding.
Honeymoon packages and many more…
Site visitors would simply select the geographical area they live in, choose the
topic of interest, and start to view the listing and information. Anyone getting
married would be able to log onto the site to find a photographer, plan a
honeymoon and book a reception hall all with the click of a mouse.
This portal will also provide the visitors for products required during time such as
accessories, shoes, apparels, low to medium cost jewels, etc…
Page | 4
Business Concept:
--build to make wedding easy
www.helpstowed.com
Page | 5
New Category
Getting everything on a single click is one of the most preferable things that people
want. People are not able to schedule their wedding appointments, not able to
locate the caterers, designers, DJs, etc… because of their busy schedule and even
because of the lack of information. To make this things go easy,
www.helpstowed.com has emerged as a new category of profitable online
business. This new category of online business has a lot of potential to attract a
good number of people because, In India an upper middle class family normally
spends 30 lakh on a wedding. An average of 10 million (or 1 Crore) marriages take
place in India every year. Conservative average of wedding expenditure to be `3
lakh i.e, 3 trillion for weddings every year (Reference from
www.businesseconomics.in).
In India, marriages are a big event for the family, relatives and kids. People come
together during marriages, spending happens a lot from both bride and groom
sides. The places where spending happens and there are enormous opportunities in
those areas.
Spending
Brides and Grooms Dresses
Marriage Halls
Food
Flower Arrangements
Receptions (before or after marriage… usually happens during the evening)
Music bands or DJ
Giving all these things on a single click is actually a new category within
itself and has a lot of potential.
Page | 6
Problem to be Solved
The basic problem is lack of time, hectic shopping on the floor, tension of
arranging the Caterers, DJs, Decorators, Wedding Halls, printing of Invitation
Cards, Looking for designers, etc…
In today’s world, no one has much time and the time require for arranging a
successful wedding is much more.
Planning the wedding is easy and stress-free with helpstowed.com. Use our
wedding directory to find wedding dresses, flowers, bridal gowns, bridesmaid
dresses and bouquets, reception venues, marriage celebrants, wedding cakes,
invitations, wedding photographers and more in one convenient location.
Busy Brides, Grooms and their family members finds it very difficult to get the
contacts of Caters, Decorators, DJs, Invitation printing companies, Designers,
etc… and these seems to be a problem for them as they don’t have much time to
get involved in finding these services for long hours. This problem has evolved as
a brainteaser for the couples and their family members. To get rid of this time
consuming problem, I am planning to develop an online portal for giving contacts
of wedding service providers and a lot of accessories needed during wedding time.
One can buy accessories required for wedding on helpstowed.com and on the same
time, can check the wedding service providers list according to their location.
Page | 7
Segmentation
Geographic
Status
Metropolitan
Cities
Urban Areas Suburbs
Rich people High High Medium
Upper Middle
Class High High Medium
Middle Class Medium Medium Low
Lower Middle
Class Medium Low Low
Targeting
As per the segmentation suggest, www.helpstowed.com has a lot of potential in
metro and urban cities. Basically, www.helpstowed.com is targeting the mass
market.
Page | 8
Current Competition
As I mentioned earlier, it is a new category of business. In India, there is no one
doing the business of providing online wedding services. But the competition is
actually an alternate solution that is, going directly to the service providers such as
caters and decorators without referring to www.helpstowed.com. The customers
have an option of directly contacting the service providers. The products which my
portal serves can also be bought through other stores, malls, etc… which also gives
a tough competition for revenue generation.
In UK, there is an online wedding service portal known as Onlinebride.com which
also provides the same solution which www.helpstowed .com provides. But
www.onlinebride.com is not a tough competition as it operates in UK and many
people are not aware of such website.
Event Management companies is yet an another competition for
www.helpstowed.com because if client hires the event managers to make their
wedding successful, the client will get all the require contacts from him and this
weakens the chances of the clients going through this website.
Customers Pain Points
In today’s busy environment, customers want chaos free wedding environment.
Their pain is to get the service providers without much searching for them. In the
season of weddings, the customers find it very difficult to get the good service
providers such as caters and decorators because they are pre-booked by some other
customers. When they do not get best caters and decorators, there is a lot of havoc
in the house. Best caters and decorators are very important for a successful
wedding because they both highlight the whole wedding and not getting them
easily creates stress in the minds of the family members.
Therefore www.helpstowed.com has emerged as a rescuer. I have developed this
site to help the clients to get these contacts on a single click and to build the
wedding memorable and happy.
Page | 9
Porter’s five forces model
Threat of new entrants:
As it is a new category of business in India, the threat of new entrants in this
business is moderate because as it is a new emerging business, low competition is
not going to be a scenario and also it will take time to be a known business. That’s
why, threat of new entrants is moderate.
Bargaining power of buyers:
As we earn revenue through commission and advertisements, the bargaining
powers of buyers in high because the buyers get directly contacted to service
providers such as caters and all and they can bargain with them resulting in less
commission.
Intensity of Rivalry
Low
Threat of New
Entrants
Moderate
Bargaining power of Buyers
High
Threat of Substitutes
High
Bargaining power of Suppliers
Moderate
Page | 10
Threat of Substitutes:
Since alternates are available with the clients to go directly to the service
providers, to buy wedding-related products directly from the shop. The threat to
substitutes is also high.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
Bargaining power of suppliers of wedding –related products is moderate because
medium amount of stock will be purchased or ordered.
Intensity of Rivalry:
Since there is no one doing this business, the intensity of competition is very low.
Page | 11
Marketing Strategy – 4 Ps of Marketing Mix
Marketing Mix, a term coined by Neil Borden, are the ingredients that combine to
capture and promote a brand or product’s unique selling points, those that
differentiate it from its competitors.
The four Ps are:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion
As the website is new and awareness of the website is very important to generate
traffic and convert the clients into consumers, the Marketing Mix of
www.helpstowed.com is as:
Product
The product that www.helpstowed.com is serving is actually a service. An online
wedding service which no one at least in India provides. This service is new in its
own concept. This service helps customers to find the contacts of the required
service providers free and can also buy the products required during wedding on
this website.
This Online wedding portal will contain all the contact points and products that are
required during wedding. The site can be indexed by state or even city and be
broken down into subsections featuring every imaginable wedding-related product
or service including:
A directory of wedding photographers and videographers.
A directory of wedding singers, DJs and bands.
A directory of wedding planners and caterers.
A directory of formalwear and rentals for both men and women.
A directory of transport services.
A directory of best halls and open grounds for wedding.
Honeymoon packages and many more…
Page | 12
Price
This service is free of charge for the customers. The amount will be charged from
the service providers whom the customers had broken from the website.
The Prices will be as such
Service providers (all category included akin Caters, Decorators, etc...)
(Chargeable when the service taken by customers is above 2 lakhs)
Amount (lakhs) Fees/ Commission
Below 2 Free
2-5 1%
5-10 1.5%
Above 10 2%
Prices for Advertisement (as the website is new rates are very reasonable)
Page wise Per month (RS) Quarterly(RS) Half Yearly(RS)
Home page top
left
2000 3500 6000
Home page top
right
2000 3500 6000
Home page left 1700 3000 5000
Home page Right 1700 3000 5000
Category top left 1400 2500 4500
Category top right 1400 2500 4500
Sub-category top
left
1200 2100 3800
Sub-category top
right
1200 2100 3800
Page | 13
Place
Place is a universal place that is, online. It’s an online service.
Places from where you can access are:
Internet
Mobile phone applications
Call service- just like JUSTDIAL where you can get information of the
required service provider from your call operator.
Promotion
As it a new website, promotional measures are very important to get the required
traffic.
Print Media—Booking a quarter page in the leading newspapers like TOI,
DNA, etc… for a month that too in the wedding season.
Social Media Marketing--- Marketing of the website on Social media sites
such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Myspace, Wordpress, etc… on a
continuous basics in order to the get the attention of the millions of people
and the cost is negligible.
Marketing in Events and even Weddings- getting permission from the
wedding people to do the promotion of the website to get the required
traffic.
Posters- getting the space where traffic is more and is less expensive.
Paid ads at Google
Blogging once a week for gaining awareness.
Videos on YouTube for gaining popularity.
Page | 15
Action plan
I have divided the action plan for operating and marketing of
www.helpstowed.com into two phases.
Phase1: one year from the date of launching the website
Phase2: next 2 year plan.
Phase -1
Phase 1 is basically for getting the service contacts and convincing the service
providers to list their names on the website.
Spreading awareness through the promotional measures which I have mentioned
earlier.
Estimated Revenue for the first year
Time
duration
Estimated
traffic
(no. of visitors)
No of deals
with service
providers
Through
commissions
(RS)
Through
advertisements
(RS)
First
quarter
100 2 15000 5000
Second
quarter
250 5 25000 12000
Third
quarter
1000 20 100000 35000
Fourth
quarter
2500 35 150000 60000
As the website would newly launched , the traffic for the first quarter is estimated
to be just 100 visitors, cracking atleast 2 deals with the estimated revenue
generation through commission would be Rs. 15000 and through advertisements
Rs. 5000
The second quarter would have more visitors expecting to double the no. of
visitors with cracking 5 deals because of lot of promotional measures on
continuous basis. The estimated revenue through commission would be Rs. 25000
and through ads Rs. 12000.
Page | 16
The third year and the fourth year will do much better with approx. 1000 and 2500
visitors respectively, and the estimated revenue as shown in the table.
Phase 2
The second phase is the plan of the next two years.
A substantial amount will be paid as the cost of promotional measures for reaching
to a larger number of people.
More methods to be adopted for promoting the website, generating more contacts
for helping and giving satisfaction to the customers.
Estimated revenue from Next two years
Time duration Estimated
traffic
(no. of
visitors)
No of deals
with service
providers
Through
commissions
(RS)
Through
advertisements
(RS)
Year 2 15000 200 1000000 150000
Year 3 40000 350 1500000 200000
Through a lot of promotional measures and awareness of the website, I have
estimated the amount of revenue in the second and third which is shown in the
above table.