Company Profile
Emirati Today is intended to be an online-only retail store that will have its headquarters in the city of Dubai. When starting, this firm will target clients in Dubai who are interested in making their shopping on an online platform. However, it will expand its operations to other cities within the kingdom. The firm will have employees who will be managing the website and those who will be delivering products to the clients. It will be selling a wide range of retail products to the clients.
Vision
The vision of this firm may help in understanding the strategies that it intends to use in the market that already has established players. The following is the vision statement of this firm.
To become the leading online retail store in the United Arab Emirates
Mission
The mission statement shows the path that the firm will take in its attempt to achieve the strategic objectives as stated in the mission statement. The following is the mission statement of this new company.
To continue offering high-quality products to clients in a way that uniquely meets their diversified needs.
Members
The project will be started by the current team members of four students. The students have already identified a market gap that they intend to capitalize on as a way of entering the online retail market in the country. The members have agreed on what should be done and they have made a commitment to support this project both materially and in terms of their intellectual properties. The current members will also be the future shareholders of the company as soon as it starts its operations. Other members will be the employees of this firm.
Objectives
In order to achieve success in the market, it will be necessary to clearly define the objectives that will be defining the operations of this firm. The following are some of the specific objectives that the project will be intending to achieve when it starts the operations.
- To expand the operations of the firm beyond the city of Dubai
- To meet the specific needs of various online shoppers in the United Arab Emirates
- To gain financial strength that can support future sustainable growth in the market.
Operation Planning
Operation planning
According to Friedlein, planning is very important when introducing a new project in the market (53). Emirati Today is intended to be a major online retail store that will serve the needs of customers who cannot find time to go to the brick-and-mortar stores because of their limited time. This market already has established players who have registered impressive performance in this industry. To ensure that this firm achieves success, it is important to come up with an effective operation plan that defines how various tasks will be undertaken to achieve the set objectives.
The team members have identified the specific activities that will be carried out to ensure that the project is a success. The first task will be to identify the products that this firm will be offering to the clients. As Berkun notes, the products that a firm offers to the clients will define its management and marketing strategies (45). The members will discuss and agree on the products that can be carried in our online stores, how they will be obtained from the manufacturers and the strategy that will be used to ensure that they are delivered to the clients when they have made payments. The next step will be to develop a website and an online platform that can enable the clients to see what is available in our stores and make payments once they have identified the products they need. All team members will be involved in developing and hosting the website for the firm. On the website, the firm will provide all the steps that a client needs to follow when making a purchase at our online platform.
The next very important step will be to recruit the necessary employees and to create a division of labor. Each of the project members will be assigned the top management positions such as marketing manager, finance manager, logistics and procurement manager, and human resource manager. Each of these top executives will have a group of employees working in their departments. The chief executive officer will be selected by the members who must be one of them.
When all the systems and structures have been put in place, the firm will start its operations through a launch that will be widely publicized. Given that this company will not be having brick-and-mortar stores, we will rely heavily on the advertisement to create awareness about the existence of this firm and how customers can access the products that it offers. The marketing department will invest heavily in mass and social media marketing to reach the target audience. Mass media platforms such as radio, television, newspaper, and magazine advertisements will be used.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will also be very important in promoting the brand and products offered by this firm. The firm intends to operate in a different way from the approach used by brick-and-mortar stores. It will be taking the ordered products from the suppliers directly to the consumers. This means that it will have a very close relationship with the suppliers to ensure that the products are available as soon as they are needed.
Products
Emirati Today will primarily sell most of the products that are always available in conventional brick-and-mortar supermarkets. Electronic products such as television sets, music systems, phones, laptops, cameras, fridges, microwaves, and electric cookers will be available at this online store. Furniture, mattresses, clothing, and beauty products will also feature prominently on the website. Foodstuffs, toys, and other products will be made available to customers. The firm will try to avoid carrying products with small profit margins unless they are ordered alongside other products. This is so because it is not economically viable to deliver a product such as a toothpick to a client unless it is accompanied by other products.
Website features
The website for this firm will be its store, and therefore, it must have the features that will make it possible for clients to see what is available and make purchases without any strain. According to Friedlein, clients always make unplanned purchases when they come across something that is appealing to their eyes (32). Brick-and-mortar stores always benefit a lot from such impulse buying. However, this advantage will not be enjoyed by this firm because all its products will only be available in the online store. This website will try as much as possible to provide the image of the products in a three-dimensional form. This way, clients will have a better understanding of the products which are on offer in the market. The website will be very heavy on graphics. It will also be interactive to ensure that the needs of the clients are met.
How the site will operate
The way in which this website will operate will be slightly different from what similar firms are doing in the current market. This website will enable users to have a three-dimensional image of the product they are purchasing. This will enable customers to view the products they intend to purchase to ensure that it meets their expectations. The clients will be able to live chat with the sales team and make any inquiries they might have before making their purchase. Once a client identifies a product that meets his or her needs, he will click on the button ‘Buy’ below the product and this will lead him or her into a new window where there will be a detailed description of the product and its three-dimensional image.
If the product meets the needs, the client will click the button ‘Pay’ below the descriptions to proceed and pay for the products. After the payment has been made successfully, a confirmation message will be displayed on the screen stating the time and a request of the place where the product will be delivered. The customer will provide the place and finalize the purchase. The website will also provide the clients with an online payment system that they can use to pay for the products that they are purchasing.
Financial Planning
This project is financially involving and may require detailed financial planning to ensure that every activity is properly funded. In this section, it will be necessary to look at various financial issues that will be observed in this project.
Financial assumptions
The financial plan of this project is based on a number of fundamental assumptions. One of the main assumptions is that this project will be self-sustaining after a period of six months. It is also assumed that there will be no significant inflation in the Emirati’s economy that may disrupt the financial plans of the project within the next six months. Finally, it is also assumed that the fiscal policies employed by the federal government will not affect the operations of this firm in a negative way.
Break-even analysis
It will be necessary to have a break-even analysis to inform the financiers, including the members, when their investments are expected to be recovered through operations of this new business. The initial cost of the project is currently estimated to be $ 350,000. This include cost of putting up the website, purchasing the vans that will be used in the delivery of products, setting up initial call center, and training of the employees. The fixed costs of operation will include rent for the office and call center, machinery which is estimated to be $ 1000 per month. Variable costs such as salaries, advertising, material costs may vary based on sales and the ability of the firm to expand its operations. The team intends to calculate the break-even analysis using the formula below after starting operations:
Breakeven point = fixed costs/ (unit selling price – variable costs) (Goodpasture 87)
At this stage, the time when the project is expected to pay back all the investment can only be estimated to be 2 years, but this can only be confirmed after the variable costs have been determined.
Sources and use of funds
The main source of fund will be from the project members. The members will be expected to get the needed funds through crowd-sourcing. This will involve getting donations and small loans from friends, family members, and any other interested parties. The deficit will be funded through loan from one of the local micro-finance institutions.
Ownership
The project will be fully owned by the members who were involved in its development and funding. After some time, the members may allow other investors to become members, especially when it will be necessary to get more funds for expansion and getting a loan is not a viable option.
Expected returns
The retail industry is very dynamic and it may not be possible to precisely predict when this firm is expected to make given returns. However, the team is optimistic and it is expected that this firm will be giving an average profit of $ 15,400 per month within the first two years of operations. This will enable it to recover the initial investment made in less than two years.
Issue analysis and critical risk statement
When this firm starts operation, the main issue that it will face in the market is competition. The retail industry in this country is well established and with many competitors. The process of delivering products to clients, especially those who live in remote areas, is also expected to be an issue. The management will also have to deal with inflation that may strike at any moment.
Conclusion
Emirati Today is a proposed online retail company that will operate in major cities in the United Arab Emirates. It will have its headquarters in Dubai that will form the major market, but it expects to expand to other parts of the country. The members have developed a clear plan of sourcing for finance and operations strategies that will be used once the firm begins its operations.
Works Cited
Berkun, Scott. Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management. Sebastopol, Calif: O’Reilly Media, 2008. Print.
Friedlein, Ashley. A Guide to Web Project Management: How to Deliver Successful Commercial Web Sites. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2001. Print.
Goodpasture, John C. Project Management the Agile Way: Making It Work in the Enterprise. Ft. Lauderdale: J. Ross Pub, 2010. Print.