The name of business is Travel Healthy Snacks. It will be situated at Nairobi City, Kenya along River Road Street. Its physical address is P.O.Box 24567-01000 GP, Nairobi, Kenya. Email address is [email protected].
Transport industry is one of the fast-growing sectors in developing country as a result of globalization and increased urbanization. Very small portion of commuters do have at their disposal a variety of healthy food choices on what to consume while traveling. Rarely do commuters carry with them packed foods during their travel due to number of challenges such tight traveling schedule which do not allow them to have ample time to prepare suitable dish for traveling while for those who prepare such food is highly perishable. Consequently, they are left with few options such as buying readily available junks snacks which have continually posed nutrition and health problems.
Owing to the fact that commuters constitute of different kind of persons who have special health and nutrition needs, most of readily available types of snacks have not been specifically made to address their unique needs. For this reason, Travel Healthy Snacks intends to process and sell healthy and nutritious snacks that are tailored to meet commuters’ unique needs in the context of raising nutrition challenges posed by change in lifestyle. This will be a new venture which has not been undertaken before in the region.
The business will make nutritious snacks products such as fruits juice, ready-to-eat fruits salads, and whole grain cereal snacks. Such snacks will be low in saturated fats and with no harmful food additives that may pose threat to human health. However, these healthy and nutritious snacks will not be only for commuters but can be used in households as the best alternative for snacking foods while at home. Packaging will be of high standard that match with traveling context besides being of high aesthetic value. Basically, the uniqueness with business products is that they are healthy and nutritious besides having therapeutic effects to significant number of commuters who experience nausea and vomiting while traveling.
There is market opportunity for the business due to numbers of reasons. First, food is one of the fast selling commodities. In the main bus stations both for short and long distance commuters from all walks of life are available everyday and they often buy snacks to eat either before they set off they journey or along their way. If they get the right kind of the snacks that caters their different health and nutrition needs at competitive prices they are more likely to go for the enterprise’s products because they will provide greatest value of their money as compared to other products already in the market.
For the business to be able to penetrate into the domestic market, numbers of strategies will be employed. One of these strategies will be sales promotion. Sales promotion as a strategy to gain entry into the market will make use of incentives in order to stimulate sales of business’ products. This will take different approaches such as twin-pack bargains, bonus for sales representatives and special discounts to trade customers (Arkebauer, 2007).
By positively rewarding enterprise sales representatives, this will boost their morale in their job and make them work much harder which in turn will translates to more sales. Twin-pack bargains will be a good impression for the consumers which will appeal to them to try enterprise’s products. If retailers will be able to get special discounts, it will help them have high profits margin that will encourage them markets and sell more of the enterprise’s products.
Another entry strategy will be advertising of enterprise’s products. Several principal media will be utilized. For instance, business’s products will be published in the most preferred newspapers in the country namely ‘The Daily Nation Newspaper’ and ‘Standard Newspaper.’ In these two newspapers, the enterprise will be able to sensitize the public about the availability of its products and their outstanding benefits. Similarly , major local magazines such as ‘Drum’ and ‘Parents’ magazines will also be used to advertise products. In addition, commercial radio stations and television will also be extensively used to advertise the products.
Price reduction will be considered as another strategy for entry to the market. By selling the products at relatively cheaper prices while allowing for some returns, consumers will readily opt for the products especially if they will get full information about their healthy benefits. This can play a significant role in helping consumers familiarize with business’s products. Nevertheless, it may not be along term strategy if the enterprise has to maximize on profits which is its main objective (Sahlman, 2004).
Lastly, quality of products may play a great role in attracting potential consumers. According to consumer behavior, every consumer will always tend to go to that product which offers him or her maximum satisfaction. This aspect of product is related to the quality. If business will provide products of superior quality in the market, many consumers will be able to identify themselves with its products as result of the benefits they are able to derive from these products as compared to already existing products. This by far will have given the firm an upper hand to gain access into the market and have a great market share within very short span of time.
To be able to minimize personal risk because the form of business ownership is that of sole proprietorship in which the sole proprietor bare the blunts if business incur losses, it would be wise to transform it into a company. In a company, business is owned by many stakeholders according to their amount of share they own in it. This will facilitate reducing the risk by sharing it to the stakeholders proportionally. This is true because any investors in the company will tend to invest money in respect to their monetary capability and their ability to take the risk (Dees, 2000).
Another strategy to minimize personal risk in this new business venture is getting the business insured. When business get insured, during times of crisis, insurance company can provide payment of business claims and other losses experienced. In addition, some insurance companies go to an extra mile in providing financial reconstruction if the business had suffered serious losses. Otherwise, if business is not insured, all the losses and claims would be solely met by the sole proprietor of the business which in this case is I as the sole proprietor.
References:
Arkebauer, J. B. (2007).Business plan. Web.
Dees, J. G. (2000). The Entrepreneurial Mindset. Boston: McMillan.
Sahlman, W. (2004). How to write a great business plan. New York: Routledge.