1.0 Executive Summary
Note the full legal name of your organization.
Describe your business idea and the nature of your target market.
2.0 Mission, Vision, & Culture
After reviewing several mission statements for actual companies in your industry, write a mission statement for your organization in 21 to 40 words that clearly states your competitive advantage, strategy and tactics.
Create a vision statement for your company.
Describe the core beliefs you will use to run your organization and how they will be reflected in its culture.
Identify the ways you plan to run a socially responsible organization.
4.0 Opportunity Analysis and Research
Describe your target customers along as many dimensions as you have defined (demographic, geographic, needs, trends, and decision-making processes).
Describe the research methods you used to develop this section (surveys, focus groups, general research, & statistical research).
4.1 Industry Analysis (Remember to cite your sources and give references in APA format.)
What is the industry/industries within which your organization operates? (include NAICS codes, if applicable)
What factors influence the demand for your product/services?
What factors influence the supply of your product/services?
How large is your total industry (historic, current & projected size)?
What are the current and anticipated trends in the industry?
What are the major customer groups for the industry (consumers, government, businesses)? Describe these in detail.
How large is your target market? (Number of customers, size of purchases, frequency of purchases, trends–Quantify!) Describe the entire potential market and the portion you will target.
4.2 Environmental Analysis
Perform a SWOT analysis of your potential organization. Remember that strengths and weaknesses are internal to your organization –so you can control these, and opportunities and threats are external to your organization–so you cannot control these; you must react to these.
What external/environmental factors are likely to impact your business and how likely are these?
Are your customers in other countries? If so, how will you reach them?
4.3 Competitive Analysis
How do you define/describe your competitors- both direct and indirect?
Describe your organization’s competitive advantage along the lines of quality, price, location, service, and speed of turn-around as they apply.
Find three competitors and describe them (cite your sources). Use the comparative analysis tables in Chapter 3 of your text to perform a qualitative assessment and/or quantitative analysis.
Describe any international competitors. How do you intend to compete with them for your customers?
Describe your strategy for outperforming the competition you identified above.
What, if any, do you see as barriers to entry that you can create to block out competition. How will you do so?
5.0 Marketing Strategy
Explain how your marketing plan targets your market segment (geographic, demographics, psychographics, behavior). Be specific.
What percentage of the market do you need to capture for your business to be profitable–explain.
Using the format described in Chapter 4 of your text, write a positioning statement for your organization.
How will you grow the business (self-generated, franchising, acquisition)?
5.1 Products/Services
Describe in detail what products/services you intend to market.
Explain how these will meet a specific consumer need. (What pain do they remove or improvement do they provide?) Describe the features/benefits that you will focus on in your marketing.
What copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other IP do you need/expect to own?
How ill your organization help other organizations? (Your contributions may be time, money, donations, or something else.)
5.2 Pricing
Describe your pricing structure and strategy (value, prestige, cost-plus, penetration, skimming, meet-or-beat, follow the leader, variable, personalized, or price lining.) What gross margins do you hope to generate?
What, if any, will be your discount structure?
On what terms, if any, will your company extend credit to customers?
5.3 Promotion
Explain your plans for promotion, including the message, the media you will use, and distribution channels. Include a table to show the methods and the budgets you intend.
Create a sample of an example marketing material.
Does your company have a slogan? What is it?
Create a sample logo for your company.
Where, specifically, and how often will you advertise your product/service?
How will you publicize your organization?
What information will you keep in your customer database? How will you seek