Cell Phones Retailer Business Plan Cell Phones Retailer Business Plan[This sample business plan is based on one from several years ago, valid then, and still useful as an illustration of what a business plan contains and what issues it covers. It is not valid for information purposes today.]
In the world today everyone has a cell phone. Cell phones are expected. They are needed for work and for socializing. They are so expected, people think there is something wrong or untrustworthy with someone who does not have one. In truth, those without one can’t afford it.
Garbles Cellular’s mission is to offer its customers the highest quality cell phone products and services. Its owner focuses on personalized service to his customers by offering convenience and rapid service. Additionally, Garbles Cellular has the technological expertise to assist customers in picking the product and service that best meets their needs. Finally, our staff will have strong vendor relationships with the product suppliers and will be able to meet customers’ demand for the newest innovation in cellular phone technology.
The market potential is huge for our products, evidenced by what appears to be the unstoppable growth of the telecom industry. Currently, the telecom industry is among the strongest growth industries and is responsible for huge gains in the capital markets. The proliferation of cellular phones is increasing at rates which at one time were unimaginable. One illustrative example is that it is forecasted that within two years over 65% of children from age of 10-15 will have cell phones.
Future growth of the market/products is projected in the following areas:
Text messages between friends (in Japan this big). Users can send regular Short-Message Service (SMS) or email on their phones. Email is of course limited to small file sizes, but many of the phones allow for English characters to be sent. Each provider also allows special characters to be sent, such as an array of happy and sad faces, small animated images, animals, people, hearts, etc. When special characters are not available, people often use a specialized set of faces to show emotion. Email can also be sent between different provider phones, but many of the special characters are lost, hence users may try to keep a circle of friends on the same provider to receive the special characters. Email, of course, may be sent from computers as well, but files are often stripped of headers and attachments when received on cell phones.
Most North American phones come with a few games to keep people entertained for a limited duration. Japanese phones come with two different types of games: built-in ones and Java application ones. The built-in ones are simple, but again the graphics are very important to the game value. Java application games are delivered via the network to the customer’s phone and there is a charge for this service. These games are much more complex and require streaming data to access. New games come out monthly. You can even buy joysticks and navigation consoles that plug into your phone.
One of the recent popular additions to many of the Japanese and Korean phone models is a CCD Camera that is mounted either on the outside of the clamshell or on the clamshell hinge. The camera lens is slightly smaller than a dime and takes 4×4 cm pictures to display on the phone’s screen or to send to others. Not only can users take pictures, they can take video clips as well. Most phones take between 5-15 seconds of footage due to memory limitations, but they can send streaming video. Many of the advertisements for camera phones show people taking to each other and watching each other on the screen (both holding the phone and camera at arm’s length and using a hands-free microphone and earpiece). The camera also has a couple of neat accessories including an external flash that pops into an accessory port and a miniature printer that will print out pictures.
Our company will try to take advantage of these developments and serve its customers in all these new trends and developments.
[Note: this is included here for illustration purposes only. This information is seriously out of date. Not reusable.]
The U.S. market is dominated today by three large companies:
T-Mobile Wireless – owned by a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom since May 31, 2001.
Cingular Wireless is the second largest wireless company in the U.S. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is a wireless company determined to promote the individual to a new level.
Nextel Communications, based in Reston, VA, is a leading provider of fully integrated, wireless communications services on the largest guaranteed, all-digital, wireless network in the country.
Garbles Cellular Phones is aiming to gather a share of the market from these three.
We believe that, with our long and thorough experience in the EAIA, our store will be in the perfect location to start our operations in the U.S.A., and will start operating in the right time. Garbles Cellular Phones will provide its customers support and convenience second to none.
We intend to iron out kinks in our start-up and get things off the ground in year 1. We will make a minor profit in year 2. By the third year, we will be able to hire more store attendants and admin assistants
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We will be getting $96,000 to start up . Mr. Seramed Garbles will invest $43,000 in Garbles Cellular Phones, Inc. to cover start-up costs. He will also invest an additional $53,000 when operation takes off
[This sample business plan is based on one from several years ago, valid then, and still useful as an illustration of what a business plan contains and what issues it covers. It is not valid for information purposes today.]
Garbles Cellular Phones, Inc. is taking advantage of an opportunity to become a highly distinguished and recognized leader in the cellular communications industry. It is the goal of our company to become established as the leading distributor of wireless communications services in the metro Niceburg area.
Garbles Cellular Phones, Inc. will focus on five customer groups, bearing in mind that it is quite customary today to have more than one cell phone per family:
The market for cellular phones and their accessories is very fragmented, crowded and competitive. Among these, there are only a few large local firms that serve the entire city of Niceburg and its surroundings. The remainder are small firms that sell from kiosks in the surrounding malls. Garbles Cellular Phones current niche in its location, variety of products and expertise in serving the public will assure the projected sales.
We expect to take full advantage of the trends described in the Market Analysis above, and try to penetrate the market with new innovations and gadgets — mainly with the younger generation, using advertisements and demonstrations. We shall also try to lure independent small sellers to join our effort.
The U.S. market is dominated today by three large companies:
T-Mobile Wireless – owned by a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom since May 31, 2001.
Cingular Wireless is the second largest wireless company in the U.S. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is a wireless company determined to promote the individual to a new level.
Nextel Communications, based in Reston, VA, is a leading provider of fully integrated, wireless communications services on the largest guaranteed, all-digital, wireless network in the country.
Garbles Cellular Phones is aiming to gather a share of the market from these three.
Brand names are of little, if any, importance. The key to the buying decision on the part of the consumer is the salesman and the cell phone being in front of them. As has been pointed out in the Competitive Analysis section there are other sellers with similar brand names as those supplied by Garbles Cellular Phones, Inc. which may even be less expensive. It is essential that the salesman point out the salient features and selling points favoring our products. Most importantly, our products must be available in the retail outlet, since whatever products our store carries are the ones that are going to be sold.
The need to attract, acquire, leverage, and retain customers remains a primary concern to business. Revenue growth through customer acquisition and retention is as important a requirement in e-commerce as it is in other businesses. Customers, especially in the Western business culture, count speed of service as a key reason why they do business with a company. They resent delays and hate waiting for service. In the United States, almost 80% of the gross domestic product (GDP) is generated through different kinds of services, and speed of service no longer distinguishes an enterprise as providing superior value. Customers generally are not thrilled if they receive good service, but they are highly dissatisfied if they do not. Garbles Cellular will provide the necessary framework to cope with these demands by cutting the waiting time for a service.
Customers also want consistent, reliable, and easy-to-use service. As the speed of service increases, customer expectations grow, making friendly, easy, and solution-oriented customer service an important business trend.
Reflective shoppers get some support from e-commerce as well. They like to investigate products precisely and consciously. However, when browsing costs a lot because of on-line charges, they do less of it. Consequently, they do not get a holistic view of the available options, and their expectations often are not met. Reference-spending customers do not let themselves be hurried or forced. They use alternative offline sources to get information. They refuse aggressive marketing, which is accepted in Western e-commerce.
Soon, shoppers will simply wave their cell phone over the item they want and the charge will automatically appear on their cell phone bill. It’s happening in some cities overseas already. And right now, MasterCard and Motorola are testing out a similar program here in the States. Retailers have registers that will take the signal from the cell phone, and the purchase is automatically converted to a MasterCard charge. Buyers don’t have to sign anything. The scary part is what could happen when people lose their cell phones or have them stolen. There are lots of technical and legal issues to work out here, but paying wirelessly is going to gain momentum quickly.
Garbles Cellular is planning to take advantage of these trends of buying patterns. We shall also be very quick in establishing our own website to take advantage of E-trade.
Our company keys to success will include:
[This sample business plan is based on one from several years ago, valid then, and still useful as an illustration of what a business plan contains and what issues it covers. It is not valid for information purposes today.]
Short-term marketing strategies are those that bring will bring us a temporary boost in traffic. Although these techniques are very important to our over-all plan, they are only a temporary traffic source and must not be solely relied upon. Short-term marketing strategies include:
Long-term marketing strategies are those that will bring us a steady stream of targeted traffic over time. These strategies will continue to produce results even years down the road. Long-term marketing strategies include:
By creating and implementing a balanced marketing strategy, using both short-term and long-term strategies, Garbles Cellular will drive a steady stream of targeted traffic to our website.
Using this simple formula when creating our Internet marketing strategy and excelling at all three, we hope to guarantee our success.
Our short-term marketing strategy will focus heavily on sales promotion, niche positioning in the market and customer service with loyalty and retention in sales.
Our promotions will always stay in tune with our company objectives and mission statement.
When we Sales Strategy we shall follow the following steps:
Sales Success Requires Planning – we shall formulate our sales strategy and tactics to achieve our sales success.
Analyze Our Potential – we shall step through a structured process that will prepare us for the development of our sales strategy.
Strategize Around Strengths – the description of our sales activity will be analyzed producing a report that reveals factors impacting our sales potential.
Develop Our Tactics – we shall receive guidance to develop a comprehensive tactical plan to achieve our success.
Measure Our Success – we shall constantly develop key measurements that mark the progress of financial estimates that guide our growth.
Employ An Action Plan for Success – we shall provide our sales force a clear tactical plan that is also aligned with management’s strategic objectives.
The sales strategy of Garbles Cellular Phones is simple. The key to customer satisfaction is having the product and services that meet the customer’s needs. A crucial part of that is to also have knowledgeable employees to help customers quickly find what they want.
The Garbles Cellular Phones’ store will operate virtually 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Although the store opening hours will be officially 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., it is clear that due to our Internet operation the customer support will be a non-stop one. The personnel plan, as detailed in the following table, has been developed to support these hours.
