Pick-Cup Business Plan
Executive Summary
The pick cup mobile application is a new business idea that aims at providing high-quality customer access to coffee shops to allow quick ordering of favourite drinks and reduced traffic in coffee shops. The application will focus on linking the coffee shops with the many customers who provide their information mainly the phone number and car plate before the customer picks up the order in person from the coffee shop that is nearly available with less traffic.
Pick Cup gets consumers out of line and back to the coffee shop by applying modern service allocation and management technology. The application aims at addressing the point of sale inefficiencies and maintains swift customer flow by improving customer experience and driving coffee sales high for the vendors. The Pick Cup customer development research indicated that many customers spend a lot of time outside the coffee shops due to increase traffic to access their coffee cup. The long queues and overcrowding are the significant factors inhibiting their preferred coffee experience from local coffee shops. The consumers are willing to pay additional fees for the service that allows them avoids traffic, save time and buy products from vendors with ease. Additionally, the coffee shops owners are willing to adopt the new technology that increases their sales and operational effectiveness.
The application will be important in the allocation of customers to coffee shops that are congested hence will mainly save on time and reduce traffic in coffee shops around the town. The Pick Cup business idea commits to hosting customers and independent coffee shops who are the leading retailers to ensure that the sales and distribution of the beverage are conducted swiftly. The distinguishing aspect of our business will be close coordination and linkage of the coffee business shops and the many customers accessing their services through the Pick cup application. There are many different types of coffee and speciality drinks that are caffeinated that are sold along with the snacks that coffee shops serve. Many people come into the city and access coffee shops across all seasons of the year to have a taste of the finest and hot beverages. In the scramble for the products, the coffee shops experience high traffic that creates a lot of time wastage for the consumers. The introduction of the Pick cup application will create enormous efficiency in customer service, traffic management and time-saving. The market is mainly made up of the retail coffee shops and the consumers that have a high preference for quality services and products and have busy schedules. The coffee shops offer a uniquely blended coffee that attracts consumers as they hurry through their busy lives.
The owners of the business idea bring in proper application modelling and design, high customer service and vast experience in sales and distribution management. The business plan is seeking additional equity capital to complement our investment and also seeking other financial products for application development and financing. Pick Cup company commits to ensuring that the mobile application is functional and can be downloaded by customers to access coffee shops and their coffee beverages. The high commitment levels will ensure the application is availed to the market within 30-60 days of finalizing the arrangements.
Industry Analysis
Industry size/growth rate
Technology is the first developing area that is integrated into business activities to improve efficiencies within their operation. Development of mobile applications aims at creating fluidity in customer service, crowd management and promoting time savings. Integration of technology in business activities individualizes customer service through the provision of innovative products and services. Pick Cup mobile application is under the technology industry that is growing at a faster rate into other sectors to improve the process. Crowd and queue management in vending shops is becoming a critical area that mobile application developers are exploiting to create operational efficiencies for venders and enhance time savings and efficiency in service delivery. The food industry is popular with a steady growth rate, especially in areas like business vending of fast foods and beverages. Pick Cup technology aims to capitalize on the sustained growth rate of the food sector to establish itself as a leading application in creating efficiencies in many businesses.
Porter Five Forces
Buyer power: the customer flow into the coffee vending shops is high, and they can drive the prices down. If the number of customers is replicated in the use of the application to access coffee services, they will drive the cost of Pick Cup prices down. Customers using the application will have massive importance to the organization and will be a significant source of customer loyalty. The buyers create a network effect, especially when they are willing to pay for the company’s products, and their willingness to boosts the customer numbers for the company (Porter, 2016). The Pick Cup customers will value to be in a network that is formed by a large number of buyers. The demand side driven benefits of scale will position Pick Cup in the market will be a critical factor in creating a competitive advantage in the market. The low prices of using Pick Cup will attract new customers to eventually build up a large customer base and stand out as a market leader.
Supplier power: Pick Cup joins a list of few applications that collaborate with coffee vendors to improve service delivery and enhance growth in sales. The supplier power is relatively high in driving prices up due to market dominance. The supplier power within the industry ensures that Pick Cup makes an entry into the market on a large scale and dislodging existing competitors. Suppliers can have a bargaining power on industry participants to create a sudden price increase or reduction in the quality of products to squeeze profitability (Porter, 2016). In the industry with few suppliers and many buyers, Pick Cup will enjoy the strong bargaining power due to the cost of buyers switching to other suppliers of mobile applications.
Competitive rivalry: Pick Cup will exist in an industry that has few competitors that have lower capabilities in the market. The positioning of the Pick Cup company in the market will rely on the positive public perception of the mobile application that differentiates it from the competitors. Pick Cup will focus on increasing the market share by inventing strategies that will aim at creating competitive advantages to attract customers at the expense of rivals.
The threat of substitution. Pick Cup mobile application will prevail in a market that has a limited number of close substitutes in the market. However, the danger of substitution will not be ignored, and the product dimensions will be strengthened to ensure that price changes do not make customers switch to alternative products. The product will be differentiated from others to ensure that it is not exposed to the devastating force caused by competitive substitute goods. (Porter, 2016) indicated that consumers have a high likelihood to switch to similar products with low prices and differentiation of products attracts customers. We will recognize the available substitutes in the industry that may threaten Pick Cup brand to lay strategies to defend the product against substitutes.
The threat of new entry
The emergent market of mobile applications is considered profitable, and it will attract new entrants which we acknowledge may erode profitability at some point in the business cycle. Barriers to entry into the industry affect the ability of businesses to make entry and compete with incumbents (Porter, 2016). Our product will be developed with differentiated features that meet government policies and create a cost advantage by using reliable distribution channels.
SWOT analysis
Strengths
We will study the features of the Pick Cup mobile application to ensure that they fall in the category where it creates strengths for the company. The features are designed to ensure that coffee customers interact with vendor shops to create coordination in service delivery to save on time and improve sales volume. The main strength of the Pick Cup is to create massive time savings by ensuring that vendors have a smooth customer flow in their shops. Competitive research shall also be done on the strengths of competitors to ensure that Pick Cup has differentiated features that have more strength. The application will adopt a unique selling proposition, unique interactive features and a goal-oriented sales feature.
Weaknesses
The mobile app shall always a room for improvements to ensure that the business idea is fully achieved. Competitive research will be conducted to determine the areas that need such improvements to ensure that the business competes viably with others. The weak points will be subjected to new enhancements, while unattainable ones are discarded. A unique feature will be embedded in Pick Cup to ensure that customers give their review of their experience and point out weaknesses that are to be subjected to improvements. The features inhibiting the success of Pick Cup will also be identified to ensure that they are addressed fully. An organization’s weakness can lead to inefficiencies and ineffectiveness and are required to be improved (Gürel, & Tat, 2017). The developers will explore the weaknesses and turn them into strengths for the company.
Opportunities
The underexploited industry is the main opportunity that will be explored by the business idea. Pick Cup features will be customized to ensure that they are effective in ensuring that customers place their orders of the favourite drinks in various coffee shops on the application. The time taken to receive feedback for the customers to collect their orders in person will also be reduced, creating new dimensions in the food sector for vendors and consumers. Other market opportunities will be explored and created using their strengths.
Threats
The evolving technology will be a threat, but Pick Cup developers will be up to the task to ensure that the technology used in developing the mobile application is updated continuously. The threat will be avoided all the time to ensure that it does not jeopardize the operation of the application in serving customers.
Competitor analysis
Competitor research will be an ongoing process to ensure that the company analyses the comparative strengths and weaknesses of competitors.
The analysis will focus on assessing the how Pick Cup development ranks considering its features, marketing strategies and customer reviews. Competitor analysis will enhance the understanding of the market trends, locate competitors and ensure the company positions the novel application strategically into the market.
The company
Company description
Pick Cup company is a business organization that focuses on investing in the development of a mobile application in collaboration with coffee shops to allow customers to place and collect orders in time. The mobile application will ensure that users access a variety of vendors and select their preferred drinks through the order and picking them in person. The existing competition in the industry has necessitated the development of the business idea to explore the opportunity and strategically position the company in the strong market segment. The feasibility studies and market survey have been conducted to ensure that the company uses the business idea to compete favourably with all competitors while giving servicing a wide range of clientele.
Vision Statement
Our vision is to establish ourselves a global leader in creating outstanding customer solutions in retail business and ensure that traffic at vending stations is reduced by embracing technology.
Mission statement
To develop a world-class company that uses mobile application technology whose products is used across the world to offer solutions to various issues affecting businesses.
Company ownership
The business will be owned by a group of investors who are willing to collaborate, contribute starting capital and source for additional funds needed in the development of Pick Cup application.
Product Offering
Pick Cup brand will develop and own an application after which the company will collaborate with coffee shops across the country to provide a range of services to its customers. The company will focus on proving the services to users of the mobile application while charging a fee in the course of earning profits, and it is the main reason for creating options to coffee lovers. The Pick Cup mobile application will offer services like; placing orders, a listing of available coffee shops, products offered by the coffee shops and receiving customer queries. The competitive advantage will be realized when the company collaborates with coffee shops to allow customers to place orders continuously to avoid traffic at the shops.
The marketing plan
The company has a strategic plan with critical objectives that require adequate support from the marketing plan. The strategic plan creates a vision-driven mechanism through which the organization can adapt and attain the main healthcare objectives and mission over a given period. Strategic planning measures the performance of operations and anticipates the organization’s future. The objectives of the strategic plans include:
- Collaborate with many coffee shops to attract many customers.
- Compete favourably with competitors.
- Improve customer service in placing orders and receiving feedback.
- Reduce overcrowding and traffic in coffee shops across the country.
The marketing plan will adopt suitable marketing strategies to focus on achieving the objectives set by the strategic plan. Strategy coordination is critical to attaining the desired success of the healthcare organization. The marketing plan will adopt strategies for the success of the business plan to ensure smooth coordination and attainment of critical objectives.
Market Analysis
Adopting marketing strategies has created a dynamic evolution of organizations to establish numerous changes that develop the products and services for their brands. Pick Cup will adopt a philosophy and techniques that provide customer access to products in coffee shops by collaborating with vendors to build its brand image. Pick Cup will prioritize the development of the app as its main product which will offer numerous services to vendors and coffee customers who are its main client base. The market trends in give a clear indication of the broad market that can be exploited by the company in developing the Pick Cup mobile application to position itself in the appropriate market segment. Although the technology will be critical in Pick Cup value proposition, our sticky vendor network and extensive customer network will drive growth and make our service unique.
Target Market
Our positioning the company in the target market, which is a straight forward, market segment features will be considered in creating a viable marketing strategy. The features of a market segment in technology are vital in creating an organization’s marketing strategy. Therefore we have conducted market research and feasibility studies that have been vital to creating an idea about the target market and the expectations of the same. Mobile application market has been competitive over the last decade, and the need to be creative and proper market segmentation is required. The company will focus on attaining the creative designs and market approach that is customer sensitive and proactive to survive in the industry. Pick Cup enters a competitive market, but it is designed to compete favourably with other mobile applications through collaboration with coffee shops and linking customers to place orders. The market segment and target market will be the food industry, specifically the coffee vending business that is experiencing challenges in customer service due to high traffic and overcrowding. The segments of the market will target teenagers and adults who have access to a smartphone and can download the Pick Cup mobile application to access coffee shops and place orders before picking them up in person.
Marketing strategy
Product
Pick Cup company will create a platform where customers can place orders and pick up the products from coffee shops that are listed on the application. The application, Pick Cup, will connect the vendors and their customers as the primary users at a fee to realize their buying and selling needs. The benefit of the product will be to create massive time savings for users and reduced traffic at coffee shops that will increase their sales and enhance customer service activities. The marketing strategy will ensure that customers use the company product to access the coffee market and place orders for their favourite drinks. Pick Cup mobile application will house special features like coffee shop section, order section, feedback section, customer reviews and an interaction section that creates effectiveness in ordering and picking drinks from various vendors. The features make the application stand out and are unique to win customers, and the collaboration with coffee shops makes the product compete with other companies.
Promotion
Pick Cup company plans to introduce the mobile application to potential customers by ensuring that it is well-positioned in the target market before going ahead with the intensive publicity for the business. There will be adverts on the newspapers, radio and televisions to access a broad market. The use of banners and billboards in major cities will be used to create brand awareness and also distribute fliers and handbills in target areas and the respective coffee shops. All coffee shops on the mobile application will ensure they market the application by encouraging their customers to place orders through Pick Cup.
Building a relationship is critical in the success of the business as a fundamental promotion aspect. The promotion strategy supports full product development while attracting customers from all over the places.
Price
The payment policy adopted by Pick Cup Company is inclusive due to customer preference of different modes and options of payment. The payment options adopted by the company will comply with all financial rules and regulation set by the government. The set price will drive the company to get the most sales and ensure the company realizes most profits. The pricing strategy creates a systematic identification of critical elements that must be managed to realize profitable performance in business and achieve the intended pricing objective (Kienzler & Kowalkowski, 2017). Pick Cup company will offer high services to its users at relatively low prices compared to what the competitors will offer. The lower prices will not cheapen the Pick Cup brand, but it will bring transparency in the market and educate people on how the products are not expensive as portrayed by competitors. Chen et al. (2019) noted that aside from quality products, pricing is an essential factor that gives companies leverage because customers go to places where products have lower prices.
Distribution
The application will be distributed to the customers by hosting it on the application stores that can be downloaded easily to access the services. To capture the majority of the market, the distribution strategy used will make Pick Cup stand out from other applications. Mobile stores will be used as the leading distribution channel for Pick Cup mobile application. Xia et al. (2020) noted that the distribution strategy has to minimize the costs incurred to enhance the profitability of companies running the applications. The selected distribution strategy combined with the increasing popularity of mobile technologies will contribute to the high accessibility of customers to Pick Cup app.
The operational and development plan
Location
Pick Cup brand is planning to have its first offices in that will focus on conducting the operations on that happens on the application. The location is appropriate because the majority of the coffee shops are located in the town, and customer traffic is high. It implies that the majority of the target market is in the location; hence it will create operational efficiency by locating the company near customers. After launching the company and its mobile application as a product, the focus will be channelled to the enhancement of customer experience and ensuring coffee shops drive their sales up through appropriate order management. The future and consistency of businesses lie in the number of loyal customers they have, and the location of Pick Cup brand at the heart of its client base will enhance its development and expansion.
Facilities and equipment
Appmakr: it is a browser-based platform that is well created and designed to make applications easily. Social networking can be used to develop various approaches for making Pick Cup application or existing content can be used. The equipment contains unique features like location awareness abilities, push notifications and JavaScript capabilities. The tool is a free service when using, but a monthly fee is charged for each app subscription it gets you to access advanced features.
Back end servers: the equipment is vital in providing a set of reusable services for the app development and is managed centrally by ensuring the application runs effectively.
Build Fire: it is a high performance do it feature that ensures that app developers customize them to hold up and support android and iOS phones.
Computers: the company will need numerous computers in their office facility to ensure that app development is undertaken swiftly. Computers will also be used by other staff members to ensure that daily activities are undertaken swiftly and shared to enhance teamwork. The computers will require to have the updated versions of the operating systems like the Microsoft windows for effective app development.
Operation strategy (production / suppliers / hours of operation)
Operation hours and ability to serve clients
The operation of the Pick Cup will commence immediately after its launch, and it runs for 24 hours a day and seven days per week. Coffee shops operate throughout the day and night and hence the requirement for the application to run on similar schedules. Beverage drinks are consumed by customers throughout the day across all seasons of the year with variations only occurring between them. The operation of the application will incorporate schedules of what is being undertaken in the coffee shops to ensure that clients have the correct information to save on their time. Events such as cleaning and change in employee shifts will be communicated to employees who will have an option to select other shops that in service to avoid delays to customers while picking orders. The mobile application will allow the customers to place orders of their favourite drinks during any time of the day and be notified for pick up through the Pick Cup mobile application technology. The application will have the ability to handle 500 hundred orders per hour during seasons of high traffic in coffee shops. The orders will be well managed to ensure that coffee shops complete the ordered transactions and customers collect their drinks successfully and in good time.
Suppliers
The coffee shops will be leading suppliers that will address the demand for the application because the users access the app to place their orders. The suppliers will therefore prepare a variety of drinks that are preferred by clients who use Pick Cup to place orders systematically before collecting them in person. Pick Cup application will collaborate with around 20 supplier coffee shops in a business partnership aimed at creating a competitive advantage for all parties through increase customer users of the app and increased sales. Once the collaboration with a few coffee shops has shown positive outcomes, the company will engage more coffee vendors to increase diversity and differentiated products offered to customers to increase the customer base and users of the application. The approved vending shops that will offer their various drinks on Pick Cup will be notified of the need to offer quality and customer-oriented products and services that will attract large customer orders and traffic on the application. The vendors will be notified and subsequently be approved before being listed on the application. Quality and effectiveness will be evaluated continuously to ensure that drinks have the right price, adhere to time of delivery and are of the desired quality.
The team
The company will be managed by the principal owners who will oversee the management and leadership of the company. The company will have a functional organizational structure that will be responsible for the day to day activities to ensure that the application developed to enhance the customer experience.
Organizational structure
The intention of starting the Pick Cup brand is to strategically build the standard company that aims to enhance the customer experience in their quest to access drinks and beverages from coffees shops amid traffic issues that result in massive time losses. Pick Cup is a startup company/brand, and the organizational structure shall be simple, and all aspects are developed to facilitate growth during the stages of business development.
The management board
The management board will comprise of the founders and investors of the business idea. Their experience and knowledge regarding the business idea will be vital in driving the company to greater heights by creating long term company goals and objectives. The management will bring diversified experience in the industry, and the in-depth knowledge of the market will spur the company to attain its long term targets.
Supervisory board
The supervisory board will comprise of the chief executive officer and general managers and human resource and administrative manager appointed by the management board. They will have the main objective of promoting the interests of the management board through the governance of the company process to meet short and long term goals. The managers will include the ICT manager responsible for the development and maintenance of Pick Cup application that is core to the company business. The office manager will be in charge of ensuring office activities are undertaken to ensure the company is on a competitive platform with others.
Pick Cup employee team
The last group represents the group of employees that are responsible for doing the real activities to ensure that the company meets its daily targets and long term ones. The office employees will ensure that the paper works are completed in time, and they include the accountants, front office, and other support staffs. The ICT employees will be responsible for working out the dynamics of the application to ensure it remains functional and reliable to users.