Analyzing Cafe Paradiso's Business Essay, Shortening Length To 70 Characters.

You have recently purchased the Cafe Paradiso, and the previous owners have provided you with their business plan which was formulated 2 years ago (attached). Read through the business plan and answer the following questions:
1. Briefly review and analyse the following:
a. Business vision
b. Business mission
c. Values and objectives
2. Who are the key stakeholders in the business?
3. As the owner of the business explain how you would communicate with the stakeholders?
4. Do you believe there is a market for the business in the area? Why?
5. What are the needs of your customers?
6. How would you research and decide upon your pricing structure for the products you are selling?
7. List three (3) key performance indicators of the business.
8. Explain the following requirements of the business:
a. Financial
b. Human resources
c. Physical resources
9.  What licences or permits would be required by the business?

Mission, Values, and Objectives

1. Business Vision:Businesses formulate vision statements to show their aspirations for the future operations. Most importantly, the purpose of such visions is to help businesses set out view of their future to gain enthusiasm, commitment, and stretch their performance. In a case of the Cafe Paradiso, management seeks to ensure that the company becomes the most preference point for shopping among customers that live beyond Mountain Glen.

Business mission: Businesses design different mission statements to show provide their stakeholders and employees a form of clarity regarding the overall purpose of the organization. This implies that leaders and managers draft mission statements to build an understanding and confidence concerning how the strategy relates to the overall purpose. After reading the case of the Cafe Paradiso, it is apparent that the company seeks to provide products and services that meet expectations of all customers in terms of their needs and wants. This spans from providing high quality coffee, delicious nutritious means, and excellent services. Furthermore, the company seeks to differentiate itself from other cafes by producing fresh, light, and healthy meals that meets the tastes and needs of customers. In overall, the company mission is to target employees and employees that enjoy good coffee.

Value and objectives: Business values involves the underlying principles designed to offer guidelines on how to achieve a strategy. While at the same time, businesses use objectives as statements of specific outcomes of what they seek to achieve. The Cafe Paradiso has managed to establish two key objectives; to maintain a market share through the change of ownership and grow shares to 40%, and generate a net margin of 20%. However, the objectives fail to meet as aspects of specific, measurable, realistic, and time bound.

2. Key stakeholders in the business

Businesses have stakeholders that affect operations of the business (Schneider & Sachs, 2017). The internal stakeholders include the staff, chef, business analysts, and managers in different departments (Brendan and Margret Elliot). While the external stakeholders include the community living in and out of Mountain Gen, the government, suppliers, and competitors.

3. Communication with the stakeholders

Communication in business stakeholders is vital for growth of any business (Waterschoot & Van Den Bulte, 2011). Every leader has own strategies of communicating with stakeholders. As the owner of the Cafe Paradiso, I would schedule meetings with staff. The approach will help save time on operations. I would also use project summary reports such as marketing or sales reports. I would sent out reports in a period of one week, one month, or few days following the implementation of a project (Riel & Fombrun, 2007). This will involve highlighting the top performing products and services and reassuring them about the situation. I would also send out newsletters or emails through the company intranet.

4. Market for the business

The findings from the company SWOT analysis shows the situation of the market as well as the internal position of the company. Most importantly, the social pattern reveals that the area has continued to show an increasing population growth across customers of all ages. The area also has an increased number of shoppers because of a large and growing local population. The center already has few cafes.

5. Needs of customers

The needs of customers involve their expectations after consuming products and using services offered at the Cafe Paradiso. Currently, every customer has a need to enjoy healthy and light meals. Benefit from a friendly environment. Furthermore, customers seek to get the value of their money through desserts, cakes, and beverages. Customers want high quality coffee, delicious nutritious meals and excellent services.

6. Research would take both primary and desktop data collection process (Myers, et al. 2011). The primary data would involve conducting a survey to understand the opinion of customers living in Mountain Gen area. While desktop research would involve reviewing menu of different cafes in the area. The findings from the two studies (research) will help me decide on different pricing strategies such as discounted, psychological pricing, low price or high prices relatively to what competitors offer.
7. KPIs
   1. Café food sales through average sales size
   2. Operating income growth higher than the net sales
   3. Inventory growth through increased purchases
   4. Growth in the number of customers
8. Requirements of the business
   1. Financial

Key Stakeholders and Communication

The Cafe Paradiso will require financial capital as part of the initial investment to start its operations. For instance, the business require a purchase price of $170,000. Furthermore, the estimated start-up cost stands at $209,810. Management will apply for an initial bank loan of $104,905 and an equity of $104,905 from Brendan and Margaret payable after two years.

1. Human resource

The business will design different requirements as part of the skills of employees. They will work in different departments such as communications, operations, financial, sales and marketing, customer relations, and legal officer. Besides, the business management team will consist of Brendan and Margaret Elliot. Brendan will work as chef while Elliot will work as a communications manager. The business will also employ four other staff to work as full-time and part-time.

1. Physical resources

The business will use a number of physical resources to support its operations (Paley, 2008). The business will require coffee brewers, furniture, computer, counter, utensils, and van,

9. Licences or permits

Every business irrespective of the area of operation, must obtain a license or a permit for lawful operations. In my case therefore, I would secure a food authority licence. It will allow me to have the capacity to produce safe food before supplying and selling to customers.

Part B: Written Assessment

1. An alternative Business plan
   1. Business description

The Café Paradiso business seeks to provide high
quality coffee, delicious nutritious meals and excellent service to different categories of customers. Most importantly, the business targets young, young adults, and adult customers living in and out of Mountain Gen area. The business seeks to prepare and provide different types of take away beverages such as fine coffee. Furthermore, the business seek to offer an ambience environment for customers that want to hold parties and conferences. The business will ensure that it remains one of the stopover for shoppers in Mountain Gen area that are keen on health products.

1. Business products and services

 The Café Paradiso business seeks to provide a wider range of products and services to its customers. For example, the business will offer the following categories of products;

1. Coffee
2. Beverage
3. Cakes and desserts
4. Fresh and light meals
5. Space for meetings, conferences, and parties
6. Marketing activities
7. Products and services

The Café Paradiso business will serve more than 6,000 customers both “dine in” and “take away” per month. The business will also receive families, business travelers, groups, couples, and shoppers. Management will offer exceptional cuisine to reflect high quality food (Ramaseshan, Ishak & Kingshott, 2013). The menu will cover fine coffee, beverage, cakes and desserts, fresh and light meals. The food list will also reflect entrée dishes, main dishes, and desserts. The business will open from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Saturday and from 8:00am until midday on Sunday.

1. Target market

The target market for the business includes guests that need ambience environment for “dine in” that come for meeting events, breakfast, and dining. The business will introduce private diner, community fundraisers, wedding rehearsal meals, corporate parties, and meetings (Ataman, et al., 2010). The second category of customers will include shoppers and staff found within the shopping centre.

1. Pricing policy

Management will consider a number of factors to price food and services. Café will offer discounts to groups of customers who need conferences and meetings. Management will also use premium-pricing strategy to reflect value of its services.

1. Promotion and advertising

Market Potential and Customer Needs

The marketing department will use integrated marketing communication mix (Polat & Akgün, 2015) to create awareness about available products and services. The advertising will focus on motion pictures, billboards, and print media. Public relations will involve sponsoring of boutique weddings, newly wed couples, and honeymooners. Marketing representatives will organize for community relations (Ataman, et al., 2010). Furthermore, direct response will cover strategies such as designing and creating social media accounts and sending direct emails to customers for appreciation.

1. Financial indicators

The business management will rely on two key elements to measure its performance in the market. () proposes that a business can apply sales and expenses. Therefore, the café business will use the sales of food and expenses on operations to measure its performances.

1. KPIs
   1. Community awareness

Management will assess the performance of the café through community awareness (Marek, 2014). The awareness will depend on the proportion of customers that come for shopping at the café or remember the name of the café.

1. Quality

Management will use customer feedbacks to assess the quality of different types of coffee, cakes & desserts, beverages, and foods. Management will adopt five dimensions of service quality to assess assurance, responsiveness, reliability, empathy, and tangibility.

1. Sales

Management will rely on comparative specific products and services sale to assess their performance. Management will measure the growth of sales for a period of three to six months

1. Workforce

Management will evaluate and compare the performance of different staff. The business will use survey instruments to evaluate performance of staff based on the level of execution, quality of work, level of creativity, amount of consistent improvement, customer and peer feedback, response to feedback, ability for accountability, task completion rate, time management, and reaction to feedback.

2. Communication of business plan to relevant parties

Management will adopt a business communication plan (Strieker, 2015). Besides, identification of the target stakeholders will form an important element.

1. Formal plan – communication department will create formal methods of communication (Ellis, 2009). The method will cover calling for meetings, conference calls, posters, emails, or newsletters.
2. Informal methods – Communication department will design and utilize informal channels of communication (Jones, 2008). The channels will cover lunch meetings, sporting events, voice mail, and hallway conversations.

References

Ataman, MB, Van Heerde, HJ, & Mela, CF 2010, 'The Long-Term Effect of Marketing Strategy on Brand Sales', Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 866-882

Ellis, R 2009, Communication Skills: Stepladders to Success for the Professional, 2. Ed, Intellect, Bristol.

Jones, P 2008, Communicating Strategy, Gower, Aldershot, Hampshire, England.

Marek, P 2014, ‘A critical analysis of the concept of marketing strategies for small and mid-sized companies. Economics, Management & Financial Markets, 9, 4, pp. 255-261

Myers, EF, Parrott, JS, Cummins, DS, & Splett, P 2011, 'Funding Source and Research Report Quality in Nutrition Practice-Related Research', PLoS ONE, vol. 6, no. 12, pp. 1-13

Paley, N 2008, mastering the Rules of Competitive Strategy: A Resource Guide for Managers, New York: Auerbach Publications, eBook Collection  

Polat, V, & Akgün, Ae 2015, 'A Conceptual Framework for Marketing Strategies in Web 3.0 Age: Adaptive Marketing Capabilities', Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-12.

Ramaseshan, B, Ishak, A, & Kingshott, RJ 2013, 'Interactive effects of marketing strategy formulation and implementation upon firm performance', Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 29, no. 11/12, pp. 1224-1250

Riel, Cv, & Fombrun, CJ 2007, Essentials of Corporate Communication: Implementing Practices for Effective Reputation Management, Routledge, London.

Schneider, T, & Sachs, S 2017, 'The Impact of Stakeholder Identities on Value Creation in Issue-Based Stakeholder Networks', Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 144, no. 1, pp. 41-57

Strieker, J. 2015, ‘Developing a Business Plan. Alaska Business Monthly, 31, 10, pp. 22-25

Waterschoot, Wv, & Van Den Bulte, C 2011, 'The 4P classification of the marketing mix revisited', Journal of Marketing, vol. 56, no. 4, p. 83.