Bride's Pride: Indian Wedding Planner In Toronto, Canada

Discuss about the Business Idea and Consumer Market Research.

The organization, named Bride’s pride is an Indian wedding planner company located in Toronto, Canada. A wedding planner can be defined as a professional who assists with the planning, design and management of the wedding of a client. A wedding can be considered as one of the most crucial parts of an individual’s life. Indian couples and their families often tend to invest a significant amount of money in order to ensure that their wedding is well organized (Rowland, 2013). The business mainly involves wedding planning, catering and decorating the events. The mission statement of Bride’s Pride is to increase the profitability and professionalism of the members associated with the organization by education and training. The vision statement of the company is to provide a unique and remember worthy experience to the clients on their special day. The goal of Bride’s Pride Company is to enhance the revenue of the business by satisfying the consumers. The chief objectives of the mentioned wedding planner company are as follows:

• To ensure the best allocation of the wedding budget provided by the client.
• To ensure those trending international elements has been included in the wedding along with the traditional elements.
• To use the knowledge of the wedding vendors so that unique design ideas can be incorporated into the wedding venue.
• To understand the requirements of the client
• To ensure that the event arranged to reflect the vision of the couples and turn the event into something unique and creative that reflects the couple's personality and style. Some of the advantages of a wedding planner from the perspective of the consumers are as follows:

1. The wedding planner professionals will take the responsibility and thus a huge amount of time can be saved (Silvers, 2012).
2. The wedding planner professional will help the client with scheduling and budgeting.
3. The insider knowledge of the wedding professionals will enable the client to communicate with the vendors and negotiate deals.
4. The client will be able to handle tricky situations along with developing knowledge about the current wedding trends.

Considering the fact that a huge number of Indians resides in Canada, the target consumers of the Bride’s pride organization are the Indian grooms, brides and the family members who reside in Canada (King, 2013). The age range of the target market is from 22 to 31 years. When it comes to gender, both male and female clients are targeted by the Bride’s pride Company. When it comes to financial stability, the target of the mentioned company is the upper middle class and elite class Indian families.

The percentage of the Indian population in Canada is more than 6.30 percent. The Moreover the average cost of an Indian wedding is as high as 100,000 dollars. In Canada, a majority of Indian weddings are extravagant, lavish and weeklong affairs with the number of a number of guests ranging from 600 to 1200 (Etemaddar, Thyne&Insch, 2018). Hence it can be clearly understood that the wedding planner business is highly lucrative as well as competitive.

Considering the fact that for Indians, marriage is one of the most celebrated ceremonies of the entire life, the target made of the mentioned company are consumers who have the wish and potentiality to spent lavishly in the wedding ceremony

A wedding planner service comprises of both direct and indirect distribution. When it comes to direct distribution, the client directly contacts Bride’s Pride Company in order to book their wedding event. Since the company has 4 offices located in 4 different states of Canada, Consumer is invited to communicate and discusses their wedding ceremony with the event planner. In cases, the client wants the wedding planner with his entire team to visit his location, the meeting for event designing and planning is held in the location of the consumers.

When it comes to indirect distribution, the chief source of it is by developing vendor partnership (Bertella, 2017). Since event planning involves a number of vendors for decoration and catering purposes, one of the most effective ways to reach the consumers is by getting referred to them. The target list of distribution channels when it comes to vendor includes wedding venues, flower shops, bridal wear outlets and stationary stores. In order to avail the above mentioned indirect distribution channels, Bride's pride develop a partnership with renowned wedding venues and bridal wear outlets of Canada to use their services exclusively and add coupon codes so that the response rates can be tracked in order to offer referral fees.

Target Market

The mentioned company’s base of operation is in Toronto, Canada. Bride’s Pride wedding planning company has branches in Colwood, Vancouver, Scarborough and Markham. One of the chief reasons behind choosing these locations to establish the Indian wedding planner business is the fact that these areas are highly populated by Indians. More than 51 percent of the country’s entire Indian population resides in Toronto (Ritakoski&Lindqvist, 2014). Another reason behind choosing the above-mentioned location is the availability of supplies and suppliers. Besides that, some of the most popular wedding venues of Canada that include the Nita Lake Lodge, Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden and Rocky Mountaineer Train Station are located in the selected region. However, establishing an Indian wedding planning business in locations highly populate with Indians has certain disadvantages, competition is one of them. Some of the major competitors of Bride’s Pride namely, Arora wedding and Event Planners and Fusion Events are both located in Toronto.

The India wedding planning industry in Canada is experiencing its peak time and is rapidly moving from its growth stage to maturity stage. According to researchers, the Indian wedding business has enhanced 10 times compared to the Canadian wedding business over the past 3 years.  Since the wedding is a very crucial event in an Indian’ life, the majority of Indians residing in Canada is found to spend a commendable amount of money on their weddings. While the money spent in an average Canadian wedding is more or less 30, 000 dollars, the average amount of money spent in an Indian wedding range from 300,000 dollars to 400,000 dollars (Mance, 2012). Moreover, while an average Canadian wedding caters about 120 guests, in an Indian wedding event, more than 1000 guests are catered. Along with that transportation, accommodation, entertainment, gifts and food are expected to be provided to the guests who arrive from abroad during their entire stay. Thus it can be understood that the market of Indian wedding planner is highly lucrative. In addition to that, even the recession has not affected the Indian wedding business in Canada. Among the total population of Indians in Toronto, more than 67 percent has the age between 18 to 37 years. Hence in Toronto, the market of the above-mentioned business is highly potential. However, the percentage of the target population is comparatively less in the other locations compared to that of Toronto (Blum, 2012). In Vancouver, the total percentages of Indian population whose age range from 20 to 40 years are 34 percent approximately.

Considering the fact that Indian wedding planner industry in Canada is still in its growth stage, the number of competitors is pretty low. However, since the market is highly lucrative and the barrier to entry in the market is comparatively lower than any other market, the threat from the new entrance is high. As being stated earlier, currently, the two major competitors of Pride’s bride are Fusion event and Aurora event and wedding planners. Both the company has their headquarters at Toronto. While Aurora Wedding planner organization has expanded its market to Vancouver and Markham, The Fusion Event planner is a start-up organization (Find everything you need for your wedding. 2018). The services offered by both the companies are as follows:

• Venue Consultation
• Development and management of the checklist.
• Development and tracking recoding the budget
• Planning the style of the wedding
• Etiquette Consultation
• Providing recommendation of Vendors
• Organizing monthly meetings
• Vendor coordination
• Ceremony and reception coordination

Distribution Channels

Considering the fact that the market value of Aurora wedding planner is quite higher than that of the Fusion planner, it can be considered as the chief competitor of Bride’s Pride Company. The major strengths of the Aurora Wedding planner company include brand value and experience since it is the first Indian wedding planner company in Canada. Another mention-worthy strength of the company is its background in interior designing that translates into wedding décor setup. Some of the major weaknesses of the Aurora Company include higher price point and a smaller number of employees. Bride’s Pride Company has several strengths that help the company to develop competitive advantages over its competitor. One of the major strengths of the mentioned company is its vast network of vendors for clients to choose from. The strength of the company is its huge number of employees. Greater the number of employees more is the productivity of the Organization.

Considering the fact that there are 4 types of charging process that prevails among the wedding planners, namely, fixed Fee, Percentage of wedding budget, Hourly Consultation basis and Bespoke quote, the Bride’s pride company follows both the Bespoke quote and percentage of wedding budget processes to structure the pricing of the services provided (Winch & Webster, 2012). While the bespoke quotes involve providing a discount to clients who hire the company for more than 3 to 4 events, the percentage of wedding budget process involves charging the client on the basis of their budget.

For a typical Indian wedding with an average budget of 200,000 dollars, the pride bride company generally offers services at 70,000 dollars for 2000 guests. If the number of the guests increases them the number of charges also increases.

• Venue Consultation charges: 2,000 dollars
• Development and management of the checklist: 3,000 dollars
• Development and tracking recoding the budget: 1,000 dollars
• Planning the style of the wedding: 2,000 dollars
• Etiquette Consultation: 1,000 dollars
• Providing recommendation of Vendors: 1,000 dollars
• Organizing monthly meetings: 2,000 dollars
• Vendor coordination: 5,000 dollars
• Ceremony and reception coordination: 15,000 dollars

Considering the fact that most of the Indians plan their wedding event from the month of November to February, a monthly sale projection table of the Bride's Pride Company for one year has been provided below:

Month	Sales
January	2,000 dollars
February	5,000 dollars
March	3,000 dollars
April	2,000 dollars
May	5,000 dollars
June	10,000 dollar
July	5,000 dollar
August	3,000 dollar
September	5,000 dollar
October	2,000 dollar
November	10,000 dollar
December	5,000 dollar

Promotion Type	Budget
Advertising	30,000 dollars
Sales Promotion	45,000 dollars
Personal Selling	14,000 dollars
Publicity	30,000 dollars

Annual sales Goal

Considering the fact that the Bride Pride wedding Planner organization has gained commendable popularity as an Indian Wedding planning company in Canada, the annual sales target of the mentioned company is 300,000 dollars.

Promotional Objective of Bride’s Pride

• Enhance the revenue of the business
• Enhance the brand awareness among the Indian population
• Expand the business of the company

• Strategies for enhancing the brand awareness of Bride’s Pride among the Indian Population

One of the most effective ways to enhance the brand awareness of the company is by promoting its business through popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. The company can create its official social media page where it will be able to posts all the details and updates of the business. Apart from that, social media will help the company to connect with the consumers and understand their specific requirements (King, 2013). This, in turn, not only helps Bride's Pride to develop an effective consumer-company relationship but also helps the company to develop personalized services for the consumers.

In order to enhance brand awareness, another effective strategy of Pride bride should be conducting campaigns. The company can conduct special campaigns during the month of November and December in locations highly populated by Indians to attract consumers. The campaigns should involve detailed discussion about the facilities offered by the company to its clients along with special discounts for consumers who will hire the company for 2 to 3 events.

Location

In order to enhance the revenue of the business, the Bride’s pride company should expand its distribution channels and develop an effective relationship with the clients.

When it comes to expansion of the business through promotional strategies, networking should be at the topmost part of the list. Two ways of networking can be acquired by the company.

Since a wedding event includes lots of vendors, the company can develop an effective organization-vendor partnership. As a result of this partnership, the wedding venues, flower shops and jewellery outlets who will be in partnership with the company will recommend it to their Indian consumers.

This networking process is considered to be more effective than the previous one since here the Company is recommended by one client to another. However, to avail this facility, the Bride’s Pride Company should provide high-quality service to the consumers,

Selecting the legal entity for the Bride's Pride Company is highly crucial since it determines the how big the company can grow. Considering the fact that the mentioned company is new in the Indian wedding planner market of Canada, the legal entity selected for the company is Sole proprietorship. Being a sole proprietorship business, it was easy to set up the company (Bertella, 2017). Along with that, this legal entity provides the owner with total control over the business.

Before getting started with the Bride’s Pride Indian wedding event planner Company, the following checklist needs to be completed

1. Finding a business idea that is rare in the market but bears high potential.
2. Testing the business idea by performing effective market research

• Writing a formal business plan

1. Bring the business
2. Obtaining an appropriate legal entity for the business
3. Getting funded

• Selecting an appropriate location to establish the office of the mentioned company
• Setting up the office in the selected location

1. Launching the business
2. Promoting and marketing the business
3. Operation

Organizational Chart of the Bride’s Pride Indian wedding planner company

Key responsibilities and individuals responsible and responsible individuals

Wedding Coordinator: The chief role of the wedding coordinator include assisting the couple in selecting the right location, theme, stationery, dress design and music that will make their wedding one of the most mention-worthy events of their life.

Finance Manager: The chief role of the finance manager is to look after the financial health of the organization. His chief responsibility is to provide financial reports, develop plans and strategies for the long-term financial benefit of the mentioned company. Whenever the mentioned company signs for a wedding project, the financial manager plans the budget after discussing in detail with the client (Jiang &Schmader, 2014).

Marketing and promotion Manager: The role of the Marketing and promotion manager includes assessing the current market of Indian wedding planners in Canada and develop effective managing and promoting strategies so that more consumer can be attracted.

Logistic manager: the role logistic manager of the mentioned company includes arranging the suppliers of materials like flowers and decorative materials for the wedding project and arranging the best wedding venue within the budget of the client. 

Food and Beverage Manager: The role of this manager includes forecasting, planning and controlling the food and beverages that will be catered to the guest’s visiting the wedding event. Not only that, it is the manager’s responsibility to look after any catering related issues faced by the guests who have arrived from India to visit the wedding.

Costs	Amount
Initial Lease Payment and deposit	20,000 dollars
FF&E	20,000 dollars
Working Capital	35,000 dollars
Security Deposits	5,000 dollars
Company Vehicles	20,000 dollars
Opening Supply	10,000 dollars
Marketing budget	30,000 dollars
Miscellaneous Costs	20,000 dollars
Total Opening Cost	160,000 dollars

Financing
Equity Contributions
Investment from Management	45,000 dollars
Additional Stakeholder investment	40,000 dollars
Total Equity Financing	85,000 dollars
Lenders and Banks
Banks	65,000 dollars
Lenders	50,000 dollars
Total Debt Financing	115,000 dollars
Total Financing	200,000 dollars

Costs	Amount
Venue Consultation  charges	2,000 dollars
Development and management of the checklist	3,000 dollars
Development and tracking recoding the budget	1,000 dollars
Planning the style of the wedding	2,000 dollars
Etiquette Consultation	1,000 dollars
Organizing monthly meetings	1,000 dollars
Vendor coordination	5,000 dollars
Ceremony and reception coordination	15,000 dollars
Asset Purchased	20,000 dollars
Promotional Investment	30,000 dollars
Miscellaneous Expenses	10,000 dollars
Interest Expenses	15,000 dollars
Total Application	115,000 dollars

Cash Inflow
Cash From Receivables	60,000 dollars
Equity Investment	85,000 dollars
Cash from Borrowing	115,000 dollars
Sales of Assets	40,000 dollars
Total Cash Inflow	300,000 dollars
Cash Outflows
Repayment of Principal	115,000 dollars
Repayment of Interest	10,000 dollars
Asset Purchased	20,000 dollars
Opening Investment	160,000 dollars
Operational Investment	40,000 dollars
Total Cash Outflow	245,000 dollars
Net Cash Flow	55,000 dollars
Cash Balance	55,000 dollars

Operating income
Sales	20,000dollars
Additional goods sale	40,000dollars
Receivable Cash	60,000dollars
Payment received from client	40,000dollars
Total Operating Income	160,000dollars
Expenses
Payroll	30,000dollars
Insurance Cost	5,000dollars
Professional fees and License	2,000dollars
Opening Investment	60,000dollars
Travel and vehicle cost	1,000dollars
Rent and Utilities	1,000dollars
Miscellaneous Costs	1,000dollars
Total Expenses	110,00dollars
EBITA
Income Tax	5,000dollars
Interest Expenses	15,000dollars
Payable Dept.	10,000dollars
Total EBITA	30,000 dollars
Net Income	20,000 dollars

 

Reference List

Bertella, G. (2017). The emergence of Tuscany as a wedding destination: the role of local wedding planners. Tourism Planning & Development, 14(1), 1-14.

Blum, M. (2012). Wedding planning for dummies. John Wiley & Sons, 125-128

Etemaddar, M., Thyne, M., &Insch, A. (2018).A taste of home-choosing a destination wedding. Anatolia, 1-11.

Find everything you need for your wedding. (2018). Weddingwire.ca. Retrieved 4 April 2018, from https://www.weddingwire.ca/wedding-planning/ontario/aurora

Jiang, J., &Schmader, S. W. (2014). Event management education and professionalism: The view from the trenches. Event Management, 18(1), 25-37.

King, T. (2013). A short history of Indians in Canada: Stories. University of Minnesota Press.

Mance, A. E. (2012). Expressions of Elegance: The Success of Media Planning in the Bridal Industry, 111-128

Ritakoski, T., &Lindqvist, H. (2014). The business idea and a consumer market research of a new wedding planning website called PerfectDay, 23-26

Rowland, J. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,510,145. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 145-156

Silvers, J. R. (2012). Professional event coordination (Vol. 62). John Wiley & Sons, 12-16

Winch, A., & Webster, A. (2012). Here comes the brand: Wedding media and the management of transformation. Continuum, 26(1), 51-59.