Business Plan Canvas Example

Executive Summary

Entrepreneurial culture has recently gained popularity throughout the globe. Entrepreneurship is one of the most prevalent trends in the twenty-first century, as more individuals recognize the necessity to establish and run their own businesses. The first step on the entrepreneurship ladder is to come up with a viable business idea. Entrepreneurs that have excellent company concepts ultimately succeed in launching successful businesses. As a result, the process of finding a solid business concept is essential in the development of successful business models. This study primarily focused on developing excellent entrepreneurial ideas that would encourage successful company models, keeping in mind the connection between good entrepreneurial ideas and functioning business concepts.

Introduction

Entrepreneurship may be described as the act of discovering and exploiting new or existing business possibilities in order to convert them into successful ventures. Entrepreneurs have a reputation for spotting dangers and converting them into commercial opportunities. As a result, in order to succeed, entrepreneurs must come up with solid business concepts that will propel their companies forward. The quality of the entrepreneur’s original company concept may be used to determine the commercial performance of any excellent entrepreneurial business model. Entrepreneurs who come up with brilliant new ideas are more likely to acquire substantial market share. The purpose of this project’s report is to examine the processes involved in the development of our company concept, opportunity, and business model. Our business plan is to investigate how consumers might buy groceries online utilizing a particular program. Five assumptions made during the hypothesizing of the business model are also critically investigated and justified. Three data collecting techniques are used, and their use is adequately justified. Findings, data analysis, and data interpretation procedures were all thoroughly addressed in order to meet report requirements. Based on the results of the study, suggestions are made for potential changes that might lead to stronger entrepreneurial concepts and project models. Finally, to display the tabular representation of our report, we use a thorough, self-explanatory, and complete business model. This entrepreneurship report’s conclusion serves as a summary.

Entrepreneurial Idea and Opportunity

The consumption of grocery products in Australia has been reported to rise in recent years. According to Wu et al. (2015, pp. 448), like most other people in the world, many Australians prefer gluten-free food products to non-gluten-free products. The much repulsion of non-gluten-free products results from the awareness about the long-term health problems and allergies posed by gluten (Tang and Mullins, 2017, pp. 258). According to scholars, this has led to the tremendous demand for food products that come from plants. The grocery market, therefore, has immensely expanded in recent years. Despite the higher demand for grocery products, many grocery stores have not optimally utilized this opportunity (Burden et al., 2015, pp. 622). According to these scholars, the use of online marketing strategies may be used by grocery stores to streamline and eradicate inefficiencies in the grocery market. Our report considers the scholar’s suggestion and attempts to portray how online strategies may improve the performance of grocery stores. The main idea is to discuss how applications and software make it possible for customers to reach their groceries stores without necessarily visiting them. This idea recognizes the target markets’ profiles and preferences. Adoption of this idea could reap benefits in the vast grocery market in Australia.

Our business idea attempts to exploit the diverse and expansive grocery markets by the use of the software. When formulating the entrepreneurial vision, we were motivated by the large grocery market and the wide use of smartphones, phones, and computer devices. According to Baker et al. (2017, pp. 917), 94% of Australians have access to smartphones. We can thus justifiably conjecture that nine out of ten Australians use smartphones. This data statistics instigate questions in the mind of any aspiring entrepreneur. We needed to design a way we can use to exploit such encouraging numbers. Considering that most grocery customers are likely to have mobile phones, we saw a need to devise a business model that would suit the business idea. An application that facilitates customer purchase, inquiry, examination, scrutiny, and feedback regarding grocery products would help the general public.

Business Model

The grocery application would be valuable for grocery customers as it will create time value. For many consumers, time remains a vital resource, especially in their day-to-day activities. 

New trends such as e-commerce and online marketing are some methods that businesses can use to award customers value for their money by reducing time-delay costs (McMurrian and Matulich, 2016, pp. 87). Many customers rather pay extra money than a waste of time. Food, beverage and hospitality customers adopt technological improvements by installing relevant time-saving apps (Rosenbaum and Wong, 2015, pp. 1863). This application would reduce the time wasted by customers when visiting and choosing grocery products.

Firstly, the functionality of a particular software was tested by student customers in the university who frequently accessed grocery services. For testing purposes, the software was installed in about ten of the university student customers’ smartphones. Moreover, we engaged the owners of a few of our local grocery stores. The software was simultaneously installed in both groups’ smartphones—primary education about how the application functions were communicated to the owners and the students. The students were asked to try using the application to view nearby grocery stores, the condition of the fruits and vegetables in the groceries, and how long the grocery stores respond to their queries. Users of the app were asked to rate the performance of the application. We then collected the data from the two groups’ reactions and opinions about the application through surveys, self-administered questionnaires, and interviews.

Critical Assumptions 

When developing our project model, we made five fundamental assumptions. Creating a project model involves hypothesizing some ideal frameworks that function by generalizing conventionally held concepts (Albert, 2018, pp. 9). These assumed business frameworks determine whether businesses end up successfully or not. Therefore, it is prudent for any new business to consider formulating a few critical assumptions. The essential beliefs play primary roles in helping the entrepreneur to develop effective strategies, sound decision-making, and efficient planning. These assumptions function by permitting the entrepreneur to assume some of the conditions that must hold for his business brand to end up successfully. For our project, the following were our five critical assumptions. 

• Employed people in formal and informal sectors do not have time and energy to visit grocery stores.
• Customers get frustrated when they realize that the products they had intended to purchase by the time they visit their local grocery stores are already sold out.
• A large proportion of customers in Australia are willing to pay an extra amount to have grocery products delivered to their doorsteps.
• Our proposed application will have the technical capacity to capture data in nearby grocery stores and allow customers to place orders for their desired products.
• Our business will liaise with transporting companies such as Uber to facilitate the delivery of goods to grocery customers.

The application would be of many benefits to employed staff and professionals. The first critical assumptions claim that workers lack time to visit their local grocery stores. By the time employees leave their workplaces, they are so tired that they treat any other activity as a problem. Most employees in Australia have tight working schedules that make them shun performing extra activities in their homesteads (Dixon et al., 2014, pp. 465). Australian employees find it challenging to perform household chores and essential responsibilities such as helping their children do their homework. Any Australian would like to spend the remaining time of their days relaxing and preparing for the next days’ activities. The problem is even amplified when customers arrive at grocery stores to realize that the fruits or vegetables they intended to buy are already sold out. Smartphone applications that deliver products to their customers save the customers from time loss and potential frustrations (Xu, Peak and Prybutok, 2015, pp. 174). Software that serves to deliver their favourite grocery to their doorstep is likely to be welcomed with both hands. The problem is even amplified when customers arrive at grocery stores to realize that the fruits or vegetables they intended to buy are already sold out.

Although we had tested the efficacy of our software using students, the application will be of more use to workers and professionals. This is because students, although willing, may lack the resources to purchase the application or to use the application frequently. Designing marketing software systems and applications is only viable when their prospective clients are able and willing to buy them (Robnagel et al., 2014, pp. 37). Considering that working employees can purchase the application, it is viable for working customers. Moreover, most Australian universities prefer snacks, beverages and animal products such as beef to plant products (Pathak et al., 2015, pp. 3). Students, therefore, may not purchase grocery products frequently. Dietary behaviours by youths and adolescents show that they mostly prefer eating sacks in all their courses (Ukegbu et al., 2015, pp. 16). Nonetheless, due to their budget constraints, students have more time, and they are not likely willing to pay extra cash to have groceries at their doorsteps.  

Forming liaisons with Uber would also ensure the efficiency of the application. The transport company would guarantee timely deliveries, thus improving customer satisfaction. According to Nuseir and Madanat (2015, pp. 78), timely delivery of products to their prospective customers increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. After ensuring a smooth communication interface between the grocery stores and their customers, the company would streamline its delivery by teaming up with Uber.

Testing the Critical Assumptions 

By testing the application using students, the business realized that using software serves grocery stores and customers efficiently. Captured data in grocery stores were well scrutinized, and various orders were made. Moreover, the grocery stores responded to their clients in due time. Although customer feedback was slow at the early periods, groceries soon started responding in time. Timely customer feedback usually motivates customers, and they develop an attachment to the company. Harmeling et al. (2017, pp. 315) suggest that customer feedback help businesses to innovate their products. Through customer feedback, groceries would soon learn the urgent needs of the market, which would allow them to realize new ways to improve their products. The efficiency of the application would be seen after it has been publicized to working-class grocery consumers. 

From our all-inclusive interviews with some of the owners of grocery stores, it was revealed that two weeks after adopting the application, the stores realized a ten per cent increase in their sales. This confirmed Erdil, (2015, pp. 197) assertions that hypothesized that smartphone applications and online marketing strategies are vital in improving a brand’s recognition and sales. From the questionnaires filled by the ten student respondents, it was apparent that most of them were satisfied with the application. Questionnaires are the most effective data collection methods when the researcher needs to collect the customer’s feelings and opinions about a specific brand (Tailor, Dubrey, and Das, 2014, pp. 511). Seven of the students gave the software a star rating of 3.5 out of 5. This meant that the application’s performance was above average. A more comprehensive survey confirmed that the software would bring profits to grocery stores and increase the customer’s satisfaction with grocery goods.

Recommendations

Even though the use of software and applications may result in desirable results for both customers and grocery owners, we found out that the use of software in the grocery business presents some shortcomings. For instance, most of these applications are expensive for regular customers. Our study recommends that easy access to such applications could only be possible if Google Play Store and IOS Appstore buy all patent rights from application developers. Technology pivoting should enable that Android, Windows and iOs users can access the application. Technology pivoting aims at reaching new markets that had not been previously exploited. The et al. (2015, pp. 555) assert that technological pivoting is most useful for software startups. This would enable them to attract more customers at an early age. In a nutshell, customers should be getting applications free of charge. 

Secondly, our report recommends improvements in existing applications to tell the distances and reasonable time taken by the customer to reach their preferred destination areas. This is product pivoting. Product pivoting is essential to the invention of new features that aim to satisfy the demanding market (Simonson, 2014, pp. 300). The software in the grocery business should approximate distances and time between customers and grocery stores. 

Pivoted Business Model

After post-testing and refining the business model, a refined Business Model Canvas is presented below.

Business Model Canvas