Business Plan

MAK Consultants

Table of Contents Introduction to Service concept ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Targeting and segmentation ........................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. Existing alternatives and substitutes ....................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. Unmet customer needs .................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Points of differentiation................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Conclusion........................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. References .......................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Introduction to Service concept The present business plan explains the services offered by the marketing consultancy organisation named MAK Consultants which has been recently established in order to cater Asian and west pacific markets. Some of the major services offered by the company would include green field project consulting, industry analysis, marketing research to start new venture, retainer consulting and strategic analysis services to its target customer group in the Asian markets. MAK consultant is a group of highly experience marketers belonging to the various industries such as FMCG, power, pharmaceutical and telecom. The aim of MAK consultant is to target new venture which are being start up in the Asia and nearby region at multinational scale and help these start up in setting down with their services. The services offered by the MAK consultant would start from very first stage which would include testing a marketing concept in a given geographical region. Some of the MNCs having their established business concept would try to expand their business horizon into new geographical regions and Asian markets are always favourites for such start up (Pinson, 2004). Hence MAK consultant would help these organisations by conducting initial level market research at target geographical regions in order to know the customer response and external factor analysis to know about sustainability of the business model. In addition to this MAK consultant would also help in order to help new business model to test customer feedback about their new product or services being offered by conducting marketing research at the new geographical locations. Other services offered by MAK consultants would include marketing analysis for the new projects, carrying out industry analysis for the specific customers, doing feasibility analysis and reporting analysis for the various sales related activities. The business strategy of the MAK consultant would be to leverage out on the highly experienced industry experts who belong to various industries and have worked into Asian markets. These marketers are well aware about the trends and key characteristics of the markets and customer buying behaviour. This would help the organisation to serve its clients in effective manner so that they can set up their venture. The objective

of MAK consultant would be to operate into business to business and business to consumer market in order to achieve their stated sales forecast. Targeting and segmentation In order to define the customer base MAK consultants has divided the overall customer base into six different customer segments which can be given as below:

Figure 1: Showing the market segmentation for MAK consultant Hence MAK consultant would be segmenting the overall customer base into six customer segment which are: 1. Large corporations: Organisations having their presence in various countries and starting their new office as a part of their overall expansion plans. 2. Medium corporations: Organisations which are wither having multiple nation presence or domestic organisations who want local market expertise with the help of suitable consultancy services. 3. Small business: These are small start up organisations which wants to test their new concept for acceptance or feedback of the potential customers. 4. Regional government: These are the government organisations which want market expertise for their ongoing operations so as to know the market trends. 5. Academicians: These are the customers for the organisation which would make use of the research for academic purpose only and no business use would be made with the help of research data and findings. 6. Individual customers: individual customers can make use of the research in order to develop further their business planning.

For MAK consultants in the global markets mainly into countries like China and India main target would be large corporations and medium corporations while into geographical regions where in there is less development and less growth horizons like Indonesia target segment should be NGO, government offices and individual customer base (Jay et al, 1993). For the services like project consulting and market research small organisation would be the suitable target while for the services such as the industry analysis, data reporting and concept testing large organisations having multinational presence would be the suitable target for the company. Hence for individual services offered by the company target segment would be different. Existing alternatives and substitutes There is wide spread competition presence in the Asian market for the consultancy services which are offered by the MAK consultants and many established market players are present in the market with a big market share (Sren et al, 2002). Some of the major competitors for the MAK consultant into this relevant business filed would be AC Nielsen, Australian trade commission, Business advisory group, Castle group, CIC consulting group, Harvest international Inc and Plansearch associates etc. These organisations are operating in Asian markets and offer range of services such as the project consulting, market research and industry analysis etc. These organisations are very strong looking at the existing setup of the organisation and client base which has been developed over the years. Some of the market players operating in Indonesian and other Asian markets are having their global presence and well known for their consultant services across the world such as the AC Nielsen and Australian trade commission which would offer high level of competition to MAK consultant for their ongoing setup into Indonesian and other Asian markets. Unmet customer needs The major objective for MAK consultant would be to meet the requirement of the customers who are not having sufficient exposure for the Asian markets and want to enter into Asian markets looking at the great growth potential for Asian markets. Hence these customers would be served for various needs such as to carry out test market research, to test new product concept, to report sales data, pilot research and new project consulting etc. MAK consultants consist of the various industry experts who

have worked various retail and wholesale organisation in order to understand the business to business as well as business to customer markets (Kotler and Armstrong, 2007). This level of expertise possessed by the officials of the company would help in order to understand the consumer behaviour and various market trends which are going on in the Asian markets. For the foreign investors and other corporate it is very risky to enter into Asian markets and they need local partners who can help them in order to understand the market pattern and consumer behaviour for sustaining their business in these markets (Bradley, 2007). Hence customer need of overseas partner can be met with the help of services from MAK consultant. Hence the main target would be the organisation which posses all the facilities with them and desired to invest into Asian market but require suitable customer preference knowledge for promoting their product and services. Points of differentiation For any service organisation the major asset would be its human resource as skilled human resource are the base for success of any organisation. Similarly for MAK consultants the point of differentiation would be created with the help of industry experts who are working with MAK consultant and posses expertise in their relevant field and local market and consumer knowledge. These consultants would be associated with the organisation requiring services from MAK consultant in order to help them in organising their marketing strategies for positioning their products and services to the target customer segment (Young, 2005). Another important difference which would create POD for the organisation is the research and development department. MAK consultant has employed a full fledge department for research and development which looks into primary research for the various industries in order to know about the consumer preferences and consumer buying behaviour. This department would help the organisation to develop better understanding and serve its customers in a better way. Conclusion

The present report was prepared for the MAK consultant which is an organisation created in order to offer various services such as the project consulting, retainer consulting, industry analysis and strategic analysis for the various organisations starting their business in Asian and nearby regions. The major aim for MAK consultants would be to target the organisations which are operating into developing nations such as India and China as more and more MNCs are showing interest in order to expand their business to these regions. Target segment for MAK consultant can be divided into six major parts which are regional, academicians, individuals, large corporations, medium and small organisations. The unique selling point for MAK consultant would be its human resource who have worked in various retail and wholesale organisations and have good understanding for the consumer behaviour into given region. The major business need which would be addressed by MAK consultant would be the requirement as a partner for the various business organisations which does not possess local consumer behaviour knowledge. References Pinson, L. (2004). Anatomy of a Business Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Business and Securing Your Companys Future (6th Edition). Page 20. Dearborn Trade: Chicago, USA. Eric S. S., Brian R. F. and Jay M. B. (1993), 'The Ernst & Young Business Plan Guide' (New York: John Wiley and Sons) ISBN 0-471-57826-6 Bent F., Mette K. Skamris Holm, and Sren L. B. (2002),"Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?" Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 68, no. 3, 279-295. Bradley, Nigel, 2007, Marketing Research. Tools and Techniques.Oxford University Press, Oxford, ISBN 0-19-928196-3 ISBN 978-0-19-928196-1 Young, Charles E, 2005, The Advertising Handbook, Ideas in Flight, Seattle, WA, ISBN 0-9765574-0-1 Kotler, Philip and Armstrong, Gary, 2007, Principles of Marketing Pearson, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, ISBN 978-0-13-239002-6, ISBN 0-13-239002-7